Community Bible Church Manchester Michigan Podcast

Psalm 90 1-12

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I’m going to read some scripture this morning, and we’re going to look at Psalm 90, and so we’re going to unpack that in a little bit. But let’s read Psalm 90 from the book of Psalms here. We’re going to read just a few verses from the psalm.

O Lord, you’ve been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born, you brought forth the world. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

You turn people back to dust, saying, return to dust, you mortals. A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. Our days may come to 70 years, or 80 if our strength endures.

Yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass and we fly away. If only we knew the power of your anger. Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Time goes by quickly, doesn’t it? And that’s part of the truth of Psalm 90. So, if you want to look at Psalm 90, I love the Psalms. There’s 150 of them.

David wrote about half of them. The Psalms are real, raw, and relatable. Fifty of them are psalms of lament where the author is just like crying out to God like, God, when are you going to do something? Psalm 13.

How long, God? Maybe that describes you this morning in a particular situation, but Psalm 13, in the first three or four verses, the psalmist asks the how long question, how long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? Lord, what’s going on? And that’s the Psalms. I encourage you to read the Psalms because they speak to our hearts. But this morning, we’re going to look at Psalm 90.

And what’s interesting about Psalm 90 is that it’s the oldest of the 150 psalms. It was written by Moses, which makes this piece of literature that we’re looking at this morning was written about 3,400 years ago. Moses writes Psalm 90.

And we’re going to spend about 10 or 15 minutes looking at the background of the Psalm because that’ll help us understand it in the context of Psalm 90 this morning. But if you know your Old Testament, you’re familiar with the life of Moses. Moses lived to be 120 years old.

His life can be divided up into three 40-year periods. 40 years he was raised in the Egyptian palace. He received a very good, good education.

40 years as a shepherd on the backside of the desert for his father-in-law Jethro. And then in 80, Exodus 3, the burning bush. And he’s called to be the leader, the deliverer of Israel who had been in bondage at that point for about 360 years.

So, think about it. Israel was captive in Egypt for a total of 400 years. Our country will celebrate birthday number 275 next July 4th.

Israel was in slavery for 400 years. And God called Moses to be the one to go to Pharaoh to be the deliverer of the nation of Israel. In one sense, we could say his most important life assignment began when he was 80 years old.

In a strange way, that encourages me, having just turned 70. God wasn’t done with Moses. And so, Moses goes before Pharaoh.

And you know the story; it’s the 10 plagues and then the Red Sea delivery. And God’s plan was for them to go straight into this wonderful promised land, the land of Canaan. And they send spies out from Kadesh Barnea.

And they come back after 40 days in the land. They give the report and 10 of them, their names are listed in the book of numbers. Nobody remembers their names of the 10 that said, we’re not going.

There’s giants in the land. And Joshua and Caleb said, no, God gave us this land. God promised us this land.

We need to go in. And they took a vote, 10 to two, they decided not to go. And God’s judgment for them not believing God, because they were afraid, they were afraid of what they had to do and of the people in the land, was the wilderness wanderings.

By the way, Pastor Crawford Loritts, I’ve heard him many times at Maranatha, he makes this statement, what you fear, you give power to control you. What you fear in your life, then you give power to control you. And I have to tell you, when we’re afraid of something, when fear is controlling us, we do not make good decisions.

And that was true here with the spies. They were fearful and they made a wrong decision and I’ll just go to Numbers chapter 14, where God’s speaking with Moses. And here’s the punishment.

God said to Moses and Aaron, how long will this wicked community grumble against me? I’ve heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So, tell them, as surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say. In this wilderness, your bodies will fall.

Every one of you 20 years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me, not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb and Joshua. As for your children that you said would be taken plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land. And so, your children will be shepherds here for 40 years, one year for each of the 40 days you explored the land.

And so, nobody over the age of 20 is going to enter the promised land for 40 years, one year for every day that the spies were in the land and you didn’t believe me and you made a wrong decision. You’re going to wander in the wilderness. And so that’s what happened for 40 years, one day for each, one year for each day that they were, the spies were in the land.

One commentator writes, what should have been a relatively short trip from Egypt to Canaan turned out to be a 40-year excursion of death, discouragement, and defeat. Very little is recorded from these years of wandering in the Sinai desert. Now the Israelites would wander in unpleasant conditions with nothing positive accomplished until all over the age of 20 years old had died.

Now, Dr. Leon Wood, who wrote a book called A Survey of Israel’s History and some others have done some math calculations of the approximate population of Israel at the time they left Egypt. And how many of those would have been 20 and older and how many would have had to die every day for everybody 20 years and older to die during that 40-year period. So, the population of the nation of Israel when they left Egypt was about 2 million.

It started out with 70 members of Jacob’s family, but 40 years or 400 years later, now Israel is 2 million strong. And so, the population or the estimate is that in order for everybody 20 years older to die in the wilderness that there would have been 80 to 85 deaths a day. Can you imagine 80 to 85 funerals a day? People dying in the wilderness every day and I’m thinking, I don’t know what the answer to this question, like what did they do with all those bodies? I guess they just buried them in the sand, I don’t know.

And so, everyday people are dying and in the midst of that Moses writes Psalm 90 in the midst of what some have described the longest funeral march in the world. So, let’s look at Psalm 90. The subtitle is a prayer of Moses, the man of God.

Moses wrote one psalm, this is it. And so, notice where Moses starts, he starts talking about the character of God, the character of God. Verse 1, Lord you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

Now when they wrote this, when Moses wrote this, they were living in tents, they were nomads, they were traveling from place to place. And Moses says, God you are our dwelling place, you are our safety, you are our security. In fact, if you look at Psalm 91, the first two verses, whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say to the Lord, he is my refuge, he is my fortress, my God in whom I trust. So, Moses starts out by talking about the character of God, he says, God you’ve been our dwelling place from generation to generation. In one sense he’s saying, you God are our safety, you God are our security, no matter where we are, no matter what life circumstances are.

I remember as a kid on the playground playing tag on recess, and here’s what I remember, you could put your hands like that means, safety zone, you can’t tag me. I think it worked, at least it worked sometimes, you know. And in a sense, that’s what Moses is saying, God you are our dwelling place, you’re our security, you are our safety.

Psalm 91 goes on to say, surely, He will save you from the fowler’s snare, from the deadly pestilence, He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness will be your shield and your rampart. The second thing that Moses talks about God’s character is that God is eternal, God is eternal.

Look at verse 2, before the mountains were born, for you brought forth the world. So, Moses is making it very clear, God’s the creator. Before the world came to be, before the mountains were formed, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

So, notice how does the Bible start? In the beginning, God. That doesn’t mean that’s the beginning of God, no it’s the beginning of time, it’s the beginning of creation. God existed before he created the world.

And this is a concept that I don’t think we can comprehend in our finite minds. God is infinite, no beginning and no ending. Now that blows your mind, how can something have no beginning? We can’t understand it.

But God was here long before, obviously, he created the world. Because God is eternal, he has no beginning, he is self-existent. In fact, at the burning bush, when he called Moses to be the leader of the nation of Israel, the deliverer, Moses says, well who should I say, who are you? And he says, I am that I am.

I’m the self-existent one. What did Jesus say in John chapter 8 verse 58 when he was confronting the religious leaders? He said, before Abraham was, I am. Wait a second, Abraham was thousands of years ago.

He’s like, yes. And they knew he was claiming to be God, and so they pick up stones to stone him. So, God is eternal.

And that’s all through scripture. First Timothy chapter 1, Paul’s writing to Timothy in verse 17, now to the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God beyond our glory forever. Later on, in that letter in first Timothy chapter 6, last part of verse 15, God the blessed and only ruler, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, to him be honor and might forever.

And so, in the midst of the wilderness wanderings, in the midst of 85 funerals a day, Moses begins to say, God, you’re eternal. You’re our safety. You’re our dwelling place.

You’re the one that has no beginning and no ending. Well, the bulk of Psalm 90 then, the next section of verses, we read about the contrast. So, Moses begins to contrast what he’s experiencing and what the nation’s experiencing with the eternal nature of God.

And here’s the contrast, God’s immortality versus man’s mortality. God’s immortality versus our own mortality. Verse 3, you turn people back to dust saying, return to dust you mortals.

After you go to Genesis chapter 2, chapter 2 verse 7, you discover that God created Adam out of the dust of the ground. And so, the same from dust to dust. And these bodies, when they die, decay.

I’ve often been asked about cremation. Is it right? Is it okay for a believer to be cremated? Bible doesn’t really speak to it, but what cremation does is just speeds up the process of what’s going to happen over a longer period of time. You turn man back to dust.

He’s talking about our mortality here. Verse 4, a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by. We are time-oriented.

We are so bound by time. I don’t know how many times a day we look at these things. Dozens.

Often time to find out what time it is, but we’re bound by time. We’re bound by schedules. God isn’t.

And so, Moses says a thousand years in your sight is like a day that’s gone by or a watch in the night. That’s three hours. And then he goes on to describe this contrast between God being immortal and our own mortality.

You sweep people away in the sleep of death. They are like the new grass to the mornings. In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it’s dry and withered.

We are consumed by your anger and terrified by our indignation. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in light of your presence. Verse 9, all our days pass away under your wrath.

Here’s a great encouraging text this morning. We finish our years with a moan. With a moan.

I will tell you, and this is God’s sovereign, but sometimes as we get older and age towards the end of life, life is difficult. I’ve been in dozens and dozens of nursing homes. Sometimes they can be a little bit depressing because life is hard and people are very, very sick.

And the Bible says we finish our years with a moan. That’s why Solomon in Ecclesiastes 12 says, remember your creator now when you’re young. And he says before the years come and the aging process takes place, then he describes the aging process in Ecclesiastes 12, the first seven verses.

Or 2nd Corinthians 4:16 through 18, do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we’re being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but as what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal. And so, life is hard and life is difficult.

We finish our years with a moan. Verse 10, here it is. Our days may come to 70 years or 80 if our strength endures.

Now it doesn’t go beyond that. So, some of you are in overtime here this morning. 70, 80, maybe a little bit more.

But they, everybody that’s older will, they quickly pass. Every person that I talk to always told me like, you won’t believe how quickly life passes by. And now being at the other end of the spectrum, like, how did that happen? How did life happen so quickly? Quickly pass.

And then we fly away. There’s that old hymn, I’ll fly away someday, oh glory, I’ll fly away. It’s a song about heaven.

The best of them are but trouble and sorrow. Jesus said in John 16:33, in this world you will have trouble. We live in a fallen world.

James says, don’t be surprised when trials and difficulties come. Gods got a plan. Gods got a purpose.

He’s working on your character. But life has troubles. But then the last part of verse 33 says, take heart Jesus, I’ve overcome the world.

And so, there’s something better that you and I that know Jesus have to look forward to. Well, the psalmist closes this with some compelling requests. So, he’s got death all around him.

He says, God, you’re our dwelling place. God, you’re eternal. No beginning, no ending.

You’re infinite. We are finite. And so, he concludes this psalm by asking some requests.

And so, let’s look at them. I think there’s four or five of them this morning from Psalm chapter 90. And here is the first one found in verse 12.

Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. So, in light of the fact that life is short, life is finite, God, would you teach me how to make wise use of my time? Would you teach me how to make my life count? Someone paraphrases Psalm 90:12 as, Lord, teach me to count my days so I can make my days count. That’s really what Moses is asking for here.

He is asking for wisdom. James chapter 1 verse 5. If any of you lack wisdom, all right, you’re facing a situation in your life and you’re saying, I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know what to do.

Step number one, ask of God. First step, pray. Ask God for wisdom who generously will give us wisdom.

Now, where is that wisdom found? Primarily, it’s found in God’s word. In fact, there’s whole portions of scriptures called what wisdom literature. The first 10 chapters of the book of Proverbs is a father passing wisdom on to his son.

Colossians 2:3, in Christ is hidden all what wisdom and knowledge. And so where do we find wisdom? We find wisdom in God’s word because the wisdom and instruction in this book will never lead you astray. It will never steer you wrong.

And so, wisdom is found in God’s word. I remember when Diane and I were first married many, many years ago and we were in seminary. And if I told you what our weekly income was, we were actually a family of three, you would laugh.

Of course, this is a long time ago. I’ll tell you what it was, our weekly income. When I was going to seminary, $100 a week, that was for the three of us.

Somehow, I got the great idea that, well, we need a little bit more money. And I remember I met with some advisor and he advised me to invest what little money I had into a stock of a restaurant. Some of you will know, remember this restaurant called Chi-Chi’s.

It was a Mexican restaurant. And I took what little money we were able to save up and invested it in Chi-Chi’s and eventually Chi-Chi’s went out of business. So, it wasn’t the greatest investment, but God’s word will never lead you astray.

It will always point you in the right path. So, the apostle Paul writing to his son in the faith, Timothy, and he’s reflecting on Timothy’s mother and grandmother who built into his life, 2nd Timothy 3:15, Timothy, how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise through faith for salvation. So, what’s the first wisdom step for people is what? To come to faith in Jesus.

Put your faith in Jesus alone who gave His life for us on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven. But there’s lots more wisdom in the Bible. His purpose is primarily to point us to heaven, but there’s wisdom in the Bible about how marriage should function.

Ephesians 5. There’s wisdom about parenting. There’s wisdom about finances. There’s wisdom about friendship.

There’s wisdom about employer-employee relationships. There’s wisdom about how a church is to be structured and how a church is to operate. The qualifications for leaders, there is a wealth of wisdom for life found in God’s Word.

Well, secondly, the compelling request, he asked for wisdom. We’ll run through these rather quickly. The second one is compassion.

Verse 13, relent, Lord, how long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. And so here they were and had been in slavery for 400 years and he’s asking for compassion. And you don’t want to ask God for justice because what we deserve is eternal punishment in a place called hell.

What you want from God is mercy. What you want from God is compassion. And the good news is that that’s His character.

He is full of mercy. He is full of compassion. Lamentations 3:23, great is your faithfulness.

Your mercies and compassions are new every day. Guess why we were able to wake up this morning? Because God enabled us to. Our very next breath is dependent on him.

And so, Moses is asking for compassion. And then the third request is for satisfaction. Verse 14, Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love. Satisfaction.

I looked it up. It was 1965. I was 10 years old.

Rolling Stones, famous song. You know what it is. You can’t get no satisfaction.

That’s the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon has all the resources in the world and he says, meaningless, meaningless. Everything is meaningless.

Where can you find ultimate satisfaction? And Moses hits the nail on the head. It’s found in God’s unfailing love. I think the Hebrew word is hesed.

It’s used over and over and over again in scripture. God’s unfailing love, satisfaction, ultimate satisfaction is only found in our personal relationship with Jesus. With God through what Christ has done on the cross.

So, remember the conversation that Jesus had. He was thirsty. He stops at Jacob’s well.

It’s the middle of the heat of the day and here’s a lady that normally you’d get your water in the evening when it’s cooler, but here’s a lady that probably wants to avoid the rest of the town ladies. She’s been married five times and she’s living with a sick person. She’s trying to find ultimate satisfaction in these human relationships and Jesus breaks all sorts of cultural, racial barriers because he’s Jewish, she’s a Gentile, and she’s a woman, but he initiates a conversation and asks her to do something for him.

Would you get me a drink of water? And then in John chapter four, Jesus speaks some very, very profound words. He drinks the water and he says, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

I mean, basically Jesus was saying the satisfaction you’re looking for in relationship after relationship after relationship, the ultimate satisfaction is found in Jesus. So, when we find our ultimate satisfaction in God that Moses is asking for, satisfy us with your unfailing love, the result is found in the last part of verse 14, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. And so, when we find our ultimate joy in Jesus, we can experience joy and satisfaction.

Request number four, there’s two more, then we’ll wrap this up. May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. That’s verse 16.

Where do we find the deeds of God? Well, it’s in the Bible, in the scriptures, the Old Testament. And so, show your deeds to your servants and your splendor to your children. And then he concludes here by asking for God’s blessing, God’s blessing.

Verse 17, may the favor of the Lord our God rest on us, establish the work of our hands for us. And then he repeats it again. Yes, establish the work of our hands.

What’s Moses saying? He says, we need God’s help, don’t we? We need God’s blessing. We need God’s partnership in our life so that the work that we do has ultimate meaning in our life. We need God’s blessing as parents.

Psalm 127, that familiar psalm, the first two verses, the psalm illustrates, unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. You’re trying to have family life and you’re trying to do it on your own and you’re leaving God out of the process. You’re wasting your time.

Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand in vain. In vain, you rise up early and stay up late. And so, as parents, we need to partner with God in this parenting process.

Boy, we need to be praying for our kids. And if you have more than one child, you know that each one is individual and different characteristics. And to have wisdom to know how to speak their love language, when to discipline, how to discipline.

Boy, we need God’s wisdom in that. We need God to establish the work of our hands, not only in our home life, but in our church life. Our church leadership needs wisdom.

2nd Corinthians 6:1, Paul says we’re co-labors with God. And so, as we seek God’s face and direction and decisions, we need God’s wisdom. We need him to establish the work of His hands through our homes and through our ministries.

Well, four quick application questions and then we’re done. Here’s the first one.

Here’s a big one. Have I come to terms with my mortality? Hebrews 9:27, it’s appointed a man once to die. Romans chapter 5, verse 12 tells us how this all came about.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people because all have sinned. And so have I come to grips with the fact that we’re all here for a certain amount of time and only God knows that time. I’ve said to people, I’ve done weddings, I’ve done many more funerals than I’ve done weddings.

And quite frankly, this will sound strange, I quite frankly prefer funerals because when you’re preaching a message and there’s a casket up front, you have people’s attention and you can talk to them about life and how short life can be. And you need to come to know Jesus and people are listening. Normally at weddings, they can’t wait to get to the reception.

So, they’re kind of like, let’s party. Have I come to grips with my own mortality? One of the things I’m doing occasionally, my dad died five years ago at 91. My brother gave me all of his journals.

My dad wrote in a journal every day, three or four paragraphs. The frustrating part is his handwriting was horrific and it’s like trying to read Egyptian hieroglyphics. And so, boy, but I’m learning that my dad was very honest in his journals, like life was challenging.

Life was difficult, those last number of years of his life. So, we’re all going to die someday unless Jesus returns. And so, here’s the application.

We need to be ready. We need to make sure our faith has found that resting place in Christ and Christ alone. So, here’s the poem I shared at every funeral.

Maybe everyone I’ve ever done, pause stranger as you pass me by. This was on a headstone at a cemetery in Indiana. Pause stranger as you pass me by.

As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you will be. So, prepare for death and follow me. Someone read that and put a little sticky note on it and they wrote; to follow you I’m not content until I know which way you went.

And so that’s good advice as well. Number two, am I applying the wisdom of scripture to my daily life? I mentioned this book is full of wisdom and guidance and God’s given us Christian counselors and spiritually mature people who don’t be afraid to go to them for advice or to your pastor. It’s wisdom in God’s word.

Does God’s word address everything that we’re going to experience in this life? Probably not, but it’s got probably some principles that you can apply to it that might help guide you. And so, applying God’s wisdom. So, it’s not just about head knowledge, it’s about what putting it into practice and living out God’s truth.

Thirdly, have I discovered the source of ultimate satisfaction? Have I drunk from the well of Jesus where Jesus says, you will never thirst again because Jesus satisfies and he’s our ultimate satisfaction. Ecclesiastes 3:11 basically says we’re all created with a God-shaped vacuum in our hearts that only God can fulfill.

And lastly, am I asking God to establish the work of my hands? I painted for a living when I was going through seminary and my boss used to say don’t work harder, work smarter. There’s a quicker and easier way to do this and that’s true for us. If you’re leaving God out of the equation, you need to bring God into the equation of your life and ask him to guide you and bless you in all that you do, in your home, in your workplace, in our church. And so am I asking God to establish the work of my hands.

Let me close with a poem that I think is appropriate and it’s written by C.T. Studd, 1860-1931. You might have heard a couple lines of this poem, but I’m not going to read you the whole thing because it’s rather lengthy. It’s entitled; Only One Life Will Soon Be Passed.

Here’s what C.T. Studd wrote. Two little lines I heard one day, traveling along life’s busy way, bringing conviction to my heart and from my mind would not depart. Only one life will soon be passed.

Only what’s done for Christ will last. Only one life, yes, only one. Soon will its fleeting hours be done.

Then in that day my Lord to meet and stand before His judgment seat. Only one life, the still small voice gently pleads for a better choice, bidding me selfish aims to leave and to God’s holy will to cleave. Only one life, a few brief years, each with its burdens, hopes and fears, each with its days I must fulfill, living for self or in His will.

Oh, let my love with fervor burn and from the world now let me turn, living for thee and thee alone, bringing thee pleasure on thy throne. Only one life, yes, only one. Not let me say, now let me say thy will be done.

And when at last, I hear the call, I know I’ll say it was worth it all because only one life will soon be passed and only what’s done for Christ will last. Make it your aim in the time that God gives you on this earth. Invest your time, talent, and treasure in things that are going to last forever.

There’s only three things that are eternal, God, God’s word, and the souls of people. May God give us wisdom to do that.

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The next generation of American citizens understood the sacrifice that allows us to be free. This was a group of Christian people, the sacrifice that allows us to have the free exercise of religious conscience and freedom of expression. And so we went to the monuments, but we also went to Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier stands as one of our nation’s most solemn symbols.

