Hope Worth Having

Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Exactly is Worship? Part 1. He will be reading out of Isaiah 1:11-20.

It seems to me that so many Christians have quit thinking, and here God says, I don’t want you to check out your brain when you come to assemble as corporately as believers, but he says, I want you to reason with me. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and I am your host today with Hope Worth Having radio program, and we look forward to sharing the hope that is found in Jesus Christ as we explore the Bible today. I want you to grab your Bible today and join me in Isaiah chapter one, and we’re continuing our study in the book of Isaiah, and today we’re asking the question, what exactly is worship? What is true, authentic worship? So I want you to join me as we study together.

If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in the book of Isaiah. And just a few weeks ago, we began this journey, this long journey through the book of Isaiah. We’re still in chapter one, and I’m not sure if we’ll make it even if we enter into the millennial to be able to finish this great book.

The question before us is, what exactly is worship? You might say, well, pastor, isn’t that what we’re doing this morning? And you’re right. In some sort of a way, we are, yes. This is a worship service, and I’ve often taught you, church, from top to bottom, we’re worshiping God.

It’s not just the music, grateful for it, but it’s as we are serving, we’re worshiping. As we are praying, we’re worshiping. As we give, we are worshiping.

As we fellowship, we are worshiping. Every aspect of the service is an act of worship unto God. And so, we are truly worshiping.

But we must remember that God may not see worship the same way as we do. We sometimes see it as a function or perhaps of something that we do. But when we come to Isaiah chapter 1, we have a deeper look at worship.

And I want you to see that as we pick up in verse 11 and note what the scripture says, as the prophet, under the inspiration of God, has given us these words, to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord. I’ve had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats.

When you come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand to trample my courts? Bring no more futile sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.

Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They are a trouble to me. I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers. I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Yeah, God doesn’t consider worship like we do. I think that’s something that we can conclude from just reading this. When we think about the word worship and this question that is before us, what exactly is worship? It’s an old English word that means worth, ship.

And so it’s the idea of adding value to someone or something. In essence, when we worship God, we are giving him worth, we are giving him value. Worshiping God involves reflecting on who he is and reflecting and adoring and giving worth to his beauty, his character.

We often say that God is worthy. You know the song, is he worthy? Yes, our God is worth our praise. He is worth our worship.

That is what true worship really is. And it’s essential that we see it beyond a function, beyond some kind of different religious offering that we may give to God, not to limit it or even to downplay our worship to God and the worship service. But my goal here, and I think what the prophet wants us to see, is a greater connection and a deeper view of worship.

You remember when we were together on Isaiah 1, verse 1 through 10, that the prophet was lamenting the nation’s condition. The nation had abandoned the way of the Lord and was living in open sin and idolatry. And so he comes out very strong, and in verse 10, he addresses the people and the leaders sarcastically.

Look at verse 10 of chapter 1 of Isaiah. He says, hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Now he’s speaking to the nation of Judah, but sarcastically, he calls them the rulers of Sodom.

Give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. So he not only addresses the leaders, but he addresses the people. And many of you know the story of Sodom, Gomorrah, how God rained down judgment upon a people whose lifestyle was contrary to the word of God, that they had indulged themselves with homosexuality, and abusing, and flaunting, and perverting their life, not living in accordance to the word of God or even some kind of an accountability to God.

But here, the prophet brings it home when he shares with the people of God and the rulers that they are just like Sodom and Gomorrah. And it’s easy for us to say, well, that’s hard to believe because as we do a little historical study, we see that really, as far as we can tell, the people of Jerusalem had not dived that deep, but what God was looking was deeper, not just in actions, but in their heart. And so where does he begin in verse 11? As he has already addressed the sinful nation, he now is getting right to the heart of the matter.

And what is it that is the outgrowth of a nation that has turned its back upon God? It is a people, God’s people, who no longer worship him in alignment with his truth. And what we see in verse 11 through 17 is an outward religion or an outward expression of worship that has nothing to do with the heart. And so God recognizes they haven’t abandoned their religion.

They were faithful to assemble. They were faithful to follow the law of Moses and offer up their sacrifices and to follow through in great detail of the rituals. But over and over again, we see in the text that God says in verse 11, I have had enough.

And then we see in verse 11, I do not delight. And then he says in verse 13, bring no more futile or vain, or we could put the word empty sacrifices. And then again in verse 13, he says, I cannot endure the iniquity and the sacred meeting.

It’s not that they quit going to church. It’s not that they quit assembling together. It’s not that they weren’t gathering to worship God or that they weren’t even doing the functions of worship.

It’s that their heart was far from God. They had not moved forward in their faith. The Hebrew writer reminds us in Hebrews 6, 1, therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God.

And his whole point is that the people of God are to keep growing and to keep maturing and to keep moving forward in their walk with God and their commitment to the Lord. And, you know, what happens is that we get involved in the elements of worship and the function of worship and the process of worship, but our heart is not tracking together with God. And so, as was already stated, we kind of go through the motions of worship, and we walk out of here no different.

We’re the same. We have not changed deep within our hearts. The Lord would sooner that we suspend our religious worship than to indulge in some kind of a hypocritical worship to him.

He would rather us to just abandon this foolishness of pretending and this facade that happens so often in our life is that we just put up the facade, and it looks good, but the heart is distant from God. The psalmist said in Psalm 51, 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh, God, you will not despise.

Yes, even in the Old Testament, they were taught that it’s more than just a sacrifice. It’s more than just the animal. It’s more than just the action.

It’s the heart. What God is looking for is a surrendered heart. He is looking for a heart that is contrite, humble before him, that is broken, a heart that is genuine, authentic before him.

But what was God receiving? Empty formalism, empty worship. And so their attempts at worship during their assemblies was basically unacceptable to God. And why was it so unacceptable? Not just the fact that their heart was far from God, but because their lives were stained by sin.

So, yes, they came in. They did the performance. They did the show of worship.

But then they went out, and there was no genuine devotion to God in how they treated others. At the crux of this message is this point. And if you get nothing, I need you to get this today.

And before you fall asleep in Pastor Mike’s sermon, I need you to get this, and that is this, that you cannot be right with God and wrong with others. You can’t treat people in your life with sin, or you’re mistreating them, or you are attempting to take advantage of them, or to abuse them emotionally, physically. You just cannot be right with God if you’re wrong with everybody else.

It’s impossible. That’s why Peter said to the believers that the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. And he’s not talking about unbelievers, he’s talking about believers.

And this is what Isaiah the prophet is saying when he says to them in verse 15, you spread out your hands, they’re lifting their hands unto God, great, wonderful, but he says, I’ll hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

That could refer to the blood of the sacrifices, or it could be symbolism of how they treat other people. Either way, the point is clear, that God will not hear the prayers of his people if our life is not aligning with the word of God, and that it is hypocritical to come into the house of the Lord and worship God when we are walking in sin. So, 3 John tells us, beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.

He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil has not seen God. See, people watch our lives, don’t they? They see how we act and react, and how we handle circumstances. And they are seeing whether we worship God in our daily activities, that all that we do is for his glory, and not for our selfish ambitions, or our own agendas, but rather everything is about God.

And so, they look at us, and John is saying, you need to do what is right or what is good, because that’s what God’s good work is in you. That’s how he is glorified through you. So, we come down to verse 16 and 17, and there’s a call to repentance.

Look at it again. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, and plead for the widow.

So, the prophet is not trying to tell us to work our way to heaven. He’s trying to say, show yourself as being a person who has been touched by heaven. That God has done his good work in you, that you are to be a person who promotes justice.

You’re to be a person who learns to do good, that you speak up and step up against those who are oppressing others. This is a reflection of our heart. This is a reflection of who we are as we worship God.

We are worshipers of God, and we worship him in spirit and in truth. And the Bible tells us to worship him in spirit, which means that it needs to be authentic. He’s not talking about the Holy Spirit.

Certainly, the Spirit of God leads and guides all of our worship. That’s a known factor. But in the idea of this word, in the original language, he’s talking about being real in your worship, being true to God in your worship.

And then, not only are you true to God in your heart, but you are guided by the truth. Worship God in spirit and truth. The truth shapes our worship, and it shapes how we live.

And as we are out there interacting with others and operating as believers and true worshipers of God, people are seeing whether our life is glorifying God, reflecting God, then they know that there is a God, and that God can change a heart, and God can transform a person. James put it like this in James 1, pure religion, undefiled before God, and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Now, again, sometimes people like to make these the marks of salvation, but that’s not the point.

The point is that these are the marks of someone who’s truly been saved. These are the marks of true worshipers who are genuine before God in their walk with him. And so, Isaiah continues on after this call of repentance, after he acknowledges in verse 11 through 15, he points out the failure of outward religion and outward worship going through the motion, and then a call to repentance in verse 16 and 17.

Then we come to an incredible invitation in verse 18 through 20. Let’s read it. Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.

But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. What beautiful sets of words, amen? Because, see, that’s what I love about God is that God doesn’t just say, hey, Mike, this is your problem. But he says, I want to show you a path to deal with it.

He helps me and restores me and renews me. He brings me back. He shows me the path.

We like to refer to it like this, that it is redemptive discipline. Redemptive discipline. When we came many years ago, we believed it was important to establish redemptive discipline in the Christian school because we believed that redemptive discipline is the way of the Lord.

And so it is in our walk with Jesus Christ this morning is that God is not cutting you off because you came just dragging in and going through the motions. And though he may have been disappointed that your heart was not really there and all in with worship this morning, God is saying, hey, I want to restore you. I want to renew you.

And he says, here’s the way. And he gives us an invitation. Let’s look at first the tone.

It’s a tone of reason rather than demanding. He says at the outset, let us reason together. I love this because one of the things that I think is so essential in the 21st century in the American church is this skill set to think or to discern.

It seems to me that so many Christians have quit thinking. There is no discernment in the body of Christ and that whatever is the razzle-dazzle and whatever moves the heart and the emotion, whatever makes the foot tap, it must be from God. And if it came down from heaven, or at least I should say it says heaven or Jesus on it, it must be true.

But you see, the Bible tells us that the devil appears as an angel of light, doesn’t he? And we’re called to test all things, to prove all things. And here, God says, I don’t want you to check out your brain when you come to the gathering. I don’t want you to check out your brain when you are coming to assemble as corporately as believers.

But he says, I want you to reason with me. I want us to reason. Use your noggin.

And so it is that God is not only a righteous judge, but he’s a loving father. And his tone towards us is, let’s think about this. Let’s just think about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it.

And his tone is one that he certainly has great sorrow over his children. We jump back to verse 5 and 6. He said, why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faints.

Verse 6, the sole of the foot, even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. He is saying, you’re sick.

And I care about you. And I care enough about you to intervene, to be intentional, not to just leave you in your sickness and to lay in your spiritual bed and let you deteriorate spiritually and drift from God. He says, I want to get your attention.

So God, out of great love, gives this great invitation. And that he gives it in a heart that cares. We remember our Savior in Luke 13, who said, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing. Our empty worship breaks the heart of God. Our hearts that have drifted break the heart of God.

He cares. It does matter. It is important to him.

So what an amazing thing that God reasons with us when we stray. How incredible that the Lord Jesus knocks at our door, even though we have become lukewarm in our faith. You remember the words of Jesus, behold, I stand at the door and knock.

And if anyone hears me, my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine or fellowship with him and he with me. This is the tone that God has this morning to each of our hearts. It is a desire that we would open the door and that we would reconnect with God and have that fellowship with him at a deeper level.

That our Bible reading would be more than just, I checked that off. That our prayers would be more than, yep, got that done. So I don’t have to worry about pastor getting on to me about that.

But that we would want to fellowship him at a deeper level. That we’re not worried about a checklist, but we are passionate about spending time with Jesus every day. Let’s talk about the terms of this invitation.

Stepping from his bench, the judge offers the accused a full pardon. Both wool and snow are white by nature. And the Lord is offering to give each of us, his people, a new heart and a new nature.

It’s like the words of John when he said, if you walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all of our sin. You see, friends, when we respond to God, he takes the initial step.

He reaches out. He’s the one that is searching, looking, and being intentional. But when we respond to his great work in our hearts, what does he do? The Bible teaches us that he cleanses us, he washes us, and he makes us brand new, gives us a fresh start in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what I want you to know in 1 John 1, 7, is that there’s a connection here. Again, what I’ve already taught you, that you can’t be wrong with others and be right with God. And you can’t be wrong with God and be right with others.

It’s just an impossibility. It’s something that we have to keep in the forefront of our hearts. And so, John says, we have fellowship one with another.

You see, you may drift. God hasn’t kicked you out of the family, but the fellowship’s not as sweet, right? You’ve been to those Thanksgiving dinners when it was awkward. Maybe a brother and sister aren’t getting along.

Maybe a mom is upset with a son. Maybe a dad is disappointed in his children. And yet, we all tried to do the Thanksgiving dinner because we’ve always done the Thanksgiving dinner.

And we kind of just showed up, and we ate the turkey, and we ate the cranberry sauce, and then we were trying to figure out how to get out of there because we can’t stand some of these people, amen? But here’s what God does. He comes in and wipes all those offenses away. All those issues away.

And he brings us back into sweet fellowship with him. And he brings us back in sweet fellowship with others. It wasn’t the sacrifice of animals.

It wasn’t the rituals that was going to make it right. It had to be getting right with God in their hearts. That was essential.

You know in Isaiah 53, verse 1 and 2, I want you to, real quickly, just jump over there. Will you do that for me? Because it becomes such a thread throughout this whole book and even the Bible that it’s hard for us to ignore this great passage in Isaiah 53, in which we are reminded, who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant. And this is a prophecy about Jesus.

And as a root out of dry ground, he has no form or comeliness. And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. And look at verse 4. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. We know that in chapter 1, verses 1 through 10, that the prophet has been lamenting the condition of the nation, and he feels and sees the nation abandoning the way of the Lord and living in open sin and idolatry. So it also gets back to their worship, where it’s insincere and they are just kind of going through the rituals.

So he’s calling God’s people back to authentic worship. And that’s where we need to be in our own spiritual life, is making sure that we are truly worshiping the Lord, not just in our gathering together as believers, but in our personal lives. As we live our lives, we’re worshiping God and that it’s coming from our heart, that we’re not just stuck in this ritual of doing things because we’ve always done it that way, but that we truly have a love in our heart for Jesus Christ.

I want to remind you about our website. That’s hopeworthhaving.com. A lot of things going on on the website. We mentioned podcasts.

There are also some blogs and things that you can see and learn. A lot of information out there. Take advantage of it.

Let it be a help to you as you’re growing in your faith, and I pray that it’ll be a tool that’ll help you to become firm in your faith. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.

The post What Exactly is Worship? Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

Pastor Mike will be speaking on A Sin Sick Nation Part 2. He will be reading out of Isaiah 1:1-10.

And when you are lying to yourself and you’re under some delusion that just because you have wealth you somehow are okay with God when the truth is that you stand naked before God and you stand bruised before God and you need the fact and the work of the gospel in your life. Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church and I’m delighted to welcome you to the Hope Worth Having radio program. Today we’re going to be continuing our study in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 1 verses 1 through 10 and we’re talking about a sin-sick nation.

So I want you to grab your Bible and join me as we study this passage because I love to break down the word agnostic which means not intelligent or I don’t know anything is how it could be translated. I don’t know anything and I think about you know you declaring your agnostic tells me how you really don’t know anything. They can see the beauty of this earth, the heavens declare his glory, they can see the majesty of a sunset and yet they’ll deny that there is a God in heaven.

They’ll see pictures from space and they’ll say there is no God. Only to be disproven by the beauty and the glory of God in all of creation. But I want you to consider the this this morning is that you and I may say we’re certainly not agnostic pastor.

We’re not atheists but I want to ask you this. Maybe you’re not in your what you believe and what you know but are you practically practicing agnosticism or atheism? Do you know how you live your life? Do you actually demonstrate in your life that you know God and that God knows you and that he lives in you in your conversations? Do you talk like an atheist or do you talk like someone who is filled with the Spirit of God? Do you pray? Do you have enough humility in your heart to acknowledge that it’s the Lord who provides all things, everything that you have? He is the source of all that is wonderful and beautiful and good in your life? Or do you just go through your day in a busy hurry? Yes, I believe in God. Yes, I’ll go to church every once in a while.

Yes, I’ll worship the Lord and read my Bible every once in a while. But do you practically live your life as if there is no God? Because that’s what the nation of Israel was doing. They were outwardly religious and we learned from verse 11 all the way down to verse 16 that they went through the motions and buddy they could put on the show and they could do the performance but their heart was far from God.

Yes, we see that the ox knows and the donkey knows but God’s people do not know and they do not consider. It is astonishing that the ox, the donkeys recognize the voice of God. They recognize the work of God.

They recognize this as creations of God but yet we find ourselves distancing ourselves from God. Look at verse 21 of chapter 1, just giving us more insight to the charges against the nation. How the faithful cry has become a harlot, meaning unfaithful.

It was full of justice, righteousness lodged in it. But now murderers, your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water, your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards.

They do not defend the fatherless nor does the cause of the widow come before them. What is the result when you and I choose to not know God like we should, when we choose to be stagnant and apathetic in our relationship with God? We begin to live our lives in such a way that we don’t even reflect our godly core value, that we begin to distance ourselves from God. As Christians, we must ask ourselves, are we living under the authority of Christ? Because every time we refuse to submit to his word and to submit to his truth and to follow his path, we are saying, God, I’m in charge, not you.

I will run my life how I want to. We not only see spiritual rebellion but I want you to see that moral declension that takes place. We jump down to verse 4 of chapter 1, a last sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors.

They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away backwards.

Wow. A lot of different actions that the people have taken and God is confronting their sin. And in every society, we can see that when sin abounds, that it becomes more and more reckless uncontrollable and we see that it begins to grab a hold of the way people not only think but the way that they live our lives.

We think about our nation. We think about a country that was founded on people who were searching to come to a land where they could worship God in freedom. We think about how far our nation has come and how we have turned our hearts from God and that even now that in our political systems, on their platforms, they deny God and even I’m gonna knock your socks off but even in the Republican Party, they say they no longer want to support traditional marriage and they no longer want to be pro-life because those things won’t win elections.

Do you see what’s happening to our nation? Do you see what’s happening to our country? There are times I look at our political figures and I have to be honest and I say, is this the best we got? Out of all the people of 330 some million people that live in America, is this the best we got? And it’s only a reflection of the nation. It’s a reflection of our spiritual life as a nation. That little by little, drip by drip, we have been ripping God out of every part of our life and we’ve said we don’t want God in the public square and we don’t want the Ten Commandments in the courtroom because they remind us of our sin and they remind us of God’s expectation and they remind us of the calling of who we are in Christ.

And so let’s hide those things. Let’s get rid of those things over and over again. And that’s why in verse 5 he says the whole head is sick, the heart is fainting, and he reminds us in verse 6 that the body from the sole of the foot even to the head, we might say it just the opposite, from head to toe, the body’s a mess, amen? But here he’s speaking metaphorically to us.

From head to toe, yes, our nation’s a mess. From head to toe, yes, we even as God’s people have gotten away from the truth. And what we’ve seen is that even our churches are being afflicted by sin.

That sin is infiltrating our churches. Churches even here in Franklin County platforming people who do not even believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who embrace a lifestyle that is contrary to the Word of God. Confusion abounding as to what is a man and a woman and people are confused about what genders they are.

You ask them, how do you define a woman? And they’re offended that you asked the question. You talk about crazy. You say, what’s wrong? I mean, I grew up in a world where that was very clear.

But why is there so much confusion? Because that leads me to my second point, is the damage of sin. Verse 5 and 6 remind us of the damage of sin. There’s no soundness but wounds.

There are bruises and sores. And so like a battered human body, so it is that our nation and the church has become affected by sin. Why? Because we want the world to like us.

We’re more interested in pleasing the world than we are in pleasing God Almighty. What if you woke up every day and said, I want to please Christ today. I want to please a holy God today.

I want to live my life for His glory. And if other people don’t like it, that’s what they got to work on. But that’s what you have, people running around trying to please everybody, trying to please the world so they can grow their church, please the world so they don’t offend the culture, please the world so everybody will be happy, when only finding out that the church has become corrupt and sin has invaded and taken over.

What is it that are some of the damages of sin? First of all, we might say stupidity. Sin does not help the intellect. It just does not.

And we could go on and on, but again we find ourselves very much like Jesus said of the Pharisees, swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat. The things that don’t matter, we’re not focused on, and we’re all worked up about it, and we really need to get focused on where is our heart and where are we with the Lord Jesus Christ. But the damage of sin is not only that we become more ignorant, and in a real sense, and I don’t want you to get mad and upset and have a meltdown on me, but we become stupid.

And sin makes you stupid. Can God’s people say amen? And if you want to send me an email, just send it to Carl McKee. No, just kidding.

The damage of sin is suffering. We see in verse 4 and 5 and 6, a body that is wounded and bruised, because you know sin hurts, doesn’t it? Sin hurts families. Sin hurts individuals.