It’s a soldier that is always present, 24/7, 365 days a year, and if anybody has ever been to Washington, D.C., you know that it can get to be about 120 degrees with humidity in the summertime, and on the occasion, it can get down below zero in the wintertime. But that soldier, that sentinel, is always present in the blazing heat, the freezing snow, and the pouring rain. Their constant vigil represents our commitment as a nation.

The sacrifice of the unknown soldier will never be forgotten. That guard there is a visible reminder of respect, of vigilance, and of duty. And I was watching that soldier in his vigilance on the day we were there, and I thought about And I thought about Paul’s letter to Timothy, and how that picture provided such a striking metaphor for Paul’s charge to Timothy, guard that which has been entrusted to you.

Guard the deposit entrusted to you, and we can go to the next slide now, and I’ll put up the Bible passage that we’re going to talk about today. You know, oh Timothy, oh Timothy, guard that which has been entrusted to you. Guard the deposit entrusted to you.

Avoid the irreverent babble, how much babble do we hear in society today? How much irreverence do we hear in society? Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it, some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you. So here Paul is contrasting a real treasure, the true treasure, that is the very words of God, the good news that Jesus brings us, the gospel, he’s contrasting that true treasure, a godly life, eternal reward, with false treasure.

The kind of thing that when you’re just pursuing wealth, or you are just running down some philosophical road of untruth, Timothy’s charged with, and he’s been entrusted with, guarding the gospel against distortions. So Timothy is charged here to guard the entrusted gospel against distortions, and what I want to do is I want to go through this verse, almost word by word, and he starts out and he says, oh Timothy, and you know, when we’re studying our Bible and we’re reading our Bible, we can kind of just skip that little word, oh, but Paul’s being, it’s a big deal here, Paul’s saying, oh Timothy, oh Timothy. It’s conveying, I think, a combination, in the Greek you can look at these definitions in the Greek and the understanding of what the context was in the Greek, and it’s conveying an idea of urgency and affection, so this combination that, I’ve got something real important to put you in charge of, but I’m going to do it with affection, because I’m going to call you to a really hard thing.

So, I’m going to say, oh Timothy. So you are, with affection, being called to an urgent matter. I think of the book of Jude, contend for the faith, Jude says, and he says, I’d rather be out there teaching the good news, I’d rather be out there sharing the gospel, but in Jude, Jude says, I find it necessary, though, to tell you that there’s some bigger deal happening right now, you’ve got to get out there and contend for the faith, it’s something similar that Paul is telling Timothy here, he’s saying, I’m calling you, Timothy, to do something really big, because it’s urgent that you guard that which has been entrusted to you.

What does it mean to guard the deposit here? You know, the word guard in scripture, guard the deposit entrusted to you, let’s start with the deposit, that’s referring to the gospel message itself, the very words of God, sound doctrine, not, I get to make it up as I go, or, you know, I’m reading this and I just feel it, you know, I’m going to take it completely out of context to make my point. Let me give you an example of that. I was recently speaking to Christian colleges and universities, they have a national convention on law and public policy, and they bring all their presidents and their lawyers and they come and they talk about, you would think, guarding that which has been entrusted to them, these are the Christian universities of the nation.

And you find very quickly that you’ve got a number of these universities whose leadership is trying to preserve and guard that which has been entrusted to them, and preserve the Christian identity of their institutions, but on the other hand, you’ve got some way over here, oh yeah, I’m looking at you, maybe I should go over here, we’ve got some way over here, some of you got that joke, that have basically kind of thrown the truth of God’s word under the bus and said, you know, it’s all about me and my personal autonomy and how we feel, and so, after I got up and talked about contending for the faith, there was a panel that got up, and I’m not making this up, lawyers representing law and public policy, some of the biggest Christian universities in this country said, I want your help, they were saying to this room, of Christian lawyers and Christian presidents, I want your help, we want to be able to have men that feel like they’re women be able to say they are and be able to go into the women’s locker room, and we want them to be able to compete against women because we need to, and I’m saying, wait a minute, what conference am I at?

And then they said to the room, we want you to help identify some Bible passages for us so that can support these positions we’re taking so that we can argue in court that the first amendment protects our right to let a man compete against a woman in sports and go into the locker, and I’m thinking, wow, Lord, how far have we fallen?

The word here, we’re supposed to be guarding the word of God, and we’re supposed to be protecting it and keeping watch, and it’s a sacred trust, the sound doctrine and apostolic teaching, not making it up because it fits a political narrative that I would like the difference.

Do you see what Paul is asking Timothy to guard here? Not your right to just get up and say whatever you want to be the gospel, but to guard the truth, to guard the truth, and that verb guard means to protect, to keep watch, and to defend.

We’re supposed to preserve the purity of the gospel from corruption, from dilution, and too often, I think, from neglect, and when I say neglect, it doesn’t happen in this church, I know, but there’s too many churches out there that the pastor up here will skip the Bible passages that are uncomfortable to talk about, and we’ll just neglect that part of the Bible, and so be glad that you are at a Bible-teaching, God-fearing church where you’ve got a pastor that’s up here every week guarding that which has been entrusted to him, and it implies the faithful transmission, in other words, teaching it rightly, teaching it correctly, not like that very, very, very, very smart lawyer sitting on that panel says, I want to teach something untrue, help me take something out of context, basically, it’s not what he said, but he’s basically asking us to take something out of context in the Bible so that I can make my case in court.

I’m almost embarrassed to be a lawyer sometime, and I really get what the Bible says about lawyers now, but not to mention what Shakespeare said, but, so the Greek word for guard that Paul is using has this rich, rude, and biblical thought, you know, you saw those who have stood in the gap for our nation come up here. It has a military watchman imagery. Think of each one of these heroes that were up here, standing up here, a soldier standing watch.

I think of Acts, where you’ve got the reference to soldiers standing watch, and it relates to protecting life and treasure, you know, protecting us from harm, from corruption. I think of the shepherds guarding their flocks by night. It suggests obedience to command, that’s why there’s this military aspect to this word that Paul is using here.

It’s suggesting this obedience to command. Guarding involves faithful responsibility and diligence in that responsibility to someone that’s higher than you, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And Paul is using that language intentionally.

He didn’t use, he could have used some kind of softer word, but no, he says, I want you to think of the folks that were up here when you hear me say the word guard. This is a big deal. And you know what I love is that in a good Bible-believing church, we know that the Bible is all one story, and it’s all about, you know, Jesus.

And so, I dug into, as I was preparing this message, into, well, what about in the Old Testament? You know, I know that Paul was using the Greek, but what’s this word guard? And is there any, is it going to be consistent? Or am I going to have to try and explain something? Of course, that’s not going to be inconsistent. You know, it was incredible. I think of Adam’s call in Genesis.

Adam was placed in Eden, and guess what? The word guard there, Shamar, in the Hebrew, he’s entrusted with guarding and protecting the creation that God had given him to be in charge of. And what happened when he didn’t, though? There was corruption, wasn’t there? And I think of Israel’s priests and the Levites in the book of Numbers. They were, again, commanded to guard, that same word, Shamar, to guard the tabernacle.

They were to protect it from defilement, and they were to make sure that godly worshiping was still there. And then my favorite one, the watchman on the wall in Ezekiel. Think about that.

Isn’t that a great picture of what we need to be doing in this nation right now so that your children and that your grandchildren can share the good news of Jesus to the next generation? The watchman on the wall, God’s appointing Ezekiel as a watchman to warn the people. I feel like that’s what I’m doing most of the time these days. Watchman who is there to tell the next generation, you have to guard that which has been entrusted to us.

And then in Psalms, God himself, who’s the ultimate guardian? And we see this in another letter that Paul writes to Timothy later, but God himself is the ultimate guardian. He says, behold, he who keeps, Shamir again, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber or sleep. So, you can know that God may be sending you and calling you to guard that which has been entrusted to you, to guard the very words of God, to guard the truth of the scripture, but he’s not going to be leaving you alone while you’re going to be doing that.

He’s going to be guarding you. He’s going to be with you because God himself is the ultimate guardian. And so again, there’s no inconsistency here when we’re being told to guard that which has been entrusted to us, because whether it’s the Old Testament or the New Testament or wherever you go in the Bible, it’s vigilance.

It’s covenantal faithfulness. It’s protecting what is holy from corruption and ensuring its right transmission. And you know what? Sometimes I just praise God for this little ministry of something like Global that we have, because before those guys got up on that panel and started asking the room to provide them Bible passage to support stuff that wasn’t in the Bible, I had had the opportunity to have a couple conversations with some godly lawyers who were looking to figure out how do we help move these institutions that are in the wrong way of thinking back toward what scripture says.

And one of those lawyers, and I love your last hymn, with the love of Jesus, we will know they’re Christians by their love. He got up and I could have, you know, somebody must have sang that song to him just before he got up. He got up and had the courage in that room to take that panel on, but he did it with the love of Christ.

And he did it through asking questions, not attacking them, not attacking who they were, but just simply by asking questions. And after about four questions, they had those lawyers on that stage questioning in their own positions. That’s what we’re called to do.

We’re not called when we’re faced with some kind of untruth or some kind of thing that is just abhorrent to the scripture to just put our tails between our legs and climb under the bed. We’re called to stand up, but we’re also called to do it compassion and respect. And I’m going to always remember this hymn.

I want to carry that hymn along with me from now on. And they will know we are Christians by our love. So, the Greek word for deposit means something precious, something entrusted for safekeeping.

Well, there’s nothing more precious and necessary for safekeeping than the very words of God and the truth of the scripture handed down from time to time, from generation to generation. And we have to, in the hardest of times, be willing to stand up. I think of the guy in Florida I represented.

There was a businessman who was a strong Christian man, probably attends a church just like this, knowing him these days. And the government came in and said, you can no longer, even though your company is a very important company, it was a big electric company and it was necessary for the electrical infrastructure of our nation. So, there were some national security aspects to, you know, that’s how important his company was.

It was a big, I mean, it was a fairly large company and he had a lot of employees. And because he was a Christian man, he paid these employees very, very well. And he gave them a Cadillac healthcare plan, the best you could get.

Nonetheless, the government came in and said, we are going to begin fining you up to $7 million if you don’t start participating in abortions at your company with regard to the insurance that you provide. And I got the call from him and he said, I’ll shut this company down. He was trying to; he was getting older.

He had built a very successful company. He was ready to sell the company. Now he can’t sell the company because he’s got this $7 million contingent liability attached to any sale and the government’s coming in.

And then we get a case in the Supreme Court that says, you can’t do that. So, they go back and they tweak their little regs a little bit and they come back again, $7 million or we’re shutting you down. He stood up and he said, the word of God says that every human being is made in the very image of God.

And that means that God has created every human being in the womb. And I am not going to participate. Even if it means I lose everything that I’ve built over the last 30 years, I will stand for the truth of God’s word.

That’s the deposit that he’s been, that’s talked about in this verse. That’s the truth of scripture that this president of this company on this day said, I will guard the deposit that has been entrusted to me. I’ll guard this part of God’s word that is true.

And I’ll guard that truth at all costs. When I was a federal judge, one of the probably favorite things I did was the last part of the immigration, lawful immigration process where a person became a citizen. And I would hold the ceremony and the proceeding where they would renounce their prior citizenship and announce their allegiance to the United States of America.

And after that oath, swear that was taken and they did that, I would reserve the rest of the day and I would bring them back to my chambers and they each tell their story. I’ll never forget one of the stories that a young woman was telling me. She said, my brother was in front of me and they said, are you a Christian? They asked a bunch of questions, but one of the questions were, are you a Christian? And the answer was yes.

And she said, the man that asked the question then pulled out a gun and shot him. She was next in line. And when asked that same question, she said, no.

And now she’s in America as an American citizen, but she says, it was my brother who did the right thing. Stood and guarded that which had been entrusted to him and he paid the ultimate price. As we know, many who have defended this nation and those who now serve as first responders sometimes do.

And so, for Timothy, this deposit is the apostolic gospel and the truth. And it’s so important. It’s got such significance that it’s worth dying for.

It’s worth losing your company for, but it’s certainly worth having the courage to stand up and engage the culture with the love of Christ so that somebody that God puts in your lane may know him. And more importantly, that somebody in the next generation may have the opportunity to know him as well. Because we are stewards, not inventors of the truth.

The world out there says you can make up truth and your truth is good for you and my truth is good for me. And there’s no such thing as a moral absolute. Somebody asks you that, asking if they’re absolutely sure about that, because they’ve just stated an absolute.

But our duty isn’t to modify and say that anybody’s truth can be true. We’re stewards of the real truth. And trust me, God’s truth will always correspond to reality.

If at some point the science of the day is inconsistent with God’s word, I’ll guarantee you at some point we’re going to find out that science is wrong. That’s happened every single time throughout world history. Our duty is not to modify what God has put down, but to preserve it faithfully.

And you know, it’s really fun to be a pastor and a Christian person who’s out there and we in proclaiming the word of God, I love to be able to share the good news, don’t you? But we’re not called just to be proclaimers of the truth, we’re called to be protectors of it as well. And that’s what Paul is charging Timothy with here. We’re supposed to guard against counterfeit.

You know, the scripture says, avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions. That’s what that panel was that I was telling you about earlier. I mean, that was irreverent babble and contradiction.

And how powerful is the devil’s prompting if you can get a professing Christian at a professing Christian university to make that statement in a room like that? So, we are battling against not flesh and blood. We are battling against principalities. And, you know, but man, each time that happens, that’s an opportunity for us to, you know, just let God be glorified.

Let us stand up, whatever the cost. Irreverent battle may take the form of, you know, philosophies that sound eloquent or sophisticated. They may even, how often do you hear it and it kind of tugs at your heartstring.

But if it’s denying God, it doesn’t take you very long before you can peel it back and you can see the evil and the ugliness behind it. Guarding means discernment. Always test everything you hear against scripture.

Always test everything you hear against scripture. I did a little word search of this irreverent battle. And in the Greek, that literally means profane, empty sounds.

I’m thinking, wow, just turn on the television, turn on Netflix, turn on Hulu, turn on whatever you’re turning on. Maybe we should just shut it off because there’s a whole lot of irreverent battle coming through, isn’t there? The contradictions are ideas that stand opposed to the truth of God’s word. How often is there a television program that is promoting something opposite of what God says in the beginning created man and woman, the very image of God he created.

There’s a big difference between knowledge and wisdom, isn’t there? And there’s a big difference between false knowledge, or what is falsely called knowledge, and the truth. Truth claims by people that are making stuff up, that’s false knowledge. It’s counterfeit.

And one of the things that I think God’s asking us to do, and he was certainly, through Paul, asking Timothy to do here, is figure out what’s the counterfeit stuff out there. And how do you figure out what’s counterfeit? Well, when I was a United States prosecutor, that’s what we did. We had the real deal, $100 bill, and we had the counterfeit dollar bill.

The way they trained the agents that were investigating that kind of stuff, is they showed them the real thing. And if they could look at the real $100 bill, they could eventually learn to see what was counterfeit. If you are in the Word of God every day, and you’re studying the Word of God, and oh my goodness, I just love this church, because after church, you do this wonderful Sunday school, and I challenge you to come to that too.

We’ll do a completely different thing than we’re doing here. But study God’s Word. So then when you see the counterfeit, you’re able to show that it’s wrong.

Again, while letting them see the love of Jesus in your heart as you do that. Let me tell you how important that is. God put a lot of lawyer DNA in this guy here.

And you learn to fight and to argue, and that part that you’re supposed to be compassionate and respectful, I got to work on that daily. Daily, because there’s a whole lot of lawyer fight and argue and win the argument DNA in me. And that’s part of what God’s asking us to do here.

He wants us to win the argument, but you know what he’s also telling us to do? He says, I don’t want you just to win the argument. He says, I want you to win their soul. I want you to win their soul.

And so, they will know we are Christians by our love. And they know. What happens if we don’t do that? One of the things that I loved about this church about a year ago, when we celebrated all the ways that you are able to help with missions out there.

And by the way, God bless you. Thank you for supporting us. I promise that we used every penny of that and with good stewardship.

But one of the things that I just really enjoyed, mostly because my wife and I home educated our children all the way through, was this is a church that has a lot of folks that home educate their children. And you know how important this message is from Paul to Timothy today? I can tell you many, many examples, too many examples, where godly parents did everything right. They raised their children, they trained them up in the Lord, either through home education or through really good Christian, you know, private education.

And one semester at some fancy public university, they undid it. Not because they showed those young people the truth, but because they showed irreverent babble in front of them in such a way that sounded so good. It was what our itching ears wanted to hear.

And so, we cannot underestimate the importance of what is being asked of us here when we’re called to guard that which is entrusted to us. Because if we do not do that, the cost is that the devil then tries to take them away. Now, I’ve got a lot of hope for each one of those young men and women that may have strayed, because Jesus never gives up on them.

They’re the sheep out there that the shepherd is going to come someday, I pray is going to come and bring each one of those examples back. But I’m telling you, there is a world out there that it’s a full court press. They send their deans of students to national conventions with the sole purpose of teaching them how to undo the indoctrination that their parents and Western world and society has instilled in them.

And this is what you need to do with your freshmen students that are at your university. It is ugly the battle that we are up against, but we need to know that we’re up against it. Because if we know what we’re up against, and we know that that’s a very dark darkness out there, we also know that Jesus is the light of the world.

And that Jesus will shine light on that if we do what we’re called to do. Guard that which has been entrusted to you. But understand that if we don’t do that, there will be some that will swerve from the faith, that will go the wrong way.

And I just want to reinforce the stakes. That’s the only reason I bring it up. Error leads not just to intellectual missteps, but it’s to a spiritual shipwreck.

And therefore, we want to stand up and correct error. Correct error. That gospel is a sacred trust.

It’s not invented. We don’t get to make up truth. It doesn’t get to get reinvented.

I’m going to tell you; there are some seminaries out there that will reinvent truth as we go along in society. There are judges out there that decide to reinvent the law and make it up as they go. And I don’t want to get into this because it’s a little bit aside from what we’re talking about today.

But part of what we do at Salt and Light Global is try and hold those courts accountable. We’re guarding that which has been entrusted to us. Because if a court can say the First Amendment no longer means the free exercise of religious conscience, if government writes a law that applies to everybody, therefore you no longer have the First Amendment if they write a law in a way that is generally applicable to everybody.

That’s what the Supreme Court did, by the way. And we’re fighting to get the court to come back and say, no, the First Amendment says you can’t interfere with the free exercise of a person’s religion. The same thing’s happening in the universities with regard to, and in the culture, with regard to God’s word here.

Let’s just reinvent what some of these things mean, and then we can do all the bad things, or all the things that we detain, they are bad, but we’re going to say they’re good now. And now we’ll have scripture, because we invented what scripture means, to support it. Wow.

You see what God’s doing here? He’s saying, no, I want you to guard that which has been entrusted to you. And I need someone to help me here because I’ve got a three-hour sermon, and so I need to know when I’m supposed to stop. What time is this? Quarter after, gotcha.

Now, guarding the deposit isn’t something that we do, you know, let’s just say that you did what I said, and you go start studying God’s word, and you get really, really good at it, and now you’ve got, okay, I’ve got every argument down, and I’m ready to go, you know, whoop on anybody that’s going to disagree with what God says. At that point, you got to do what the guy with lawyer DNA has, you got to stop back, you got to step back, say, I’ve been called to a gracious stewardship, not a brutal stewardship. I’ve been called to a gracious stewardship.

Christian people, we need to model integrity, we need to model humility, we need to model Jesus’ love while we maintain the true fidelity to Scripture. Because guess what? Even if we’re right, and we do it with a heart of arrogance, or a heart of something short of love and integrity, guess what that truth is going to do? It’s going to hit a brick wall. It’s not going to ever permeate the person that we are trying to share the good news with.

And so, let’s stay encouraged, though. Like Timothy, believers—wow, you say, how can we be encouraged? You see what the culture is like today? Like Timothy, though, I think believers, we may feel that weight of the culture, we may feel that weight of intellectual opposition, sometimes shaming, you know, people have tried to cancel me, people have tried to shame—one of the things they did at a university that I was at, I’m now working and helping Spring Arbor University, which is a good Christian school, but one of the things when I was at a public university, you know what they did to shame the Christians? All of a sudden, the three of us that were there showed up at work one day, and every single door on the office of the law faculty had a little rainbow. You know, we’re the professors that you can trust.

A trusted professor—I can’t remember what it said or something, but it was—and all of us, it was very, very clear that, you know, these are the three doors you better worry about, because they don’t have the seal of—and we need to, you know, when someone attempts to cancel you or to shame you, just respond with truth and love. And grace, because when you do that, that hymn—I can’t get that hymn out of my mind— they will know we are Christians by our love. So, guard the deposit, hold fast to the gospel, avoid the irreverent battle, discern between the crap that’s out there, I’m sorry, but that’s what it is, and true wisdom.

Measure all claims, all truth claims by the culture and the world out there against what God says, and lean on grace. Depend on the Holy Spirit to remain faithful, because he’s promised, you know, that he will. And I want to just kind of finish here by telling you how powerful grace-filled engagement can be.

I recently was speaking at Duke Law School, which, you know, they wanted to make sure that I knew that we’re tied for Harvard this year. We’re one of the best schools in the country. And I walked in, and every other office, there was a closed office with glass doors, and the person in there was wearing a mask and virtue signaling.