It causes much suffering. It causes bleeding, and it breaks hearts. It does not bring comfort, but rather just the opposite.

It brings discomfort. There is no peace in the heart. Wars and crimes and plagues that invade the world.

Suffering is the product of sin. As we see that so many find themselves in these predicament, and their lives are a mess, and their relationships are a mess, and things are messed up because sin has gotten into the world and gotten into our hearts. I’ve said to you many times, church, and I’ll continue to remind you over and over, your life is about relationships.

And if you can’t get that right, you’re just not going to get anything right in your life. And it’s first and foremost your relationship with God. You must love the Lord Jesus Christ with all of your heart.

That must be the priority of your life. And you’ve got to be more than a talker. You’ve got to walk it.

You’ve got to show it in your habits, in your character, in the decisions and choices that you make. Jesus Christ must be number one. We were talking in Sunday school, and one of the students said, you can’t serve two masters.

And I say to you, amen. You got to make your choice, church. And when you choose that you’re going to follow the world, and you’re going to raise your family for the world, and you’re going to have a mindset of the world, it’s no wonder the havoc that it has upon your family.

Sometimes parents will say, what happened to my kids? What happened, my friends? You, through your priorities, sometimes demonstrate what’s important. I know you guys don’t like me saying it, but listen, you run your kids all over the state of Pennsylvania and Maryland for sports, but you won’t take them to Sunday school. You won’t take them to youth group.

You won’t get them involved in the basic programs where we’re trying to reinforce godly core values in their life, and you say that these things are more important than Jesus Christ. It’s a hard pill to swallow. You got to make a decision.

I’ve been there, done that, raised children, and had to make those tough decisions, but Christ has always got to be number one, and it has to be true in your priorities and your decisions, and you must make this the number one focus of your heart. And in your relationships with others, it must be rooted in the core values, and so we see that the damage of sin is stupidity, suffering, and sickness. As the Bible says in verse 6, we are sick from top to bottom.

We are sick within and without. Isaiah’s vision in verse 7 of burning cities was intended to be a wake-up call to the nation, but today it serves as a warning sign to all of us, and we turn around and we see this. We see our nation’s burning.

We see these news people standing in front of a camera and fire flames of the city being burned right behind them. We see the chaos and the confusion, and we are only reminded that we have become a sin-sick nation, and the damage is that our cities are going up in flames. And why is it? Because we keep drifting farther and farther and farther from Jesus Christ.

The third thing, don’t become discouraged, church. I’m going to bring you hope. But we see the disregard of sin.

We see the disregard in sin. It says here in the end of verse 6, they’ve not been closed or bound up. The sores, the bruises have all just been left there in this metaphorical body that has been damaged by sin, and no one is doing anything to minister or to treat or to bring a remedy to the wounds of this nation or to the wounds of the heart of the people of God.

There hasn’t even been any ointment. There’s been no ointment. And thus, verse 7 says, your country is desolate.

All the programs of the government do little. All the programs of the world will not save us, will not heal our spiritual wounds. The only program that works, church, is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What I would say to you as a people of God is, don’t be ambitious for the next election. Be ambitious for Jesus Christ and the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Be ambitious to talk to your neighbor about salvation.

Be ambitious to reach children with the gospel through the different programs going on. I know, morning and night, many become consumed, even believers, thinking that the solution and the remedy and the antidote is somewhere out there. But I tell you, my friends, we must fight for the gospel.

We must fight sin, and we must bring the ointment of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we are to see urban renewal, if we’re to see spiritual renewal, if we are to see financial renewal, if we are to see any kind of renewal or awakening in our nation, it is going to be through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is not only true for our nation.

It is true for our hearts. It is true for our families. It is only the blood of Jesus Christ that takes away the sin of people.

The Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. As Isaiah starts out in this courtroom scene, giving his charges before all of heaven and earth, his goal is not to crush the heart of God’s people. His goal is not to destroy their morale.

It is to awaken them and say, what went wrong? What do I need to change? What do I need to confess to God? What do I need to work on in my own heart? And I pray that this will be true for each of us. Isaiah’s name literally means Yahweh is salvation. That is, that only salvation comes from God, Almighty Church.

And that is the ointment that needs to be applied to our heart. And whether you’re here this morning and you don’t know Christ as your Savior, or maybe you have drifted in your fellowship and your walk with God, I’m telling you the ointment is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that will bring healing to your heart.

Amen? Thank you. Yes. I want you to just jump over.

We’ll be back in Isaiah as we wrap it up, but I want you to go back in 1 John chapter 1. I just quoted verse 7, but I want you to see verse 8 and 9 because this is why the cross means so much. This is why Christ means so much to us. This is why our focus is always upon Christ.

In 1 John chapter 1 verse 8, it says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive who? You see, church, you’ve got to be careful that you don’t deceive yourself, that you yourself are not delusional. And so when I see a nation that is falling apart, declining in its core values, drifting from its foundation of faith, the first thing I do is I say, Lord, where am I at? What do I need to work on? I don’t want to be deceived in my own heart, and this must be something that we must recognize. He says, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

Remember, the truth, Jesus said, will do what? Set you free. That’s right. And when you are lying to yourself, and you are living in denial, and you’re under some delusion that just because you have wealth, or just because you have a nice home, and you have things, and you can eat a meal tonight, that you somehow are okay with God, when the truth is that you stand naked before God, and you stand bruised before God, and you’re a sick spiritual person before God, and you need the ointment of Christ in your life, and you need the fact and the work of the gospel in your life, you’ll never ever get out of that sick bed unless you turn to Jesus Christ.

He goes on to say, and here’s the key, if, verse 9 of 1 John, if we confess our sins, He is what church? And He is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. What is the antidote? It is for you to acknowledge your sin. It is you to agree with God.

Don’t argue with God. When the Word and the Spirit speaks to your heart, and God opens the truth in your life, and He points out something you need to change, listen, I want to challenge you this morning that you would say, Lord, I confess that to you. And you see, you don’t have to go to a priest to confess your sin, and you don’t have to go to the pastor to confess your sin.

You can be anywhere, everywhere to go straight to the mediator, the man, Jesus Christ, and confess your sin. Aren’t you grateful for that, church? I couldn’t handle the load of all your sins, but Jesus can. I’d be so depressed, so discouraged, I’d want to be like out, but Jesus can take every sin in your heart.

He can handle every sin in your life, but you must confess it. This word, confess, not only means to agree with God, but it is written in the continuous action, which is the idea that something we keep doing, you say, oh, I did that at vacation Bible school, pastor, I confessed my sin. I did that at the altar.

Oh, yeah, I did that as a young man or a young lady. No, my friends, it’s something you do every day of your life. Remember the Lord’s prayer, forgive us of our death.

Lord, it’s easy for me to point the finger at a nation that’s a mess and a government that’s a mess, but the question is, am I allowing God to point his finger at me and say, Mike, here’s what you need to change. Here’s what you need to work on, and so this beautiful verse says, he is faithful. God’s not gonna quit.

God’s not gonna give up. God is gonna be faithful. He’s not gonna say, I told you so.

He’s not gonna put the wall up or the hand up. He’s not gonna push you away. He’s faithful, and he’s just.

How can God be faithful and just at the same time? Let me tell you, the cross. I’m not worthy of forgiveness, and no one is, but how is it that God could justly forgive us of our sins even though we’re not worthy of it? The cross, because Christ on the cross, he bore the wrath, the punishment of our sin, and every time I come to Christ and I come to God Almighty and I confess my sin, Jesus who is our advocate, Jesus who is paid for our sins, he reminds the Father I died for them, and my friends, that’s why you could come boldly to the throne of grace, and he goes on to say he’ll forgive us of our sins and not just forgive us positionally and theologically, but he cleanses us emotionally. He cleanses us within our spirit and within our minds.

He cleanses us from all unrighteousness, and so we have a new beginning in Christ. Would you go back to Isaiah? Yes, I know I’m almost done, trust me, but I got to show you something in Isaiah that wraps all this together, because when you read these charges, and we’re not, I didn’t even get beyond verse 10. I didn’t think you and I could handle more than 10 verses emotionally, right? But I want you to get to verse 18.

That’s what I love about the prophet Isaiah. He is not only bold in pointing out what’s wrong, he is bold in pointing out the hope, the antidote, and the solution. He says in verse 18, come now and let us reason together, says the Lord.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. I think verse 18 is one of the great texts in the Bible.

The very invitation that God would invite a sinner like me to come into his presence, and I can do that because of the work of Christ on the cross, but he says, come, Mike. Let’s reason this out, Mike. As if somehow I would even have the capacity to intellectually compete with God, amen? But out of great grace, and favor, and kindness, he says, Mike, come.

Come. And every one of you are invited to come to Jesus, to come to him and know his salvation, and experience his salvation. But even as a believer, you are invited to come.

And as we are invited to come, he says, your sins, they’re like scarlet, but I’m gonna make them white as snow. Every once in a while, I have a shirt that reflects the many stains of that big hamburger I took a bite in, and that mustard came flying out. And no matter how hard my wife works to get rid of that stain, it’s just still there.

Those shirts become my Saturday shirts. That’s the bum shirt. But they’re nice shirts, but they’ve got this mustard and ketchup.

But Jesus, he takes our sin that is stained with this red sin, and he, through his blood, wipes it white as wool, white, perfect before God Almighty. My past is a mess. My thoughts are a mess.

But somehow, some way, through the work of Christ, I stand before Jesus, blameless. I want you to remember that I love America, and I know that our country is strong militarily and financially, and we have a lot of things going for us, but we’re not strong spiritually. And we need to get back to God, and we’re a sin-sick nation.

And just like the nation of Israel, we need to repent and come back to God. And that’s what we see in this text, is that God is teaching us, through his prophet, how important it is for us to make things right with the Lord. And so I hope that’ll be true.

And sometimes we may not see that as a nation, but we certainly can see that as an individual. And if you feel like you have gotten off the path of following the Lord, this is a great opportunity for you to get back at it. Now I want to remind you about our podcasts.

If you go to hopeworthhaving.com website, you can run across many of our podcasts, and you can keep up with things and how they’re going. And so I want you to take advantage of that. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.

The post A Sin Sick Nation Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

Pastor Mike will be speaking on A Sin Sick Nation Part 1. He will be reading out of Isaiah 1:1-10.

When you and I choose to be stagnant and apathetic in our relationship with God, we begin to live our lives in such a way that we don’t even reflect our godly core values. We begin to distance ourself from God. This is Pastor Mike Sanders.

We’re excited about you tuning in and being a part of Hope Worth Having. And today we’re gonna be in the book of Isaiah. We’re starting a brand new series in the book of Isaiah.

It’s gonna take a long time. It’s a big book, 66 chapters, but we know that God is gonna use it. And so right out of the gate, our first message is a sin-sick nation.

Isaiah chapter one, join me as we study. If you have your Bibles, I want you to join me in the book of Isaiah. We are beginning a new journey through another book in the Bible, and we are beginning the long journey of the book of Isaiah with over 66 chapters.

But I want you to know that I’ll do everything I can to get through the book of Isaiah before the rapture. If the Lord chooses to take us home before I finish, I’ll meet you up there on the hillside up in heaven, and we will finish together. But it’ll be better because I’ll have Isaiah the prophet giving me more clarification, which we could always use, right? Isaiah chapter one.

I want you to follow along with me as we read this great text, this great chapter. And I want you to note that we will cover verse one through 10 this morning. The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth. For the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib. But Israel does not know. My people do not consider.

Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors. They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel.

They have turned away backward. Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick.

And the whole heart faints. From the sole of the foot, even to the head, there is no soundness in it. But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, they have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment.

Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence.

And it is desolate as overthrown by strangers. So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom.

We would have been made like Gomorrah. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

When we come to this passage in Isaiah chapter one, Isaiah is speaking to a nation that has left God. When you read verse one, you see the Bible says a vision of Isaiah. You might remember in the Old Testament, the book of Proverbs, that the Bible says that where there is no vision, the people will perish.

It’s not so much as saying that where there is no goals and ambition that the people will perish, as often might be interpreted, but what it is really saying is where there is no revelation from God, the people will perish. When the Bible says that Isaiah received this vision, it is a revelation from God. We see in verse two that it says, hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.

You jump down to verse 20. Again, Isaiah reminds us that it is God who is speaking. He says, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Throughout his message, Isaiah reiterates to the people of God that it is God who has delivered this vision. It is God who is delivering this message, that Isaiah is just an instrument in the hand of God, being used by God to communicate the very words of God. When people visit Edinburgh, they’re often taken to Blackford Hill for a panoramic view of the city of Edinburgh.

It’s a different perspective from the street. It’s a higher viewpoint. And when we come to the book of Isaiah, we are seeing things from a different perspective because the vantage point is higher.

This book is telling us that a message from God who is helping the people to see the big picture. He is helping them to understand what is going on in their nation and what is going on in their own personal lives. As we walk through the book of Isaiah, there will be many striking parallels between this nation, the nation of Judah, or often referred to as Israel, but in this time, there’s a northern and a southern kingdom, and Judah is referred to as this nation of Israel, and it is defined the timeline based upon the kings that rule that you see in verse one.

But you’ll see that very much like Isaiah’s day, so is our day. And this message from the book of Isaiah will be very relevant to us, but we have to be careful that as we study the word of God, that it’s not for someone else, and it’s not for those people, and it’s not for that person just sitting in front of me, but rather it’s for my heart, it’s for my life. It’s what is God saying to me? What is he teaching me through his word? We jump down to Isaiah one, verse five, and again he says, why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more.

The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. He goes on to describe this sickness of the nation and the sickness of God’s people when he says in verse six, from the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, that they have not been closed or bound up or soothed with ointment. And that’s why I wanna talk to you today about a sin-sick nation, because Isaiah the prophet is ministering in troubling, turbulent times in the days of Judah’s history and he is using figurative language, metaphorical language for us to help us understand and drive home the point of the great need of God’s work within our own hearts and even within our own nation.

And so I want you to see first of all, this morning is the degree of sin. I want you to go back to verse two and we are immediately ushered into a courtroom. And like a decorative of this hearing, Isaiah the prophet says, “‘Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, “‘for the Lord has spoken.'” The nation, the people of God are going to court and the universe is attending as witnesses.

The judge is the Lord and his people are on trial. Among the charges that are being declared are charges of rebellion against God and insincere faith, apathy by the people in their walk with God. We see this kind of scenario in the book of Deuteronomy.

In chapter 30, the scripture says, “‘I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, “‘that I have set before you life and death, “‘blessing and cursing. “‘Therefore, choose life that both you “‘and your descendants may live.'” Throughout the scriptures, we see this idea of where God is bringing his people into a courtroom and the heavens and the earth are witnesses to the judgments and the accusations that are coming upon his people. And so all of creation hears the evidence.

All of creation not only declares the glory of God, but all of creation witnesses the sick nation of Israel. All of heaven and earth sees the apathy that could even be manifesting in our hearts. Isaiah, like a skilled lawyer, is bringing forth every detail of the nation’s problems.

And I want you to know that, again, we will see that some of these problems are what we’re experiencing right here in America. But don’t forget that God is not just talking to our government and he’s not just talking to political leaders, he’s talking to you and he’s talking to Mike and he’s talking to all of us personally and he is talking to us about our own spiritual lives. And the question that we must consider this morning is have we become sick spiritually? Are there areas in our life where we have become apathetic and distant from God and are we finding ourselves walking through the motions of the activity of loving God and loving people and even celebrating God on a Sunday morning? Are we just kind of here but not really here? Are you with me? What are these accusations that are brought before the heavens and the earth? First is spiritual rebellion.

We look at the end of verse two and he says, I’ve nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me. Circle that word or underline the word rebelled. It means to break a contract or it means to sever a relationship.

Here is what God is saying. The children of Israel having been nourished and equipped and blessed and trained by a loving father, a heavenly father who has done nothing but pour out blessings upon blessings and protected and secured his people have severed their relationship with him. They have broken the covenant.

They have broken the relationship and on top of that, they’ve shown ingratitude for what God has done for them. And what is this sin? You see, sin is really rebellion against God. It’s this, sin is saying I wanna live my life the way I wanna live it.

I wanna live my life. Leave me alone, Mike. I wanna live my life how I want to live and don’t tell me what to do.

It is this kind of rebellion that breaks the heart of God. The question for us to think about this morning is have we severed that relationship? Have we allowed other things to come in between us and God? Have we allowed suffering to cause us to be distant with the Lord Jesus Christ? Have we found ourselves so adamant about the things of the world and so devoted to building our careers that we have forgotten our own relationship with God almighty? How many times as a pastor have I seen people with hardly two nickels to rub and yes, together and they can barely make it and they give their life to Christ and God opens one door after another and they begin to do well at their job and then all of a sudden, that becomes their consuming passion and they forget the Lord and he’s on the back burner and we’ll fit God in whenever we can but what’s most important is my job, is my career. Not realizing that it’s God who gives you the wisdom, it’s God who gives you the stamina, it’s God who gives you the strength to be able to achieve all that you might ever do as you walk into this world and as you work that job that you have been blessed with and so many times lacking gratitude, we sever the relationship and we’re very much like the children of God who have been nourished and brought up in Christ but have rebelled or severed the relationship against God.

He goes on to give us more metaphors in verse three. He says, the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib but Israel does not know. My people do not consider.

You remember that the scriptures teach us in Hosea that my people perish because of a lack of knowledge. We’re not talking about intelligence or we’re not talking about the knowledge of the world but we’re talking about the knowledge of God and the knowledge of Christ and the knowledge of his word and how that becomes a lid in our life and growing in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. But here, Isaiah reminds us the ox knows, the ox knows where it is blessed from, knows its owner.

The donkey knows its master’s crib and comparing or contrasting, if you will, the ox and the donkey, not always the brightest of animals but yet they’re smart enough to know who feeds them. They’re smart enough to know who it is that has blessed them and strengthened them. They’re smart enough to know these minute details but what about us? What about us? God says in verse three, Israel doesn’t know and my people don’t consider.

The word consider has the idea of contemplating, thanking and looking at or kind of meditating upon. It’s used 84 different times in the entire Bible and it’s a reminder that God is calling us not to just know, not just a intellectual knowledge but to know God, to have a relationship, to walk in sweet fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and to consider him and to think about him, to rejoice in him and to be able to meditate and contemplate about the greatness of our God. Isn’t God great, a church? Isn’t he, amen? Yes, go ahead and say it, it’s okay.

I know you’re still struggling with these things hanging down, don’t worry. You’re gonna make it, okay? You’re gonna be okay. But I want you to think about this.

Today, a sign of intelligence in our culture is to reject God or to not have any kind of a relation to God. And that’s actually less intelligent, amen? You know, somebody says I’m agnostic. I love to talk to those people.

I’d like to meet more of them because I love to break down the word agnostic which means not intelligent. Or I don’t know anything is how it could be translated. I don’t know anything.

And I think about you declaring you’re agnostic tells me how you really don’t know anything. They can see the beauty of this earth, the heavens declare his glory. They can see the majesty of a sunset and yet they’ll deny that there is a God in heaven.

They’ll see pictures from space and they’ll say there is no God. Only to be disproven by the beauty and the glory of God in all of creation. But I want you to consider this this morning is that you and I may say we’re certainly not agnostic pastor.

We’re not atheists but I wanna ask you this. Maybe you’re not in your what you believe and what you know but are you practically practicing? Agnosticism or atheism? How you live your life? Do you actually demonstrate in your life that you know God and that God knows you and that he lives in you in your conversations? Do you talk like an atheist or do you talk like someone who is filled with the spirit of God? Do you pray? Do you have enough humility in your heart to acknowledge that it’s the Lord who provides all things, everything that you have? He is the source of all that is wonderful and beautiful and good in your life? Or do you just go through your day in a busy hurry? Yes, I believe in God. Yes, I’ll go to church every once in a while.

Yes, I’ll worship the Lord and read my Bible every once in a while. But do you practically live your life as if there is no God? Because that’s what the nation of Israel was doing. They were outwardly religious and we learned from verse 11 all the way down to verse 16 that they went through the motions and buddy, they could put on the show and they could do the performance but their heart was far from God.

Yes, we see that the ox knows and the donkey knows but God’s people do not know and they do not consider. It is astonishing that the ox, the donkeys recognize the voice of God. They recognize the work of God.

They recognize this as creations of God but yet we find ourselves distancing ourselves from God. Look at verse 21 of chapter one, just giving us more insight to the charges against the nation, how the faithful cry has become a harlot, meaning unfaithful. It was full of justice, righteousness lodged in it but now murderers, your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.

Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless nor does the cause of the widow come before them.

What is the result when you and I choose to not know God like we should, when we choose to be stagnant and apathetic in our relationship with God? We begin to live our lives in such a way that we don’t even reflect our godly core value, that we begin to distance ourself from God. As Christians, we must ask ourselves, are we living under the authority of Christ? Because every time we refuse to submit to his word and to submit to his truth and to follow his path, we are saying, God, I’m in charge, not you. I will run my life how I want to.

We not only see spiritual rebellion but I want you to see that moral declension that takes place. We jump down to verse four of chapter one. A last sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corruptors.

They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel. They have turned away backwards.

Wow, a lot of different actions that the people have taken. And God is confronting their sin. And in every society, we can see that when sin abounds, that it becomes more and more reckless, uncontrollable.

And we see that it begins to grab a hold of the way people not only think but the way that they live our lives. We think about our nation. We think about a country that was founded on people who were searching to come to a land where they could worship God in freedom.

We think about how far our nation has come and how we have turned our hearts from God and that even now that in our political systems, on their platforms, they deny God and even, I’m gonna knock your socks off, but even in the Republican Party, they say they no longer wanna support traditional marriage and they no longer want to be pro-life because those things won’t win elections. Do you see what’s happening to our nation? Do you see what’s happening to our country? There are times I look at our political figures and I have to be honest and I say, is this the best we got? Out of all the people, 330 some million people that live in America, is this the best we got? And it’s only a reflection of the nation. It’s a reflection of our spiritual life as a nation that little by little, drip by drip, we have been ripping God out of every part of our life and we’ve said we don’t want God in the public square and we don’t want the 10 commandments in the courtroom because they remind us of our sin and they remind us of God’s expectation and they remind us of the calling of who we are in Christ and so let’s hide those things.

Let’s get rid of those things over and over again. And that’s why in verse five, he says, the whole head is sick, the heart is fainting and he reminds us in verse six that the body from the sole of the foot even to the head, we might say just the opposite, from head to toe, the body’s a mess, amen? But here he’s speaking metaphorically to us. From head to toe, yes, our nation’s a mess.

From head to toe, yes, we even as God’s people have gotten away from the truth and what we’ve seen is that even our churches are being afflicted by sin, that sin is infiltrating our churches, churches even here in Franklin County, platforming people who do not even believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who embrace a lifestyle that is contrary to the word of God, confusion abounding as to what is a man and a woman and people are confused about what genders they are. You ask them, how do you define a woman and they’re offended that you asked the question. You talk about crazy, you say, what’s wrong? I mean, I grew up in a world where that was very clear but why is there so much confusion? Because that leads me to my second point is the damage of sin.

Verse five and six remind us of the damage of sin. There’s no soundness but wounds. There are bruises and sores and so like a battered human body, so it is that our nation and the church has become affected by sin.

Why? Because we want the world to like us. We’re more interested in pleasing the world than we are in pleasing God almighty. What if you woke up every day and said, I wanna please Christ today, I wanna please a holy God today, I wanna live my life for his glory and if other people don’t like it, that’s what they gotta work on.

But that’s what you have, people running around trying to please everybody, trying to please the world so they can grow their church, please the world so they don’t offend the culture, please the world so everybody will be happy when only finding out that the church has become corrupt and sin has invaded and taken over. What is it that are some of the damages of sin? First of all, we might say stupidity. Sin does not help the intellect, it just does not and we could go on and on but again, we find ourselves very much like Jesus said of the Pharisees, swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat.

The things that don’t matter, we’re not focused on and we’re all worked up about it and we really need to get focused on where is our heart and where are we with the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s hard not to read the Bible and see some of the consequences and characteristics in the nation of Israel compared to America. I’m not saying America has replaced Israel or is Israel, please don’t misunderstand me but the prophet made a strong message and he told the people of God that they were sin sick and I believe America is sin sick.

We think our answer is economics or affordability or some other cultural issue but our answer is Jesus. Jesus is the only answer for this nation and I am praying that God would send a revival, a spiritual awakening to this nation and if not the nation, at least perhaps the regions, the states, if nothing else, at least our churches and ourselves that we would be awakened, revived, renewed and committed in our following of Christ. We wanna remind you that we have a website, hopeworthhaving.com, there’s a lot of material there, opportunities for you to learn, to grow.

We encourage you to send us your prayer requests. We want to pray for you so there’s a way that you can contact us and if you’ll just hit that contact button up at the top of the website page then we’ll be glad to pray for you. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.

The post A Sin Sick Nation Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

Pastor Mike will be speaking on What a Women Needs (Mothers Day). He will be reading out of Proverbs 31:10-12.

We don’t raise our kids so that they are with us forever, and I know some of you, maybe your children have some unique challenges, and I’m not talking about those situations, but I’m talking about your average person. Raise them up so they can fly for the Lord Jesus Christ. This is Pastor Mike Sanders, Hope Worth Having.

Thank you for joining us, and it is Mother’s Day. We’re in the book of Proverbs 31. You’re going to laugh at my title, What a Woman Needs.

Not that I have figured it out, okay, but we’re going to look at the scriptures and try to understand it better, and we’re going to look at this classic passage, and I hope it’ll be an encouragement. Moms, thank you for all that you do for us sons and daughters, children, and the difference you make in the world, and so join me as we study the Word of God today. If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in Proverbs 31.

I’ve entitled my message, What a Woman Needs. Now, I know that you ladies are saying, Pastor, you don’t know what a woman needs, and I concur, and no man knows what a woman needs, amen, but I needed a good title to get your attention this morning, but I do want you to know that Jesus Christ knows what a woman needs. And when we come to Proverbs 31, I just want to begin reading in verse 10, it says, Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.

The heart of her husband safely trusts in her, so he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. Proverbs sets a very high goal for women, and that goal is that she be a woman of excellence.

And it’s not just that she would be a woman of excellence, but that she would be a woman of moral excellence. By that, I don’t just mean that she is pure, certainly that would be included, but moral excellence speaks of knowing the difference between what is right and wrong, and conforming to a standard of right behavior that honors the Lord. Proverbs talks about some of these traits, and I want to highlight a few of them this morning with you.

My first point is simply the five characteristics of the happy woman, and these are not only true for every lady present this morning, mother or not, but also even for us men. These are things that we can give attention to and can continue to work on in our hearts and in our lives. The first thing that I want you to see is grace.

What we all need is grace. The scripture says in Proverbs 11, verse 16, that a gracious woman gets honor and violent men get riches. Now, when we look at this word gracious in the Hebrew, it’s the idea of being generous, kind, hospitable, or charming.

These are the different ways in which the word is used in the Old Testament. The point is that she is not to be a woman who is hard and gruff, if you will, and this verse says that a gracious woman will be honored. Now, this is in contrast to what Proverbs 11, verse 22 says in contrast.

That brings us to our second thing that a woman needs, not only that she needs grace or that she needs to be a gracious person, but discretion. In verse 22 of Proverbs 11, the Bible says that like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion. Now, the Bible is not calling women pigs, so please don’t misunderstand the Bible, and sometimes when you read the book of Proverbs, you have to understand what is going on and what he’s trying to say to us that you can’t just put a ring on a pig in their nose and all of a sudden they become this wonderful person.

That’s not it. Rings of gold were worn by women in the Old Testament in their noses. I know it’s hard to believe, and I just wonder how painful that must have been to create that hole for that ring to fit in, but people wear these things as symbols of beauty or perhaps even sometimes they want to make some kind of a statement.

Now, some I believe very innocently believe that this is something beautiful, but I am not part of this younger generation, and I still am trying to figure them out, and it seems to be appealing to them. But what the Scripture is saying here in Proverbs 11 is that just by putting a ring on a pig’s snout doesn’t make them beautiful within or without. But what it is is helping us understand is that what makes a woman beautiful is who she is within, and that not only that she is a person of graciousness in that she is hospitable, welcoming, and warming, and that she is a blessing to many, but she has discretion.

When we see the biblical word discretion, it means discernment. It is certainly the ability to see what is right and wrong, but not just what is right and what is wrong, but to understand what is spiritually and biblically right and wrong. And so she chooses the right, and she advises the right, desiring more than anything to follow the biblical plan in what God has to say.

And so the verse tells us that a beautiful woman without discretion is simply like putting a ring of gold in a pig’s nose. It really doesn’t change her within. It doesn’t change who she really is.

So it’s not the outward beauty that is of most importance to a woman. Now, a lot of ladies are working hard on their outward appearance, and we’re not opposed to that, but we’re just simply saying that’s not the priority of your life, and that you gotta remember that the diligence that you give to make sure that you maybe hide those wrinkles or you make sure that everything is looking appropriately and beautifully, and I understand that, but I hope that you would give attention to your own heart, and that you would give attention to your own soul and your spirit and where you are at spiritually. So when a beautiful woman is compromising and she is living a life that is ungodly and unbiblical, it doesn’t matter how much makeup she has.

It doesn’t matter how fancy her hair is and what the latest haircut is that she has. What really matters is what is in her heart. What is it in her life, in her spirit, and her heart for the Lord Jesus Christ? That is what brings most beauty to any lady, and again, in our text this morning in Proverbs 31, we are reminded at the end, the Bible says in verse 30 of chapter 31, that charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.

When the Bible talks about a woman who fears the Lord, it’s not that we live in this state that we are afraid, that we can’t even move forward in our life because we’re dominated by fear, but it’s talking about a reverence and a respect for the Lord. It’s talking about the fact that a woman who prioritizes the Lord in her life, who makes Jesus Christ number one, that he is preeminent in her life, that he is more important, her relationship with him is more important than making sure that she’s all dressed up and fancied up, but that she makes it a priority in her life to walk with the Lord, and so she has this fear. The Bible says that she shall be praised.

As a pastor doing funerals, you see many people come up and give tribute to their mother, they give tribute to the special people in their life, and what is always amazing to me is seeing the influence of moms and grandmas upon their children, their grandchildren, and even their great-grandchildren, but I tell you that grandchildren are great, all grandchildren are great, great-grandchildren are great, and every child and blessing that God gives you is a blessing, but listen, remember the most important thing is what you want them to remember is your legacy of faith in Jesus Christ, because when it comes down to the end of life, the only thing that matters is our faith and our family. All the other stuff is just sideshows, and all of that means nothing compared to knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and to having your family with you as you’re getting ready to be promoted into heaven, and so what is it that you want your family to say about you? What is it, ladies, that you want your children and your grandchildren and those wonderful great-grandchildren to say about you? And if it’s anything less than a woman of faith and a woman of great discretion and grace, then we are missing the target that God has for us. Proverbs 2 11 reminds us about discretion.

Discretion will preserve you. Understanding will keep or protect you. So these are important instructions that we’re given, and we need to ask the Lord to give us that discretion and that discernment so that we can continue to navigate through the challenges of life and the problems of life as we strive to influence our family and our friends and even those that God puts in our place that we might mentor and that we might encourage them and that we might help them to live a godly life, that God would give understanding and discretion to you ladies.

God has designed you ladies with inbuilt intuition about things, and many times my wife has given me advice and I, being foolish, have not taken it. All of a sudden I find out that she is right and she looks at me and she just smiles and says, told you so. But I tell you that when you are walking with the Lord Jesus Christ, when you are in the Word of God, when you are on your knees praying, seeking the Lord’s wisdom and discretion, that is when you will be this discerning Christian and be able to honor the Lord Jesus Christ and leave a lasting legacy that will go way beyond your life here on this earth.

And that’s the kind of lady that God is calling every woman to be this morning. We think about these characteristics of a happy woman. It is not only that she has grace and discretion, but she has virtue.

Again, we know that the Scriptures teach us that who can find a virtuous wife? Some translations say a virtuous woman. Who can find this virtuous woman? If she is found, she is worth far above rubies. That is that she is more valuable than all the riches of the world.

It is valuable to have a woman who is virtuous. The Bible says in Proverbs 12, 4, that an excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who causes shame is like the rottenness in his bones. A virtuous woman is a woman of moral character.

A virtuous woman is someone who is not only pure in her heart, but her thoughts, and she always strives for the right thing. She does not believe the worst in others, but she believes in the best of God’s good work of grace in their hearts. She possesses a godly character, making her a great value to her husband and to her family.

The Bible tells us that if a husband has a virtuous wife, he does not have to be concerned about her. He does not have to be troubled or stressed or anxious. He does not have to wonder what she is doing in secret.

A virtuous wife is someone who is willing to give up for others, to sacrifice and deny self. Jesus taught us that if we are to be a true disciple, we have to deny self and take up the cross and follow him. And not just follow him for a day, but follow him for the rest of our lives.

That’s what it means to be a disciplined, devoted disciple of Christ, and a virtuous woman is one who is dedicated to faithfully following the Lord Jesus Christ. But I want you to notice the second part of this verse in Proverbs 12, 4. It says, if she causes shame, it’s like rottenness in his bones. Think about that.

That a wife, if she lacks virtue in her life, she is slowly, inevitably, she is destroying that family. She is little by little, drip by drip, destroying her husband and destroying her family. And you may not think, ladies, look, I don’t have that kind of influence.

The truth is you do. And even though sometimes your influence is quiet, and maybe it’s not as bold, but it is there. And you’ve heard the statement that behind every great man is a great woman.

Can you believe that? I do. And I want you to know that also that there are many men who have been destroyed because they have a very contentious and unhappy and ungodly wife, a wife who will not follow the Lord. And the Bible tells us it’s rottenness in his bones.

And the idea is that there is this slow destruction that is taking place in their life. But I would go beyond just the husband. I would also say in the home.

That’s why every mother and every woman ought to make the cause in her heart that she would be a virtuous lady. And whether you have a husband or you don’t have a husband, the most important thing is that you would honor Christ. And you don’t want to shame your family name, but you definitely don’t want to shame the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

And so it is that all of us in our life, we should strive to not shame the name of Jesus Christ, that we strive to be virtuous in our hearts, that we might bring glory to God Almighty. Now, the next characteristic we find in the book of Proverbs is wisdom. The Bible says in Proverbs 14, 1, that the wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands.

This quality of wisdom is about understanding and knowledge and being able to have a positive and fulfilling impact upon the family. This is what God is calling us to do. A woman of wisdom knows how to connect.

She knows how to relate to her children, to her family members, and she understands her responsibility. She exercises care. There are times that she is firm.

There is times that she is flexible. There is times that she ministers, and there are times that she has to discipline. There is times that she is training, and there is times that she is encouraging.

But no matter what it is, she has the wisdom to navigate through those circumstances to influence her children, not only that they would be responsible adults someday and that they would go out and blossom for the Lord Jesus Christ, but that they would receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. Moms, please understand, you are the first missionary to your children. You should not wait for the preacher and the youth pastor and the children’s pastor or anybody else to try to evangelize your children.

You as a mom should be the first to do it. But not just moms, grandmas should be right up there doing everything that we can implant into the heart and the minds of our children, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is important that we understand the impact of the home.

When the home is a mess, it is going to have a fatal effect upon the children. We see this all the time as a pastor, as we’re working with people, trying to help people and help them to work through the different problems that they have, and it’s always that there’s an absent father, there’s an absent mother, and you say, well, I’m here. You may be there, but are you there? Are you engaged in the life and the mind of your children? Are you actively involved in their education? Are you actively involved in their development emotionally? Are you actively involved in helping those students, those children to become in a right relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? It’s very important.

Moms, I want you to know that it’s not your job to hold on to your kids forever. You are doing a disservice to your children. You want to raise your children to make it without you, right? And there was a day that we had to say, it’s time to fly.

And I fear that many mothers don’t want to give their children wings to fly. And the truth is, that’s not going to help them in the long run. And what you need to do is step into the life of your children, and you need to train them that they can function where they are dependent upon the Lord Jesus Christ, but they are interdependent in their relationship with you, meaning not that they’re independent from you, but they have a relationship where they can function without you.

That’s what the Bible teaches. We don’t raise our kids so that they are with us forever. And I know some of you, maybe your children have some unique challenges, and I’m not talking about those situations, but I’m talking about your average person.

Raise them up so they can fly for the Lord Jesus Christ. Have that wisdom on how to impact your home and to build your family up where they can make the most for the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, how do you use God’s wisdom for your life? Well, just three things I jotted down that I thought would be helpful.

The Bible tells us that wisdom comes from above, and we need to learn to seek that wisdom. So I would say, first of all, that we should research God’s Word to solve our problems. Now, there are always going to be problems, and your problem is not your problem, but it’s how do we react and handle our problems.

And there are times we handle problems right, and there’s times we handle it wrong. And the thing that we have to remember is let’s research the Word of God. Now, I want to tell you something.

The Word of God is our rule of life. What the Bible says is how we live. And people say to me sometimes, well, Mike, that doesn’t apply.

My friends, the Bible applies to our life, amen? And I want to hear that garbage. And I want to handle the Word of God. I want to handle things like the Word of God says, and I’m willing to stand on that to my death.

And I don’t care. People might say, oh, we want to do it our way. We want to do it this way.

This is what this says and that says. What does the Bible say is what I want to know? Research the Bible. Research the Word of God to solve your problems.

Second of all, allow God’s Word to guide you as you are dealing with the battles of life. So it’s not just that I have the knowledge of God’s Word, but I’m applying it and living by it. It’s one thing to have it up here in your head.

It’s another to use it in your life. And that’s when we say that we’re to trust the Lord. We have to trust the Lord to use the Bible.

We have to trust that His Word will work as we follow that Word. And moms, there may be times you want to retreat and you say, I’m not sure if that’ll work. And I want to try a worldly way, or I want to try my own wisdom way, or I want to try a fleshly way of how to do it only to find that it will fail.

And we’ve all experienced those moments where we did not rely on God’s wisdom, but we trusted in our own wisdom. But we allow God’s Word to guide us every step, and then we turn from your wisdom and we seek God’s wisdom. And the Bible tells us in Proverbs chapter 2 that we ought to seek it like gold.

And people are seeking riches, and they’re trying to get wealthy, and they’re going to try these different bitcoins and other means of finances, and they want to get wealthy, hoping that this will be the time that they finally see their ship has come in and they’re going to be wealthy, only to find out that it’s a dead-end road. True wealth is God’s wisdom. And the Bible tells us that if we lack wisdom, what should we do? We should ask.

If you lack wisdom, ask the Lord. And when’s the last time you asked the Lord for wisdom? When’s the last time that you sought Him? All right, let’s talk about prudence. When we talk about a happy, godly woman, she has prudence.

Proverbs 19, 14 tells us, “…houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.” What a blessing to have a prudent wife. The dictionary defines prudence as the ability to govern and discipline oneself for the use of reason and management of affairs, to have good judgment in the use of resources. That’s quite a definition.

But I want you to know that if God blesses you with a prudent wife, then you know it’s from the Lord. Proverbs 14, 18 says, “…the wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way, but the folly of fools is deceit.” We desire prudence in our life because we want to handle and we want to manage and we want to have good judgment of what God has entrusted to us. God gives us resources, as we already stated.

He blesses us with things. And so we want to make the most of it. When you go back to the Proverbs 31 lady, you notice there in verse 13, “…she seeks wool and flax and willingly works with her hands.” She is like the merchant ship.

She brings her food from afar. “…she rises whilst yet night and provides food for her household and a portion for her maidservants. She considers a field and buys it from her profits and she plants a vineyard.

She girds herself with strength and strengthen her arms. She perceives that her merchandise is good. Her lamp does not go out by night.

She stretches out her hands to the staff and her hands holds the spindle. She extends her hands to the poor. Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.

She is not afraid of snow for all her household is clothed with scarlet. She makes the tapestry for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple.” What I want you to see is that here this Proverbs 31 is a woman who is resourceful and she is not just someone who sits at home.

She is out there purchasing land. She’s doing some real estate. She’s making products.

She knows that her products are good and she sells those products. She provides and helps to make sure that her children are clothed and she not only makes sure that her family has what it needs but she is a woman who is always aware of the needy and the poor. And the Bible says that she is willing to extend her hand to the poor.

She reaches out her hand to the needy. And what I want you to see there is that she is intentional. She takes the initiative to reach out to those who are needy.

God has blessed her. He has given her resources and she wants to manage those resources not just for her family but she wants to manage them in such a way that she can help others. She is not just reacting to the needs of those who are poor but she is intentional in that she is reaching out to them.

She is proactive and she wants to step into their life and provide something for them. Because God has provided it to her. The Bible teaches us to whom much is given much is required.

And it is not just that we think about material wealth but it’s certainly things that we think about relating to the resources that God has given to us. And so we understand that these resources are to be used to be a blessing for our family and they are to be a blessing for those who are in need. Now I just want to point out a few things about the unhappy woman.

The scriptures are clear about this. And these are things that we have to consider. The unhappy woman has one major characteristic.

It is that she is contentious. In the book of Proverbs the contentious woman is referred to five times. The word for contentious can be translated in a number of ways.

One is angry. Other is nagging. And the other is quarrelsome.

And it comes from a word that means discord. It’s the same Hebrew word that the Bible teaches us that we’re not to sow discord among the brethren. It’s the same idea of a contentious woman.

A woman who is always upset. She’s always in a bad mood. And she’s always mad about something.

And her disposition is not one of grace but it is one of anger. And she is a person who is sowing discord. It is a contentious disposition.

And that creates a problem in the family. What Proverbs is saying to us in a kind of a humorous way when it tells us in Proverbs 21 9 that it’s better to dwell in a corner of a housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman. Think about that.