I’m thinking, wait a minute, did I just go back in time two or three years? And I said, at that moment, I said, okay, stop being arrogant, start praying. I was feeling, and I decided at that moment that I’m going to bring the Word of God to this group, because there may be a president in the future sitting here. There may be a future Supreme Court justice here.

There may be a member of Congress or a CEO of a Fortune 100 company. And so, with all the grace that I could muster, and I prayed hard. I talked to Marilyn the night before.

I called another man for accountability, and I said, right now, I just want to, I mean, I just want to do something else. And by the time we got done with those conversations, and I think that’s another good thing. I don’t know if Timothy talks about this, but put good men and women around you.

If you’re a woman, put good women around you. Put good men around you. Get an abundance of counselors, you know, so that when God puts you in a moment where you have the opportunity to guard that which is entrusted to you, somebody can be there and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, I’m going to pull you back here, because, you know, you’re supposed to stand up, but you’re supposed to do it with the love of Jesus.

And so, by that next morning, I was able to do that. And God honored it. It was a Charlie Kirk, it was right after Charlie Kirk died, so we had that situation.

And they do a Charlie Kirk type of format here, where it’s either debate or a, you know, or a, where I give my talk and then somebody on the far left, atheist, usually gets up and gives his, and he did, but he was respectful. And then the students get to ask questions. And I kind of did a Charlie Kirk thing.

I said, those of you that disagreed with me today, you have, please come up, be first on, you get to be first. And, but here’s how God used that. Not during the talk, I don’t think as much, but after the talk, an hour later, there were still students asking questions.

And they were on one-on-one type of things. And some of them were Christians. And three of them, in their own way, they were very different.

They all did its different ways. But three of them said, we’ve never heard that perspective here. We’ve never heard that perspective here.

And in their own way, they thanked and appreciated it. I guess my point is grace-filled engagement means that guarding that which has been trusted, doesn’t mean we have to withdraw from intellectual engagement. In fact, we should run toward it.

We should run toward it. And if we run toward it, God will give you the words at the time with whoever he’s put in front of you. I don’t know where each of you are at and where God has got you in this world, you know, but for whatever reason, I’m a lawyer, so he puts me, he puts lawyers in front of me.

God’s going to put other people in front of you, and he’s going to give you the words. He’s going to give you the grace so that maybe they will say to you, well, you know what? I hadn’t heard that perspective. It really makes sense.

And who knows where God takes that? Because if we engage ideas with humility and love and boldness, showing that biblical truth, you know, is intellectually credible, but more importantly, spiritually life-giving and life-saving, wow, just think how God can use that. So, get rid of any arrogant defensiveness. Remember about gracious stewardship.

Marked with humility and love, even when we stand firm in that conviction. And so, I want to give you a closing charge here. Like the soldier in the tomb of the unknown soldier, we are called to stand watch.

We are called to be faithful. We’re called to be tireless. We’re called to be courageous.

And I kind of act like, oh yeah, I like to share the gospel. Well, courageous, I’m going to confess, I can be very courageous with a big old podium between me, and I can share the gospel with however big a number of people are in front of this podium. What, you put me in an airplane seat next to somebody who needs to hear the word of God? We all can be more courageous, can’t we? We all can be more courageous.

And so, let’s be like that sentinel at the tomb of the unknown soldier, no matter what, every day, tirelessly, courageously, faithfully, guard the living truth of the gospel because it’s been entrusted to us by God himself. We’re not called just to be proclaimers of the truth; we’re called to be protectors of the truth. And let’s in our own lives try to avoid some empty chatter.

Let’s recognize and reject all those hollow philosophies out there. I’m thinking of critical theory and all this stuff that was bouncing around the schools and still is in too many places. And let’s rely on grace, trust the spirit because God promises that he’s going to give us what we need, and he’s going to be there guarding us while we’re guarding His word.

And I’m just going to finish with that because it says, remember, God guards us. You know, he says this in 2nd Timothy, and I didn’t get to, this is a whole other sermon, but in 2nd Timothy, in that letter he says, he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. Wow, what a promise.

He’s going to have your back as you’re guarding that which he has entrusted you to guard. Grace and peace be with you all. God bless you.

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Galatians 5

We’re going to read just some scripture here, four verses from Galatians chapter 5 and let me read verses 13 through 16. Here’s what Paul writes, You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather, serve one another humbly in love.

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command, love your neighbor as yourself. If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So, I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Well, we’ve been looking at one phrase in the New Testament. It’s one Greek word, and the word is Allélón, which is translated one another. And we’ve been looking at the one another commands in scripture. And it lets us know that God has designed a Christian life to be lived not in isolation, but in community with one another.

And so, the most common one another phrase or command, to no surprise, that’s given in the New Testament, it’s found 16 times, it’s to love one another. And Jesus talked about that in the upper room. Love one another as I have loved you.

By this will all men know that you are my disciples. Not by how many times you go to church, not by how many times you read scripture, but by your love for one another. And so, our love for one another is the distinguishing mark of a follower of Jesus.

Well, as we look at these other one another commands, and there’s 12 of them, and we’re not going to look at all 12, the other 12 one another commands kind of put some flesh on the bones of what does it look like to love one another. And so, we looked at 1st Corinthians 12 where it says we’re members of one another, and Paul uses the illustration of the body of Christ to demonstrate how the church, the body of Christ, is to function. We also looked at a couple of weeks ago the phrase from Romans 15 that we’re to be like-minded one toward another.

And Paul’s praying for the Roman believers, and he says, I want you to have the same attitude as Jesus did. And so where do we find the mind of Christ? Well, it’s Philippians chapter 2, and it’s an attitude of love and sacrifice and obedience, and that we have that like-mindedness toward one another not only in doctrine but in duty, what our goal is as believers in Jesus and a local church. Last week we looked at Romans chapter 10 and looked at a couple other one another phrases, be devoted to one another, and talked about commitment to honor one another, which you’ve obviously done very well today in honoring me.

That’s another command that’s found in Romans 12. But this morning we’re going to look at another one another command. It’s found in the book of Galatians.

If you want to open your Bibles, it’s Galatians chapter 5, and we’re going to look at verses 13 through 25. Now, a little bit of the background to the book of Galatians. The Apostle Paul’s writing to Jewish people in Galatia, and he made a couple visits there on two separate missionary journeys.

But he’s addressing a problem, a false teaching, a group by the name of the Judaizers. Now, the word Judaizers comes from a Greek verb meaning to live according to Jewish customs. You have to remember back in the first century that there was a huge change of the nation of Israel and following all the Jewish laws, and now that Jesus came, and now the gospel is for everyone, and the church really wrestled with that.

But here’s what the Judaizers were saying. The Judaizers taught that in order for a person to be right with God, he must first conform to the Mosaic law, and that specifically circumcision. The Gentiles had to become Jews first, and then they could come to Christ.

This doctrine was a mixture of grace through Christ and works. And so, here’s this group that’s saying, no, you have to first follow all the regulations and laws of the Old Testament, and then you can also follow Jesus and become a follower of His. And so, the Apostle Paul starts out the book of Galatians with strong words of condemnation.

Let me read them to you. It’s Galatians 1:6 through 9. I’m astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. It means a gospel of a different kind, which is really no gospel at all.

He goes on to say in verse 8, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than one, we preach to you, let them be under God’s curse. As we’ve already said, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel other than the one you’ve accepted, let him be under God’s curse. That’s some pretty strong words of condemnation.

But Paul’s here dealing with the way of salvation. And he’s saying, if you’re preaching the wrong way of salvation, you’re leading people astray and you’re under God’s curse. And so, we know that salvation is what by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, Jesus paid it all.

That one police officer from Costa Rica quoted Ephesians 2:8 and 9. It’s a gift. And when you begin to add anything else to the finished work of Christ on the cross as payment for your sin debt, you’re basically saying Christ’s death on the cross wasn’t enough to pay for my sin. And I have to do something.

And so that’s what the book of Galatians is fighting against, this false teaching that was entering into the church there in Galatian and some of the believers’ lives there. Here’s Romans chapter 4 verses 4 and 5. I don’t know why this verse a number of years ago just jumped out at me, but let me read Romans 4:4 and 5. Now, to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. So, when you get a paycheck at the end of the week or the end of the month or the 15th or the 30th, you don’t say to your employer, well, thank you for that gift.

No, that’s an obligation, that’s a contractual agreement. You earned it. You worked for it.

However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. And there Paul’s saying again, we’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, Jesus paid it all. And thank God for that.

And so, the theme of Galatians and of this passage is true freedom comes only through Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 8, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. And the book of Galatians deals with, in chapters 3 and 4, that we’re free from the penalty of sin because of what Christ did.

We don’t have to pay for our sins. He already paid for them. There’s no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Chapters 5 and 6, we’re free from the power of sin. So, we don’t need to let sin dominate our lives anymore. But Christ has given us, through the Holy Spirit, the freedom to have victory over sin.

So, in our passage this morning, we’re going to look at four truths that are found in verses 13 through 16. One’s a negative instruction and then three positive instructions. And so, let’s look at it this morning from Galatians chapter 5. Here’s the first one.

In Christ, we are not to use our freedom to indulge the flesh. That’s verse 13. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.

Do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. The New Living Translation says, do not use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. What’s Paul talking about here? Paul’s talking about Christians that sometimes have the mindset that, okay, Jesus has saved me.

He’s paid the penalty for all of my sins and I’m going to heaven so I can live any way I want. I have a license to sin because Jesus has already forgiven me. And the apostle Paul is saying to the Galatian believers, no, that’s not the way it works.

In fact, Paul addressed this in Romans chapter 6 when he was writing to the Roman believers. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning that grace may abound? God’s going to forgive us, so I might as well just live any way I want. By no means, we who have died to sin, how can we live any longer in it? And so, Paul says, you need to present your bodies as instruments of righteousness to God.

And so, don’t use your freedom to live any way you want. That’s the first negative truth that Paul points out here. But then he goes on to give us the second truth here.

And this is our one another phrase, and it’s found in the last part of verse 13. Rather, serve one another humbly in love. So, in Christ, we’re not to use our freedom to live any way we want, to indulge sin, but we are to use our freedom to serve one another humbly in love.

Now, who’s the model of this? It’s Jesus, isn’t it? Mark 10:45, for the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. So, Jesus’ whole mission that He came to earth was all about us, all about salvation, all about redemption. His life was a life of service.

And we see that as we study the life of Christ. We see that just days before He went to the cross. Read John chapter 13 through 17, the Upper Room Discourse.

What’s Jesus doing hours before He goes to the cross? He’s washing the feet of His disciples. He takes out His outer garment. He puts a towel around His waist, and He kneels down.

And one by one, He washes the feet of the twelve disciples, including Judas Iscariot, who very soon after that was going to betray Him. Jesus modeled humility, and He modeled servanthood. In fact, when He was asked to define greatness in His kingdom, and this is out of John 20, the mother of Zebedee’s sons, James and John come to Jesus and say, by the way, Jesus, when you’re the king and you’re in your kingdom, is it okay if my one son is on your right hand and your other sons on the left hand? Kind of give them those prime positions of authority in your kingdom.

Jesus says, you don’t understand what you’re asking for. And then He goes on to teach, let me define greatness in God’s kingdom. It’s not how many people serve you, it’s how many people you serve.

And so, in Matthew chapter 20, He tells the disciples, the Gentiles lorded over them, their rulers and their high officials, and they exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant.

And whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. And so, in Christ, we are called and are free to serve one another.

Now, what does that look like? Three quick things here. It starts in the home. It starts in the home.

Dr. Gary Chapman wrote a book entitled Five Traits of a Healthy Home. Trait number one, a healthy home, there’s an attitude of service. In a home, you serve one another.

And that’s a mark of what a good, healthy home looks like, serving one another. But it also moves on to the church. And we’re so thankful for so many that serve faithfully here at our church.

Here’s a quote by Rick Warren, former pastor of Saddleback Church in California, serving is the opposite of our natural inclination. Most of the time, we’re more interested in serve us than service. We say, I’m looking for a church that meets my needs and blesses me, not vice versa.

But as we mature in Christ, the focus of our lives should increasingly shift to a life of service to others. The mature follower of Jesus stops asking, who’s going to meet my needs and starts asking, whose needs can I meet? Do you ever ask that question? And so, here the apostle Paul says, we need to serve one another. It starts in the home, opportunities to serve in the church.

And then as we reach out into our community to serve where God has placed us. Well, there’s a third command here. In Christ, we’re not to use our freedom to live any way we want.

In Christ, we’re free to serve and commanded to serve and minister to one another. In Christ, we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That’s the next part of this section of Scripture.

And so, verse 14, we read, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command, love your neighbor as yourself. Elsewhere, Jesus was asked to summarize the law, and he said, love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Do you ever think that the Bible teaches us that we need to love ourselves? Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

So, there’s a proper self-love that we are to have. Now, the apostle Paul in writing about marriage in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 28 says, husband’s ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. So, we naturally want to what? We care for ourselves, we feed ourselves, we take care of ourselves.

There’s a proper self-love. Now, that can be taken too far. And in this love of self, there’s kind of a movement and people say, well, I’m all about self-care.

And yes, we do need to take care of ourselves, but if that take is too far, then the only person you’re concerned about is yourself, and you become consumed with your needs and taking care of yourself, and it can go too far. But the Bible says we’re to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And isn’t it interesting that Jesus answered the question, who is our neighbor? Not talking about the person that lives necessarily next door to you, although they could be included, but in that story of the Good Samaritan, he defines a neighbor as anybody whose need we have the ability to meet is our neighbor.

And so, love your neighbor as you love yourself. Well, the fourth command here, and it’s in verses 16 through 25, and we don’t have time to go into detail here, but in Christ we are to not use our freedom to live any way we want. We’re to serve one another.

We’re to love one another and our neighbor as we love ourselves, be concerned about them. Lastly, we in Christ, we are to live by the Spirit. We are to live by the Spirit.

Verse 16, so I say, walk in the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So, why are there so many sometimes discouraged, defeated Christians? And one part of the answer to that might be that you’re trying to live a Christian life in isolation, but another answer to that could be that you’re trying to live the Christian life in your own power and strength, and that leads to failure. You know, it’s not a self-improvement program where I just need to do better or try harder.

No, the Bible says, let the Spirit of God who, if you know Jesus as your Savior, lives within you, let Him influence your life. Let Him control your life. Be sensitive to His promptings.

And so, here’s, in Galatians 5, here’s the command, verse 16, walk by the Spirit. The New Living Translation says, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives, and not based on feelings, but on the influence and control of the Holy Spirit. This is the way that Jesus lived.

We go back to the beginning of His ministry in Matthew chapter 4, verse 1, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Why did Jesus spend 40 days in the wilderness before He began His earthly ministry? Well, the Spirit of God led Him there, and there He was tempted by Satan. Now, this is the way the Apostle Paul lived.

In Acts 16, on one of his missionary journeys, he wanted to go to a certain region of the country, and it says, the Spirit of God forbid me to go there. And so, it’s a matter of living by the Spirit. How does the Spirit direct us? Primarily through the Scriptures.

The more you know the Bible, the more you know the teachings of Scripture, because the Spirit of God will use the Word of God to guide our lives. The Spirit of God directs us through prayer. The Spirit of God directs us through godly counsel, that hopefully there’s some godly people in your life who can give you some direction.

And the Proverbs talks about there’s safety in godly counsel. And so, we are to live by the Spirit. That’s the command, but there’s a conflict.

And Paul writes about it in verses 17 and 18. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want, but if you are led by the Spirit, you’re not under the law.  So, Paul says, we’re to be led by the Spirit. But guess what? Even after we come to faith in Christ, we still have a sin nature. It’s called the flesh.

The Greek word is Sarx, and it talks about our sinful nature. So, the Christian has three enemies. The world, that’s the world system that is anti-God. The flesh, that’s our sinful nature. And the devil. And now, Paul says, even though we’re followers of Jesus, there’s a conflict that goes on in our life. It’s a battle between the Spirit and the flesh. Paul experienced that firsthand. He writes about it in Romans 7. He says, the things I want to do, I don’t do.

And the things I don’t want to do, I end up doing. He says, oh, wretched man that I am. So, if the Apostle Paul struggled with sin, we’re probably in good company if we struggle with sin as well. And then, Paul goes on to give a contrast of living by the flesh, the acts of the flesh. He lists them there in verses 19 through 21. And then, he lists the characteristics of someone whose life is controlled and influenced and led by the Spirit of God.

They’re called the fruit of the Spirit. Those nine character traits that God wants to develop in each of our lives. Let me remind you what they are. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness. Boy, we’re missing that in our culture today. Goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That’s what God wants to develop in our lives through the Spirit who lives within us. So, in Christ, we’re not to live for ourselves and say we can live any way we want. No, Christ has saved us from the power of sin.

We’re to serve one another. We’re to love our neighbor. We’re to live by the Spirit. Just a few application questions as we think about bringing this to a conclusion. And let me just add one that’s not on the screen, but here’s the first one. Am I trusting in Christ’s finished work on the cross for my salvation? Have I put my faith and trust in Jesus and Jesus alone as the one who paid for my sin for my eternal destiny? And I trust that you have.

And if you haven’t, it’s easy to receive that costly gift that Jesus paid for us. It’s called the sinner’s prayer. Lord, I know that I’m a sinner. I know I can’t make it to heaven on my own. I know that Jesus died and paid for my sin. And right now, I put my faith in Jesus and Jesus alone and turn from my sin and put my faith in the finished work of Christ.

And then we become part of God’s family. But here’s a second one, be the first one on the screen. Am I experiencing victory over sin in my life? We’re not going to reach sinless perfection until we get to heaven. It’s going to be a lifetime battle. And so, my question is, and whatever sin you might be struggling with, and Hebrews talks about this, let’s run the race with perseverance. Let’s lay aside the sin that so easily entangles us, that trips us up.

Am I experiencing victory over sin in my life? Colossians chapter 3, verse 5, the Apostle Paul writes these words about victory over sin. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, which is idolatry. Put to death sin in your life.

How do you put to death sin? This past summer, I listened to a speaker by the name of Carl Clausen. He pastors a church in Chicago, and if you ever hear Carl Clausen speak, you will remember it for a long time. He’s passionate about Jesus.

He’s written a book about killing sin, having victory over sin in our life. He’s also written a book called Seven Resolutions, and he gives a little outline of if we’re serious about having victory over sin in our life, there’s some steps that we need to take. Let me just give them to you very quickly.

Number one, recognize that all sin is ultimately against God. Genesis 39, verse 9, when Joseph was being tempted to be involved with Potiphar’s wife, he says, how shall I do this great wickedness and sin against not only my boss, but ultimately, I’m sinning against God. And so, we recognize that all sin is ultimately against God.

But if we’re serious about having victory over sin in our life, we also need to expose it, to confess it. There’s a wonderful prayer in the end of Psalm 139 where the psalmist writes these words, Psalm 139, search me God and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts and see if there’s any offensive way in me.

Lord, would you point out to me an area in my life where I’m missing the mark? And when God does that, what we need to do is confess it. First John 1:9, if we confess our sins. Now wait a second, you might say, I thought I already put my faith in Jesus and all my sins are paid for.

That’s our standing before God. We’re standing justified, just as if we’ve never sinned. Legally, he proclaims that we are righteous in Christ, but in our daily life we still sin.

And sin affects our relationship with one another, sin affects our relationship with God, and so he wants us to confess those daily sins. And to confess, the word simply means to agree with God. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful in just what? To forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And so, we expose it. And then thirdly, he says, this is Karl Clauson, he says we attack it. Here’s what he says, take extreme measures to kill what is killing you.

Remember that limiting access is one of the most practical ways to starve the supply lines of sin. Write down a strategy to make sin less accessible in your life. List the places, the people, or the things that need to be cut off.

And then he says you need to overwhelm that by filling your mind and your heart with God’s Word and God’s truth and God’s people and encouraging one another. And so, am I having victory over sin? Next, am I serving others? Am I serving others? So, Paul says, serve one another humbly in love. If you were to send your son or daughter off to Taylor University, a very fine Christian University in Upland, Indiana, when they graduate at their commencement ceremony, every graduating senior will get a towel.

I didn’t have a white one, but it’s a towel about this size. They call it the Taylor towel. And so, when you walk across the platform, you’ll get your diploma, but they’ll also give you the Taylor towel.

Here’s what the Taylor towel represents. It’s a symbol of servant leadership that’s given to incoming freshman students. And again, at graduation, it is a tangible reminder to follow Jesus’ example in serving others even when service and relationships get messy.

So, am I serving others in the home? Am I serving others in the church? Am I serving others in our community? Jesus has called us to serve, and a towel is a good reminder of what we’ve been called to do. Here’s the last one, and then we’re done this morning before we take part in the Lord’s Supper here. Is my life under the daily influence and control of the Holy Spirit? Who’s in charge? Am I cognizant of the fact that the Spirit of God dwells within me? Am I in the Word of God? Am I in tune to those internal promptings of the Holy Spirit? In other words, we could just quote the song, Jesus, take the wheel.

I want you to control my life, Jesus. I want the Spirit of God to lead me, direct me in my daily walk and in my daily choices. So, the Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesian believers in Ephesians chapter five, be filled with the Spirit.