Now in the Old Testament the Jewish people would build flat roofs. Unlike our roofs that are angled so the water, the snow, and all the weather can roll right off of it. They built flat roofs.

And what they’re saying here that in the days of Israel it is better to live in the corner of a roof with all of its challenges than the challenge of trying to live with a contentious, angry, bitter woman. And again scriptures are filled with this and you can research it yourself. So what is the problem? What is it that makes a woman so contentious? That she’s unbearable and that you can’t even live with her? Well I think Proverbs 30 verse 23 puts its finger on the root of the problem.

It reminds us that a woman who is unloved is the source of her contention. The most important thing a mother needs is true salvation. And so if you’re listening today and you’ve never trusted in Christ, Mom, it’s time to surrender your life and to repent of your sin and to receive Jesus as your Savior.

And I want to remind you that in Christ there is hope worth having.

The post What a Women Needs (Mothers Day) first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Importance of Maintaining Fellowship When You Disagree Part 2. He will be reading out of Philemon 1:23-24.

Because if it’s left up to our flesh, we would not want to forgive anybody who had hurt us. But the apostle says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Have you ever asked God to bestow his grace on somebody else’s spirit? Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and we welcome you to Hope Worth Having.

We’re looking forward to what God has for us as we study the Bible together. We picked up on a very difficult topic last week, and that is the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree. We’re in the book of Philemon, and usually what Christians do is when they get mad, they run.

They run from the church, they run for Christ, and God doesn’t want that. He wants us to be bigger, better, stronger. And so I want you to join me as we study maintaining fellowship when you disagree.

Colossians 4.12 tells us that Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you always, laboring fervently for you in prayer, that you may stand perfect or mature and complete in all the will of God. There is no greater labor than you and I could do than to pray for one another. And I’ll tell you, true prayer is laboring prayer.

True prayer is being willing to reach out to the throne of grace, to seek God on behalf of others, and bringing your supplications to God, and praying for the needs and the challenges and the problems that people have in their life, and bringing that all before God. Epaphras was that kind of a pastor. He was that kind of a man of God.

He was that kind of a servant who went to God on behalf of others, and he sought them passionately. He was a man who was truly respected in the church. Philemon would have surely known him and been under his ministry, and heard him teach the Word of God.

Then I want you to know that he introduces to us Marcus, or in the New King James, it says Mark. The word Marcus or Mark means a defense. Oh, this is powerful because you know him as John Mark.

You remember that John Mark was the cousin of Barnabas. You remember in Acts 4 and Acts 5 that Barnabas was this encourager, and he became a quick leader in the church, and that he was a man of means who was able to help the church in its early days. He was able to be strategic in introducing the Apostle Paul, who was formerly known as Saul.

He got converted, and he became Paul. Now the people were scared because Saul was a persecutor of the church, and they thought maybe he’s trying to spy, and maybe he’s trying to come in as somebody different. Maybe he’s trying to trick us, and Barnabas testified to the authenticity of the Apostle Paul’s conversion, and Barnabas played a valuable role.

You remember that in Acts 15, the Apostle Paul and Barnabas were ready to go on their second missionary journey, and they wanted to go back to the churches, find out how they’re doing, and give updates, and begin to be an encouragement to them, and they wanted to take this young man. His name was what church? John Mark. Thank you.

Appreciate that one person. Oh buddy, the pastor has so much to do, so much training to teach, but if you recall, and maybe I’m being presumptuous, and please forgive me, but Paul and Barnabas had a disagreement about John Mark. John Mark had quit on the first missionary journey.

He stepped away and said, I’m done. I’m out. The Bible doesn’t tell us why.

We don’t know if he got homesick. We don’t know if there was health problems. We don’t know that he just didn’t enjoy working with Paul because his personality was so strong.

We don’t know, but for whatever reason, he said, I’m out, and he left them. High and dry, and so Paul was very frustrated about that, and when Barnabas said, hey, when we’re putting our team together, don’t forget John Mark, and Paul’s like, that ain’t happening. I know this is the Mike Sanders translation, by the way.

Just want to let you know, but he said, that’s not going to happen, and Barnabas and Paul, the Bible says their disagreement was so strong, there was contention between the two, and they decided that they would each go their different ministry, and they started two missionary teams, and now look at this. We’re coming to the end of the book of Philemon, and there is John Mark. He’s back on the team.

He’s serving God. God has restored him. The apostle, listen, why is this so important? Because the apostle Paul is asking Philemon to forgive, and let me tell you something, you can’t do, and you can’t expect or ask people to do what you are not doing yourself, amen, and so he’s saying, okay, I see John Mark, and we learn later in first Timothy that he’ll say, send me John Mark, because he is profitable or beneficial to the ministry.

What I’m trying to say to you is that in the context of the church family, God wants us to continue to show grace and to show forgiveness as God is working in the hearts of people. Who among us has not failed God? Who among us has not mishandled something? Who among us has not made a bad choice and a bad decision, and it reflected upon the ministry poorly? The truth is we all find ourselves there, and this is why God is saying that there is restoration, and there is forgiveness and grace, and in the context of when you and I disagree, I know it’s hard to believe, but we just might actually disagree, but how is it that we’re gonna handle this? Are we just gonna run from one church to the next and thinking, oh, that next church down the street, they don’t have any conflicts. Everybody in that church agrees with everybody.

They’re always working together, and they never have personality conflicts. Are we gonna be of that mindset? Is that the truth? Is that how it works? No. The truth is no matter where you go, people are different, and no matter where you go, you find these sandpaper people.

You heard about these people? You heard about these people? They rub you the wrong way, and they keep showing up in my life, and I say, Lord, why are there so many sandpaper people everywhere I go? Try to say that fast, right? Sandpaper people, people eater. Anyways, just kidding. Oh, Mike, get back focused.

Stick with your notes, right? But I want you to know that the Lord has a purpose, and the Lord has a plan, and there are many areas in Mike’s life that need to be smoothed out. They need to be dealt with those rough edges, and so God uses these sandpaper people to make me more like Christ. That’s why I’m saying to you the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree.

Philemon can’t just abandon the church, and he can’t just say, I’m not gonna have anything to do with Onesimus. There has to be this restoration that God is at work, and Mark, John Mark, is a living example, and guess who wrote the Gospel of Mark? My questions are easy, church. John Mark, that God would use this young man who abandoned the first missionary trip, and then restore him through the mentoring of Barnabas, and reconnect him back into the church family, and get him back on the apostles team, and then he is used by God to pin down the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God.

My friends, the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree. You’ll note the next person that is listed, Aristarchus. His name means the best ruler.

He was a Jewish believer. You can read more about it in Colossians 4. He was a native of Thessalonica, and he was a man who wouldn’t leave you when the chips are down. He was with the apostle at the riot in Acts chapter 19.

He was with the apostle when they were in the shipwreck in Acts chapter 27. Church, we were just there in the book of Acts together, and we were studying the whole book of Acts, and it took us a long time to get through the book of Acts, but you remember that this horrible shipwreck happened, but what did Aristarchus do? He stayed. You know, it’s easy to run from problems, but it’s far better to work through problems.

In the family of God, you’ll have more joy and you’ll have more strength when you don’t run from your problems and you don’t burn bridges and you don’t isolate yourself from others than to work through your problems. When I’m trying to help couples who are struggling in their marriages, I say it’s far better. The joy will be sweeter at the end of the marriage that you work through your difficulties rather than running from your problems.

God’s anointing is in that place where we work through our issues and we don’t abandon each other in the tough times. I get so discouraged by members who run from other churches just because that church is having a season of difficulty walking through a valley and members begin to disperse and leave and say, we wanna go somewhere else. No, my friends, I love the people that are here and they’re here in the good times, they’re here in the bad times, they’re here when the pastor’s bringing his A game and they’re here when the pastor is miserably messing things up, amen? Now you can say amen better than that, can’t you? I wanna remind you, I know it’s probably hard for you guys to imagine, but I umpire softball and so when we start out the game, I pull the two coaches together at home plate and I do what they train me to do, preventive maintenance, preventive maintenance and I tell them up front, I want you guys to understand something, sometimes it’s ladies and I say, coaches, I know this is gonna be hard to believe, but I’m not perfect and they just look at me and startle, struck, they cannot believe it, I’m not perfect and I tell them if they have any doubts, just give my wife a call and she’ll let them know, amen? But I remind them, I’m probably gonna make a mistake in this game, but we can handle it like adults, we can handle it like mature people and what I’m saying to you is that what I love about Aristocrats, maybe everything wasn’t going great, maybe everything wasn’t like he thought it should be or maybe he felt like some of these challenges were tough, but he did not abandon the team or the apostle in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, which leads us to our next person, Demas, here at this moment as the apostle is writing this letter, apparently Demas is a faithful servant of God, but for Demas, who means governor of the people, he did not finish well, he did not finish strong, for we know in the scriptures in 2nd Timothy 4.10, the Bible reminds us that the apostle says, Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and has departed to Thessalonica.

Goes on to describe where he’s at and what’s next steps, but point being is simply this, are you finishing strong for Christ? What is most startling for me as a pastor is to think about how many people who are still living their life in fear, who are still scared, who are still saying to themselves, well, during COVID, I didn’t go to church and I’m just gonna never go back, listen to me, my friends, it’s time to rise above, it’s time to give your eyes on Jesus Christ. If it’s your time to check out, God will let you know, if it’s not, you’ll overcome and you’ll continue to move forward, but what we can’t do church is be like Demas and fall flat on our face. It’s not enough for you just to begin for Christ.

The question is, how will you finish for Jesus? What will be your legacy to your children? And what will be your legacy to your grandchildren? Will you finish strong for Christ? Will they be able to testify at your funeral service that grandpa and grandma or mom and dad would not retreat and they kept plowing forward for Jesus Christ and they finished strong for the Lord? Or will it be a testimony of embarrassment, a testimony of, well, they did a few nice things and they always bought me a candy or will your testimony of Christ shine through your life? I wanna challenge you church to be strong for Christ and the key is not to get distracted in this world, not to love the things of this world, not to be pulled by the things of this world. We all have within our human sinful nature a tug towards the world but the Bible teaches us that we are not to love the world nor the things of the world but we need to keep our love and our affection and our focus upon the Lord, Jesus Christ. And that’s the importance of fellowship.

You might say, oh, Mike, it’s not a big deal that I come to church. It’s not a big deal that I’m fellowshipping with God’s people and that I’m connected into Sunday school or I’m connected into a Bible study. None of that matters, Mike.

I just wanna live my faith in isolation and I wanna tell you, yeah, I’m not saying you can’t be a Christian and worship God by yourself but let me tell you something as I told the church on Wednesday is that I can eat Thanksgiving dinner by myself but it’s a lot better when family’s with me. I can eat dinner at night but it’s a lot better when my wife is with me. Do you understand? And some of you have lost your spouse or you’ve lost loved ones in your life and you know what it’s like to have an empty chair.

And let me tell you, when we spiritually gather for the Lord, it means so much to see you here. And the importance of fellowship is that we’re all feasting on the word, we’re all feasting on the truth, we’re all feasting on what God has for us and we’re hearing the word of God taught and God is pouring into our life and God is transforming us and shaping our hearts for Christ and it is wonderful and listen, by me being here, if I’m not here, people are saying, where’s the pastor? Thank you. It’s nice to be noticed every once in a while.

Where’s the pastor? You know what I’m saying? You heard about the guy who was all curled up and said he didn’t wanna go to church and his wife said, you have to go to church. He said, I don’t want to. She said, you’re the pastor, you have to go to church.

Amen. But listen, not only does the pastor, you all have to be, you know what? When we don’t see our brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to say something. We need to pick up the phone and now you got this fancy phone that you could text people, you can email people, you could talk to people.

Are you doing okay? Look, I know some of you like to move around. I know who’s here and who’s not here by where you sit. Did you know that? And I know that and I see empty spots sometimes and I say, where were you? And they said, pastor, we were there.

And I said, well, where were you? I didn’t see you. They said, oh, we decided to move on the other side of the church auditorium. Now don’t be messing with my mind.

I mean, it took me 20 years to get here to figure out who you are and where you’re sitting, right? And now you’re moving on me, playing tricks on me. I hear you. But listen, when our brothers and sisters aren’t around and we don’t see them, we need to be reaching out to them because there’s the importance of fellowship.

There’s the accountability of each other and there is that we are members and if maybe if somebody’s struggling or needs help or something, we need to make sure and if they’re just on vacation, we can say, why didn’t you take us? Why didn’t you invite us to go on vacation? Well, they said, we don’t even invite our mother-in-law, much less you. I’m just teasing. Oh, we gotta hurry, church.

We gotta hurry. I got like four pages here and I’m not even gonna get done with that. Can’t even get through these names.

But I want you to see this last name, Luke. Luke. We know Luke.

The word Luke means light giving. He was a Gentile Christian doctor and he was the author of the third gospel. He frequently traveled with the apostle and he helped care for the apostle’s physical needs and his ailments.

He was tender. He was loving. He was caring to the apostle so that the apostle’s body could stay healthy in serving the Lord Jesus Christ.

He was a loyal friend to the apostle. He was with him in his final days. In those final days, Luke was with the apostle.

Second Timothy 4.11. Before the apostle would give his life as a martyr for the cause of Jesus, he wrote to Timothy and said, only Luke is with me. Take Mark and bring him with thee for he is profitable to me for the ministry. Point being, only Luke’s with me.

Final days. Final moments on this earth. Is it gonna be long before I face death? And there’s Luke, the physician.

Always loyal. Always helpful. Always serving.

The importance of fellowship. I’m sure that Luke and Paul disagreed. And like all of us, sometimes our doctor tells us to quit drinking Mountain Dew and we just totally disagree with them, amen? What’s up with them doctors telling us what we can eat and what we can’t eat? Well, I’m sure there was differences, but the love and the forgiveness and the grace that was bestowed upon them.

I wanna give you my conclusion because I want you to note in verse 25. It says, the grace of our Lord Jesus be with your spirit, not the Holy Spirit, but your spirit, your attitude. Because if it’s left up to our flesh and our spirit, why we would just be mad at everybody and we would not wanna forgive anybody who had stolen from us, who have hurt us.

But the apostle says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Have you ever prayed like that? Have you ever asked God to bestow his grace on somebody else’s spirit? Paul had the personal pleasure of having deeply committed and faithful people who helped him in the cause of Christ. It was also a wonderful thing to see him publicly recognize these individuals and appreciate and acknowledge him.

But the book of Philemon does not end in this final verse. It’s not the end of the story, church. How did things turn out between Philemon and Onesimus? Well, there’s no doubt that Philemon did forgive Onesimus.

First of all, we know that to be true because this book would be included in the New Testament canon. It seems that it would not have been very victorious or helpful had it been that Philemon never forgave, that he had chosen the path of anger and bitterness and resentment and burning bridges and isolation and refusing to be in the body of the fellowship of believers. But just the opposite is true.

What we understand to be true according to church history, that later the church father Ignatius in Smyrna on his way to being martyred in Rome for Christ, wrote a letter to the church. And in this letter, he said, I received your large congregation in the person of Onesimus, your pastor in this world, a man whose love is beyond words. I wonder had Philemon not forgiven, would Onesimus be a pastor today? Would he have been a man who would be described as having love beyond words? The significance of you withholding forgiveness is not only your spiritual health.

It’s not only that you’re an example to the church and to your own family, your children and grandchildren. But the significance is that if you withhold, it has a damaging effect upon the one that you are withholding forgiveness. But I pray that the spirit of God’s grace would be upon your spirit today.

Would you pray with me? Our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed. And it’s so important that you and I choose forgiveness. The ramifications are many.

And the question is, do you want to walk through life with broken relationships, damaged hearts, separated fellowship? Or do you want to live in the grace of his restoration and forgiveness and joy? Oh, there’s hurts and there’s challenges and there’s problems in this journey of faith. We’re complicated people and we’re flawed to the very core. But God calls us to be a forgiving people.

And the only way that I can forgive others and you can forgive others is through the grace, the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has forgiven us. And I pray that you will reach out to God this morning and that you would ask him to bless you with his grace and to give you a spirit of forgiveness and restoration to help you to overcome the negative emotions and the separation. And to once again, build that bridge back.

Back. It might be a person in the family of God. It might be a family member.

It may be somebody in the past. There are many situations that we could share, but you be led of the spirit. You be led of God this morning.

And if it’s time for you to take that initiative, swallow your pride, humble your heart and pray for the spirit of God’s grace to be upon your spirit. If you’re here this morning and you say, pastor, I don’t know about this grace and forgiveness. Well, my friends, Jesus Christ went to the cross for your sins.

And I want you to know that if you would be honest enough with God this morning to acknowledge your sinfulness and your need for forgiveness, if you would just simply believe in your heart that Christ died on the cross, he rose again. If you would believe that he died for your sins and your past and rose again for your future and your hope, if you would call upon him even now where you’re sitting while we’re praying that whoever calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is your moment and this is your time to call out to God and ask him to wash away your sins.

There is no church that is more supportive to God saving your soul than in this moment at this time right now. And I pray that salvation will come to your heart. Father in heaven, when we talk about this difficult subject of forgiveness, we know that there are many complications and many things that have to be dealt with.

But in general, Lord, we come and we’re just asking that you would help us because our flesh cries out revenge. Our flesh cries out separation and isolation. But God, we pray that your grace would be upon our spirit, that you would fill our hearts with true fruits of the spirit, that we would manifest what is truly your will and your way.

I pray, God, that as we reflect on these truths, that you would give us a desire to research the scriptures and to see if these things are so, and that you would allow this to change our hearts and to live in obedience to you as we strive to honor you, not just in our life, but in our relationships with others. And I pray, God, that you will continue to show grace and that we can truly be a heritage of the Lord and a testimony of your great forgiveness to each of us. We thank you, Lord, for this time together as your people.

And may you continue to help each of us to keep you first in our hearts. And we pray all this in the precious name of Jesus Christ. It’s easy to burn the bridge, cut people off, and just be done.

But God wants us to do everything we can to maintain fellowship. I know that sometimes that’s not always possible, okay? And we get that. But we try, if possible, to live in peace with all men.

And if God provides that opportunity where you can live in peace I think we ought to, by faith, embrace it. And so I hope this message has been an encouragement to you and is helping you to stay strong in your faith. Look, we know there are times that we’re not feeling well or maybe we are out of town.

We want you to know that we have a live stream at HopeWorthHaving.com every Sunday morning at 11 a.m. And you’re welcome to join us. We don’t want to keep you out of your church. If you’re not in a church, we want you to get plugged into a church.

But sometimes we need options because of our circumstances. And if that’s you, then join us, HopeWorthHaving.com. Click our live stream, 11 a.m. every Sunday morning. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you, in Christ there is hope worth having.

The post The Importance of Maintaining Fellowship When You Disagree Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Importance of Maintaining Fellowship When You Disagree Part 1. He will be reading out of Philemon 1:23-24.

God wants us to continue to show grace and to show forgiveness. Who among us has not failed God? The truth is we all find ourselves there. And this is why God is saying that there is restoration and forgiveness and grace.

Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and we are broadcasting from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. And this is Hope Worth Having, and we are honored that you have joined us today. We’re going to continue our study in Philemon.

We’ve been studying it verse by verse. We’re down to verse 23 and verse 24. Here’s a tough one, the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree.

So you’re not always going to agree with your brothers and sisters in Christ. And the question is, what are you going to do about that? So I want you to open your Bible and join me as we study the Word of God together. If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in the book of Philemon.

And I know sometimes it’s hard to find that book because it is such a small book in the Bible. But if you’ll go to the book of Hebrews, it’s right in front. If you can’t find the book of Hebrews, go to Revelation.

You’ll bump into Hebrews as you go backwards. And there is Philemon as well. We come to the final few verses here of Philemon.

Verse 23 and verse 24 and 25 that we want to share with you this morning. And as you are turning there, I want to talk to you about the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree. Now, remember the context of this book.

Remember that Philemon has been implored and he has been instructed by the apostle that he should forgive Onesimus. Onesimus stole from Philemon, most likely money, perhaps maybe some things. And now the apostle has run into Onesimus in jail.

And the apostle, not being a whiner, but a shiner, someone who does not pity himself, but makes the most of what his situation is. He, while in jail, witnesses to Onesimus. Onesimus becomes a believer.

And now the apostle wants to restore this relationship. He wants to restore Onesimus back into the church family and back to Philemon. And so this letter was written with that understanding.

We pick up in verse 23. The scripture says, Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristocras, Demas, Luke, my fellow laborers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Amen. Christian living does not happen in a vacuum. As a matter of fact, the Bible reminds us in Ephesians 4, 25, that we are members of one another.

We sometimes don’t see it that way because we’re Americans and we’re getting ready to celebrate Independence Day. That’s how much we love independence. But yet in the community of faith, in the fellowship of the church, we are called to be connected to one another.

And not only are we called to be connected, but we are reminded that whether we believe it or not, or even behave in that way, we are connected. We are members of one another. So much so that the apostle would say to the church at Rome, that when one rejoices, we should all rejoice.

And when one weeps within the family of God, we should all weep. That’s how interconnected we are as believers. The Bible knows nothing of solitary saints.

It knows nothing of lone ranger Christians. I know that there are many Christians who are lone rangers. They’re not connected to a church.

They’re not connected to a body of believers. They feel like they can live their faith by themselves. They don’t need other people.

That only is a reflection of what is in their hearts. But I remind you today that it is not only beneficial for you and I to fellowship as brothers and sisters in Christ, but it is also mandated. It is mandated in the Bible.

The apostle Paul reminds Philemon of his responsibility. And he brings up in these final few passages, having already implored and beseeched and instructed Philemon to be a man who forgives others. He reminds them of these five men that he has a responsibility to that are within the fellowship of the family of God.

He is extending a greeting on their behalf to Philemon. It is no accident. It is not something that is unintentional or just kind of a afterthought, but rather it is very intentional that the apostle would bring up these particular men.

For he is reminding Philemon in refusing to forgive Onesimus, he would disappoint the hopes and the expectations of the family of God. He is not only disappointing his Lord and Savior who gave his life for Philemon, who himself, meaning Jesus, sacrificially gave his life not because Philemon deserved it or that any of us deserve forgiveness. It is not like Philemon had somehow measured up to be this great person and now he was worthy of the forgiveness of God.

But very much like each of us this morning, we are not worthy of grace, forgiveness, and salvation. But through great love that God has extended to us in that he sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Not only would Philemon disappoint his heavenly Father, his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, but he would disappoint the church family if he were to hold on to grudges.

If he were to hold on to anger and hate. So in this passage, the apostle brings attention at the end of this letter to these fellow servants. He refers to them in verse 3 as fellow prisoners.

In verse 24, he calls them fellow laborers. They are not only serving with the apostle, but they are suffering with the apostle. They are not only helping him to advance the cause of Jesus Christ, but they are enduring the challenges of prison and jail.

The sufferings of doing without. The sufferings of being unjustly thrown into jail. The suffering of being mischaracterized or even looked down upon by the world.

And so the apostle wants them to be acknowledged. He wants them to be recognized in the church family, but he specifically wants Philemon to know that these men are with him. And these men are serving and suffering with him.

And they are very much aware of the situation. It is perhaps that maybe one of them introduced Onesimus to the apostle. It is perhaps that they originally planted seeds and began to share the gospel.

However it unfolded, we don’t know the details, but we know that the apostle had a team of laborers. Who came together and they served together with their passion of reaching others for the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle recognizes those who have faithfully stood with him.

And they have not only stood with him, but they have stood beside him in ministry in the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a noble person who is able to share some of the limelight. Though many were very much aware of the apostle, they may not have been aware so much of this team or these people who were working behind the scenes.

And so the apostle wants them to be acknowledged in Philemon’s life. And I like what Mark Twain once said, I can go for one month off of just one compliment. And I think that’s so important what we see in the apostle is that he is complimenting these men who have served with him.

Who have served beside him. Who have walked through the tough times with him. And he wants them to be recognized.

Let’s take just a quick understanding of who these individuals are. As he shows appreciation to them and he values them and acknowledges them. He begins to identify them.

And the first person that we see is Epaphras. I want you to see that Epaphras. Which his name means lovely.

Epaphras, you’ve heard that name before. If you’ve been with us, you know that in our study of the book of Colossians. That Epaphras was the pastor of the church.

And remember that Philemon, it was in his home that the church gathered for worship. For Bible study. For prayer.

For communion together. He opened his home to them. And so he would know Epaphras.

He would know about Epaphras. Because he was a man who was deeply devoted to the cause of Jesus Christ. Most likely the founder of the church at Colossae.

We know him to be a man of prayer. Epaphras was a man of prayer. Colossians 4.12 tells us that Epaphras, who is one of you.

A servant of Christ. Saluted you always. Laboring fervently for you in prayer.

That you may stand perfect or mature and complete in all the will of God. There is no greater labor than you and I can do than to pray for one another. And I’ll tell you true prayer is laboring prayer.

True prayer is being willing to reach out to the throne of grace. To seek God on behalf of others. And bringing your supplications to God.

And praying for the needs. And the challenges. And the problems that people have in their life.

And bringing that all before God. Epaphras was that kind of a pastor. He was that kind of a man of God.

He was that kind of a servant who went to God on behalf of others. And he sought them passionately. He was a man who was truly respected in the church.

Philemon would have surely known him. And been under his ministry. And heard him teach the word of God.

Then I want you to know that he introduces to us Marcus. Or in the New King James it says Mark. The word Marcus or Mark means a defense.

Oh this is powerful because you know him as John Mark. You remember that John Mark was the cousin of Barnabas. You remember in Acts 4 and Acts 5 that Barnabas was this encourager.

And he became a quick leader in the church. And that he was a man of means who was able to help the church in its early days. And he was able to be strategic in introducing the Apostle Paul.

Who was formerly known as Saul. And he got converted and he became Paul. And now the people were scared because Saul was a persecutor of the church.

And they thought maybe he’s trying to spy. And maybe he’s trying to come in as somebody different. Maybe he’s trying to trick us.

And Barnabas testified to the authenticity of the Apostle Paul’s conversion. And Barnabas played a valuable role. You remember that in Acts 15.

The Apostle Paul and Barnabas were ready to go on their second missionary journey. And they wanted to go back to the churches. Find out how they’re doing.

And give updates and begin to be an encouragement to them. And they wanted to take this young man. His name was what church? John Mark.

Thank you. Appreciate that one person. Oh buddy, the pastor.

Has so much to do. So much training to teach. But if you recall.

And maybe I’m being presumptuous and please forgive me. But Paul and Barnabas had a disagreement about John Mark. John Mark had quit on the first missionary journey.

He stepped away and said, I’m done. I’m out. The Bible doesn’t tell us why.

We don’t know if he got homesick. We don’t know if there was health problems. We don’t know that he just didn’t enjoy working with Paul because his personality was so strong.

We don’t know. But for whatever reason, he said, I’m out. And he left them high and dry.

And so Paul was very frustrated about that. And when Barnabas said, hey, when we’re putting our team together, don’t forget John Mark. And Paul’s like, that ain’t happening.

This is the Mike Sanders translation, by the way. Just want to let you know. But he said, that’s not going to happen.

And Barnabas and Paul, the Bible says their disagreement was so strong. There was contention between the two. And they decided that they would each go their different ministry.

And they started two missionary teams. And now, look at this. We’re coming to the end of the book of Philemon.

And there is John Mark. He’s back on the team. He’s serving God.

God has restored him. The apostle, listen, why is this so important? Because the apostle Paul is asking Philemon to forgive. And let me tell you something.

You can’t do and you can’t expect or ask people to do what you are not doing yourself. Amen. And so he’s saying, okay, I see John Mark.

And we learn later in 1 Timothy that he’ll say, send me John Mark because he is profitable or beneficial to the ministry. What I’m trying to say to you is that in the context of the church family, God wants us to continue to show grace and to show forgiveness as God is working in the hearts of people. Who among us has not failed God? Who among us has not mishandled something? Who among us has not made a bad choice and a bad decision and it reflected upon the ministry poorly? The truth is we all find ourselves there.

And this is why God is saying that there is restoration and there is forgiveness and grace. And in the context of when you and I disagree, I know it’s hard to believe, but we just might actually disagree. But how is it that we’re going to handle this? Are we just going to run from one church to the next and thinking, go that next church down the street.

They don’t have any conflicts. Everybody in that church agrees with everybody. They’re always working together and they never have personality conflicts.

Are we going to be of that mindset? Is that the truth? Is that how it works? No, the truth is no matter where you go, people are different. And no matter where you go, you find these sandpaper people. You heard about these people? You heard about these people? They rub you the wrong way and they keep showing up in my life.

And I say, Lord, why are there so many sandpaper people everywhere I go? Try to say that fast, right? Sandpaper people, people eater. Anyways, just kidding. Oh my, get back focused.

Stick with your notes, right? But I want you to know that the Lord has a purpose and the Lord has a plan. And there are many areas in Mike’s life that need to be smoothed out. They need to be dealt with those rough edges.

And so God uses these sandpaper people to make me more like Christ. That’s why I’m saying to you the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree. Philemon can’t just abandon the church and he can’t just say, I’m not going to have anything to do with Onesimus.

There has to be this restoration that God is at work. And Mark, John Mark, is a living example. And guess who wrote the Gospel of Mark? My questions are easy, church.

John Mark. That God would use this young man who abandoned the first missionary trip and then restore him through the mentoring of Barnabas and reconnect him back into the church family and get him back on the apostles team. And then he is used by God to pin down the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God.

My friends, the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree. You’ll note the next person that is listed, Aristarchus. His name means the best ruler.

He was a Jewish believer. You can read more about it in Colossians 4. He was a native of Thessalonica. And he was a man who wouldn’t leave you when the chips are down.

He was with the apostle at the riot in Acts chapter 19. He was with the apostle when they were in the shipwreck in Acts chapter 27. Church, we were just there in the book of Acts together.

And we were studying the whole book of Acts. And it took us a long time to get through the book of Acts. But you remember that this horrible shipwreck happened.

But what did Aristarchus do? He stayed. You know, it’s easy to run from problems. But it’s far better to work through problems.

In the family of God, you’ll have more joy and you’ll have more strength when you don’t run from your problems and you don’t burn bridges and you don’t isolate yourself from others than to work through your problems. When I’m trying to help couples who are struggling in their marriages, I say it’s far better. The joy will be sweeter at the end of the marriage that you work through your difficulties rather than running from your problems.

God’s anointing is in that place where we work through our issues and we don’t abandon each other in the tough times. I get so discouraged by members who run from other churches just because that church is having a season of difficulty, walking through a valley, and members begin to disperse and leave and say, we want to go somewhere else. No, my friends, I love the people that are here and they’re here in the good times.

They’re here in the bad times. They’re here when the pastor’s bringing his A game and they’re here when the pastor is miserably messing things up. Amen? Now you can say amen better than that, can’t you? I want to remind you, I know it’s probably hard for you guys to imagine, but I umpire softball.

And so when we start out the game, I pull the two coaches together at home plate and I do what they train me to do, preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance. And I tell them up front, I want you guys to understand something.

Sometimes it’s ladies. And I say, coaches, I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I’m not perfect. And they just look at me and startle, struck.

They cannot believe it. I’m not perfect. And I tell them, if they have any doubts, just give my wife a call and she’ll let them know.

Amen? But I remind them, I’m probably going to make a mistake in this game, but we can handle it like adults. We can handle it like mature people. And what I’m saying to you is that what I love about Aristocris, maybe everything wasn’t going great.

Maybe everything wasn’t like he thought it should be. Or maybe he felt like some of these challenges were tough, but he did not abandon the team or the apostle in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Which leads us to our next person, Demas.

Here, at this moment, as the apostle is writing this letter, apparently Demas is a faithful servant of God. But for Demas, who means governor of the people, he did not finish well. He did not finish strong.

For we know in the scriptures in 2 Timothy 4.10, the Bible reminds us that the apostle says, Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed to Thessalonica. Goes on to describe where he’s at and what’s next steps, but point being is simply this. Are you finishing strong for Christ? What is most startling for me as a pastor is to think about how many people who are still living their life in fear, who are still scared, who are still saying to themselves, well, you know, during COVID, I didn’t go to church, and I’m just going to never go back.

Listen to me, my friends. It’s time to rise above. It’s time to give your eyes on Jesus Christ.

If it’s your time to check out, God will let you know. If it’s not, you’ll overcome, and you’ll continue to move forward. But what we can’t do, church, is be like Demas and fall flat on our face.

It’s not enough for you just to begin for Christ. The question is how will you finish for Jesus? What will be your legacy to your children, and what will be your legacy to your grandchildren? Will you finish strong for Christ? Will they be able to testify at your funeral service that grandpa and grandma or mom and dad would not retreat, and they kept plowing forward for Jesus Christ, and they finished strong for the Lord? Or will it be a testimony of embarrassment, a testimony of, well, they did a few nice things, and they always bought me a candy? Or will your testimony of Christ shine through your life? I want to challenge you, church, to be strong for Christ, and the key is not to get distracted in this world, not to love the things of this world, not to be pulled by the things of this world. We all have within our human sinful nature a tug towards the world, but the Bible teaches us that we are not to love the world nor the things of the world, but we need to keep our love and our affection and our focus upon the Lord, Jesus Christ.

And that’s the importance of fellowship. You might say, oh, Mike, it’s not a big deal that I come to church. It’s not a big deal that I’m fellowshipping with God’s people and that I’m connected into Sunday school or I’m connected into a Bible study.

None of that matters, Mike. I just want to live my faith in isolation. And I want to tell you, yeah, I’m not saying you can’t be a Christian and worship God by yourself, but let me tell you something.

As I told the church on Wednesday, is that I can eat Thanksgiving dinner by myself, but it’s a lot better when family’s with me. I can eat dinner at night, but it’s a lot better when my wife is with me. Do you understand? And some of you have lost your spouse or you’ve lost loved ones in your life and you know what it’s like to have an empty chair.

And let me tell you, when we spiritually gather for the Lord, it means so much to see you here. And the importance of fellowship is that we’re all feasting on the Word, we’re all feasting on the truth, we’re all feasting on what God has for us, and we’re hearing the Word of God taught and God is pouring into our life and God is transforming us and shaping our hearts for Christ and it is wonderful. And listen, by me being here, if I’m not here, people are saying, where’s the pastor? Thank you.

It’s nice to be noticed every once in a while. Where’s the pastor? You know what I’m saying? You heard about the guy who was all curled up and said he didn’t want to go to church and his wife said, you have to go to church. He said, I don’t want to.

She said, you’re the pastor, you have to go to church. Amen? But listen, not only does the pastor, you all have to be, you know what? When we don’t see our brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to say something, we need to pick up the phone and now you got this fancy phone that you could text people, you can email people, you can talk to people. Are you doing okay? Look, I know some of you like to move around.

I know who’s here and who’s not here by where you sit. Did you know that? And I know that and I see empty spots sometimes and I say, where were you? And they said, pastor, we were there. And I said, well, where were you? I didn’t see you.

They said, oh, we decided to move on the other side of the church auditorium. Now don’t be messing with my mind. I mean, it took me 20 years to get here to figure out who you are and where you’re sitting, right? And now you’re moving on me, playing tricks on me.

I hear you, but listen, when our brothers and sisters aren’t around and we don’t see them, we need to be reaching out to them because there’s the importance of fellowship, there’s the accountability of each other and there is that we are members and it may be if somebody’s struggling or needs help or something, we need to make sure and if they’re just on vacation, we can say, why didn’t you take us? One thing is constant, Christians can’t agree. Are we going to run every time we disagree? Are we going to continue to live in hate, bitterness and anger? Or are we going to work through it emotionally, spiritually, through the grace of God? And I think the Lord wants us to do that. I don’t think that he wants us to run to another church.

I mean, I understand there’s churches that don’t teach the Bible and that’s different, but I’m not going to run to another church. I’m talking about somebody hurt your feelings and now you’re going to run to another church. We got to be better and we got to be stronger and we know that God wants us to forgive one another.

I think the scriptures are clear. And that’s what Paul’s saying to Philemon is receive this brother back into the fellowship, forgive him and let’s move forward together. I want you to think about what we’ve been teaching today and may it encourage you in your walk with Christ.

Now, Hope Worth Having, believe it or not, we’re on social media, we’re on Facebook, X, Instagram. So check out these different platforms and like us and you can continue to see how we try to use these platforms to encourage us and our walk with Christ and to help us to be stronger for him. So I pray that you’ll take advantage of that.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.

The post The Importance of Maintaining Fellowship When You Disagree Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

Pastor Mike will be speaking on Prevailing Prayer and Forgiveness Part 2. He will be reading out of Philemon 1:22.

Forgiveness is not based on what the offender does or deserves, but rather on giving the gift of grace and forgiveness to your offender. The real question is, do you want to be like Jesus? Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church, and I want to welcome you to Hope Worth Having radio broadcast. Thank you for dialing in, and we’re looking forward to what God has for us today.

We’re still studying in the book of Philemon, and we’re still learning about prayer and forgiveness. So I want you to join me as we open our Bibles and begin this study today. The reason people hop to different churches all the time is because they can’t win this battle.

They just run. The reason people get married six, seven, eight times or in one relationship after another is because they can’t overcome this battle. And that is forgiving others.

And I’ll tell you why they can’t forgive, because they’re trying to do it in their own strength. They’re trying to do it in the flesh rather than in the power of the Spirit. And they’re not using the tool of prayer coming boldly before the throne of grace, seeking God to help them to be able to forgive others.

The second thing I want you to see is the expectancy of prevailing prayer. You see, the Apostle Paul fully expected God to release him from his chains. He believed two things about prayer, and I want you to remember this, is that prayer moves the heart of God.

Prayer moves the heart of God, and maybe you doubt that. But you remember that Hannah prevailed in prayer in asking God for a son. It was Moses who prevailed in prayer, asking God to not destroy the nation of Israel.

It was Esther who prevailed in prayer, seeking God to protect Israel from Haman. It was Jonah, in his own mess, in his own choices and decisions that he had made, found himself in a great fish. And his life was out of sync and out of the will of God.

But it was Jonah who learned to pray in this desperate moment that preserved his life. It’s the Apostle Paul who prevailed in prayer, getting Philemon to be able to come to that point where he would forgive Onesimus. And what I’m saying to you is prayer moves the heart of God.

Prayer moves the heart of God. And God has chosen, he doesn’t have to, but he has chosen to work through the prayers of his people. All the great spiritual awakenings, all the great revivals in America, and yes, even in this world, have always been because of a group of people, whether small or large, have gotten together and they have prayed for God’s heart to be moved.

But I also want you to know this, that prayer maneuvers the hand of God. Prayer maneuvers the hand of God. Heavenly prayer allows us to move God’s hand in human affairs.

There are all kinds of things happening, not just on a world level, on a national level, but things that are happening in your life. And the antidote to your problems is not for you to always come in and micromanage it and fix it. And there are people with different things going on in their life.

And the answer is not for you to micromanage those people. But the answer is for you and I to pray, to pray for that person. And I know you want to fix that person.

And I would say great advice for your marriage is to quit spending your life trying to fix your spouse. And to spend your time praying for your spouse and with your spouse. Asking God to work in both of your hearts.

And asking God to shape both of you in such a way that his hand would move so powerfully in your life that you could honor Christ. That your marriage could be a picture of the love of God that he has for all of humanity. That’s what’s important.

The prayers that Paul had asked for the people of God to give on his behalf was that God’s hand would move the Roman government and release him from prison. So that he could go get this matter settled at the church at Colossae between Philemon and Onesimus. And so it was important.

So when Paul prayed, he expected God’s heart to be moved and his hand to maneuver the circumstances to make things a reality. But I also want you to see the extent of prevailing prayer. The extent.

It seems that the Roman government had full control of the apostle’s life. And that he was going to soon face death. But as the apostle began to mobilize people to pray, he appealed to a higher authority than the Roman government.

Did you know there’s a higher authority than the president of the United States? There’s a higher authority than the governor of Pennsylvania. There is a higher authority than any political person on this planet. And there’s a higher authority than any government on this planet.

And that higher authority is the Lord Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? And I want you to remember that there is no government that can tell the church what to do. The head of the church is not a governor.

It is not a president. It is not some bureaucrat in the government. But the head of the church is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And friends, don’t forget that. Because all that was tested several years ago. It was all put on the line.

And were we going to follow the head of the church and his commands? Or were we going to follow our fears and the edicts that came from the government? Friends, there’s no more important agenda than the agenda of a prayer warrior who is on their knees seeking God. For God to move in a powerful way. And that’s exactly what the apostle wanted.

He wanted Philemon, who was a leader in the church of Colossae. And he wanted him to be a man of prayer. And he knew that if Philemon would start praying for Paul, guess who else he had to pray for? Onesimus.

And guess what? If Philemon would pray that Paul would come back, he knew who he was bringing back with him. Onesimus. And that they were going to have to deal with this matter.

And that they were going to have to move forward in this matter. And they were going to have to resolve this matter for the glory of God. And that’s what the apostle understood about prevailing prayer.

That even in those hard cases, even in those difficult cases, in those extreme cases, that God can use prayer to change our hearts. And let me say something about that to you. Is this.

The key to you understanding about prayer and praying for others. Is that in prayer, God is not always interested in changing your circumstances. And he’s not always interested in changing people in your life.

As much as he is interested in changing you and me. And you see, prayer gets you to that moment of vulnerability before God. The reason some people don’t pray is because they’re too prideful to be vulnerable before God.

They haven’t got to that point where they could trust. They say, I can’t trust God. I can’t believe in God.

But friends, when you get to that moment where you by faith step out and say, Lord, I’m going to pray. And I’m going to pray for this person. But Lord, more than anything, while I’m praying, would you change my heart? That’s why prayer is important.