The literal tense there is keep on being filled with the Spirit. Allow the Spirit of God to control your life as we’re in the Word of God, the more we know the Word of God, as we fellowship with other Christians, as we’re in tune to that still small voice, those inner promptings that we need to be in tune with, we’ll have victory over sin and we’ll walk with Jesus. So, I trust you know Him as your Savior.

I trust you’re winning that battle, that daily battle between the Spirit and the flesh. I trust you’re living a life of service. I trust you’re allowing the Spirit of God who lives within you to direct and lead your life.

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Romans 12:9-13

We’re going to read some scripture and I don’t know if you thought about those words in that last stanza that we sang but when we’ve been there 10,000 years we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun so that’s amazing when you think about how long eternity is it reminds us of how short this life is and so that’s a good reminder to make our days count. We’re going to read some scripture this is Romans 12:9 through 13 the Apostle Paul writing to the Roman believers and you can follow along as I read. The Apostle Paul writes love must be sincere hate what is evil and cling to what is good be devoted to one another in love and honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord be joyful in hope patient in affliction be faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need and practice hospitality.

We’re looking at one word from the Greek New Testament it’s the word allélón which is translated one another it’s used 58 times in the New Testament outside of the Gospels 40 times by the Apostle Paul but no surprise the command one another command that’s given most often in the New Testament is the command to love one another it’s given 12 times or 16 times actually in the New Testament to love one another. Jesus talked about that and in the upper room discourse John 13 a new command I give you to love one another as I have loved you so you must love one another, now there’s the new command the command to love one another is in the Old Testament but Jesus said I want you to love one another and here’s the standard just like I love you. And so, Jesus raises the bar and then he says this is how people will know that we’re followers of Jesus not by how many times you read your Bible during the week or how many times you go to church in the week no but by demonstrating genuine biblical love for one another that’s how people will know that you’re a follower of Jesus.

So, we’re looking at these one another commands in the New Testament there’s about 12 of them when you group them all together. So, we looked at the fact that we’re members of one another we’re part of the body of Christ and we studied that from 1st Corinthians 12 last week. We looked at the fact that there were to be like-minded one toward another that was Paul’s prayer in Romans 15 and let me read a portion of that may God give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Jesus Christ had. Also, we’re to have the same mindset toward one another that that Jesus had the mind of Christ and so we looked at Philippians 2 that tells us what the mind of Christ is like its humility it’s sacrifice and its obedience and so we’re to have a light like-minded and that brings that brings unity together. Well now we’re going to look at a passage that we read this morning has two more one another phrases in it so we’re just going to like go through these rather quickly this morning.

But let me give you the outline of the book of Romans chapters 1 through 12 is all about doctrine some of the greatest doctrines of the New Testament where Paul writes about justification and sanctification and glorification it’s all doctrinal. Then when you get to chapters 12 through 16 it’s all about duty about application so God does doesn’t want us to know like mental biblical facts so that we can do well at Bible trivia no he wants us to take the Word of God and apply it to our lives. And so, you start in Romans chapter 12 and this section Paul writes therefore I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God’s mercy offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God do not conform to the pattern of the world but be transformed how by the renewing of our minds. So that’s what we’re going to do this morning that our minds need to be reprogrammed and renewed by the Word of God so 12 through 16 is all about application.

So, this morning we’re going to run through this section and really, we can use this as a checklist we’re going to look at ten things very quickly that Paul tells us we need to do and the question is am I a loving person. Now we’re probably not the best one to answer that question ourselves because we all have a skewed view of ourselves perhaps you get a better response from your spouse or a close friend or somebody in your circle of influence but we’re going to think about this question of am I a loving person. Well, I don’t know if you’ve years ago we’re familiar with a comic strip that was entitled love is I think we have some of these up on the screen this morning it was created by New Zealand cartoonist her name is Kim Casali in the 1960s and this cartoon series originated from love notes that she drew to her future husband then it became a syndicated column in newspapers all around the world. And at the peak of this love is cartoon in the mid-1970s Kim Casali was earning five to six million dollars a year by drawing cartoons the love is cartoons. So, here’s just a couple that she drew love is love is all you need love is distracting you know yeah, we can all relate to that maybe in those early days here’s a great one love is visiting grandma and grandpa I’ll vote for that one.

But this morning we’re going to think from scripture what Paul says let me tell you what love is and there’s really ten of them you know that love is not a feeling. Dr. Gary Chapman who’s written so many books and probably a premier marriage counselor in Christian circles says that most couples experience the tingles and it lasts about two years that’s that euphoria of love when you’re falling in love but you can’t keep living like that and then actually, we come down to reality. But love is not a feeling Bob Goff wrote a book titled love does Dr. Gary Chapman wrote a book called love is a verb.

So really quickly this morning as we go through this passage 10 truths about what love is and we’ll use this as a checklist in our lives Romans 12 verse 9 love must be sincere here’s the first one love is authentic love is to be genuine. The word literally is unhypocritical love is to be the real thing oftentimes the way the world loves in relationships is transactional in other words you do this for me and then I will return and do this for you.

But that’s not what God’s love is all about and the key to being able to love like we’re going to just look at in Romans chapter 12 is from Romans 5:5 we can only love like this if God himself lives within us Romans 5:5 says that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts so if we’re going to try to love like Paul describes here in Romans 12 without God indwelling in us we’re not going to be able to do it. But God wants us to be a conduit of His love, love is authentic love is genuine God’s love is the real thing. And if we want to get a good picture of what God’s love looks like we could just go to that very familiar passage 1st Corinthians chapter 13 love is patient love is kind love doesn’t envy it’s not proud it doesn’t dishonor it’s not self-seeking it’s not easily angered keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth that always protects trust hopes perseveres love never fails that’s God’s love.

So, Paul says number one our love needs to be authentic but secondly the last part of verse 9 he writes hate what is evil and cling to what is good love must be discerning hate evil cling to what is good. Proverbs 8:13 to fear the Lord is to hate evil I hate pride and arrogance so we need to distinguish between hating sin and hating the sinner God doesn’t want us to hate the sinner but God doesn’t want us to hate sin and we live in an evil world and so love needs to be discerning. Psalm 97:10 let those who love the Lord hate evil so one of the problems in our culture today when we say that we’re to hate evil and cling to what is good is that we live in an age of relativism where people today don’t even know what is good and what is evil. Isaiah 5:20 woe to those who call evil good and good evil and that describes a little bit our culture today. George Barna did a recent survey about knowing the difference between right and wrong and here’s what they found out while lying is still considered sinful by 73% of individuals drunkenness gambling and premarital sex are seen as morally acceptable by most adults.

Dr. George Barna says this redefinition of sin has led to decades of social turbulence and spiritual confusion fewer than one in five Americans maintain a biblical view of right or wrong. Less than 20% Americans have a biblical mindset of what the Bible says is right and wrong and so love is discerning and that’s why we need to fill our minds with God’s Word and God’s truth well told you we’re going to run through these rather quickly this morning love is authentic or genuine love needs to be discerning we need to hate evil we need to cling to what is good verse 10 be devoted to one another in love there’s our one another phrase the matter of commitment the matter of devotion be devoted to one another in in love this is the word Philadelphia fell out fell us brotherly love kindness be devoted to one another.

This was the mark of the early church in Acts chapter 2 when the church started Pentecost now there’s 3,000 believers and so that church came together in the first century there in Jerusalem and they were committed or devoted to four things and this is Acts chapter 2 verse 42 I’m sure you’re familiar with this passage says those new believers devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching that’s God’s Word they devoted themselves to fellowship to being together fellowship opportunities like right after the service or a Thanksgiving meal and being together to the breaking of bread some say that refers to the Lord’s table and to prayer.

So, what made the early church so dynamic is that these believers were committed to God’s Word and to being together and to praying and to observing the Lord’s table in fact it says they were sharing their homes together and they were breaking bread daily being together and so a devotion love is being committed and devoted to one another. Well number four love the fourth thought here is that love honors one another the next phrase verse 10 be devoted to one another in love honor one another above yourselves honor one another and so in order to do this we have to have the mind of Christ that we talked about last week not thinking of ourselves first but of others first.

The word honor means to esteem and to value and to give respect and all through the New Testament we’re giving commands about honoring people Exodus 20 and it’s repeated in the Ephesians chapter 6 we’re to honor our parents that’s a lifelong command to honor your father and mother it’s the first commandment with a promise Leviticus 19:32 this is one I’m glad in the scripture you to honor the elderly so I’m in that category now honor those in authority that’s found in the scriptures honor your elders your spiritual leaders 1st Peter 2:17 honor all people love the brotherhood honor the king and so we’re to respect those that are have positions of authority we’re to honor one another respect one another and those that God puts into our lives.

For about a dozen years on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day we would have a father or mother of the year be nominated from somebody from the congregation that wanted to honor their mom or their dad. On Sunday morning we would then call that person up and just honor them and put their names are on that plaque in our entryway. That’s what it means to honor others to encourage them recognize them for all that God has.

Well love must be sincere hate what is evil cling to what is good be devoted to one another love honor one another above yourselves verse 11 never be lacking in zeal but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord love is enthusiastic love is enthusiastic it’s zealous, love is enthusiastic we like to get excited about other areas of our lives and I grew up in a family of all boys and sports fans.

So you know in sports it’s acceptable to kind of go over the top but God says that we need to have some sort of zeal and passion in serving the Lord so keep your spiritual fervor in serving the Lord there’s a couple questions number one are you serving the Lord now have you have you found your area of giftedness and are you serving others are you serving the Lord do you do it with zeal and passion and enthusiasm God wants us to serve him with zeal and passion and enthusiasm.

And so I feel like I can be a little help here because I’ve been a pastor for 44 years and starting November we’ll start year number 45 and so one of the questions that as I thought about this is how do you how do you kind of keep your passion going for ministering and serving and pastoring have there been times of disappointment and discouragement yes but here’s a couple ways to keep your focus and in serving the Lord with enthusiasm I just jotted down some thoughts keep your eyes on Jesus that’s Hebrews 12:2, the author and finish of our faith who for the joy set before him went to the cross and endured for you.

So who are we serving or we’re serving Jesus and people can will always at some point in time disappoint us but if we’re going to serve with passion long-term we need to keep our eyes on him and then verse 2 says let’s run the race with perseverance and then God will reward us secondly here’s how we can keep our passion and enthusiasm recognize that our job and task is to be faithful and to leave the results to God 1st Corinthians 4:2 moreover it is required of a steward to be found faithful and so God does His work what he wants us to be is faithful in what he has called us to do.

Another way to keep your zeal and enthusiasm when you’re serving and ministering recognize that it is God who is at work and he is at work even when you don’t see tangible results so you’re teaching that Sunday school class or you’re the junior church class and like are these kids even listening are they getting anything and I want to remind you that God is at work and Isaiah says His word will not return void and sometimes we see results immediately and other times it’s long-term of planting the seed and then God makes that seed grow.

Here’s another principle that will help you long-term in ministry and keep your zeal and enthusiasm remember the Sabbath principle and how God designed us to live life work, work, work, six days what did God do on the seventh day not because he was tired he just was giving us an example and he wants us to rest and so the Sabbath principle is very important to replenish ourselves physically emotionally mentally spiritually I love the example of Charlie Kirk who said turn your cell phone off one day a week I would love to do that not sure I can but yeah we need to we need to reset and we need to have that Sabbath principle in our lives.

All right five more here we’re going to run through that Paul tells us beginning in verse 12 be joyful in hope love is hopeful love is hopeful we serve the God who’s called the God of hope Titus 2:13 talks about the blessed hope what is the blessed hope it’s the return of Christ and so how can we keep our love going because love is hopeful Paul wrote the joy epistle from a prison cell in the book of Philippians why because his focus wasn’t on his circumstances but his focus was on what God is doing and God used Paul’s imprisonment what to witness to the Roman Guard and people came to know Christ and so hope regardless of your circumstances this morning you can have joy in hope if you know Jesus.

The old hymn says my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness great is thy faithfulness strength for today what bright hope for tomorrow and so ultimately our hope is not in this world this world will always disappoint us the news will be discouraging but what is our hope our hopes out of this world and so Paul writes the Thessalonians and he says when you lose a loved one that knows Jesus you can sorrow but don’t sorrow like those who have no hope because you will see them again someday if you know Jesus and that’s the great resurrection chapter that that tells us to keep on keep on serving the Lord be steadfast unmovable always abounding because of what’s going to happen someday resurrection and reunion we sung about it when we’ve been there what 10,000 years that’s where our hope lies and so love is hopeful.

Here is Paul’s prayer and in Romans 15 made the God of hope fill you with all what joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit well number seven love is hopeful love is patient in affliction be joyful and hope patient in affliction the word there patience is that word hupomoné it means to remain under and picturing when we go through trials the word affliction is the lips this it means a crisis a difficult time a tribulation a pressure.

When it happens in our lives our first response the Lord get me out of here but oftentimes God’s more interested in doing something within us in our character than he is immediately delivering us from our tribulation or our trial and so he asked us to be patient because God is doing a work in our hearts and lives that’s like that piece of coal that gets turned into a diamond but it’s through it’s through pressure John 16:33 Jesus said in this world you will have trouble but then he encouraged us and says take heart I’ve overcome the world James chapter 1 don’t be surprised when trials come that counted joy because God’s going to do a work in your heart and life and so love is patient in in trials and tribulations of verse 12.

Number 8 be joyful and hope patient and affliction faithful in prayer faithful in prayer so what are we to be doing this is all through scripture for Thessalonians 5:17 pray without ceasing Ephesians chapter 6 keep on praying for all saints and always keep on praying and so we’ve got this wonderful tool that we can go right into the presence of God 24/7 don’t need to make an appointment and prayer is powerful and so we need to keep on praying maybe that’s the most loving thing you can one of the most loving things you can do for a person some most powerful words that you can share and you share this if you’re actually doing it.

It’s easy, and I find myself very easy to say and talking to various people, like, I’ll pray for you, but then my question is, am I doing it? You know, that’s why a lot of times I write it down immediately, or sometimes I pray right there. But we are to be faithful in prayer, praying for our kids, praying for our grandkids, praying for our neighbors to come to know Christ, praying for our church, praying for our country, praying for our leadership, praying for our president. That’s commanded in 1st Timothy 2, to pray for those in authority.

And so, love is faithful in prayer. Number nine, love is generous. Love is generous. Share with God’s people who are in need. This is the word koinōnia, share with God’s people who are in need. Again, this was the early church.

Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4 says in the early church there were no needy people in the congregation, and they didn’t have any government welfare programs back then. Why were there no needy people? Because the church met those needs. So, in Acts 2 it says some people, perhaps as Acts 4, would even sell a possession or a piece of land, and they brought it to the apostles and they said, give to those that have need.

So, there were no needy people in the early church. And that’s one of the things that being a part of a church family can do for you, and we want to be intentional about this as well, and we have a benevolent fund, and quite frankly it’s active, it’s behind the scenes. But I would say this, we’re not, the leadership is not mind readers, but if you have a need, a genuine need, or you know somebody connected to our church that has a genuine need financially or otherwise, we want to know, because what do Christians do? We share with those in need.

And so, the Bible says love is generous, and the Apostle John writes, 1st John 3:17, if anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need, but has no compassion on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Your children, let us not love with words or speech, but with action and in truth. So, love is generous, love is generous.

Here’s the last one, number 10 on our checklist of what love is, what genuine love is. Verse 13, share with God’s people who are in need, two words, practice hospitality, practice hospitality. When you look at that word hospitality, it’s an interesting word, it literally means love of strangers, love of strangers. And we kind of fall into our American culture of hospitality is that we have friends, and we invite them over, and then they invite us over, and like mentally we kind of keep track, like whose turn it is to have that person or that family over, and that’s fine and that’s good.

But biblical hospitality is love of strangers. It was critical in the first century when they had itinerant preachers. And they’re traveling through various towns, and back then there’s no like days in or holiday in, and so we can read this in 3rd John verses 5 through 8, what did the Christians do? They opened up their homes to these itinerant preachers, people that they didn’t know, but they practiced hospitality.

And so that’s what the Scriptures encourage us to do, Paul says, practice hospitality. And this question will be convicting for me as well, but when was the last time you invited someone, you did not know, maybe into your home or out to dinner? That’s hospitality, and that’s what love looks like. Practice hospitality.

Well, here’s our checklist of love. Love is, the Apostle Paul says, love is genuine, it’s a real thing, it’s because it’s God’s love channeling through us. Love is discerning, hate evil, cling to what is good, love is committed, being committed to one another, honoring others, love has zeal and passion and is enthusiastic as we serve the Lord.

Love is hopeful because our hope’s not in this world, but in the world to come. Love’s patient, even when going through trials. Love is faithful in praying for others. Love is generous, and then love is hospitable. I want to close with just sharing one other thought here that’s not in the text here, but I really think this is true, that the greatest act of love that we can do for somebody, the greatest act of love, is to share the gospel with them. That is the greatest thing you could do for a person.

I remember watching a video from years ago, and it’s out there in the YouTube world somewhere, and it’s the magician Penn and Teller. Which one talks? I think Penn talks. Am I right? Anybody know? Penn is the one.

One of them doesn’t talk at all, at least in the shows. But here, one of those magicians, let’s just say it was Penn, and he had done a magic show in Las Vegas, and somebody came up to him after the show, and Penn is an atheist, agnostic, atheist, doesn’t believe in God, and someone gave to him a Bible and like a little gospel track, and he received it. And then afterwards, he shares this clip, and he said, if this is really true, that it’s only through Jesus that you have eternal salvation, then if you don’t receive Jesus, you’re going to suffer eternal condemnation in a place called hell, if that is true, then I really respect this person, number one, for standing up for what they believe, but he says, how much do you, this was Penn’s words, how much do you as a Christian have to hate a person not to tell them the best news in all the world, that your sins have already been paid for, and sin has to be paid for, Jesus already paid for it, and you can have this wonderful gift called eternal life by putting your faith in Him.

And so, the greatest act of love we can do for someone is to share the good news of the gospel. That’s why God’s placed you in your neighborhood, that’s why God’s placed you in your place of work, that’s why God has placed this church here, is to share the good news of Jesus.

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Romans 15:4-6

Outline with Blanks

Completed Outline

We’re going to read some scripture, just three verses. This is from Romans chapter 15, and the Apostle Paul writing, so you can follow along as I read Romans 15, four through six. The Apostle Paul writes, for everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in Scripture and the encouragement they provide, we might have hope. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And that’s what we’ve been trying to do this morning as well. Well, we started a series based on one Greek word in the New Testament, and we started that, I think, last week. The Greek word is allélón.

It’s translated one another. And so, that word outside of the Gospels is used 58 times in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul uses it 40 times.

And so, there’s a specific target here that the Apostle Paul and the New Testament writers are wanting to communicate to us that we have a responsibility to one another. And about 50 years ago, Dr. Gene Getz, who is a pastor in Texas and taught at Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote a book called Building Up One Another. And he looked at all these one another phrases in the New Testament, and he kind of grouped them together.

And we came up with 12 one another responsibilities that you and I have toward the body of Christ. And if you’re here last Sunday, we had an insert, and the insert was a picture of an umbrella. And the overarching umbrella phrase of one another is the phrase that’s found like 17 times in the New Testament, we’re to love one another.

In fact, Jesus said in John 13:34, this is the mark that marks us as a Christian. Not how often we go to church, not how many times we read the Bible, the mark of a Christian. How is the world going to know we’re followers of Jesus? By your love for one another.

And he says, I’m going to give you a new command, love one another as I have loved you. And so that kind of ups the responsibility, doesn’t it? Just as Christ has loved us, that’s how we are to love one another. And so underneath that umbrella command to love one another, then we put these 12 one another phrases that says, okay, this is what it looks like to love one another.

The last week we looked at the phrase, we are members one of another, and we learned that we’re part of the body of Christ. And we looked at 1st Corinthians chapter 12, the word their body is used like 15 times. And we looked at six truths that bind us together as part of the body of Christ.

And this morning we’re going to look at a second one another phrase, and it’s found in our scripture reading this morning, that we are to be like-minded toward one another, to be like-minded toward one another. It’s really the key to unity within the body of Christ. I hope you know that the enemy always has a target.

And Psalm 133 verse 1 says, blessed are those that dwell together in unity. And so, God wants us to live together in unity, but we have an enemy who doesn’t want the body of Christ to live together in unity, and who likes to divide and conquer. But this phrase, to be like-minded one another, is crucial to unity.

So, before we get to it, I want to just go back to John chapter 17, because this is what was on Jesus’ mind right before He went to the cross. John 17 records what’s called the high priestly prayer of Jesus. He’s about two days away from going to the cross, giving His life for you and me.

And He’s in the upper room, and He’s talking to His disciples, and it’s been a very difficult conversation. One of you is going to betray me. I’m leaving, and you can’t come with me.

By the way, Peter, you’re going to deny me three times. And the disciples were reeling, and Jesus tries to comfort them. But at the very end of that upper room discourse, we get to John 17.

And let me just read a couple of verses here from John 17. After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed, Father, the hour has come. This is it.

This is the key moment in all of human history. What’s the hour? The hour for me to give my life as a sacrifice for the world. This is the moment.

And so, He says, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. And then He goes on to pray for the disciples.

There’s 11 of them, because Judas Iscariot has already left the premises. And He’s praying for the disciples that God would protect them as Jesus leaves them and ascends to heaven. But then what else was on Jesus’ mind before He went to the cross? I find that before most people die, their thoughts, at least Christians, are in two areas.