I mean, God is sovereign. You’re not informing him of anything he doesn’t already know. You’re not like, hey, God, I got a story to tell you that you may not have heard.

There’s no breaking news with God. There’s no surprises in heaven. There’s nothing that’s stunning to God.

He is all knowing. So you might ask, why do we pray? Well, because God has chose to work through prayer. But also God uses prayer to change me.

To change you. To bring us to that moment where our heart is aligning to the will of God. To the will of God.

And sometimes part of the will of God. I know this is going to be hard for you. And you may not agree with it.

But I’ve had to learn this over 30 some years of pastoring. Sometimes it’s God’s will that you adjust. And learn how to handle and respond to difficult people.

Are you with me? There’s difficult people. I call them sandpaper people. They rub you the wrong way.

Amen? But every time God keeps bringing those people in my life. And I try to run from them and hide from them. But everywhere I turn, they keep showing up.

I thought when I left Indiana and come to Pennsylvania. There’d be no difficult people in Pennsylvania. Little did I know.

That central Pennsylvania, there’s a lot of stubborn people. You guys are struggling, aren’t you? It’s okay, hang in there. But let me tell you.

I learned that there’s some stubbornness in Mike. There were things Mike needed to change and do better. And so it was through prayer that God changed me.

And will change you. Now, I want to finish out our sermon on the example of prevailing prayer. Jesus taught us how to pray.

And you read some of that earlier. But I want you to note in Matthew 6.12. That Jesus gave us the template or the model as part of what we pray for. He put an example before us.

And he said, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Can I just take a moment, if you will. Because I think it’s critical to just help you understand how important it is for you to pray.

Forgive us our debts. I’m reminded of a story of an unusual epitaph on a large headstone in a cemetery just outside of New York City. The name of the person in the grave is not on the headstone.

There is no mention of when the person was born or when the person died. Nor does it indicate anything about the person being a beloved mother, father, husband, wife, brother, sister, son or even daughter. There is just one word on the headstone.

Across the headstone stretches this word. Forgiven. Forgiven.

Clearly the most significant fact of anyone’s life is the truth of knowing that you are forgiven by God Almighty. For that person, that’s all they wanted. That’s all they wanted on their headstone was forgiven.

And that’s why I try to say to you, church, that you’ll never achieve forgiving others if you’re not right there back at the center. And making sure that A, you have experienced the forgiveness of God. In that you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior.

That there has been a time and a moment in your life where you were honest and humble before God. And you asked Him to forgive you of your sins. That you came to God and you recognized that you’re a sinner in need of a Savior.

And you reached out to God to save your soul. But I also want to tell you that if you have experienced that moment and you say, I am a believer, Pastor, and I have been saved. I want to ask you, are you continuing to experience His grace and forgiveness in your life? I know you’re forgiven.

I know that when you leave this world, you’ll be in heaven. I believe that 100%. But I’m telling you, you can’t function in this world effectively for God in any of your relationships.

And all that God is calling you to do unless you are consistently under the fountain of God’s grace and forgiveness daily in your life. Asking God to forgive you. Because guess what? There is flesh on these bones.

And we are not perfect people. We are flawed people. We have insecurities.

We have issues. We have weaknesses. We have things coming in at us at many different directions.

And friends, sometimes we don’t handle things the way they ought to be handled. And sometimes we don’t deal with things as they ought to be done. So what’s the antidote? Let all that build up? Let all that crush you? Let all that become rooted in your heart that you’re bitter and angry at every person? Or come to God daily and ask him to cleanse you.

And ask him to forgive you. And to even in those times that you recognize exactly what you did was wrong. A thought, a deed, a motive that violated the word of God.

That you are honest enough with God to say, Lord, forgive me of my debt to you. Because that’s what sin is. It’s a debt to God.

A person with an unforgiving heart towards others is simply showing that they are not taking their own sin seriously. Are you with me? I’m trying to tell you, church, that it is in prayer. That while you’re seeking and dealing with your own sin.

And my sin, I’m not pointing a finger. There’s three coming right at me if I am. I want you to know, I’m right there with you.

That the only way Mike can forgive others is because he’s dealing with his own sin in his own heart. And I know you thought you had a perfect pastor. I throw these things out there.

I think you guys will wake up. But I’m not perfect. And so it is.

I got to live under the fountain of his grace and forgiveness. But if you’re a person, hear me, who won’t forgive others, it means you’re not taking your own sin seriously. You have put yourself on a pedestal that somehow your sins are less than the sins of others.

That somehow your failures and weaknesses are not as bad as everybody else’s. And that God has put you in a position. And I’m speaking sarcastically, please.

But you think that God has put you in a position to judge and measure everybody according to your standard. To who you are. When the truth is, Jesus taught us, take care of the beam in your own eye.

Before you take care of the speck in someone else’s eye. So what does it mean to forgive others? The verb that Jesus uses here means literally to hurl away. When Jesus says that we’re to forgive others of their debts.

It means to hurl it away. Throw it away. Get it out.

Get it out. And really that’s what you want to do. You don’t want it to be something that implants upon your heart.

You don’t want it to be something that stays with you and beats you down emotionally, spiritually, and physically. But you want to hurl it away. You want to give it to God.

You want to give that person to God. You want to pray for that person. You see, it’s hard to be upset with someone while you’re praying for them.

And what has helped me is that if I’m mad at you, that I start praying for you. And God softens me. And God works in me.

And I’m kind of just throwing it out there, away from me, onto God. And giving it all to Him. So, the Bible says, bear with one another.

Forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. And the point is this.

God has forgiven you. And so your complaint against everybody in this church, or everybody in your family, or everybody in this society. Your complaint must lead you to forgive them.

Because of the cross of Jesus Christ. We forgive even when the individual does not deserve our forgiveness. You see, friends, here’s what you’re doing.

God forgave you. And He forgave me. And none of us deserved it.

We didn’t get to walk into the presence of God and say, Lord, I deserve to be forgiven. You’re lucky to have me. It was just the opposite.

Despite us, God reached out to us. He called us. He drew us.

He saved us. And He has forgiven us. And you say, well, they didn’t do A, B, or C. Or they don’t deserve my forgiveness.

Well, do you think you deserve God’s forgiveness? And are you the arbiter of who deserves forgiveness and who doesn’t? And you’re right. No one deserves forgiveness. You see, forgiveness, look at the word.

It’s a gift. It’s given. It’s not something earned.

It’s not something deserved. So the question is, how can I forgive someone who’s not apologized to me, Pastor, or they have not shown any repentance in their life? Forgiveness is not based on what the offender does or deserves, but rather on giving the gift of grace and forgiveness to your offender. A gift, again, that is not deserved.

The real question is, do you want to be like Jesus? Do you want to glorify God? Do you want the world to see a community of believers that forgives one another? Or do you want the world to see a church that fights with each other and tears one another down and attacks one another and devours one another? What is the picture that you want the world to see of the church? And let me go deeper. You say, well, my spouse doesn’t deserve. I want to ask you, what is the picture that you want your children to see of your marriage? A forgiving relationship that glorifies God or a relationship that is always attacking each other, destroying each other? Do you know why so many young people don’t want to get married? I’ll tell you why.

Because they saw a picture of a broken marriage. And they’re like, we don’t want that. Church, we’re to send a different message to our children and grandchildren.

We, as a collective body of family of God, are to send a different message to the onlookers. And we must remember that when Jesus was crucified on the cross, his enemies neither apologized nor repented. And yet he extended his heart of forgiveness by praying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

We are forgiven to forgive. Jesus said, if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive you of your trespasses. What a powerful message.

It’s not that you’re not saved. It’s just that you’re going to live in this state of where all your offenses and all your hurts and all your sins and all your weaknesses are going to build up in your heart. And you’re going to be so messed up because you came at a crossroads.

And that crossroad was, would I choose to forgive or hold on to the anger and the hate and the disappointment? There should be no limit to your forgiveness. There should be no end to your willingness to forgive. Because when I think about how many times I’ve had to get back on my knees and say, God, I messed up again.

I need your grace and forgiveness. It’s hard for me when others come to me and say, would you forgive me, Mike? Or even if they don’t, to withhold that forgiveness. Because I desire to send the right picture out there and to my children and to my family, I desire and choose to be forgiving.

Now, someone says, and I’ll close with this question. If I forgive those who offend me, will I be an enabler of their sin or their behavior or their issues? Forgiveness is not enablement. If a man borrows money from you and he refuses to repay you.

And I’ve told you this story before. Should you forgive him? Yes. Release him.

Give the offense to God. Let God settle it. Don’t become bitter.

But you don’t have to trust. There’s a lot of people that we can’t trust in certain areas. Because they haven’t shown themselves to be trustworthy.

We think about 2 Corinthians 4. It tells us that a steward should be found what? Faithful. But when you study the Greek, it actually means that a steward or a manager should be found trustworthy. Are you worthy of God entrusting you with ministry? Are you worthy of God entrusting you with riches? Are you worthy of God entrusting you with responsibility? A good steward is trustworthy.

When you go through the journey of life, you will find that there are times that you’re called to forgive someone. But you may not particularly trust that person in a particular area. Early in our marriage, Terry and I learned that there were things that she should not trust me in.

And I know that’s shocking to you. But when we first got married, we bought our first house, I should say. The bathroom sink was leaking water.

I said, Terry, don’t worry, I got it. So I went in there with tools that I didn’t even know what they were called. They were given to me by her father.

The first Christmas we had together, her dad bought me a toolbox for Christmas. And I asked him, what should I do with this? But when I began to work on this sink, I failed the number one rule. I did not turn the water off.

I began to take this sink apart and try to fix these problems. The next thing you know, water is flying everywhere. It’s all over the bathroom.

I’m screaming and hollering. My wife comes in. And the first thing she does is what? Turn the water off.

And she learned, do not ever trust Mike with a tool or plumbing. Now, I say that hilariously. It’s true.

She’s never asked me to do any plumbing since then. You wouldn’t want to trust Pastor Mike with electricity, amen? It would get bad. So what I’m trying to help you understand is that emotionally and spiritually, there are things in reality that, yes, I forgive you, but I can’t trust you because I don’t want to, A, enable you because maybe you’ve got a bad behavior.

But I forgive you. I’m not holding on to it and let it fester in me and destroy my life. But I may not be able to trust you in a particular area.

And so it is that the key for you in understanding forgiveness is to make sure that you grab onto that tool of prayer and that you understand that God’s not asking you to trust that person, especially if you’ve been abused, especially if you have been physically harmed or emotionally damaged. I’m not asking you to go back into that mess. But I am asking you for the sake of Christ and the gospel and what the world sees and what your children see, that you would choose a path of forgiveness and that you would go down that path seeking to glorify God in your choices, in how you handle and respond to others.

Let’s pray. Let’s pray. Prayer plays a vital role in us being able to forgive one another.

And I think the apostle makes that clear in this letter. And the key that Jesus taught us is one of the evidences that we truly are forgiven is that we can pray for our enemies. And there might be somebody in your life that has mistreated you, been mean to you, or disappointed you.

And here’s the kicker is that God wants you to put them on your prayer list. And as hard as that is, Jesus says we are to pray for our enemies. So I hope today in this difficult moment that you could surrender your heart to God’s will and take that step of faith and start praying and forgiving as God works in your heart.

I want to remind you that Hope Worth Having has a YouTube channel and you can hear the full entire sermon on prayer and forgiveness. In addition, you can check out other programs. We’ve been putting together playlists of different books of the Bible.

So if there’s a Bible book that you’re studying and you’d like to hear what we’re saying about that and kind of an exegesis on that text, then pull up those playlists and you can begin to study them together as we learn God’s Word together. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is Hope Worth Having. Thank you.

The post Prevailing Prayer and Forgiveness Part 2 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

Pastor Mike will be speaking on Prevailing Prayer and Forgiveness Part 1. He will be reading out of Philemon 1:22.

If you’re struggling and you’ve ran into a wall or a lid in your ability to forgive others, you must be that person who’s on your knees asking God to purify your heart and to help you pray for the blessings and the benefit of others. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and we’re excited to be with you today, looking forward to studying the Bible together. Now, we’re back in the book of Philemon, and here is a letter that was written to a man who was a slave owner, and that certainly brings a lot of questions to it.

But the main point of this letter is teaching us to forgive. And so this morning I have titled the sermon, Prevailing Prayer and Forgiveness. So join me as we study together.

I want to talk to you about prevailing prayer and forgiveness in your heart. Prevailing prayer and forgiveness. We come to this text in Philemon.

We remember that Onesimus had stolen some money, perhaps property, possessions from Philemon. Onesimus was a slave, and he had taken things away from Philemon and ran away. And so the apostle is writing this letter to Philemon, and he wants to restore Onesimus and Philemon.

And of course, Onesimus in his journeys would come across the path of the apostle. And that path that they would meet is in a jail, a prison, if you will. And they have met together, and now Onesimus has received Christ.

Because when you encounter the apostle, you know what he’s going to do. He’s going to tell them about Jesus Christ. And that’s exactly what he does.

He tells Onesimus about the plan of salvation. Onesimus’ heart is humbled before God, and he receives Christ as his Lord and Savior. And so the apostle is saying, Onesimus, you got to go back and make things right with Philemon.

And of course, he’s like, there’s no way the guy’s going to ever receive me back. Well, Philemon was an important man in the church at Colossae, and the church actually met in his home. And so the apostle addresses this letter to him, Philemon, and he wants him to make things right with Onesimus and to have forgiveness for Onesimus.

Forgiveness is hard for us as God’s people, because it’s not natural. It’s not what the world would teach us. The world would say, get revenge, burn the bridge, and destroy others who have hurt you, let you down, and disappointed you.

But the apostle calls us to a higher level of living. He calls us to take the high road and to choose the path of forgiveness. But in this process of learning to forgive others and to have the motivation, to which we’ve already studied, of why we should forgive others, the apostle puts within our hands a tool that helps us to have a forgiving spirit, and that is prevailing prayer.

I want you to pick up with me in verse 22, as the apostle is bringing his short letter to a close. He says to Onesimus, but meanwhile also prepare a guest room for me, for I trust that through your prayers I shall be granted to you. I want you to underscore that phrase, through your prayers.

You read this quickly and you probably assume, what is the significance of this verse in forgiveness and what does it mean that it would impact us to be able to be useful to help us to forgive others? Well, I want to again bring you into context that when the apostle is saying to Onesimus, prepare a guest room for me, he is under the anticipation and the hope that he’ll be released from prison, and that not only will he be released from prison, but Onesimus will be released. And he is saying to Philemon, I want you to prepare a guest room. I want you to prepare because by faith I’m believing that God is going to get me out of this place.

I’m coming back to Colossae and I’m coming back to the church and I want to have this opportunity to interact with you and to help put the final explanation point on the restoration of this relationship between Philemon and Onesimus. But the apostle not being presumptive on the will of God, understood that he would take the tool of prayer and he says to Philemon, I trust that through your prayers I shall be granted to you. That is that God would use prayer to not only bring about the release of the apostle to have the purpose of reconnecting with the church and with Philemon and also bringing about the restoration of Philemon and Onesimus, the apostle understood the great value of prayer and he places great emphasis upon the power of prayer.

And in this passage he is helping us to understand that we need to embrace prevailing prayer. The one tool that God is giving to you to be able to restore relationships and to be able to have the ability to forgive others who’ve offended you, hurt you, disappointed you and let you down is prayer. I don’t want you to forget that.

You may not remember anything else I have to say today and you may be asked at dinner what did the pastor preach on and you may quickly forget, but please don’t forget this. The tool that God has given you and me to be able to forgive others is prevailing prayer. Now let’s understand prayer a little bit because it’s important for us to be reminded of basic truths about prayer and the process of prayer of God answering our prayers is very important because sometimes people say to me well God hasn’t answered my prayer.

Well God always answers prayer and that’s a wonderful truth for you to hold on to that God does answer prayer. Now sometimes his answer is very direct and he says yes and he just kind of waiting on us to ask and we miss out on great opportunities and great movements of God because we are not praying as we should. But we also have to remember that sometimes our answer from God is delayed because the timing is not right and so we are seeking God, we’re praying to God, we’re asking God to change something, a circumstance, a problem, perhaps even a person, but God has delayed that answer.

Sometimes God’s answers are different. They’re different from what we want. How many times can you remember that your children came to you and wanted something and you knew that if you answered that request well that would make a mess of their life and you know I want you to know that there are times that you and I come to God and we bring our requests to him and God knows that if he were to give us that request it would make a mess of our life.

Oh it may make you more wealthy and it may make you more prosperous in the eyes of the world but what would it do for you spiritually? Some of you have been praying for a job promotion. Some of you have been praying for a different job and some of you have been praying for certain things to come together for you financially and God has not answered it the way you want it to be answered. I’ll tell you why.

Because God knows that you will no longer depend on him and you will look to money and you will look to your job and the things of this world instead of trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. The other thing is that God sometimes doesn’t give you the answer that you want is because he knows that if these things were to come into your life that you would take a step back spiritually. That you would retreat in your passion and your love for God and that God would begin to see a backsliding in your life.

And so sometimes the answers God gives us are different than the requests and the answer that we desire. But also I want you to remember that sometimes God denies our requests. Did you know that? I know it’s hard for you to believe because all your life maybe your parents told you yes.

Maybe your grandparents continue to tell you yes and yes. But I want to tell you that God sometimes says no. And he does it not to crush you, not to destroy you, but he denies your request because it is not spiritually healthy for you.

It’s not something that would draw you closer to God. And so we trust in his wisdom. We trust in his ways which are higher than ours and beyond our own understanding.

And we put our faith and trust in God. And we do not trust God and we do not believe God and we do not have faith in God just because he always says yes to our requests. But we trust him because of who he is.

He’s holy. He’s righteous. He’s sovereign.

He’s almighty. He’s greater. He’s far beyond what you and I could ever comprehend.

And we know that God is always going to do what is right for our life. The hope of prayer, when you and I pray, we certainly want a response from heaven. And many times when we are praying, we are looking for resources from heaven.

And I think this is what I see in verse 22, is that as the apostle is anticipating by faith that God’s going to open the door for him to get out of this prison, but he recognizes that prayer has to be a part of this. He says, I trust that through your prayers, I shall be granted unto you. He is praying that Philemon and the church at Colossae will band together and pray for the apostle.

That they will pray not only for his strength and for his stamina and his faith, but they will pray for his release. They will seek God in heaven. You remember that the early church prayed for the apostle Peter.

And they prayed and they met together and they prayed. Some people say, well, I can pray by myself. Why should I go to church to pray? Because there’s great power in prayer.

Amen? And God has called us not just to pray individually, which we should do, but he’s called us to pray collectively and to pray together as the church family. And there’s nothing wrong with us coming together and praying together. And that’s what the early church did.

They prayed together and they prayed that God would release the apostle Peter and God sent an angel and released Peter from jail. And Peter showed up at the church and he was knocking on the door where they had gathered. And a little servant came to the door and said, Hey, it’s the apostle Peter.

And they didn’t believe the little girl that it was the apostle Peter. Can God send his angels and resources to you and me to assist us in the challenges of life? Absolutely. And so when we pray, that is our hope that the hand of God will be moved.

It is the hope of the apostle here in this text that God will work through the prayers of his people. And when it comes to our ability to be able to learn, to forgive others and to act upon that, it is going to be through our own personal prayer. And it’s also going to be through God using the prayers of his people in our life so that we can get to that moment that we have the resources from heaven, that God’s spirit is so filled us and that we so desire to emulate our heavenly father and to live in step with the spirit that we would choose the path of prayer.

So let’s learn more about prayer this morning. First of all, the expression of prevailing prayer, the word of God encourages us to pray and pray much, but not just platitudes. We are called to have heartfelt prayers, prayers that come from our heart to heaven.

If we understood the value of prayer, I’m telling you that you and I would take on hell with a water pistol and we would be more motivated than ever. I want you to take your Bible to the book of James. Now the book of James is not too far from Philemon.

You go to Hebrews, just get to the end of Hebrews and right there you’re in James. I want you to look at James chapter four and in James chapter four, he is speaking about prayer to us under the inspiration of the spirit of God. In James chapter four, verse two, he says, you lust and you do not have.

You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Now James is confronting. James was a, he was a fireball for God. He was a true, strong willed apostle.

And you remember that James, he was okay when people were criticizing Jesus to call down fire from heaven. James was also a man of great prayer. He was known in the early church as having camel knees because his knees were so worn out from him praying.

He was a dynamic servant for God and he did not have any fear to proclaim the word of God and the truth of God. And he comes right out and he says, it’s because of your lust. It’s because of your desires that you don’t have, meaning you don’t have the right desires.

You have desires that are of the world. You are coveting things that are not godly and are not righteous. And he says, you don’t have because you do not ask.

And he goes on to say in verse three, you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, meaning that you are asking with the wrong motives that you may spend it on your pleasures. We need to remember that as we are expressing prayer, that we have the right motives from God. And many times we have to ask God to help keep our motives in check, that when we pray, that we don’t just want it for our own pleasure, for our own selfish reasons, but we desire it so that a God would be glorified.