They’re thinking about heaven. Their thoughts are turning toward heaven. But their thoughts also turn toward what? Their family and who they’re leaving behind.

My dad died during COVID. He was 91. He had some dementia and Alzheimer’s.

He was in a place called Rest Haven, which is a wonderful Christian home in Grand Rapids. And we knew that his time was coming short. And so, we had a parade of visitors that visited him up in Grand Rapids.

And they would wheel him out in the wheelchair. We had to have these visits outside. And so all six of his children, some of his spouses would make their way there.

I think almost all 17 of his grandchildren visited him. And during those visits, my mom would say to my dad, what do you want to tell your son? Do you have any thoughts on your heart that you want to tell him? We kind of knew, this is probably the last time. And he would share what was on his heart.

And then we got an opportunity to share with him. So, most people are thinking about their family. And Jesus was no different because he was thinking about you and me before he went to the cross.

Let me read the verses. Verse 20, my prayer is not for them alone, the 11 disciples. I’m not just praying for Peter, James, and John and all the disciples.

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message. So, he’s praying for what? All future believers. I’m not just praying for those 11, I’m praying for all those who will believe in me through their message.

What’s his prayer? That all of them might be one. Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you’ve sent me. That’s the message of unity.

I’ve given them the glory that you gave me and that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved me even as you have loved me. You see how important this like-mindedness and unity is? It sends the message to the world of the reality of the gospel, the reality of what Jesus has done.

So, you were on Jesus’ mind right before he went to the cross. He gave this wonderful prayer that we would all be one. Well, the apostle Paul had a similar prayer.

And we need to jump back to Romans chapter 15 and look at our outline if you want to follow along on the insert. So, here’s Paul’s prayer. Let me start in verse 5. May the God who gives endurance, that’s the word hupomoné, literally means to remain under, sometimes translated patience.

Endurance is probably a better translation here. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement. And so, Paul starts out by saying, God gives us endurance.

That word is often used in the Bible associated with trials. Because I don’t know about you, but when a difficulty in trial comes into my life, the first thing I want is, get me out of here. Lord, would you solve this problem? And sometimes God does that, but oftentimes He doesn’t.

And we have to have what the endurance and the strength to remain under that trial. How can we be encouraged in that? Well, we can be encouraged in that because James says that those types of trials, God’s doing something that He can probably only do while we endure that trial and He’s developing our character. And Romans chapter 5 speaks to that in verses 3 and 4. He says, we glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope.

And so, while we’re going through that trial, the God who gives us endurance, the God who gives us encouragement, which literally means to come alongside and to console how do we get consolation from God? Well, the promises of God’s Word, the Holy Spirit that lives within us, the encouragement of the body of Christ. And so, Paul begins his prayer and he says, hey, God wants to give you endurance, perseverance, and encouragement. And so, if you’re going through a trial today, I would encourage you that we need to look to God and His Word for that encouragement and endurance that He will give us as we persevere.

But then he gets to the request. What’s he asking of this God who gives endurance and encouragement? May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other. So, he’s praying the same thing that Jesus prayed there in John 17.

I want believers to be like-minded. I looked it up in some other translations. The ESV says, may God give you the ability to live in harmony with one another.

The New King James Version says be like-minded toward one another. This is all through Scripture that we need to be like-minded, and we’ll define that in a little bit. 1st Peter chapter 3, Peter writes in verses 8 and 9 these words if I can find it.

That’s why I’m talking slowly. Finally, all of you be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. And so, this whole concept of like-mindedness is all through the Bible.

So, like, well, what does it mean to be like-minded? Does that mean we all have to think exactly the same thoughts alike and that’s not what it means? We know within the body of Christ there’s great diversity, there’s differences of opinion, there’s different mindsets because we all come from different perspectives and backgrounds. Think about the 12 disciples. Matthew the tax collector worked for the Roman government.

Simon the zealot worked to overthrow the Roman government. So, we had one that was pro-government working for the government and one who the zealots were wanting to overthrow the Roman leadership, but they were all part of the same discipleship team. So be like-minded.

Here’s one definition, to be of one mind or like-minded means to be united in intent and purpose, in intent and purpose. And so, the like-mindedness for the body of Christ comes like, well, what is our purpose here this morning? Why do we come to church? We just finished a membership class last Sunday and one of the things that we went over rather quickly because of time constraints, but here’s a mission statement and we used to have this in our bulletin for years. The mission of Community Bible Church is to glorify God through developing devoted followers of Jesus Christ as we exalt the Lord through worship, edify one another through God’s Word, encourage one another through fellowship, and evangelize the lost in our local community and world through world missions.

And so, our purpose this morning as we come here is to not focus on ourselves, but to worship the Lord, encourage one another, grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. We’re planning a celebration Sunday again this year where we’re going to channel significant funds into world missions beyond the 14 missionaries that we support on a monthly basis. And we’ll be talking more about that, but what a joy.

If you’ve been on here, some of the previous ones, this will be like the fourth or fifth time we’ve done it, but we get big checks in size and in amount and have somebody present their ministry and say, here’s some of the checks from the pastor back by our little map back there on the right where we’ve channeled money into foreign missions because we want to partner with missionaries to get the gospel out. So, it’s to be like-minded in purpose, what’s our duty, but like-mindedness is like-mindedness in doctrine, in what we believe. And so, there’s historically been five fundamentals of the faith.

We call this bullet theology. These are truths that we should be willing to die for because they’re central to Christianity. And so, St. Augustine made the statement in essentials unity and non-essentials liberty.

So there’s various doctrines that we may disagree with, but here’s the five fundamentals of the faith, the inerrancy of Scripture, that the Bible is in the inspired, inerrant Word of God, the virgin birth and deity of Christ, that Jesus is the Son of God, that He was born of a virgin, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, His death on the cross, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and then the second coming of Christ. Those have historically been the five fundamentals. So that’s Paul’s prayer, may we be like-minded, but here’s the pathway to that.

And let me read the last part of verse 5 again. May God give you the same attitude of mind, like-mindedness toward each other that Christ Jesus had. Oh, okay, we’re supposed to have the same mindset toward each other that Jesus had.

If you know your Scriptures, you know your New Testament, if I were to ask you, what chapter passage in the Bible will give us the insight into what the mind of Christ is like, you would be correct if you said Philippians chapter 2. And so, let’s turn to Philippians chapter 2 because it gives us the pathway to like-mindedness. It’s having the mind of Christ. And so, the Apostle Paul writes to the Philippian believers in Philippians chapter 2, this great passage.

Let me pick it up in verse 2, make my joy complete. That almost reminds me of Arnold Schwartz, make my day is what Paul is saying. Make my joy complete.

How? By being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. So, I want you to bring joy to me, the Apostle Paul says, as your shepherd, as your pastor, by what being like-minded, have the same love toward one another. Well, how does that happen? He tells us.

How do we get the mind of Christ? First of all, two things to avoid. He goes on to say in verse 3, do nothing out of selfish ambition. So, here’s the first thing, you need to examine your motives.

You need to examine your motives. Why do I do what I do? And the Apostle Paul says, don’t do anything out of what? Selfish ambition, the motivation to elevate oneself, to put one’s own interests before another, to do everything because it benefits me to be self-serving. That’s what the world tells us to do.

Look out for yourself. Look out for number one because no one else is going to, but it’s the exact opposite message of what the Bible tells us to do. We’re all born with an inherent, sinful, selfish bent.

What’s maybe the third word that a young child says? Dada, mama. Number three or four is going to be mine. Mine.

That’s mine. And we spend a whole lifetime trying to move from selfishness to selflessness. So, the Scriptures say, evaluate your motives.

And Jesus taught on this in Matthew chapter 20. What’s greatness in the kingdom of God? Jesus says, I’ll tell you what, it’s the opposite of the world’s view. Greatness, you want to be great? Become a servant.

The pathway up in the Christian life is the way down. God will elevate you, but we have to what? Humble ourselves. And so, examine your motives.

Don’t do anything out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. There’s the second thing we need to avoid. That’s pride.

Vain conceit. Now, there’s a proper pride, isn’t there, that is not sinful? We’re proud of our kids when they make great accomplishments or our grandkids, but there’s a sinful pride that excludes God and focuses on self. In fact, Proverbs 16 through 19 says there’s seven sins that God hates.

And the first one is He does not like a proud heart, a proud look. And so, examine your motives. Don’t do things out of selfishness.

Don’t do things because of pride and wanting to elevate self. But then He goes on to say, examine your priorities. So, if we’re going to have the mind of Christ, what are my motives? And I just have to say we need to be careful in judging other people’s motives.

Paul in 1st Corinthians 4 says, you know, they were kind of judging Paul and he said, ultimately it is God who judges our motives. He knows the intent of our heart. So, examine our motives.

Examine our priorities. Here’s the second thing we need to do to have the mind of Christ, and it’s found in the last part of verse 3, rather in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interest of others. And so, what are your priorities? Are you thinking of other people? Do you put the needs of other people above yourselves? Or are you just focused on you? That old acrostic about finding joy in life, and it’s this little Jesus, others, and you.

There’s a lot of truth to that. And so, we need to examine our priorities. This is really a key to a lot of areas of life.

We had a wedding yesterday afternoon. One of the keys to marriage is right here. What are our priorities? When you get married, your priorities shift.

And better not just be looking out for yourself, but you need to put what the priorities of your spouse before your own. I know many have been impacted by the death of Charlie Kirk, and don’t need to…Charlie Kirk was not perfect. Jesus Christ is our model.

But we also need godly role models that we can imitate. The Apostle Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ. And as I’ve listened to what went on in Charlie Kirk’s life and his passion for Jesus, his wife, Erica, I’ve heard her say this a couple times, that Charlie Kirk constantly came to his wife, Erica, and said, how can I be a better husband toward you? Can you share with me, how can I serve you better? He asked that question over and over again, because his priority now wasn’t himself, but it was serving his wife.

That becomes a priority when we become parents then too, doesn’t it? Even more so. So, we’re not only serving our spouse, but then we’ve got children, and we’re serving the needs of our children, and it takes time and energy and resources, but we put their needs ahead of ours, oftentimes, as parents. It’s also true in ministry.

Some people say, I feel called to be a minister and minister and serve. Like, you like putting yourself last? You like putting everybody else first and focusing on their needs and their concerns? The very word deacon in the Bible means what? Servant. We have five of them, and they do a good job.

They do a good job. But you want to become a church officer as a deacon, and you need to learn to get into servanthood mode. The apostle Paul writes to the Philippian church later in chapter 2, and Paul can’t come to the Philippian church because he’s in prison, so he’s looking for somebody to send, and he thinks of one guy that he can send.

And here it is, Philippians 2:19 through 21, I hope in the Lord to send Timothy to you soon. Verse 20, I have no one else like him who will show genuine concern for your welfare, for everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. So, Paul says, hey, Philippian church, I’m going to send one of my guys to you, and he’s Timothy, because he’s the one guy that I can count on who will what? Will serve you and look out for your interests rather than his own.

Well, here’s the pathway to the mind of Christ. Examine your motives, examine your priorities. Here’s the third truth, then it’s found in the passage, have the same attitude as Jesus.

And we won’t take time to read verses 5 through 11, but this is a great, great passage that talks about the humility of Christ in leaving heaven and becoming human flesh and becoming obedient all the way to what? The crucifixion. And how did that happen? Because Jesus embraced, number one, humility. Let me read just a portion of this, verse 8, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. became obedient by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. So, have the same attitude of Jesus, that means humility. He not only taught it, He lived it.

Because you remember earlier in the Upper Room Discourse, John chapter 13, if we go back to the beginning of that passage, here are the disciples and they’re going to celebrate the Passover, it’ll be their last one together, and Jesus infuses new meaning into those elements. But what happens? They all come, they’ve been wearing sandals, they’ve been walking on dusty, dirty roads, there’s no servant there, which is the traditional responsibility would be what? To wash the feet of your guests. And they all sit down and all of a sudden, they look around and Jesus takes off His outer garment and He puts a towel around His waist and He bends down and He washes the feet of 12 disciples, even Judas Iscariot, who was soon to betray, turn Him in, and Peter, who was soon to betray Him.

That’s humility, and Jesus modeled it. So, what’s the attitude of Jesus? It’s humility, it’s servanthood, He took on the form of a servant, His whole life was about servanthood, the Son of Man has come, what? To seek and to save the lost, to be a servant.

And then the third word that would describe the mind of Christ, humility, servanthood, obedience. Obedience became obedient to death, even death on a cross. So, you want to have the mind of Christ, then be humble, be a servant, be obedient to what God has called us to do in following Him. Well, that leads us then to the purpose.

So, there is the prayer that you might be like-minded, the pathway is to examine your motives, examine your priorities, have the same attitude of Jesus, humility, servanthood, obedience. And now when we get back to Romans chapter 15 verse 5, the purpose, why are we to do all this? What’s the big picture? And verse 6 gives us the answer to that. Have the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that, here it is, so that, here’s the purpose, with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, why are we to do all this? Because God wants us to give Him glory, to glorify God with what? With our thoughts, our lives, and our voices. So, as we sing songs, I encourage you to sing. Think about the words and don’t let your mind wander, but say, you know, God’s created me to what? To give Him glory by what? Using my voice and singing praise to Him in many other ways.

Question number one in the Westminster Shorter Catechism is, what is the chief purpose of man? One of the reasons I love the Bible is because it gives the answer to man’s three key questions. Where did I come from? Genesis 1 and 2. Why am I here? We’re talking about it right now. You are here to glorify God.

Where am I going? And the Bible gives us that answer through the message of salvation. But what is the chief purpose of man? Westminster Shorter Catechism, the chief purpose of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. To glorify God is to extol His attributes, to praise His works, to trust in His name, to obey His Word.

1st Corinthians 10 31 says, in everything you do, glorify God. It’s not just a Sunday morning thing for an hour or an hour and 15 minutes, but in everything we do, our mindset should be to glorify God. And there’s some specific things in Scripture that specifically point out how to bring glory to God.

Joshua chapter 7 verse 19, an Old Testament story from the story of Achan. If you’re familiar with that story, I won’t go over it, but Achan sinned, stole some things, and Israel suffered judgment. They lost some battles because there was sin in the camp.

And finally, Joshua confronts Achan, and this is what he says, my son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and honor Him. Tell me what you have done. Do not hide it from me.

The one thing that glorifies God is when we confess our sin and acknowledge that we’re going to agree with God and what we’re doing is wrong. And so, Joshua says to Achan, glorify God by confessing your sin and making it right. Confession of sin glorifies God.

Worship glorifies God. And we won’t look at some of the passages here. 1st Chronicles 16 is a great passage.

Doing good works glorifies God. We’re not saved by good works, but God has called us to do good works. The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5 verse 16, Jesus says, in the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Ephesians 2:10, we’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, but then not by works. He makes it very clear, but in verse 10 of Ephesians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul writes these words, for we are God’s workmanship, His handiwork, creating Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And so, when we do good works, when we reach out to help a neighbor in need, when we take a meal to someone that is in need, when we become the hands and the feet of Jesus to other people, we’re doing good works not to praise ourself, but to give glory to God.

I don’t know if you remember this. This is a number of years ago. I think it was during COVID, but we called it the Great Gas Giveaway. And people were hurting in our community, so we went to the local gas station uptown that would work with us and said, hey, we have $5,000, would we be able to get 50?

So, we got 100 $50 gas cards. And we wrote up a little note, and the first thing we did is we went to the Community Resource Center, and we partnered with them, and we put a tract in there, and a little note about our church, and just said, hey, if a $50 gas card can bless you and encourage you, then this is God’s gift that we can channel through you. And we gave away 100 of those.

And I think it met a need. What was our purpose in doing that? Not to say, oh, look how great Community Bible Church is. No, it was like we wanted to give God the praise and God the glory.

And so, the whole purpose of this is to glorify God. And so, Paul’s prayer, let’s be like-minded, let’s strive for unity. How does that happen? Through the mind of Christ and examining our motives, examining our priorities, humility, servanthood, obedience.

And what would it look like if all of us had the mind of Christ? How would that revolutionize our relationships? It would revolutionize our marriages. It would revolutionize our homes. It would revolutionize our church if all of us adapted and tried to live out the servant mind of Christ.

And it’s my prayer that God will lead us in that direction, that we’ll adopt the mind of Christ for His honor and glory.

The post Be Like-Minded Toward One Another – Romans 15:5-6 appeared first on Community Bible Church.

Romans 12: 3-8

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Well, just a little overview for where we have been over the last few months. So, we spent about four months studying the book of 1st Thessalonians and finished that up a few weeks ago.

And I’m very comfortable in doing book studies. And so, we’ll get back to that. But last week we looked at a sermon entitled, Don’t Worry, Be Happy.

And we tackled this whole issue of worry in our lives. And we shared some spiritual disciplines that God has given us to have victory over worry. And the first one was to recognize that the Bible says worry is a sin.

You might say, well, where does the Bible say that? Well, we looked at Matthew chapter 6 and the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said four times, do not worry, do not worry, do not worry, do not worry. And so, we looked at how to have victory over worry. And I hope you have made some progress in your life this last week.

Something that I struggle with, worry, on a regular basis, but God’s given us resources to overcome it. This morning we’re going to think about a series entitled One Another. There’s a Greek word in the Bible, it’s allélón, it’s translated one another.

And outside of the Gospels, it’s found 58 times in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul uses it 40 times. And it speaks to the fact that the Christian life is not to be lived in isolation, but in community with one another.

So about 50 years ago, a pastor and professor at Dallas Seminary, his name’s Dr. Gene Getz, wrote a book entitled Building Up One Another. And he studied all of these 58 phrases in the New Testament that are found one another phrases. And he discovered that when you boil it all down, there’s like 12 one another commands in the New Testament.

Maybe to no surprise that the most common one is the command to love one another. It’s found 16 times in the New Testament. In fact, Jesus in John 13 says that’s to be the defining mark of a Christian.

By this will all men know that you are my disciples by how you, what, love one another. And so, this phrase is found over and over again in the New Testament. I think you’ve got this insert in your bulletin, and this might kind of illustrate where we’re going to head in the next few weeks.

So, as we look at these one another phrases, I picture this love one another phrase that’s found over and over again. It’s kind of an umbrella phrase in the New Testament that we’re to love one another. But then when we look at these 12 one another statements, it tells us how we’re to flesh that out.

What does it look like to love one another? Now we’re not going to study all 12 of these, but we’ll hit several of them. So, to love one another means we greet one another. We serve one another.

These are all found in the New Testament. Commands, bear one another’s burdens. We’re members of one another.

We’re to be devoted to one another, to honor one another, bear with one another, submit to one another, encourage one another, be of the same mind, accept one another, admonish one another. Those are all commands that are given us of how we are to relate to one another and to love one another. So, this morning we’re going to look at one of them, and it was found in Romans chapter 12, verses 4 and 5, that we are members of one another.

So, here’s the verse, Romans 12:4 and 5, for as in one body we have many members, and the members do not have all the same function. So, we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another. So, the apostle Paul says we’re part of this one body, and we’re members of one another.

Now there’s two aspects of the church found in the New Testament. There’s something called the universal church, and that’s comprised of every believer on the planet that’s put their faith in Jesus Christ. And then there’s the local church, and Paul wrote letters to local churches in the New Testament, and that’s the second aspect of church that’s in the scriptures, and that’s our church here, Community Bible Church, the local expression of a church.

And so, this morning we’re going to look at 1st Corinthians chapter 12. If you have your Bibles, you can turn there, and we can discover that the apostle Paul, when he uses the phrase one another in 1st Corinthians chapter 12, he uses an illustration to illustrate how the body of Christ is to function. And the illustration that he uses is the human body.

The Bible uses examples of the human body to illustrate how we are to function as the body of Christ. So, this morning, and we’re going to go through this rather quickly, we’re going to think about six truths from 1st Corinthians chapter 12 that describe our relationships within the body of Christ, that we are members one of another. So, let’s begin to zip through these rather quickly.

Here’s the first one that I want us to realize. It’s this, the moment we receive Jesus Christ as personal Savior, we are placed into the body of Christ. So, you might say, well, am I a part of the church, the universal church? Well, if you’ve received Jesus Christ as your Savior, at that moment, the Scriptures say we were all baptized into faith in Christ.

Let me read the passage here. It’s 1st Corinthians 12:13, where we’re all baptized, that means placed into in this context, where we’re all placed into by one Spirit to form one body, whether Jew or Gentile, slave or free. So, the moment you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior, the Bible says you were placed into the body of Christ.

You are literally in Christ, and Paul references that many times. And so back in November of 1963 in Cleveland, Ohio, as an eight-year-old boy, almost 62 years ago, I knelt down in the upstairs bedroom of our home after a worship service with my father, who happened to be the pastor of the church, and he led me to Jesus Christ. And at that moment, I was placed into the body of Christ.

And so, the moment we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, we become part of the body, and we sing these choruses, I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God, the body of Christ. Secondly, the body of Christ is made up of many different ethnic, socioeconomic groups. Paul goes on to say in verse 13 of 1st Corinthians 12, we’re baptized into one body, whether Jew or Gentile, slave or free, we were all given to one Spirit to drink.

And so, I want us to think of this universal worldwide church called the body of Christ, and it is multi-ethnic, different economic groups. Paul lists Jew or Gentile, slave or free. Back in the first century, there were probably 20 million slaves in the Roman Empire, and many of them came to faith in Christ.

And so, the body of Christ is made up of many different ethnic groups and socio-economic groups. And look around our auditorium this morning, you would think that maybe the gospel is only for white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. There are more believers in Jesus Christ and the continent of Africa, twice as many than there are in the United States of America.

The body of Christ is made up of a huge, different ethnic, socio-economic groups. And here’s one of the most encouraging verses in all of Scripture, Revelation 7, it’s a future worship scene in heaven. And here’s what John writes, and I looked and there before me was a great multitude.

So, we just sang about when we all get to heaven, let me tell you what is going to happen in heaven. Here’s the scene that’s going to happen. I saw a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language, from every ethnic group, from every nation, there will be people there.

Now there’s 195 nations on the planet and they’re all going to be there. And they’re wearing white robes and they’re holding palm branches in their hands and they’re crying out in a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And then John describes the worship scene that takes place in heaven.

Well, isn’t that going to be a great worship service someday? And I look forward to that, I hope you do as well. So thirdly, here’s the third truth about the fact that we’re all members of the body of Christ. The body of Christ is made up of many interdependent parts.

The body of Christ is made up of many inter-dependent parts. And again, Paul references that and here in 1st Corinthians chapter 12, he’s illustrating the body and he says, some are the hand, some are the eye, some are the feet. So just as our bodies function differently with many different parts, that’s how the body of Christ functions.

Many inter-dependent parts. And so, Paul says, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them just as he wanted them to be. And so, the eye cannot say, I don’t need you, and the feet cannot say, I don’t need you.

And so, for the body of Christ to function, and we’re going to see this, we all have a role and they’re all interconnected to have the body of Christ function as God wants us to. Here’s the fourth truth that Paul lays out for us, we’re members one another. No individual member of the body is more or less important than the other.

That this body of Christ, where we all come together and we worship the Lord and we want to find our place in the body and function, no individual member is more important than any other. Paul writes about it in verse 22, on the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And the parts that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor.

And the parts that are unpresentable, we are treated with special modesty. While our presentable parts need no special treatment, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body. And so, no part of the body is more important than the other.

Now let’s just illustrate that. On Sundays when we come together, there’s some parts of the body functioning that are more visible than others. And so, we have a worship leader that leads us in worship, and we have musicians that play the clavinova and the piano, and most Sundays we have someone that comes up and gives special music, and obviously there’s someone that gives a message.

Those are maybe the visible parts, but none of those roles are any more or less important than the rest of the roles. And having Hannah here as part of Ethnos 360 serving in the Home Office in a support behind-the-scenes role is a perfect example of that. That the frontline missionary in Papua New Guinea who’s trying to get God’s truth into the lives of those indigenous people who’ve never heard of, some of them, the name of Jesus before in their life, that person is no more important than Hannah in the support role who enables them to go.

And the same is true in the Church of Jesus Christ. And so, throughout the week here, there’s people that serve. Did you ever notice when you come into the church that the church is clean? That’s because we have someone who cleans the church.

And on Monday night we have a group that meets together and studies the Gospel of Mark and has a prayer time together, and on Wednesday we’ve got the AWANA program and about 20 of you work in that program, and we’re reaching 50 or 60 kids a week, and there’s ministry going on, there’s youth group going on, there’s a Bible study going on, and then someone on Thursday is leading a Bible study. Saturday morning, a men’s study. Many roles functioning.

You ever notice that the grass looks nice and the building is taken care of? Because people are serving and doing that throughout the week. And on Sunday there’s many behind-the-scenes people, people that come in early and make coffee. Although I noticed that, well, I’m not sure it was done this morning, but it usually is.

And there’s greeters at the front door, and there’s junior church teachers that are ministering to the kids while we’re worshiping up here. There’s nursery workers. And last week I heard that there…this is good news for us, that we had eight kids in the nursery, so we might need to recruit some more nursery workers here if that is kind of your giftedness.

We have sound engineers, tech crew, Sunday school teachers, people that keep up the website, a treasurer that pays our bills. We had a nominating committee that met this week, people serving in that area. And all of these roles are important, and none is less or more important than the other because we all need everyone to do their part for the body to function.

All right, number five, here’s a fifth truth from 1st Corinthians, Paul talking about we’re members of one another, we’re all part of this body. Verse 25, God puts us all together so that there’ll be no division in the body. Here it is, but that its part should have equal concern for each other.

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices. So, here’s the principle, when you’re part of the body of Christ and part of a local fellowship, Paul says what affects one person in the body should affect us all.

In other words, when someone’s in stress, in crisis, or going through some major difficulty, we should all feel that. When we get up on Sunday morning and announce that a couple here had a new baby girl, we should all embrace that and rejoice in that. That’s what the body of Christ does because when one part is hurting, it impacts us all.

I remember years ago, we were down in Florida before new year’s, I had a toothache the day before, and it got worse. And I’m at Disney World trying to enjoy time with my family, and my tooth is killing me. And my whole body hurt.

I didn’t get to a dentist until January 2nd, and they pulled that tooth, and I finally got some relief. Paul says when one part of the body hurts, the whole-body hurts. That’s not only true physically, but it should be true spiritually as we enter into each other’s joys and sorrows.

And Paul writes about that in Romans 12, verse 15, rejoice with those that rejoice, and mourn with those that mourn. And the key to that is really in Philippians 2:5, where Paul says, let this mind be in you which was also in Jesus Christ. Have the mind of Christ.

What was the mind of Christ? Others-oriented. To focus on other people, and their needs, and their concerns. That’s what the mind of Christ does.

And as we do that, we can enter into their joys, and we can also enter into their sorrows. Well, last one of these six truths about the body of Christ. Here’s truth number six.

Each member of the body has been given a spiritual gift designed to edify or build up the body. This is how Paul concludes this section. And this truth is true in many places in the New Testament.

There’s like four or five passages that talk about spiritual gifts. You might say, well, what is a spiritual gift? The Bible says the moment you were saved; God gave you at least one spiritual gift. There’s about 20 of them listed in the New Testament.

And our job is to discover what that is, and then to develop and deploy that gift as we serve others. There’s serving gifts in the Scripture, there’s speaking gifts, and there’s also sign gifts. But notice how Paul finishes this section.

Now, you are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it. God has placed in the church, first of all, apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, gifts of healing, gifts of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues.

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have the gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? No, we eagerly desire the greater gifts. Now, when it comes to spiritual gifts, there’s 20 in the New Testament. There’s a little bit of a difference of opinion in are the sign gifts, which are healing and speaking in tongues, still functioning today? And there’s charismatic, what we call charismatic churches that believe that, that they’re still in use today, and so therefore their services have speaking in tongues and maybe a healing service.

Some of us believe in, this is from a passage in, I believe it’s in 1st Corinthians, it is in 1st Corinthians 13, that those sign gifts were given for a certain period and a certain purpose, and so they’re no longer functioning today. Love never fails, 1st Corinthians 13, but where there are prophecies they will cease, where there are tongues, they shall be stilled. So, but that’s not a disagreement within Christianity that should separate us.

There’s differences of opinion there, but the main truth is that God has given you a spiritual gift. Some gifts of pastor-teachers is a gift, the gift of encouragement, the gift of leadership, the gift of giving, the gift of serving. And so, as we study these passages, I’ll give them to you, Romans 12, Ephesians 4, 1st Peter chapter 4, 1st Corinthians 12, you see all these gifts listed, and God wants us to find what our gift is and to use it in the context of the body of Christ to build each other up.

As each one does its part, that’s Ephesians 4:16. And so, I really believe, and this is a sanctified speculation, but someday we’re going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ if we’re a believer. Not to have our sins judged, that’s already been taken care of, but we’re going to be evaluated and rewarded according to our faithfulness.

I really believe one of the questions on the final exam that God might ask us is, did you discover your spiritual gift? And if so, what did you do with it? In other words, did you find your place in the body of Christ, your role, and how faithfully did you serve me? And so, I’ll just give you a heads up, might be on the final exam when we stand before Jesus, and what I want to be able to say is, yes, and I serve you to the best of my ability. And so, each of us has been given a gift, and it’s been given to build up and encourage the body of Christ. All right, four questions as we close this morning for us to think about.

I don’t think they’re on the screen, but here they are. Number one, am I a member of the body of Christ? There are many people that sit in churches Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, and they’re going to church, but they’ve never understood the gospel. They’ve never personally received Jesus Christ as payment for their sin debt.

As I like to tell people, sin has to be paid for. Either you’ll pay for it, or you can put your faith in Jesus, who already paid for your sin debt. And so, am I part of the body of Christ? And so, that’s a crucial, crucial question.

Number two, am I living the Christian life in isolation or interdependence, interconnectedness with each other?

And number three, am I entering into the joys and sorrows of the body of Christ? And so, when they come together as the body, do I look to encourage one another? Do I look to maybe reach out and say, hey, how can I pray for you? How can I encourage you? What’s going on in your life?

Great questions to ask. And lastly, am I using my spiritual giftedness? Have I discovered what that is? And am I using that to build up the body of Christ? Well, the apostle Paul says we all belong to this organization called the body of Christ. And I trust you’re a part of the body, the universal church, but also God designed us for you to be part of a local church where you can grow and serve, rejoice with others, and also enter into their sorrow.

And that’s how God designed us to live.

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Matthew 6:25-34

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We’re going to read some scripture, and we’ll multitask here. So, this is from Matthew chapter 6, verses 25 through 34. Did you ever wonder what Jesus would say to us if He could talk to you directly? Well, we have His Word, and I’m thinking if Jesus was here, and He is, He would say these words to us. So, this is from the Sermon on the Mount, and I think this is what Jesus wants us to hear this morning. I’m going to read Matthew 6 beginning in verse 25, and you’ll see the theme here, you’ll hear the theme that’s over and over through this passage.

Jesus said, therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, about what you’ll eat or drink, or about your body or what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin, yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, you of little faith? So do not worry.

What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them, but seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Here it is a fourth time. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own. Some of us can say amen to that. All right, so 37 years ago, there’s a song that came out, and I remember this song. It had an interesting title, a catchy tune.

It was sung by a fellow by the name of Bobby McFerrin. And the words to the song and the title are, Don’t worry, be happy. As I thought about the words of that song, and I don’t think Bobby Ferrin took those concepts from Scripture, but I want to tell you this morning, the only people on the planet that can genuinely not worry and be happy are Christians. That’s really the theme of the Apostle Paul in the book of Philippians that we studied a number of months ago.

Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Paul’s writing from prison.

He recognized that God had him there for a plan and a purpose. And he also writes, and we’ll look at this verse in a little bit, do not be anxious about anything. Do not worry about anything.

And then he gives us some instructions. And I propose to you today that the people that can only genuinely do that are believers, and there’s some reasons why, and so we’ll look at that in a little bit. So, it’s confession time.

James 5:16 says, therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other. So, this morning, if this was a Warriors Anonymous group, and we’re all sitting in a circle, and I walked in the door, I would have to stand up and say, hi, my name is Ron, and I struggle with worry. Now you would think, because next month I’ll have been a follower of Jesus for 62 years.

You would think after 62 years of following Jesus that a person would not be struggling with this concept of worry. And yet, I think if we’re honest, we all have these worries in our life. Growing up, we worry, and we get into those middle school years, and we worry about grades, and we worry about fitting in, and we worry about whether we’re going to make the sports team or not.

And then life gets even more challenging. You get into high school, and you graduate, and you try to have to figure out, okay, what’s God’s plan for my life? Am I supposed to go to college? Am I supposed to go into the military? Am I supposed to go into the workplace? And that brings all sorts of different worries in our life. Perhaps we get married, and we begin to worry.

And then parenting comes. I don’t want to discourage the young parents here, but having raised three boys and now having eight grandchildren, this is the easy part when they’re young. Because as they get older, the ramifications of choices get greater.

They begin to drive. That begins a whole new set of worries. I remember my mom, when we were teenagers, we would be driving and getting home for our curfew, and my mom would always say, well, I can’t go to sleep until I hear the garage door shut.

And I would, say oh come on, Mom, you know, don’t worry. And then we became parents of teenagers, so we worry about driving. We worry about dating.

And quite frankly, I felt like once you launch your kids, you wouldn’t have any worries. And the opposite’s true. You worry about their marriage.

And then grandkids come along, and all those things cycle of things that people have to go through, you become concerned about. Are they going to be followers of Jesus? What about our grandkids growing up in the culture in which we live? And so, worry. And yet Jesus says, don’t worry.

Now, there’s some consequences to worry. There’s some spiritual consequences. Mark chapter 4 verses 18 and 19, Jesus is telling the parable of the Sower.

And he says, the seed, the Word of God is sown among the thorns, and some hear the Word, but the worries of life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke the Word, making it unfruitful. So, Jesus says, some people don’t receive the Word of God because they’re worried. And maybe that happens on Sunday mornings at times where we’re so worried about something, we can’t even focus on what God wants to say to us through His Word.

Worry has physical effects on us. Now, this is going to sound like the prescription commercial, and now you’re going to hear all the side effects. You know, like, well, why would I take that with the 12 side effects? Listen to this.

This is the physical consequences of worry. A lifestyle of constant worry has serious consequences on the body’s system, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, immune, and others. Anxiety, literally, this is Proverbs 12:25, weighs down the heart.

Ongoing fear and worry can contribute to a wide range of problems. Here, might as well depress each other this morning. Digestive issues, dizziness, fatigue, frequent illness, headaches, high blood pressure, inability to concentrate, insomnia, irritability, loss of appetite, loss of libido, muscle aches, tension, rapid breathing, shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, palpitations, or chest pain, stomach aches, nausea.

I’m almost done. Trembling, twitching, and if left unaddressed, uncontrolled worry can lead to depression, anxiety disorders, and even heart attack. So, when Jesus says, don’t worry, he has some good reason why he says, don’t be fearful and anxious and worrying all the time.

It’s not good for your spiritual life. It’s not good for your physical life. The good news in the next half hour this morning in 25 minutes or so is that God has given us some resources to help us have victory over worry.

And so, we’re going to look at that this morning and see some biblical principles that spiritual disciplines that will help us if you’re like me in our challenge to not worry. So, let’s look at our outline here. Here’s the first truth.

Be aware of the strategy of the enemy. Simply want to say that we’re in a spiritual battle. This is Ephesians chapter 6. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

I should have read verse 11, put on the full armor of God so that you may stand against the devil’s schemes. So be aware of the strategy of the enemy. Paul’s writing about the devil’s schemes.

The Greek word there is methodeia. We need to understand how Satan works. And one of the avenues that he works in our life is that he wants us to have a worry-filled, anxiety-filled life rather than experiencing the joy that God wants us to live with.

John 10:10, the words of Jesus, the thief, that’s our enemy, the thief comes only to what? Steal, kill, and destroy. That’s Satan’s goal. He wants to steal your joy.

He wants to divide and conquer. But Jesus says, I have come that you might have life and you might have it to the fullest. And so, Paul writes to Timothy and says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind.

So, we need to understand this is a spiritual battle. And our enemy wants nothing more than to have us living an anxiety, fear-filled, worried life. Now here’s the second point, and then we’re going to get to the main point.

The second truth is this. Acknowledge what the Bible, what the scriptures tell us about worry. And here’s what we need to acknowledge, that worry is sin.

Now, we tend to categorize sins, and this will be an oxymoron, but when we think about things like worry and pride, those are acceptable sins in Christian circles. That’s why it was kind of easy for me to stand up here and admit, like, I struggle with worry. You know, if I would have stood up here and admitted, like, I’m a kleptomaniac, you know, and I steal all the time, you’d be like, whoa.

But the sin of worry is kind of an oxymoron, acceptable sin. But what we need to realize is its sin. I mean, Jesus told us four times in Matthew 6 what? Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry.

And so, when we worry, we’re sinning. Philippians 4:6, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything with prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God. And so, the first thought here is we’re going to think about how we can have victory over worry is that we need to acknowledge that when we are worrying, we are sinning.

And at the core of the sin of worry is this, what it boils down to is we’re not trusting God. At the core of the sin of worry is we’re not trusting God because they’re mutually exclusive. We can’t say, well, I’m trusting God while we’re worrying about it.

No, we’re trusting ourselves. And so, acknowledge that the scriptures say, and it tells us that worry is sin. What did Jesus say in Matthew 6? Like, hey, trust me, I’m going to provide for you.

Look at the birds. They don’t work, and I provide for them, and the lilies of the field, and I clothe them. He’s basically saying, have faith and trust me.

And that’s easier said than done. And so, acknowledge that worry is a sin. Now, here’s where we’re going to spend the rest of our time and most of our time.

And here’s our third point, and then we’re going to think about six spiritual disciplines that will help us have victory over worry. Point number three is this, recognize the truth of 2nd Peter 1:3 and practice spiritual disciplines. Let me read you 2nd Peter 1:3. Peter’s writing to believers, God’s divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life.

And so, Peter says, God has given you and me all the resources we need to live a godly life, which includes not worrying. And so, my question as I read this, like, okay, what are some of these things, these godly resources that he’s given us so that we don’t have to worry? And we’re going to look at six of them quickly this morning of how we have victory over worry, and that’s what we’ll spend the rest of our time on. Here’s the first one, there’s six of them.

I don’t know if I have these on the screen or not. Maybe we do, we do. Here’s the first one.

Well, if worry is a sin, what are we to do with sin in our life? Now, some of you might say, well, wait a second, I thought Jesus forgave us all of our sins. He has. There’s a difference between our position in Christ and our practice.

And while we are justified and Jesus has forgiven us of all our sins, there’s also a daily battle in the Christian life where we continue to sin. And the psalmist says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord won’t hear me. Maybe, you know, like, God’s not hearing my prayers.

Maybe that’s because sin blocks our communication with God. So, here’s what 1st John 1:8 and 9 says. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves.

We’re not going to reach perfection, glorification until we get to heaven. So, if someone says, well, I don’t sin anymore. We’re like, no, you’re deceiving yourself.

The truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins, He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so, here’s the first step. We need to admit and confess; worry is a sin.

Lord, would you forgive me for trusting myself and not trusting you? Here’s the second spiritual discipline to have victory over worry, and it is a steadfast focus on God. So, when difficulty comes into our life, and I’m this way all the time, we begin to focus on our circumstance rather than focusing on Christ or rather than focusing on God. And the Bible tells us that we need to have a steadfast focus on God.

Hebrews 12, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Keep your eyes on Him and specifically two areas here, His character, who God is. Isaiah 26 verses 3 and 4, you will keep Him in perfect peace.

Those whose minds are steadfast, that means focused. Focused on what? Our circumstances? No. Focused on God.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord Himself, is the rock eternal. And so, we need to focus on the character of God when we’re tending to worry.

Someone said trusting God means to rely on in and place confidence in who God is. It is an act of submission to the self-existent eternal God. The character of God, that God is sovereign, that means He controls everything.

He’s already written the last chapter of human history. Read the book of Revelation, the book of Daniel, and He knows our circumstances, whatever they may be. He’s in control.

As my friend Benny Matthews, who has a wonderful ministry in India, Benny Matthews says all the time, I’ve heard him say this dozens of times, he says, God is large and in charge. And that’s true. And we need to remember that, not only that He’s in charge of the world and our political state and the state of our country, but He’s in charge of our lives, that He’s sovereign, that He’s infinite in wisdom, and that He is perfect in love.

So, we need to focus on who God is, His character, and His promises. And there’s all sorts of promises in the Bible that can help us with this whole matter of worry. And so, a steadfast focus and trust in God gives us a well-being, knowing that God has everything under control, even when things feel out of control, that God is in control.

He’s sovereign, He’s infinite in wisdom, and He’s perfect in love. Well, here’s a third spiritual discipline, and I don’t know if I have these in the right order. Maybe this should have been the second one, if we think about chronological order, but prayer, prayer.

We quoted Philippians 4:6, where Paul writes from prison, be anxious about nothing, don’t worry about anything. Okay, so what am I to do next? But in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. If we were to paraphrase that verse, we would say, don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything.

1st Peter 5:7, casting all your care upon Him, upon God. Why? Because He cares for you. And so, we pray, and it doesn’t mean that that’s all that we do.

Sometimes it’s prayer, sometimes there’s some action steps we need to take, but when we do all that God’s asked us to do, then we need to trust God and realize that He’s going to do His work in His time. And so, prayer is an essential spiritual discipline to help us have victory over worry. And I’m trying to make that my first response rather than the last resort.

Well, that’s, I think God wants us to have a first response of prayer when trials come, circumstances are difficult, we need to pray. Here’s number four, spiritual discipline. Live in 24/7 increments.

In other words, as the song says, how do we live our lives? One day at a time. That’s the only way you can live it, really. And so, we need to live our lives one day at a time.

And this is what Jesus told us when we read Matthew chapter 6 and verse 34. Here’s how He concluded that section, therefore, do not worry about tomorrow. Now, it doesn’t say don’t plan for tomorrow.

In fact, we need to plan. Some of us like to plan way far ahead. The Bible just says, hold your plans loosely.

It’s okay to plan, James chapter 4. Hold them loosely because God might have another plan. But we should not worry about tomorrow. We need to live one day at a time.

Corrie ten Boom said, worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, it empties today of its strength. So, we need to enjoy today as God’s gift to us. James Watkins wrote a book titled Overcoming Fear & Worry.