That ought to be the ultimate desire of your prayers is that God would be glorified. Your will be done in heaven, Lord, as it is on earth or your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Forgive me, getting it backwards there.

But I want you to understand this, that that should be the first motive of your prayer is that for the glory of God. But the second motive of your prayer is whatever is best and good for your life, meaning within the context of God’s will, within the context of God’s will for your life. Now, when you are praying for someone who you desire that God would help you to forgive them, it’s important that you have the right motivation.

Amen. Some of you are like, I’m okay to pray like David did in the Psalms. He prayed that his enemies would be destroyed.

And he prayed that they would be defeated. And he prayed what is often referred to as prayers from the heart of David as he was sharing his heart. And yes, that’s how we know that God’s word is God’s word, because it shows the strengths and the weaknesses of his servants.

And David sometimes wanted his enemies to be destroyed. But we are called to be a people who desire that God works effectively within us and in the other person. So how is it that I’m going to be able to pray in such a way that I can not only be able to forgive, but that I would be able to pray in such a way that my motives would be pure before God.

And that is that I have to ask the Lord to help me not to pray for the demise of my enemies or those who’ve hurt me, but that God’s will and God’s work and God’s blessings. You heard the scripture reading, bless those. We want God’s blessings.

We want to be able to speak well of others. And so we must pray this way, church. If you’re struggling and you’ve ran into a wall or a lid in your ability to forgive others, you must be that person who’s on your knees asking God to purify your heart and to help you to pray in such a way that you could honestly pray for the blessings and the benefit of others.

Now, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 4, 16, to let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. Now, I know that you’ve always thought of this in relation to your physical needs. And I’m not saying that that’s wrong.

But what if you have the need to forgive? What if you have the need to not let bitterness take root in your heart? What if you have the need that you would be able to have the need or the ability to pray for this person who has let you down? Well, the Bible says to come boldly. That means to come with confidence. You and I can come with confidence.

Why do we come with confidence? Not because of who we are, not because of our skill sets, not because of somehow we’re more righteous than the person that offended us or hurt our feelings. But we can come boldly because Jesus Christ went to the cross and he died for our sins and he tore the veil that kept us out of the holy of holies. And to be able to come into the throne of God, Jesus tore that veil from top to bottom.

He gave his life for our sins and he died on that cross so that we could experience forgiveness. And now we can come into the presence of God and the throne of God and we can come with confidence because of what Christ did, not what I did, but what Christ did. And we can ask the Lord to give us the grace, the mercy, the strength to be able to forgive other people.

Are you there? You can come boldly to the throne of grace. You can direct your prayers to heaven and you can be intentional in your prayers and say, God, I need help. You know, it’s okay to be honest with God.

Did you know that? I mean, I don’t recommend it the other way. But to be honest with God, and what I’m saying is that you may be struggling in your emotions and your feelings towards someone, and it may be your own spouse and it may be your children. It may be your grandchildren.

It may be somebody that you work with or somebody even within this church. You know, you’re at the open door church, right? And you know, we’re a perfect church, right? You know, I’m being sarcastic, right? But all I’m trying to say is this. There are no enduring relationships without forgiveness.

The reason people hop to different churches all the time is because they can’t win this battle. They just run. The reason people get married six, seven, eight times or in one relationship after another is because they can’t overcome this battle.

And that is forgiving others. And I’ll tell you why. They can’t forgive.

Because they’re trying to do it in their own strength. They’re trying to do it in the flesh rather than in the power of the Spirit, and they’re not using the tool of prayer, coming boldly before the throne of grace, seeking God to help them to be able to forgive others. The second thing I want you to see is the expectancy of prevailing prayer.

You see, the Apostle Paul fully expected God to release him from his chains. He believed two things about prayer, and I want you to remember this, is that prayer moves the heart of God. Prayer moves the heart of God, and maybe you doubt that.

But you remember that Hannah prevailed in prayer in asking God for a son. It was Moses who prevailed in prayer, asking God to not destroy the nation of Israel. It was Esther who prevailed in prayer, seeking God to protect Israel from Haman.

It was Jonah, in his own mess, in his own choices and decisions that he had made, found himself in a great fish, and his life was out of sync and out of the will of God. But it was Jonah who learned to pray in this desperate moment that preserved his life. It’s the Apostle Paul who prevailed in prayer, getting Philemon to be able to come to that point where he would forgive Onesimus.

And what I’m saying to you is, prayer moves the heart of God. Prayer moves the heart of God. And God has chosen, he doesn’t have to, but he has chosen to work through the prayers of his people.

All the great spiritual awakenings, all the great revivals in America, and yes, even in this world, have always been because of a group of people, whether small or large, have gotten together and they have prayed for God’s heart to be moved. But I also want you to know this, that prayer maneuvers the hand of God. Prayer maneuvers the hand of God.

Heavenly prayer allows us to move God’s hand in human affairs. There are all kinds of things happening, not just on a world level, on a national level, but things that are happening in your life. And the antidote to your problems is not for you to always come in and micromanage it and fix it.

And there are people with different things going on in their life, and the answer is not for you to micromanage those people, but the answer is for you and I to pray, to pray for that person. And I know you want to fix that person. And I would say great advice for your marriage is to quit spending your life trying to fix your spouse and to spend your time praying for your spouse and with your spouse, asking God to work in both of your hearts and asking God to shape both of you in such a way that his hand would move so powerfully in your life that you could honor Christ, that your marriage could be a picture of the love of God that he has for all of humanity.

That’s what’s important. The prayers that Paul had asked for the people of God to give on his behalf was that God’s hand would move the Roman government and release him from prison so that he could go get this matter settled at the church at Colossae between Philemon and Onesimus. And so it was important.

So when Paul prayed, he expected God’s heart to be moved and his hand to maneuver the circumstances to make things a reality. But I also want you to see the extent of prevailing prayer, the extent. It seems that the Roman government had full control of the apostle’s life and that he was going to soon face death.

But as the apostle began to mobilize people to pray, he appealed to a higher authority than the Roman government. Did you know there’s a higher authority than the president of the United States? There’s a higher authority than the governor of Pennsylvania. There is a higher authority than any political person on this planet.

And there’s a higher authority than any government on this planet. And that higher authority is the Lord Jesus Christ. Can God’s people say amen? And I want you to remember that there is no government that can tell the church what to do.

The head of the church is not a governor. It is not a president. It is not some bureaucrat in the government.

But the head of the church is the Lord Jesus Christ. And friends, don’t forget that because all that was tested several years ago. It was all put on the line.

And were we going to follow the head of the church and his commands or were we going to follow our fears and the edicts that came from the government? Friends, there’s no more important agenda than the agenda of a prayer warrior who is on their knees seeking God, for God to move in a powerful way. And that’s exactly what the apostle wanted. He wanted Philemon, who was a leader in the church of Colossae, and he wanted him to be a man of prayer.

And he knew that if Philemon would start praying for Paul, guess who else he had to pray for? Onesimus. And guess what? If Philemon would pray that Paul would come back, he knew who he was bringing back with him, Onesimus. And that they were going to have to deal with this matter and that they were going to have to move forward in this matter and they were going to have to resolve this matter for the glory of God.

And that’s what the apostle understood about prevailing prayer. That even in those hard cases, even in those difficult cases, in those extreme cases, that God can use prayer to change our hearts. And let me say something about that to you.

Is this, the key to you understanding about prayer and praying for others is that in prayer, God is not always interested in changing your circumstances and he’s not always interested in changing people in your life as much as he is interested in changing you. No one wakes up and says, I can’t wait to forgive. It’s a emotion that is not there, but forgiveness is a choice that I make.

And where and how could I ever make that kind of a choice through the grace of God? And how does that grace get to me? Prevailing prayer is the conduit that God uses to fill your heart and mind with grace, to show grace, and to give forgiveness. And so when we neglect prayer, then we are not going to be able to practice these principles that Jesus has commanded us to, like to forgive one another. And so we hope today’s message has been an encouragement to you and to help you to understand the significance of prayer and forgiveness.

I want to encourage you to make sure that you check out our website, HopeWorthHaving.com. I want to also thank you for your support for Hope Worth Having Ministries. Through your contributions, we’re able to stay on the air. And if we’ve been a blessing to you, I hope that you’ll continue to support this ministry and help us in every way that you can.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.

The post Prevailing Prayer and Forgiveness Part 1 first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Evidence of the Resurrection of Christ (Easter Sunday). He will be reading out of Luke 24:1-12.

Remember that Thomas had his doubts, but Jesus appeared to them, and he said to Thomas, look at my nail-scarred hands, feel the wounds in my side, and then you’ll know that it is truly me. And when Thomas did that, he said, my Lord, my God. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders broadcasting from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

This is Hope Worth Having, and we’re delighted that you’re with us today. And we’re looking forward to what God has for us. And let me just say, Happy Easter.

And we certainly are celebrating the resurrection of our Savior. And as part of that, we’re going to be in the Gospel of Luke chapter 24, and we’re going to learn about the evidence of the resurrection of Christ. So join me as we study the Bible together.

If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in Luke chapter 24, in the Gospel of Luke, the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, and then Luke. But in the Gospel of Luke chapter 24, verses 1 through 12, will be the text of our message this morning. As a believer, the most wonderful thing about Easter is the resurrection of our Savior and Lord.

Yes, he has risen, and we stand here today to affirm to each of our hearts that God has raised him from the dead, and the horror of the cross is laid to rest. And Jesus has come forth in glorious triumph. And this is truly a glorious day.

And that is the focus of our hearts this morning. This was no ordinary day. And we take time, and we take this moment to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Why? Because the resurrection of Christ is important. It is the heart of our salvation. You remember that the Scriptures teach us in 1 Corinthians 15, that the resurrection of Christ, that the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of the Gospel of Jesus.

The good news is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. The good news is that he was buried, but three days later, he arose again. He died to take care of our sins and to take care of our past, but he has come forth out of that tomb to take care of our future.

The highlight of the Christian faith is the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul taught us, And if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain. You are yet in your sins.

That is, that if Christ had never been risen, then we would still be in our sins. The early church understood the importance of the resurrection, and they demonstrated that by regularly meeting together on Sunday morning to celebrate Christ’s resurrection. We see this throughout the Scriptures again in Acts 20, verse 7. It says, Wouldn’t that be awesome if Pastor Mike spoke to you today until midnight? Buddy, I would be so thrilled, but I know that you couldn’t take it.

It’d probably be just me. I don’t even think my family would stay. The Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 16, Revelation 1.10 says, The early church started this practice of gathering together on Sunday.

Why? Because it was the day to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, they gathered on Saturday, which was the Sabbath, the end of the week. It was to commemorate the resting of the believer.

It was to be a day of rest. It was to be a day where there would be no work. But now that has all been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

And our rest is not physical, but our rest is spiritual in that we find our rest in Jesus Christ and put our faith and trust. It doesn’t mean that you don’t need a day of rest, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t have to take time to retreat and relax and kind of re-energize and renew yourself. We’re all for that, but it doesn’t have to be on a Saturday.

It could be any day. But for the believer, we begin the week on Sunday. It is the first day of the week.

I know the world calls it the weekend, but for us as believers, it’s the first day of the week. It is the day that we give to God. It is the day that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that’s why we come together.

For the believer, because of Christ’s resurrection, death has become a doorway into eternity. Death’s grip is finally conquered. Death is not the end when we meet at the grave to commit the body to the grave.

It’s not final. It’s not the finish line. But for the believer, it is just the doorway, the gateway, if you will, into eternal life with Jesus Christ to be with him forever, ever, and ever, and ever.

And we’ll never be separated. To be reunited with our loved ones, to once again recognize that Jesus has paved the way for us to have eternal life. We’re no longer stuck in our sinful bodies.

We’re no longer stuck in this flesh, but we have been granted a new body that the Bible describes as being immortal, incorruptible. That is, that it will never decay, never fall apart, and it will never experience disease or sin ever. That is something to rejoice.

When we come to the Gospel of Luke chapter 24, on this glorious day, Luke begins to describe to us the evidence of the resurrection. That if this resurrection is so profound, and it is so important that the church would gather every Sunday, and think about this, that you are a part of an assembly of believers literally around the world that are gathering on Sunday to worship Jesus Christ and to celebrate his resurrection. Luke begins to describe what the evidence of this resurrection are in that he begins in verse 1 and says of chapter 24, Now on the first day of the week, that is Sunday, very early in the morning they and certain other women with them came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.

But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. And then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened as they were greatly perplexed about this that behold the two men stood by them in shining garments.

Then as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words.

And then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. And their words seemed to them like idle tales or we might call it crazy talk.

And they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb and stooping down, he saw the linen clothes lying by themselves. And he departed marveling to himself at what had happened.

The first evidence that Luke gives us is the empty tomb. Jesus was buried in a borrowed tomb. And the location of this tomb would have been known to not only those who loved him and followed him, but even to those who were not Christians or unbelievers.

It was not a secret to where Jesus was buried. But the women went to the tomb and they were coming to finish out the embalming of Jesus. If you jump back to chapter 23 and verse 53, you can see that very quickly.

The Bible says, Then he took it down, meaning they took the body of Jesus down from the cross. They wrapped it in linen and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of a rock where no one had ever lain. That day was the preparation and the Sabbath drew near.

There were limitations to what they could do in the preparation of the burial of the body of Jesus Christ. And so verse 55 of chapter 23 says, The women who had come with him from Galilee followed after and they observed the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices, fragrant oils, and they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

So because activity was forbidden, the women would come and they came again on Sunday morning because they wanted to be able to finish up putting the spices and ointments upon the body of Christ because they so treasured who Jesus was and who his body was and what it represented to their hearts and the meaning of his life and the significance of his life to them. As God’s Word presents us with these facts concerning the fact that Jesus was buried and that he rose again, we are presented with something that is very important. And that is that when the women showed up, verse 2 of chapter 24, they found the stone rolled away.

They found that it was rolled away from the tomb. Now most likely the women did not even know that the tomb had a large stone in front of it. It would have been impossible for them to even move that stone but not only was it in front of the opening of the tomb but the stone was sealed.

We learn from other gospel writers that the Roman soldiers sealed the tomb because they didn’t want anyone to come in and take the body of Jesus Christ. And so the women coming thinking that they’re going to have access but do not have access and they find that the stone in front of the tomb has rolled away. And then they went in in verse 3 and they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

The stone was not rolled away to let the Lord Jesus out but the stone was rolled away by the angels so we could have access to the tomb. To see that our Savior was not there. To give evidence that he is risen, that he is alive.

The stone was there, rolled away and then the people could come in. Later Peter would come in and he would find that Jesus’ body was gone. The soldiers that were there were told to guard the body of Christ to make sure that nobody stole it.

But now all of a sudden the stone is rolled away, it was sealed and now all of a sudden the body is gone and the women were puzzled about the disappearance of Jesus’ body. But the empty tomb provides evidence for us this morning. The proof that we need of Jesus’ resurrection.

Now there are those who say that Jesus did not die that he just simply swooned on the cross but this is refuted because the spear went deep into his side and Joseph and the women witnessed his dead body. Others say that the disciples stole the body of Christ from the tomb but they forget that the Romans sealed it. They sealed the tomb and they were instructed not to let anyone steal the body.

And if they did, it would mean death for the Roman soldiers. The only explanation that you and I have this morning about the resurrection of Christ is that the empty tomb explains that Jesus is alive. That he has risen again and that he is not to be found among the dead but he is to be found among the living.

And the empty tomb testifies to us this morning that Jesus Christ has risen again. The resurrection, this story, those skeptics who would say it’s just a theory, Mike but it would not have lasted in Jerusalem. For a single hour, if the authorities could have found the body they would have been able to say, here is his body.

Somebody stole his body and so there is no resurrection. It would not have lasted for even an hour but my friends, there was no body to be found because our Savior was risen again and he is alive today. The holiness and the love of God was seen on the cross when we saw our Savior suspended between heaven and earth.

But forgiveness and grace is seen in the empty tomb. If Christ would not have been raised from the dead he would not have been able to forgive us of our sins. What I want you to recognize this morning is that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the affirmation that the Father has accepted his sacrifice for your sins and my sins.

And it is through the resurrection that we rejoice in the culmination of the grace and forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ. The first evidence that Luke presents to us is the empty tomb. The second is the prophecy of Christ.

We come down to verse 5 and the Bible says, Then as they were afraid and they bowed their faces to the earth that is the women. Why are they afraid? Because they saw these two men that least looked like men stood by them in shining garments. We know that they were angels.

They were so overwhelmed with their glory and brightness that they began to bow their faces to the earth. And the angels said to the women, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee.

And the angels began to share the prophecy of Jesus Christ that Jesus had been teaching his disciples for three and a half years. He had been teaching them verse 7, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day rise again. Now we are in quite the quandary here.

Jesus Christ is claiming to be God. He is claiming to be Lord. And he is boldly and confidently telling his disciples long before ever his crucifixion and resurrection that he will be crucified and that he will rise again.

And all of a sudden in verse 8, the women they remember those words. They remember. Now if Jesus is making these kind of claims, you’ve either got to determine logically this morning that he is a crazy person, a lunatic, that he’s kind of lost it.

That he is on this death mission. Or you have to say to yourself, he’s lying. He is intentionally deceiving people.

He is leading them astray and that he is a cult and he is a religious leader who is taking people down a path to their own destruction. Or thirdly, you have to say that he is the Lord. Now those three options that have been presented to us by C.S. Lewis who was a great philosopher and theologian and thinker of Christianity and that’s what he teaches us here.

The women had forgotten the prophecy of Jesus. They had forgotten that he said he would rise again. The angel said he’s not here but he is risen.

Jesus said in Matthew 12 verse 40 long before he was crucified long before he resurrected he said for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. God’s word is always true and what he says will always happen. It always comes to pass when Jesus showed up to the tomb of his dear friend Lazarus.

The funeral service was already over. He came four days after he had been petitioned to come. Lazarus was already in the tomb but when Jesus showed up he said to the family I am the resurrection and the life and he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and foreshadowing not only our resurrection but also foreshadowing his resurrection and reminding the people that were present as they were mourning and grieving over the loss of Lazarus.

Jesus called forth Lazarus out of the tomb telling us that he has power not only of diseases and nature and sickness but he has power over death and to put a final explanation point on the power he has over death Jesus himself rose again in Matthew 16 verse 21 the Bible says from that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. I want you to understand that the resurrection of Christ proves that his sacrifice for sin was accepted by God the Father and that everything that Jesus said would happen did happen and he is alive today. Again where are you? Are you in the camp that says Jesus was a crazy man? Are you in the camp that Jesus was lying and deceiving people or are you in the camp? Yes, what he said came true and he is Lord.

There is no other explanation for the empty tomb. You can’t say that his body was stolen. You can’t say that Jesus never died he just went through kind of a swooning and a fake death.

All you got to do is read about all that he endured on the cross there is no person that could have gone through what Jesus did and it’s not only that he bore the sufferings from mankind but the suffering of all the weight of sin placed upon him, upon our Savior, your sin, my sin placed upon Jesus Christ on that day. It is no wonder that the sun hid its face. It is no wonder that the earth shook for not even creation could watch the Son of God bearing the sins of the world.

But yet Jesus fulfilled the prophecies that he spoke of. The third and final evidence that I want to share with you this morning is the witnesses. We look at them in verse 9 through 12 and again we see that the Bible teaches us that they returned from the tomb and they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

Meaning the women went and hurried where were the disciples? They were huddling in Jerusalem afraid, fearful couldn’t understand what was going on. That’s what grief does sometimes. We lose perspective.

We can’t see the big picture. But these women the Bible says they returned and they told all these things. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna Mary the mother of James and other women with them who told these things to the apostles.

What is so phenomenal about what Luke is writing to us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God is that in the Roman culture, hear me, women were not allowed to give a witness or a testimony in the court of law. But Luke, he elevates the ladies because he knows that they would be truthful. Where are the men at the foot of the cross? They’re not there.

They’ve all scattered and ran away, right? Where are the men that are helping Jesus’ body to be prepared for the final burial? Where are they? It is only the women that are there and it is the women who witness the angels. It is the women who hear the words of the angel and say, why are you looking for Jesus among the dead? He’s not here. He is alive.

And so having experienced all that, they run to the disciples the apostles and they share this incredible story and look in verse 11, it says their words seem to them like idle tales, meaning like crazy talk. What these women are saying cannot be true. They disbelieved them.

They did not trust in the story of the women and that is why Peter took off and he goes and he runs to the tomb. He wants to see for himself and what does he find? Verse 12, the Bible says he arose and ran to the tomb and stooping down, he saw the linen clothes lying by themselves and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened. Now the witnesses are evidence that Jesus truly is risen again.

When we think about the witnesses, we certainly have the angels from heaven who witnessed. We have the women at the tomb who witnessed the resurrection of our Savior and we learn in the other gospels that Jesus disappeared to those women. We also have the witness of those who had died and were resurrected during the crucifixion of Christ.