Let me read you what he has to say here. In today’s vernacular, obsessing and worrying about tomorrow instead of enjoying the gift of today is called future tripping. We’re all guilty of tripping over the future.

When I’m tempted to worry about tomorrow and beyond, I mentally talk myself off the ledge by appreciating the gifts of today. And then he lists the gifts that God has given them. And so, we can plan for tomorrow, we can prepare for tomorrow, but don’t worry about tomorrow.

God wants us to enjoy today. And so, here’s where I started future tripping. And granted, at this point in time, our two oldest grandkids were probably 11 and 9, like, oh man, I’m worried when they get their license, how are they going to navigate the corner of Sharon Hollow and US 12? And this is going to be very dangerous for them. And maybe they need to take another road, and avoid this corner.

And all of a sudden, I’m worrying about what’s going to happen five years from now. Are our grandkids going to be okay? And all of a sudden, like, that’s what future tripping does. God says, no, do not worry about tomorrow.

What’s the old hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness, that is strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Someone made a saying, a saying, God helped me yesterday and today he will do the same. How long will he do this? Forever.

Praise His name. And so do not worry about tomorrow. Well, here’s the fifth spiritual discipline to help us with worry.

Not only confess it as a sin and focus on who God is and His promises to provide for us and care for us and to pray and to live for today, not worry about tomorrow, but praise and gratitude. Praise and gratitude. This is a great, great way to overcome worry.

Let me read Colossians chapter 3 verse 15, Paul writing to the church at Colossae. Here’s what he has to say, Colossians chapter 3 verse 15, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. The word literally means umpire.

Let God’s peace rule in your heart since you are members of one body and were called to peace and be thankful, be thankful. We just finished studying 1st Thessalonians 5, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. And so, when we begin to live a life of thankfulness and gratitude and praise to God, um, we begin to see our worries go by the wayside.

The book of Hebrews says, therefore, let’s continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess His name. So, um, put some Christian praise music on that points you to God and to who he is and to give thanks for all the gifts that he’s given you today. That’ll help us chase those worries away.

Here’s something else. The next verse says, do not forget to do good and to share with others for with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. So, by the way, praise God.

And also, can you find somebody else in your circle of friends or your neighborhood that needs, needs some help or some assistance? And as you reach out to them, you’ll find yourself uplifted and you’ll get your focus off of yourself onto other people. And that’ll help you have a victory over worry. Here’s the last one.

And then we’ll, we’re going to close with a, a wonderful worship song that I think will encourage you. Um, we’re going to watch it on, on video, but here’s the sixth one. Um, God’s given us everything we need to live a godly life, confession of sin, steadfast focus on God, on His character, His promises.

We need to continually pray instead of worrying, live for today, don’t worry about tomorrow, praise and gratitude. Uh, number, number six is embrace community, embrace community. Hebrews 10:25.

The author of Hebrews is encouraging the Hebrew Christians to continue to live for God. Let me read verse 24, let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, loving others and doing good for others, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day approaching, that word day is capitalized.

It’s talking about the fact that Christ is coming again. And so, here’s what can help us with worry when we have a community of believers to help us through life’s trials. And that’s why the Bible says in Galatians, we are to bear one another’s burdens.

So, when we’re going through struggles, don’t go through them alone. Find somebody in the community of believers that you can share your struggles with, a loving, caring group of believers that will pray for you, will encourage you and say, how can we help you? That’s one of the reasons why we meet together regularly. That was what it meant to be a part of the early church in the book of Acts, the community of believers.

They were sharing life together. They were sharing meals together every day. And the Scripture says that there were no needy people in the early church.

They didn’t have a welfare system, a government welfare system. The church took care of their body of believers. How did they do that? Some people, when there was a need, sold their house or their land and brought it to the church leaders and say, hey, is there anybody in the community of believers that has a need? Give it to them.

And so, this is why oftentimes, and it hasn’t happened lately, but I’ve over the years had dozens and dozens of calls of people that are going through the church directory and they’re calling churches and they’re asking for help and assistance and money, and then they’re telling a story that you’re not sure it’s really true. Oftentimes, one of the first questions I’ll ask them, like, well, are you part of a church family? I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just saying, you know, one of the benefits of being a part of a church family is that if there’s somebody that’s a part of community Bible church and they have a financial need or a physical need, we want to know about that because, excuse the vernacular, we’ll have your back.

We just need to know about it so we can respond. And so that should ease your worries. I’m not going through this struggle alone.

I have some fellow believers that are going to pray for me and encourage me and maybe give a helping hand and maybe help meet a financial need. And so, victory over worry. God’s given us everything we need, confession, focus on God, prayer, live for today, praise and worship, and encourage one another.

Our oldest grandson has a t-shirt that I love. He wears it oftentimes and it says, faith over fear. And boy, do we need that, don’t we? When life comes at us, faith over fear.

So, Bobby McFerrin said, don’t worry, be happy. And the way we can do that is to implement these truths in God’s Word. Now, the flip side of this is if there’s a person here that has never received God’s gift of eternal life and put their faith in Jesus through what Christ did on the cross in pain for your sins, you need to worry because your eternal destiny is at stake.

And those that don’t receive God’s gift of eternal life are going to spend eternal separation from God in a place called hell. And so that’s why I said the only people that should not worry and can be happy are Christians. And so, if there’s somebody here that’s never put their faith in Jesus, I’d encourage you to do that today.

I would love to show you how you can do that. All right. Well, I want you to know this message was mostly for me because it’s easy to worry, isn’t it? And God says, don’t do it.

And as we follow His Word and these biblical spiritual disciplines, we’ll have victory over worry. It’s a daily battle, isn’t it? But we need to choose to obey, and so I hope that’s helpful.

The post Don’t Worry Be Happy – Matthew 6:25-34 appeared first on Community Bible Church.

I Thessalonians 5:23-28

Outline with Blanks

Completed Outline

we’re going to read some Scripture this morning. Words will be on the screen, and we’re going to finish up the book of 1st Thessalonians this morning, so we’re going to read verses 23 through 28 of 1st Thessalonians chapter 5, and here’s how the Apostle Paul closes his letter to the church in Thessalonica. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.

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. Brothers and sisters, pray for us.

Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss. I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

All right, 1st Thessalonians chapter 5, we’ve been in this book for about four months.

The theme is be ready. And what are we to be ready for? Well, we’re to be ready for the return of Christ. That’s the theme of the book.

In every chapter, there’s five chapters, the apostle Paul speaks of the fact that Christ is coming again someday. And so, the theme is to be ready for the return of Christ. And this morning, we’re going to look at these six verses and just kind of unpack them and then think about what are some application truths from the passage that we’re looking at this morning.

So, this is Paul’s final instructions. He’s wrapping up the book and he begins this last section here, I call it Paul’s prayer, by praying for the Thessalonian church. That’s how he started his letter, 1st Thessalonians 1:2, we always thank God for all of you continually mentioning you in our prayers.

So, Paul was constantly praying for the churches and for the believers at Thessalonica and as he closes his book, he offers a short prayer for these believers. And I want us to look at just three truths from this prayer that’s found in verses 23 and 24. First of all, notice how Paul begins his prayer.

Verse 23, may God himself, the God of peace. So, Paul refers to God as the God of peace. He is the source of peace.

He is the maker of peace. He is the one who gives us peace. There is no true lasting peace apart from knowing God.

And I like to talk about, and I’ve shared this many times, there’s a triad of peace in the Bible, three aspects of the peace that God wants to give you. First of all is peace with God. That’s Romans 5:1, therefore being justified by faith, we’ve made what? Peace with God.

If we’ve not taken that step, we are His enemies. But Jesus rescued us, sent Jesus to the cross so we could make that peace treaty with Him. And the book of Ephesians says Jesus Himself is our peace.

So, that’s the most important step, to make peace with God, to make peace with your Creator through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. But there’s a second aspect of peace that God wants to give us, and that’s the peace of God. This is the internal peace that we can have even when we’re going through the midst of a storm.

It’s like the eye in the middle of a hurricane and there’s tribulation and troubles all around us, but we can still have peace. How do we get that peace? Well, Philippians 4:6, and 7, be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So, our first response to trouble needs to be prayer.

And then when we do that, when we give it to God, here’s the promise, and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts, that’s our emotions, our minds in Christ Jesus. So, you can be going through a great, great trial, but God can still give you peace because you know Him, you know that He’s in control. And there’s a third aspect of peace that God wants us to experience, and that’s peace with others.

That’s our relational peace on our horizontal relationships. And Romans 12 talks about that. In fact, it’s the cover of our bulletin this morning, live peaceably with all men.

And when Paul writes that, he says, as much as it lies within you, as much as you can, live at peace with everyone. Sometimes it’s not possible to live at peace with everybody because peace takes reconciliation, it takes two people. So, those are the three kinds of peace that God wants to give us, peace with God, the peace of God, and peace with others.

Well, the apostle goes on to talk about another aspect in his prayer, not only that God is a God of peace, but that God is the agent of sanctification. God is the agent of sanctification. May God Himself, here’s the request, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.

So, there’s three aspects to salvation. When we put our faith in Christ, we are justified, we’ve made our peace with God, and we have that relationship restored. So, there’s the justification, we could say, I have been saved.

But then there’s a present aspect of our salvation, and that’s called sanctification. We could also say, I am being saved because God is continually wanting to work in our life, and it’s a lifelong process, and that’s what Paul’s talking about and praying for here. And this is what the Scriptures tell us to do; may you grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.

And then there’s a third aspect of our salvation, yet future, that is glorification. We could say, someday I will be saved. That’s when we’re in heaven and we have our new bodies and a glorified body and we’ll be like Jesus.

But how does this sanctification work out in our life? Well, God’s the agent of that. May the God of peace sanctify you. And it’s a cooperative process.

It’s not something that just happens automatically as we sleep or we put our Bible under our pillow at night and think we’re going to wake up more spiritual. Here’s what Paul says to the Philippians, therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, continue to work out your salvation, not work for, work it out with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to fulfill His purpose. So, this is a cooperative process, that as we obey, as we follow God’s Word in our life, we become more and more like Jesus.

John 17:17, Jesus says, sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. So, the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and He changes our life to make us more like Jesus. And that’s what Paul’s praying for here.

May the God of peace do His work of sanctifying you through and through and making you more like Jesus. And then there’s a second request. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of Jesus Christ.

So, God’s the agent of sanctification. And here’s another request. May God keep you blameless until what? Until Jesus returns.

And there’s different interpretations of Scripture, but we believe the Bible teaches eternal security. That once you receive Jesus as your Savior, you are secure in Him. And the Bible talks about faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it in the next verse.

So, God is going to, what, take us all the way home. There’s a picture in John chapter 10, it says the believers are in Jesus’ hand and God the Father’s hand is around Jesus’ hand, that we’re secure in the double clutch of Jesus and God. And we don’t have time to read that whole passage in Romans chapter 8, but let me just hit some highlights of it, where the Apostle Paul says and asks the question, if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also give us graciously all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

Who then is going to condemn us? No one. And then he goes on and says, what shall separate us from the love of Christ? And he gives a long, long list. Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors.

For I’m convinced that neither death nor life, angels nor demons, present nor future, nearer any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation can separate us from the love of Christ. And so, it is God who keeps us. It is God who will keep us all the way to the end.

And this is what Paul is praying about here. And he says in the next verse that the one who calls you is faithful and He will do it. And just saying that God’s the ultimate promise keeper, Titus 1:2 says, we have a God who cannot lie.

And so, if God says He’s going to do something, He will do it, and He’s going to carry us all the way to the end. Well, now we move on to verses 25 and 27, Paul’s prescription. So, it’s Paul’s prayer, Paul’s prescription.

There’s a request here, and then there’s two instructions. So, Paul’s prescription. Notice what he says in verse 25, brothers and sisters, pray for us.

Now, Paul regularly prayed for many, many people. If you read the New Testament, usually he starts his letters to the churches and the individuals, and he says, I am praying for you. And that’s all through Scripture.

But as I studied the New Testament in preparation for this message this morning, eight times in Scripture, Paul asked people to pray for him. So, he didn’t just pray for people, he’s saying, would you also pray for me? And whether we realize it or not, all of us are standing in the need of prayer. There’s an old hymn that says, it’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

Not my brother, not my sister, not my preacher, not the deacon, not my mother, not my father, not the stranger, nor my neighbor. It’s me standing in the need of prayer. And as I looked at this passage and realized how many times Paul asked for a prayer, I got a little bit convicted because I’m like, do I ever ask people to pray for me? I need to do that more.

And I hope you pray for your pastor because your pastor needs prayer, but you need prayer as well. And so, Paul boldly says, hey, would you pray for me? Brothers and sisters, keep me in prayer.

We need to pray for one another, don’t we? And Paul’s asking for prayer. Now, here’s the first of two instructions. And this is where our text gets rather interesting.

And if your mind’s kind of drifted, this verse is going to bring it back. Verse 26, greet all God’s people with a holy kiss. That’s interesting, isn’t it? I was thinking if we practice that literally, I don’t know if it would increase our attendance or decrease it.

Not sure. But this command is found in the Bible four times. Romans 16:16, greet one another with a holy kiss.

1st Corinthians 16:20, 2nd Corinthians 13:12, 1st Peter 5:14, I guess it’s in there five times. And also here in Thessalonians, greet one another with a holy kiss. So, what in the world? Have we been disobeying God’s word? Well, let me read to you just a couple paragraphs from a website that I go to often called Got Questions, very theologically sound.

And so, I just asked the question, what is a holy kiss? Are you ready? Here it is. It says there are several passages in the New Testament that refer to a holy kiss. I just listed them all.

In the New Testament times and in the culture of the Near East, a kiss was a common form of greeting among family and close friends. A kiss then symbolized love, brotherly affection, and fellowship. Hence the instruction to greet one another with a holy kiss cultivated a sense of unity and equality among believers.

The adjective holy signifies that this kiss is different from romantic or sensual kisses. Instead, it embodies the love, purity, and sanctity of Christian fellowship. Over the centuries, the practice of greeting one another with a holy kiss adapted to fit various cultural contexts.

What remained constant was the godly principle of mutual love and respect for brothers and sisters in Christ. Therefore, the essence of Paul’s instruction is the expression of genuine and sincere affection regardless of the form it takes. In contemporary Christian communities, the practice of greeting one another with a holy kiss varies greatly.

In Western churches, in the Western culture specifically, a kiss is often replaced with a handshake and a hug. You’re off the hook. This gesture signifies warm fellowship in Eastern Orthodox and Middle East churches.

However, the tradition of greeting one another with a literal kiss continues and is culturally appropriate. And so, the idea here is that we need to greet one another, warmly acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord, and there’s various ways to do that. So, one of the ways when we read Scripture, we need to read it with the context, we need to read it canonically, that means in comparison with other Scriptures, and we need to also understand the cultural context of the day.

And so, Paul’s prescription, pray for us, and then he says, greet all of God’s people. And then here’s another instruction that he gives to the Thessalonian believers, verse 27, I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. So, when Paul writes this to the church at Thessalonica, he says, I want this read to all the surrounding believers and churches in the area.

Remember, they had the Old Testament Scriptures, they did not have the New Testament, and so Paul says, I want the Scriptures read to all the brothers and sisters. And this is all through Scripture, isn’t it? That God wants us to read His Word, and we’re privileged to have His Word. There’s millions and millions of people that don’t have the Word of God in their own language.

That’s why we support Wycliffe Bible translators and Ethnos360, who go into tribal locations to record a language and translate God’s Word so they can hear the good news. And so, read God’s Word. One of the instructions that God gave to the Israelites when the Israelites said, hey, we want a king like all the other nations, rather than they rejected God as their king, basically, we want a physical human king.

And so, God gave some instructions about what that is to look like. And here it is, this is Deuteronomy 17:16 through 19 actually. The king, if you’re going to have a king, you can’t acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt.

He must not take many wives or his heart will be led astray. Well, Solomon blew that one. When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of the law from that of the Levitical priest.

It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord as God, follow carefully all the words of the law and the decrees. What’s God saying the king of Israel needs to do? He needs to write down God’s Word and read it every day. And that’s not only true for the king of Israel, but that’s true for us.

Bible reading frequency among Christians in the United States, here’s the statistics, 10 to 15% read it daily. A third of Christians in the U.S. read the Bible weekly or more. 50% read it a few times a year or never.

Latest survey, only 20% of Americans believe the Bible is the literal Word of God. 80% don’t believe the Bible is actually God’s Word. That’s down from 24% in 2017.

That tells me we don’t have a reading problem. We don’t have a problem of access to God’s Word. We have an authoritative problem that people have rejected this book as God’s authoritative Word, and most people put themselves in that place, and I’m going to determine my own truth.

Well, Paul says, hey, pray for us, greet God’s people, read the Word of God. Well, Paul’s prayer, Paul’s prescription, here’s Paul’s postscript. This is found in verses 28.

Here’s how he closes the book. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. That’s often in his greeting as well, but he closes by saying, may you experience God’s grace.

And we certainly need God’s grace in our life, don’t we? Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, we need God’s grace for salvation. For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it’s what, a gift of God? Not by works, lest any man should boast. We don’t work our way to heaven.

Heaven is God’s gift to us, God’s grace, someone that crossed it, God’s riches at Christ’s expense. He took our place. Sin had to be paid for.

Either you’re going to pay for it, or you receive what Jesus did on the cross in your place, and put your faith in Him to pay your sin debt. And so, God’s grace be with you. There’s saving grace, but there’s also sanctifying grace, and we need God’s grace for this work of sanctification in our life.

Titus 2:11 through 13, the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It also teaches us to say no to ungodliness, unruly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope, the return of Jesus. So, we need God’s grace for salvation, we need God’s grace to live a godly life.

The Apostle Paul was going through some difficult challenges, physical challenges, and he has what he called a thorn in the flesh, and many people think that he had very bad eyesight. And the Apostle Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians, he says, I asked God three times to take it away. God, would you heal me? Would you heal me? Would you heal me? And God chose, in His sovereignty, not to heal and take away Paul’s thorn in the flesh.

And so, let me read verse 8, three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness. So, Paul, I’m not going to take away your physical ailment, but what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you my strength and my grace to enable you to live with that. And someone said, God will either erase our pain or grace our pain.

And God’s grace is sufficient. And so, Paul closes this book by saying, may you experience God’s grace, and I trust that you have this morning. All right; I have five application questions.

We’re going to run through these real quick. So, let’s look at these five questions.

Here’s the first one. Have I made my peace with the God of peace? Have I made my peace with the God of peace? In other words, am I a Christian? 1st John 5:11 through 13 says, these things are written that you may know that you have eternal life, and this life is found in the Son. He who has the Son has life.

He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. And so, 61 years ago, as an eight-year-old boy in a church service in Cleveland, Ohio, where my dad was a pastor, I put my faith in Jesus and made my peace with God. And I trust that you’ve accepted the wonderful gift of salvation, and we accept it through prayer, and just recognize I can’t make it to heaven on my own.

I know that I’m a sinner. I’m turning from my sin, and I’m putting my faith and trust in Jesus, and Jesus alone as payment for my sin. I trust you’ve done that, and if you haven’t, we’d love to make sure that you know that before you leave here today. Secondly, am I growing in grace? Am I growing in sanctification? This was Paul’s prayer. Sometimes we can get stagnant in our Christian lives, and the Bible says, grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.

Are you more like Jesus today than you were two years ago? You should be. Should you be more of Christ’s love in your heart and the fruit of the Spirit? And so, growing in grace, and one of the gifts that God’s given to us so that we can do this is the body of Christ, the church. The Christian life is not designed to be lived alone, but in community and encouraging one another in our walk with God.

Thirdly, do I recognize my personal need for prayer? Why don’t we ask people to pray for us? Well, sometimes it might be because we feel like we’re self-sufficient. So, do I recognize, do I ask people to pray for me? And that’s, again, another good reason to be a part of a church family, because we can pray for each other, pray for each other’s needs.

I know the Monday night Mark Bible study; they pray for the needs as part of their Bibles. They’re not just studying the Gospel of Mark; they’re praying for you on Monday night. And I hope that you have some sort of, you know, there’s some prayer requests that need to go out to the whole church, but there are others that might be more in a smaller circle.

I hope you have some sort of group that you can shoot off a prayer request to, a small group text prayer group. Our church leadership kind of functions like that because we’re in a group text and we not only pray for one another by sharing those personal prayer needs, but we share the needs of the congregation. So, hope you have that place when a crisis hits that you can automatically turn to and you can have people praying.

Number four, do I take initiative in greeting other believers? So, the command, greet one another, holy kiss, isn’t a suggestion, it’s a command. It doesn’t say greet one another only if you are, like, an extrovert in your personality. You don’t get a bypass of, well, I’m an introvert. There’s no, like, wiggle room here, no, you are to greet others in the body of Christ. And so, take initiative.

We need to take initiative in greeting and welcoming the body of Christ. And then lastly, am I regularly reading Scripture? I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters.

So, I trust that you’ve got some sort of plan to get into God’s Word on a regular basis. And that’s God’s desire for your life. Have I made my peace with the God of peace? Am I growing in grace? Do I recognize that I need prayer? Do I greet others? And am I reading God’s Word? And as you do, you will grow and you’ll be encouraged and others will be encouraged.

The post Paul’s Prayer and Prescription for the Thessalonians- I Thessalonians 5:23-28 appeared first on Community Bible Church.