In Matthew 27, we learn that while Christ was being crucified, that as the earth shook, that literally the Old Testament saints rose again. That there were those who were looking forward to the Messiah, they resurrected. Can you imagine what it was like to have one of them show up at your door and say, hey, just wanted you to know I resurrected.

And I’m sure this story that they had to tell of what it was like to die and the incredible joy and the peace that they had in their heart as they knew that God was with them, guiding them every step. But my friends, they were also testimonies. They were witnesses to the truth that this truly is the Son of God, the centurion.

It wasn’t the apostles who stood at the foot of the cross. It wasn’t any great religious leaders that stood at the foot of the cross. It was a Gentile, a centurion who witnessed the endurance of the suffering of Christ on the cross who said, truly this is the Son of God.

Because he’d never seen anything like that before. And so there they are, these resurrected bodies testifying that truly this is the Son of God. We also know that the apostles were witnesses because 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that Jesus appeared to the apostles.

And we go on to read in 1 Corinthians 15 that more than 500 people were witnesses to Christ. He appeared to over 500 people after his resurrection. It wasn’t like Jesus just disappeared and never showed himself again.

But we know that very evening on the resurrection day, according to the gospel of John, that Jesus Christ appeared to the disciples. Remember that Thomas struggled? Remember that he had his doubts? Remember that he wasn’t sure? But Jesus appeared to them and he said to Thomas, look at my nail scarred hands. Feel the wounds in my side and then you’ll know that it is truly me.

And when Thomas did that, he said, my Lord, my God. Because only God can rise from the grave. And so we have the witnesses that Jesus again appeared for 40 days after his resurrection.

For 40 days, he’s showing himself to people, over 500 people, the apostle Paul said, who gave testimony to the fact that he is alive. And this is incredible. So Christ’s resurrection rests on the evidences of many witnesses.

Twelve appearances Jesus made in those days after his resurrection. He appeared to over 500 people in the span of 40 days. That is why Luke would write later in Acts chapter 1 verse 3, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion or his crucifixion by many infallible proofs being seen of them 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

The foundational truth of Christianity is the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And without it, our faith is in vain. And thus we stand before you this morning to bring to you the very evidence that the scriptures give us about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And you say, what does that mean to me, Mike? I want to remind you that the power of the resurrection that raised our Savior has the power to change your life. That’s what it means to you. When you find yourself stuck in sin, stuck in guilt, stuck in a trap of a life that is meaningless and without purpose, you have a Savior who has risen again.

And if you will turn to him and you will receive him as your Lord and Savior, he, my friends, will not only wash away your sins, but he’ll give you a life of significance, meaning, and purpose. That is the power of his resurrection. He bursts within you a new beginning, a new start.

How many people in this world need a brand new start? Many of us, we find the complications of this world are more than we can even deal with in our own lives. But friends, we have the confidence of this, that just as Jesus changed people in the scriptures, just as he changed and transformed the apostle Paul from a persecutor to a preacher, my friends, he can change your life. He changed a man named Peter who lived in fear, who denied him and wanted nothing to do with him, to a man who stood boldly before millions of people, preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, and thousands came to believe in Jesus.

He changes people. That’s why the resurrection means so much to you. It’s not just this great theological doctrine that Pastor Mike’s trying to teach you.

It’s not just that I’m trying to help you understand the scope of how the evidence is so clear and obvious, but I want you to know it personally. And that on this beautiful day, this glorious day, the resurrection that we celebrate, the resurrection of our Savior, we are blessed and have the opportunity to renew our faith and to restore our love for the Lord Jesus Christ, and to once again begin a journey of faith in where we follow Christ and we live a life of purpose and forgiveness and grace in this world that we are called. So I challenge you this morning, consider the evidence of our Savior.

And there’s only three areas that you can fall in. He’s either lying or he’s crazy or he is truly the Lord. When you think about the resurrection, it is a very significant event in the history of the church and it’s very foundational to the message of Christ.

And the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So what we present to you are evidence and wanting to help the skeptic, the doubter, to be able to understand that we are not asking you to take a blind leap of faith, but to take a step of faith on truth. And then for you as a believer, we’re equipping you to be able to articulate that evidence that God has already given us and helps us to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the ends of the earth.

We want to continue to encourage you as our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we try to do that. You can check out our website, HopeWorthHaving.com, and there’s a lot of materials, a lot of information, and you can sign up for our daily devotions. You just go to the website, HopeWorthHaving.com, and just click on the pop-up button that says, Sign up for our devotions, and write to your email box every day a devotion to encourage you, challenge you, and strengthen you in your walk with Christ.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.

The post The Evidence of the Resurrection of Christ (Easter Sunday) first appeared on Hope Worth Having.

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Motives for Forgiveness Part 2. He will be reading out of Philemon 1:19-21.

That’s what Christ did on the cross. He took the pure wrath of God, the punishment of sin for you and for me so that God could receive you and you would be in the family of God and have a brand new start in Jesus Christ. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church, and we want to welcome you to Hope Worth Having Radio Broadcast.

Thank you for tuning in today. As you get your Bible, we want to turn to Philemon chapter one, and we’re going to continue our study on the motives for forgiveness. So let’s get right into our study today.

All of us have a debt of sin that could never be repaid by ourselves. There isn’t enough goodness in your life, and there isn’t enough activity in your life that could ever forgive your sins before a holy and righteous God. It is Jesus who stood up for us.

It is Jesus who stood in for us. It is Jesus who took our place. We should have been on that cross, and we should have endured that suffering, and the wrath of God should have been poured out upon us, but Jesus took our place, and he did it.

Why? Because he loves you, because he wants to reach you. What kind of love? If people doubt that God loves them, I tell them, get to the cross, because when you get to the cross, you see not only the holiness of God, but you see the love of God that he has and the passion that he would give his very son for you and for me so that our sins could be forgiven. The Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Jesus took on the debt of sinners, and he paid it full on the cross. Think about that. You see, that’s why I’m a big believer that once God forgives you of your sins, that he has taken care of the full debt.

I don’t believe that I can come in and help God with the debt. I don’t believe that I can add and do anything better with the debt. I believe that Christ’s payment for my sin was more than sufficient on the cross, and my motivation for holiness is not that I’m trying to pay back Jesus.

My motivation for holiness is not that I’m trying to forever pay back God for my sins, but my motivation is an expression of gratitude to Jesus and a gratitude to God that my sins have been washed away. And the Bible says that my sins are cast as far as the east is from the west to be remembered no more. Psalm 103, verse 12, as far as the east is from the west.

Can God’s people say amen? Amen. So we are thankful today that Jesus triumphed over death. He triumphed over sin.

He triumphed over Satan, and he reached out to me for salvation. And so my life is not a life of trying to pay back. That debt has been paid by Jesus Christ.

Now, this is profound because we must realize how fully we have been freed from our sin. We must realize how much God has done for us to wipe away the guilt and to shake off the shame and to leave behind all the negativity and the sinfulness in our life. And now God has given us a brand new start in Christ.

And when you come to grips with that, that you have a debt that could never be paid apart from Jesus Christ, that becomes a motivation in your heart to forgive other people. Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer, and forgive us of our debts as we forgive our debtors. Now, the motive for forgiving sin is in the heart of God for who he is, and he forgives us not because any of us deserve it or that somehow we earned it, but he forgives us because he loves us.

Now, here we are, and we are very much like the story that Jesus told. And he told about a man who was indebted to a king, and this king demanded that he pay his debts. And the man went before the king, pleaded for forgiveness, asked for grace, and asked him that he would forgive him of his debt.

And the king generously, kindly, compassionately forgave this man of his debt. And then the man went out, and he began to demand all the people that were indebted to him to pay up. And he was harsh, he was hateful, he was rude, and he refused to forgive anybody’s debt as people could not pay their debt to him.

The word got to the king, and the king was furious because this man had received so much but gave so little. This man had received so much forgiveness in that his debt, which was greater than all that people owed him, and he was forgiven of that debt, and his slate was wiped clean. And now he had a new start with the king, but he refused to do it to others.

He refused to show forgiveness to others. Hear me, my friends, the king was angry and had this man thrown into prison because he would not show the kindness and the grace that the king had bestowed upon him. I need you to think deeper than your emotions about forgiveness.

I need you to understand that when a debt is incurred, that we must remember when we are offended, when we are hurt, when we are disappointed, that we have a responsibility because of what we have received, that for two reasons of what we have received. We have received this forgiveness, and therefore, we have a responsibility to forgive others. And that when we choose to withhold that forgiveness, we are reflecting something that is untrue of our God.

When you choose not to forgive, you are shaming the name of Jesus Christ who forgave you so much. You are now letting everybody know in your relationships and in your life that your God is not a forgiving God, and that your God works on the basis of works, and that you must earn your forgiveness with God. When you know in your heart that God has generously paid your debt, he has wiped it away, he has given you a brand new start, but yet what you’re projecting in all of your relationships is if you don’t live a perfect life, then I will have a bitter spirit towards you forever and ever.

So our motive for forgiving others, it goes deeper than our feelings. We recognize that we have an unpayable debt. We recognize that people have an unpayable debt to us.

There are times that people will hurt you, even in the family of God. There are times within the people of God that we are so deeply offended and hurt. Let me just give you a newsflash.

Sometimes the people that are closest to you will hurt you the most. And the reason that they hurt so much and it’s the most is because you trust so much. Your heart is so open to fellow believers, and when that has been mishandled and when that has been hurt, the wound is deep.

The psalmist talked about those who had betrayed him, that they even sat and ate bread with him. Those you’ve invited to your homes, those you’ve been to their homes, those you’ve opened your home to and you’ve sat down and you fellowship with them and you have eaten with them, many times can hurt you the deepest because of your trust and because of your love and because of the openness of your heart. But yet you still have this responsibility to recognize that even though they could never repay the debt of the hurt that they have placed upon you, that in comparison to what God has done for you, in comparison to how much God has loved you, who are you to be out there ranting and raving and claiming your unwillingness to forgive anybody? It really strikes at the heart of your theology.

It strikes at the heart of what you believe about your relationship with God. Now some of you may have grown up in a relationship where the only way you were appreciated or that you were praised or you were acknowledged or encouraged was based upon performance. It was based upon what you did.

But I want you to know that the Bible teaches us in the relationship because of Christ, in our relationship with God because of Christ, we are accepted in the beloved. Even if we’ve made a mess of our life, even if we have made some bad choices in our life, we are accepted in the beloved. And you say, how can that be, my friends? That’s what Christ did on the cross.

He took the pure wrath of God, the punishment of sin for you and for me right there on that cross so that God could receive you, he could accept you, and you would be in the family of God and have a brand new start in Jesus Christ. My second motivation for forgiving others is to make sure that I understand that it’s benefiting me and it’s benefiting others. Let’s look at verse 20.

Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. The apostle is appealing to Philemon to be forgiving to Onesimus for the purpose of benefiting or blessing not only Paul, certainly Onesimus, but Philemon himself.

We taught you at the beginning of this series on forgiveness from the book of Philemon. Onesimus is a word that means to benefit or to be useful. So when the apostle again uses this word here in verse 20, and he says, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord and refresh in my heart.

He is saying to him, I want you to live up to your name. I want you to live up to who you are and your character. How did the apostle know his character? Go back to verse 7 of Philemon.

Again, there it is. We have great joy, consolation, or encouragement in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother, meaning Philemon, you have been a person who has been useful to the kingdom of God and you have been a benefit to the kingdom of God. You have brought great joy and encouragement to other, to the hearts of the saints.

You have been a Christian who refreshes others. Now jump back down to verse 20. Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord.

Refresh my heart in the Lord. Here’s what he’s saying. He’s saying, Onesimus, you’ve been a useful man for God.

You have been a benefit and a blessing to so many in the family of God. And he’s saying, Onesimus, let me experience that joy. Let me experience that refreshment just like you have done for others.

I need you to be a man who forgives so that you can benefit others. The apostle wants to experience that joy. It would mean so much to the apostle that Philemon would keep the unity at the church.

We’ve shared with you before that the church of Colossae was where Philemon worshiped. They met in Philemon’s house and the people knew Philemon. He was a man who was influential in the church.

He was a man who brought great joy and he was a man who refreshed. You know what I’m talking about. There are Christians like that, aren’t there? That every time you see them, they’re so filled with joy.

They’re so filled with the happiness of the Lord. They are not critical saints. They don’t drain you.

They don’t drag you down into negativity, but they fill your heart. And once you’re done talking to them, you feel refreshed. Paul is saying to Philemon, be that guy again, be that guy, Philemon.

And you see, church, when we come together as God’s people, we have to remember that choosing to unforgive will only create discord in the family of God and disunity. And this is true in your own family. This is true in all of your relationships.

Believers should be motivated to forgive one another by the knowledge that forgiveness brings joy and it brings blessings and it benefits the family of God, the kingdom of Christ, and it benefits not just others here, but it benefits the testimony of God among the community. When you talk to unbelievers, sometimes they’ll say to me, well, I don’t go to church because all they do is fuss and fight. All they do is attack each other.

And you know, it’s sad that that would be the testimony of a church family, isn’t it? Like I told you at the outset of this sermon, so many different preferences, personalities, things that we’d like to see done or not done. And it’s no wonder it seems inevitable that the church would collide and have so much conflict. Why didn’t God just make us all alike? Why didn’t God just make a bunch of Mike Sanders? Wouldn’t that be awesome? I’m just teasing.

I mean, the Lord knew you can only handle one, amen? But he created us all distinct. You have children or you have people in your family, they’re distinct in their personalities and preferences. It’s okay.

God loves creativity and he loves variety. But here’s the key that we have to choose that even when those personalities rub us wrong and those preferences we disagree with, that we have to choose for the sake of others and for the testimony of the Lord, for the benefit of others, we are going to forgive one another. So let’s say a husband and wife who have children decide they’re not going to forgive each other and that marriage can become a wreck and they can end up destroying one another, hating one another, and end up divorcing one another.

And they may think, well, it’s only me. It’s only my husband or spouse that was hurt. But the truth is it’s a ripple effect through the family.

It touches every life. The wound is deep in the children. The wound is deep in the life of the church.

Sometimes I think that because divorce is so common today that we think it’s not a big deal anymore, but it is, it is. And when you get down to that moment where you’re ready to leave your spouse, I guarantee you it’s because you did not choose to forgive. You did not choose to forgive.

Now, when we think about its benefit to me, meaning you personally or to others, you must remember that you have a responsibility to resolve the issues within your own heart. You have to resolve the issues. Philemon had to come to grips with his frustration, his anger, and his emotions about this guy taking property that was his.

So I wanna lead you through a series of questions that’ll help you because as a pastor, so many times I see it, unresolved issues in the heart, continually to stir up, continually to boil, and drinking that poison, hoping that somebody else dies. It’s only destroying you. How do we resolve this? How do we get to that place in my life that I am full of joy and I am refreshing to others and I am blessing and benefiting the church? How do I get there where I can, Pastor, forgive others? Well, first of all, answer this question, not out loud this morning, okay? But within your heart, am I truly seeking resolution? Now think of this in two angles.

Am I seeking resolution with those or the person that I am upset with? And am I seeking resolution within my own heart? Now, confrontation is difficult. Everything in my life that somebody has done to me, said to me, or neglected doesn’t always have to be confronted, or I honestly would be confronting 24-7. And I know that’s how some of you feel, but I wanna take you to a biblical proverb that says love covers a multitude of sins.

Don’t misunderstand that passage of Scripture. It doesn’t mean that you and I are to compromise, that we’re to overlook sin. It doesn’t mean that we’re to avoid dealing with sin in our own hearts or in the hearts of others.

It’s talking about those little things in life, those little interactions, those things that sometimes nip at us, at our hearts, and then they build up. You see, friends, Terry and I, today is our 34th anniversary. 34 years, amen.

Thank you. Now, thank you. You don’t have to give credit to me, but you give credit to my wife.

How could she endure and put up with Mike for 34 years? I hear you, because there’s times Mike can’t even put up with Mike. You understand that? That I’m frustrated with myself, but how is it? It’s because love overlooks a multitude of sin, that my failures, my weaknesses, my shortcomings, the things that are wrong with Mike. We’re not talking about big issues.

We’re talking about small issues, that we’re not willing to make those issues to be burning the bridge, or I’m done with you, or I’ll never have a conversation with you again. And so that’s the key, is that somebody says something, somebody forgets something, somebody neglects something, you’re hurt, you’re offended. What are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna seek resolution with that person? Maybe you don’t need to.

Maybe it’s something you say, well, I love them. I’m not gonna make a big deal about it. It doesn’t seem to be a big issue.

Or are you gonna seek resolution in your own heart? Has that become a brick in your heart, where you’re building this huge wall in your life? You know, I did a wedding back in Indiana many, many years ago, when I was pastoring there. And this couple had come in, and of course, they’re over the top about how much they love each other, and I was trying to teach them how to do conflict resolution in their marriage. And they said, don’t worry about that, pastor.

We never fight. And I said, well, once you get married, you’ll fight every day. Amen? Just get married.

That’s what solves that. But anyways, they didn’t wanna hear the lesson. They didn’t really care about it.

Two years later, they’re on my phone, and the wife is saying, I hate him. I can’t stand him. I can’t believe that I ever married him.

And so again, we begin the process of trying to help this couple. But how does that happen in two years? Because there were little things that she never, out of love, forgave, and out of love, moved forward and resolved. But she let them fester in her heart.

She let them become a brick in the wall that she was building towards her husband, to where she no longer had any emotions towards him except hate and anger. And that’s what I’m trying to tell you. And that’s what I’m encouraging you to do this morning, is seek resolution, if not with others, definitely with your own heart.

Am I observing the golden rule? That’s a second question. You see, I feel like sometimes we hold standards for people that we don’t even hold to ourselves. And we’re all offended about this person and that person when we have this standard that they have to live by, a perfection standard, and you’re not even living up to it yourself.

Are you treating people as you would want to be treated? I hope that you would treat other people. If you messed up, how would you like to be treated? Compassion, mercy, and love? Or would you like judgment to come quickly and swiftly upon your life? I hope that you would have the same standard. Maybe you don’t know everything.

Maybe you haven’t figured it out. That’s what Jesus meant in Matthew chapter seven. Judge not lest you be judged.

He’s not saying we can’t judge. He goes on to teach us how to have discernment and judgment. And that one of the things we need to remember is we don’t know everything.

And so let’s not be quick to judge. And let’s not come to conclusions because there may be more to the story than you realize. And are you allowing what you want to receive relating to your relationships with others? Here’s a newsflash.

People aren’t perfect. Did you know that? People aren’t perfect. And I know this is a shocker.

You’re not perfect. And there’s no perfect church out there. You’ll never find a perfect church.

And so we gotta remember this, that we live in a flawed world of imperfect people. And the question is, are we gonna let that ruin us, destroy us, and cause us to become bitter and angry and hateful people for the rest of our life? Or are we gonna continue to navigate this minefield and understand that there’s gonna be people who have shortcomings? But it’s okay because we’re going to extend grace to everybody. We’re gonna extend grace to people’s faults and we’re not gonna live our life angry and hateful.

The third point real quickly is my last point that I need to get across to you as far as our motivations. It is our obedience to God. Look at verse 21.

Why should I forgive? Well, because you’ve been commanded to. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say. You see, we are forgiven to forgive.

The Bible says in Matthew 6, 15, if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. There’s a lot at stake here. If I choose the path of unforgiveness, I am not only doing that in relation to my relationship with others, but I am bringing that into the relationship that I have with God Almighty.

An unforgiving Christian is a proud person who has forgotten how much they have been forgiven by God. Forgiveness is a choice. It is a choice to do what God tells you to do.

And you say, well, I’m waiting for that feeling. It never comes. I never have woken up and said, I feel like forgiven today.

I feel like that every person that cusses me out, I’m just gonna be forgiving to them. You never feel it, but you choose it in your life. And why do you choose it? Not because of your emotions, you choose it because God told you.

The church at its core is meant to be a community united in faith, purpose, and love. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of diverse personalities, preferences, and backgrounds, and achieving true unity can be an uphill battle. But the way that is accomplished is through God’s people being forgiving when they have disagreements.

And that’s what the apostle is trying to help Philemon do, is that yes, he’s been disappointed, hurt, let down, but God is calling him to a higher plane of living, and that is to be forgiving. And the motivation for his forgiveness is not that anybody’s worthy, but that Christ forgave him. And so because of what Christ did on the cross is what mobilizes us to show grace and forgiveness to others even when they let us down or hurt us.

So this book on Philemon is a very challenging book and one that requires us to reflect, study, and think about a lot. And I hope you’ll do that. And if you’d like to get the message in its entirety, I want you to go to our website, hopeworthhaving.com, hopeworthhaving.com. And there you can go to our archives and just look up the book of Philemon.

And as well, you can go to our YouTube channel and you can check out our playlist on Philemon, and you can listen to the full message on forgiveness. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having. Thank you.

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