I Thessalonians 5:16-22

Outline

This is from the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Thessalonica, his closing words, and we’re going to read verses 16 through 22, just seven short verses. The Apostle Paul writes, rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the spirit, do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all, hold on to what is good, and reject every kind of evil.

All right, 1st Thessalonians. We’ve been looking at this letter from Paul to the Thessalonian church, and the theme is, Be Ready. And what are we ready for? It’s the return of Jesus.

And I don’t know about you, but I hope you’re ready. I’m ready for that. It’s all throughout the book, five chapters.

At the end of every chapter, Paul gives a reference to the fact that Christ is coming again. And so, we’re in the final stages of 1st Thessalonians. We’re in chapter 5 this morning, and Paul’s giving some, like, final instructions to the church.

He doesn’t know if he’s ever going to see them again, so he, like, gives us, like, almost rapid-fire all these final instructions. And last, two weeks ago, actually, we looked at verses 12 through 15, where Paul reminded the church to recognize and respect their spiritual leaders and to hold them highly in esteem for what they’re doing. So, respect your spiritual leaders, but then he goes on and gives some instruction of what we’re to do amongst ourselves as believers.

Live in peace, warn the unruly, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone, don’t retaliate or seek revenge, always strive to do what is good. And now, Paul has some more final instructions of what we’re to do until Jesus comes. There are six of them.

And so, we’re going to look at verses 16 through 22 this morning as we think about what to do until Jesus comes. You know, there’s two categories of sin in the Bible. There’s sins of commission.

That’s when we do something that God tells us not to do, lying, stealing, cheating. We all understand that. But there’s also another category of sin in the Bible, and it’s called sins of omission.

This is from James chapter 4 verse 13. James says, if anyone then knows the good, they ought to do and doesn’t do it, this is what James writes, it is sin for them. Well, that’s interesting.

James says, if we know what we’re supposed to do, if God tells us to do something and we don’t do it, then James says, and God says, that is sin. And so, here’s some things that God’s telling us to do this morning as we wait Jesus’ second return. And let’s look at the first one.

Rejoice always. Rejoice always. This is all through Scripture, isn’t it? If you look at the book of Philippians written from a prison cell, it’s called the Joy Epistle.

The apostle Paul wrote it 16 times. He mentions the word joy and rejoicing. Philippians 4:4, rejoice in the Lord.

And again, I say rejoice so you get the impression that God wants us to experience joy in our life. And here Paul writes and he says, I want you to rejoice always, always. It’s actually one of the fruits of the Spirit.

In Galatians 5:22 and 23, there’s nine-character traits that as a believer, the Holy Spirit wants to develop in your life. Love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, goes on to list nine-character traits. God wants us to experience joy.

Even in difficulty? Well, the answer is yes. And to be able to do that, we need to know something. And so, James gives us some help in James chapter 1. You don’t have to turn there, but I’ll share these verses, James chapter 1 verses 2 through 4. James is writing to people who are under persecution, and they’ve been scattered out of their homeland because of persecution.

And he writes to them and he says, consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. I have to admit, when I go through a trial or a difficult experience in my life, my first response is not to think, oh, what a joy. The only way we can do that, and this is where James helps us, is if we know something.

And that’s where verse 3 comes in. How can we count even trials as joy? And James says, you have to know something. Here’s what we need to know.

Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. It’s the word hupomoné. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

So, James helps us here. How can we count trials as joy? Because when we persevere through that trial, God is working in our life. God is building our character.

And so, even in the midst of trials and difficulty, we can have joy. What got Jesus enabled him to endure? What he went through at the cross and the beating that He took and the physical suffering and the spiritual suffering. Hebrews 12:2 says, for the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross.

He was looking at something greater that He would accomplish through His sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world. And so, here the Apostle Paul says, rejoice always. Nehemiah says, the joy of the Lord is my strength.

Now, we need to think about this a little bit. Now, what a book that has helped me is a book by Gerald Peterson called Joy and Tears, the Emotional Life of the Christian. Here’s what he writes, Scripture does not support the perspective that joy is a continuous 24/7 experience.

Now, you might say, wait a second, I thought you just read and said rejoice always. Well, we need to look at that passage and think about some other passages in Scripture. Romans 12:15, rejoice with those that rejoice and what? Weep with those that weep.

Jesus wept at the graveside of His good friend, Lazarus. A third of the psalms are psalms of lament where the psalmist is writing and lamenting what’s going on in Israel and in Jerusalem. And we have a whole book of the Bible written by Jeremiah called Lamentations.

So, rejoice always, the Greek word is pantote, but here’s the key.

Sometimes this refers to something that happens continuously 24/7. So, John chapter 8 verse 29 says, Jesus always does His Father’s will. I always do what pleases My Father, Jesus says.

Does that mean 24/7? Yes, because Jesus never sinned. He always pleased His Father. But you go to another passage of Scripture in the Gospel of John, and sometimes this word means things that happen often or typically.

The word always refers to that. John 18:20, this is what Jesus said, I always taught in the synagogue or at the temple. Same word that’s used here.

Did Jesus always teach in the synagogue and the temple? Well, a lot of times He did. He normally did, but He gave a sermon on the mount. So, sometimes the word always means frequently or typically.

And so, I think what Paul is saying is that joy needs to frequently be the characteristic of our life. Gerald Peterson writes; joy should be the characteristic of our life. But if we have times of pain or weeping or anxiety, that doesn’t mean that we failed to obey the command of 1st Thessalonians 5:18 or Philippians 4:4. It might mean that we have obeyed the command of Romans 12:15. So, I hope that helps us. Yes, joy should be the characteristic of our life, but there are times of sorrow and weeping with those that weep, and it doesn’t mean that we’re disobeying the command to rejoice always.

Well, here’s the second one from 1st Thessalonians 5. Paul says, I want you to rejoice always, but then I want you to pray continually, pray continually. Verse 17, rejoice always, pray continually. This is all through Scripture. Ephesians 6, at the end of that passage about the put on the armor of God, it says, pray always with all kinds of prayers and supplications. 1st Timothy 2:1 through 3 reminds us to be praying for our spiritual leaders and those in authority.

And it’s all through Scripture that prayer should characterize our lives. I love the book of Daniel. And I remember the story about Daniel that Daniel’s enemies couldn’t find anything against Daniel.

And so, they decided that let’s set up a little bit of a trap and we’re going to have a law passed that you can’t pray to any other God other than the foreign God, the Medo-Persian God. And it was Daniel’s pattern to pray three times a day. And even though he knew that that law had been passed, it says, Daniel continued to open his windows and pray in spite of the fact that there was a law against prayer, and what ended up having him put in the lion’s den, to pray continually.

I hope prayer is not your last resort. This is something I’m still learning in my 61 years of being a Christian. That prayer needs to be the first resort.

If there’s ever a time that we as individuals need to be praying for our families, Job 1 is a great model for that, that Job prayed regularly for his 10 children. If there’s ever a time where we need to be praying for our churches, if there’s ever a time we need to be praying for our country, it is now. And so, what is prayer? Prayer is just simply talking to God.

And we have this wonderful privilege, never get a busy signal, don’t have to make an appointment. He’s there 24/7. In fact, that verse in Revelation chapter 3 verse 20 that many people used to have as a picture in their house of Jesus knocking at the door, it’s really written to Christians.

And it says, behold, I stand at the door knocking. If anyone will listen and hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and have fellowship with him. What’s it saying? Jesus wants to have fellowship with you.

And He’s standing there knocking. He’s waiting for us to open the door and to have fellowship with Him. Well, there’s a third command then in verse 18, not only to rejoice always and to pray continually, but Paul writes, give thanks in all circumstances.

And then he says, for this is God’s will for you. Many young people as they’re growing up are wondering like, well, what’s God’s will for my life? And there’s some great truths in Scripture that God simply says, this is what you need to be doing. And as you follow my will, then I’ll progressively open doors for you and show you what I want you to do.

But for all of us this morning, what’s God’s will for us? Rejoice, pray all the time, and in everything give thanks. Not for everything, there’s a distinction there, but we can give thanks in everything. How can we do that? Because God’s a sovereign God, and God specializes in taking evil and using it for good.

And so, I saw a post on Facebook that was referring to the funeral for Charlie Kirk today out in Phoenix, and it said, the gospel is going to be preached to millions and millions of people, maybe the greatest spread of the gospel in our lifetime.

Because God’s a God that specializes in taking evil and using it for good. And I believe there’ll be thousands of people that’ll come to faith in Christ because of what’s going to take place in Phoenix, Arizona today. So, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for us.

It’s interesting, when Paul writes his last epistle, 2nd Timothy, he writes about what life is going to be like in the last days, and he lists like 20 characteristics. One of them, if you go through that list, is ungrateful. People are going to be ungrateful in the last days.

They’re going to feel like a feeling of entitlement. And so, the Lord says, and Paul writes, give thanks in all things, this is God’s will for you. There’s a story in Luke 17 there, Jesus healed 10 lepers.

It’s Luke 17, verses 11 through 19. And so, He changes the lives of 10 lepers, and those 10 lepers leave to go to the priest to show themselves that now they’re ceremonially clean. And what’s interesting in that story when you read Luke 17, is one of the 10 took the time to come back and tell Jesus, thank you.

And Jesus says to them, I thought I healed 10, not just one. We need to give thanks, and the Bible says to give thanks in all circumstances, not just on the last Thursday of November, that’s appropriate to do that on Thanksgiving, that’s right around the corner, but to have an attitude of gratitude that characterizes our lives. All right, a few more here.

Moving down to verse 19 then, the apostle Paul writes, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, do not quench the Spirit. So, he’s told us three things to do, now he tells us a couple things not to do. Don’t quench the Spirit.

The word quench speaks of suppressing or stifling a flame or a fire, throwing a wet blanket on a spark or a fire. Fire represents zeal and passion and enthusiasm. Remember in Acts chapter 2 when the church was born at Pentecost, there were tongues of fire that danced over the heads of each one.

Fire represents passion. And here the Scripture says, do not quench the Spirit, capital S, Spirit, and that’s the Holy Spirit. And if you know Jesus as your Savior, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, what, don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives within you? Glorify God with your body. So, if you’ve received Jesus Christ as your Savior, the Spirit literally lives within you. And Paul writes and says, don’t quench the Spirit.

Now, how does the Spirit work in our life? Well, He takes Scripture and He leads us through Scripture. The Spirit also works through inner promptings. Did you ever feel that inner prompting that I need to help somebody or I need to pray for somebody or I need to do good, some sort of good work for somebody? That’s not your idea.

That’s the Spirit of God who’s prompting you to do good. Like, well, how do I know if that’s from the Spirit? Well, if it’s something that’s good, proper and morally good, it’s from Him. And I’ve been so glad over the years that I’ve followed, most of the time I’ve tried to follow the promptings of the Spirit of God in my life.

When He says, maybe you should check in on that person. Maybe you should call them. Maybe you have a burden for somebody and you need to pray for them.

And the Bible says, don’t quench the Spirit. What else quenches the Spirit is sin. And so, when we have sin in our life, it stifles the ministry and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Don’t quench the Spirit. And so, really, what we saw this morning from Kids Praise is really some individuals that are following the Spirit’s direction in their life. Our Beyond Awana program that I think we’re finishing up our third or fourth year is really because God put it in a couple people’s life that we needed to do something more for our kids after our Awana year.

And so, I’m so thankful for a church leadership that doesn’t like put a wet blanket on those ideas. Oh, those kids are too young. Or no, we probably can’t do that.

We’ll never sustain that program. That’s quenching the Spirit. No, if God’s put that in somebody’s heart, what we need to like get behind them and encourage them and pray for them and say, praise God, let’s see what God does.

And so, do not quench the Spirit. Well, there’s a fifth instruction here. And really, I think the last of this kind of ties it all together.

It says, do not quench the Spirit. Here’s the second negative instruction. Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all.

Do not treat prophecies with contempt. Now, what’s Paul referring to there? When we think of prophecy, we think sometimes, and this is often the case of some passages in the Bible that talk about the future, the book of Daniel, the book of Revelation. But in this context, the prophecy is anybody who’s speaking a word for the Lord, an authoritative Word of God.

And he says, do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all. And so, here’s the challenge. We need to be like the Bereans in the New Testament.

Acts chapter 17 verse 11, Dr. Luke writes about the Bereans. He says, the Bereans search the Scriptures daily to see if what the apostles were saying is true. And that’s what we need to do when we listen to messages or a pastor or something on through the media.

We need to test that against Scripture to see if it is true. Don’t take my word for it. Check out the Scriptures.

Don’t treat prophecies with contempt, but you are to test them all. It means to prove, to examine, to scrutinize.

An example, a cashier holds up a $100 bill to see if it’s real, if it’s genuine. And in one sense, that’s what the Apostle Paul is talking about here, that we need to test them, test the spirits. 1st John chapter 4 verse 1, the Apostle John writes, Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

You realize there’s a lot of false teachers out there, and not everybody that opens a Bible and stands behind a pulpit is preaching the true Word of God. And so, test the prophecies, and then the Apostle Paul encourages, what, to hold on to what is good and reject what is evil. So, the Apostle Paul had to write a letter to the Galatian believers who had made a profession of faith, but now they’re going back and following the law, Judaism.

And Paul had to write about this area of salvation, and he gives some very, very strong words in Galatians 1. Let me begin reading in verse 8. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one, we preached to you, let them be a curse. As we have already said, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, salvation by grace, through faith, through Christ alone, let them be under God’s curse. Paul says there’s some people there that are preaching the false way to heaven.

Many people think that good works will get them into heaven. The Bible says, the only way to heaven is through Jesus. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes unto the Father but by me. That’s putting our faith and trust in Jesus and what Jesus did on the cross for our salvation, repenting of our sin, and freely accepting the gift of God as we just pray and say, Lord, I’m a sinner. I can’t make it on my own.

And I like to tell people; sin has to be paid for. Either you will pay for it in eternal separation from God, or you could accept the gift of Jesus who already paid for your sin, who on the cross yelled, it is finished, paid in full. We simply come and put our faith in Jesus.

So, do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all. When the Apostle Paul was meeting the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20, and Paul was the founding pastor of the Ephesian church, and he meets their leadership in a central point. They’re both meeting, and the Apostle Paul knows this is the last time I’m going to see these leaders of the church at Ephesus.

And he gives them some instructions, keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherd of the church of God which he bought with His own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.

Even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples from them. So, be on your guard. Look out for false teachers. One of the illustrations of that today is the prosperity gospel. There’s preachers that preach and say, come to Jesus and you’ll be what? Healthy, wealthy, and wise. I tell people, sometimes when you come to Jesus, your life is harder, it’s more difficult, but the reward is eternal life with Him.

And so, we need to test what is good and hold on to that and reject what is evil. Well, the Apostle Paul is giving his closing words to the Thessalonian church. And just as we think about these six commands, let’s just think about some application questions this morning as we think about how we can apply this to our life.

So just a few questions here. Number one, is my life characterized by joy? It doesn’t mean you have a smile on your face the whole time, but joy is that inner feeling of celebrating God’s goodness and knowing that God’s in control, knowing that God specializes in taking evil and doing good, and we can have joy even in trials because we know that God is at work refining our lives and building character. Is my life characterized by joy? And by the way, nobody wants to be around people that, like, grumble and complain all the time.

But joyful people attract others, and God wants us to experience this joy. Secondly, is my life characterized by prayer? Is my prayer life continuous, and is it something where I can have a conversation with Jesus all day long? Or do the only time I pray is when I find myself in trouble and I need Jesus to get me out, and so I’m going to, in case of emergency, break the glass, and I guess I’ll pray. No, God wants to have this daily relationship with you.

You can talk to Him and pray to Him any time of the day, and He’s longing to hear from you. Thirdly, is my life characterized by gratitude and thankfulness? One of the things I’ve talked about doing, and I know I need to do it, but I have four men who greatly impacted my life in my walk with Jesus. Two of them are in heaven.

But as I head toward the, what do they call them, the sunset years or the golden years or what are these older years called? I don’t know. God’s convicted me, like, have you ever expressed gratitude to those people that built into your life, these four men? Because a couple of them are gone. I’ll contact their wives, and I have Facebook friends with one of them.

I just want to say to Mary Ladd, who is the wife of our youth leader in the church that I grew up, thank you and your husband for loving on a bunch of teenage kids when we were trying to figure out life, and you taught God’s truth to us, and you had some activities for us, and that made a big impact in my life. We need to express gratitude, not only to God, and that’s all through Scripture, but to one another.

Number four, am I sensitive to and aware of the inner promptings of the Spirit in my life? And do I sense that small voice that’s encouraging me to reach out to somebody or to make an impact in somebody’s life? And so, we need to be in tune to that.

And whatever He leads us to do, the Spirit to do, it’s always going to be in accordance with God’s Word. If the Spirit’s leading you, it’s going to line up with what God says in this book. I haven’t had to do this often, but I’ve had a couple of occasions and mostly a number of years ago when I was talking to some people in my office and they were telling me their stories, and God’s leading me to do this, and I said, God’s not leading you to do that.

I can show you the verse right here. That is not God telling you to do that because He tells us not to do that in Scripture. And so, it’ll always be in accordance with Scripture.

And then lastly, do I search the Scriptures? Do I just take people’s Word for it or am I digging into God’s Word on my own and making sure that it’s truth, that it’s backed up by the Word of God? So, rejoice always and pray continually. Give thanks. Don’t squelch or quench the moving of the Spirit.

Hold on to truth. Hold on to what is good and reject every kind of evil. And God will bless you and God will bless us as we do that.

The post What to Do ‘Til Jesus Comes, Part 2: 2 Thessalonians 5:16-22 appeared first on Community Bible Church.

Outline

So, I want to share with you, just asking the question, and this probably came to your mind this week. Here’s what I want to share about briefly, making sense of the world in which we live. What kind of world are we living in? The murder of a young Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, a school shooting in Colorado this week.

We become numb to those because it happens so often. I looked up this morning how many mass shootings in the United States in 2025 so far, mass shootings when two or three rather than just one individual is killed, and they said 309 so far, mass shootings in our country. And then on Wednesday, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and as someone shared with me yesterday, maybe use the word martyr, that somehow has obviously gripped our country.

And so how do you make sense of what’s going on in our world? And I just want to share a few thoughts here that might help us make a little bit of sense. And so let me share four truths quickly. First one is this.

Genesis 3 changed everything. Genesis 3 changed everything. By Genesis 3, I mean here’s creation, Genesis 1 and 2, Adam and Eve are living in a perfect environment in a perfect world.

They have perfect fellowship with one another. They have perfect fellowship with God. They’re in a beautiful place.

They’re enjoying life. And then a talking snake comes along, Satan himself, and begins to tempt Eve and test Eve and Adam and Eve partake of the fruit. And all of a sudden, everything changed.

The perfect world that God had intended and had created no longer existed. And now all of a sudden, sin came into the world. And as Romans 5:12 says, because sin came into the world, so did death.

Here’s Romans 5:12. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin, in this way, death came to all people because all have sinned. And that death that happened when Adam and Eve sinned wasn’t just physical death. Creation started to die.

Mankind started to die, but it was also what? Spiritual death, separation from a holy God. And so, the world in which we live is not the world in which God originally created. Now, thank God that at some point in time, if you read the Bible, when you go to Revelation 21 and 22, guess what happens? God makes all things new again.

And we do end up with a perfect world and a perfect creation and perfect fellowship with God for those that know Him as their Lord and Savior. So, Genesis 3 changed everything. Secondly, this is Jeremiah 17:9. The heart is destroyed, deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

So now mankind is sinful. Mankind is depraved. If you follow it in Romans 1, it says when mankind exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and then there is a downward spiral of immorality and perverseness and wickedness that comes into our world when man rejects God.

So, the heart is wicked and deceitful. Paul writes in the Apostle Paul in Romans 3:10. Let me just read this passage. It’s eight verses long.

As it is written, there’s none righteous, no, not one. The Apostle Paul is quoting the Old Testament a lot in this passage. There is no one who understands.

There was no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless.

There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are in open graves. Their tongues practice deceit.

The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Well, that describes our world today, and we live in a world where pure evil exists.

Thirdly, and this just kind of goes along with the theme, thirdly, we’re just driving home the point that our world is broken. We live in a broken world, broken lives, broken homes, broken marriages, broken relationships, that we live in this broken world, and we all experience the effects of that. But here’s the good news, and we saved the good news for last, number four.

Here it is. Jesus is the answer. John chapter 10, verses 9 and 10, here’s what Jesus says, I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

That’s the enemy. But Jesus says, I am come that you might have life, and you might have it more abundantly. And so, what’s the answer to the fallen world in which we live? What’s the answer to the broken world in which we live? The answer is Jesus, who came to pay the price for our salvation.

That’s what we’re going to remember this morning, but also redeem all of creation. So, Romans 8, verse 22 through 25, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly, probably did some groaning inwardly this last week, as we await eagerly for our adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies, that’s our hope, the resurrection, a glorification.

For in this hope, we were saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who has hopes for what they already have? But if we have hope for what we do not have, we wait patiently for it. So, what are we waiting for? And this is what we’ve been studying in First Thessalonians.

The whole theme is that Jesus is coming again, and he’s going to make this world new, and he’s going to judge sin. Jesus is the answer for our world today, and when we put Jesus in His place, then our lives come together.

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