And I want to read the first
few chapters. Not the first few chapters, first
parts of chapter one, some parts of chapter one and chapter two. Philippians chapter one starting
in verse 19, a few words before it. Yes, and I will rejoice. For I know that through your
prayers and the help of the Spirit of Christ Jesus, this will turn
out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope
that I will not be ashamed at all, but that I will have full
courage. Now, as always, Christ will be
honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ
and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh,
that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose,
I cannot tell. I'm hard pressed between the
two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is so
much better. But to remain in the flesh is
more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that
I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and
for your joy in the faith so that in me you may have ample
cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again.
Only let your manner be worthy, manner of life be worthy of the
gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or I am absent,
I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit,
with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the
gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This
is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation
and that from God. For it has been granted to you
that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him
but also suffer for His sake, engage in the same conflict that
you saw I had and now hear that I still have. So if there is
any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation
in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy
by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full
accord of one mind, Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,
but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only to the interest of himself, but
also the interests of others. Have this mind among you, which
is yours in Jesus. who, though he was in the form
of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave, being born
in the likeness of men. And being found in human form,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted
him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So
at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth
and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of the Father. Therefore, beloved, as you've
always obeyed, so now not only in my presence, but much more
my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
for it is God who works in you both to will and to work. for
his good pleasure. Let's pray. Father, we are glad
to hear this word this morning. And above all things, we are
glad that your word is sufficient, that it is enough for what we
need today, and it is enough to instruct us about what we
will need tomorrow, and it is enough when we are disciplined
to hear you speak through it, to find joy in the midst of great
despair. Lord, how we talk so much about
that which we desire. How we seek out simple answers
and temporal remedies, finding satisfaction and hope in our
bank accounts or our relationships or our health or our mental state
or substances or friendships or things or personal ideas or
esteem or social media. And Lord, it's all for nothing.
For Christ is our everything. And so as we've come today, Lord,
we thank you for the promise of teaching your people. So teach
us and grow us to become a people for yourself, for your name and
for your glory, by the power of your grace in Christ Jesus,
we pray. Amen. There's a lot that I need to
say that I will not have time to say. This message this morning
is still part of us going through the idea of what the church is,
the beautiful church. And what I'm going to preach
this morning will be the outline for what we discuss as we eat
in our members meeting. But I want you to imagine for
a moment, we have been a constituted assembly, a gathering for 11
years, for 11 years. And in that 11 years, there have
been several epochs. And I measure those by the conflict
and the strife and the disaster. Isn't that funny? I was talking
with someone about that last week that I think about, well,
this happened and then this happened and then this, and historians
do that too. This is when that war happened. This is when that
natural disaster happened. It's what we do. We focus our attention
not on the small successes or large things. We focus our attention
on one of two things typically as people. There are exceptions,
but this is a generalization on my part. We focus on the extremely
negative things that affect us because they do change us. Or
we focus on the things that get a lot of public opinion praise. But why not focus on the thing
that is unmovable? the promises of Christ. Why not
focus on the thing that literally cannot change? It is impossible
for God to change. It is impossible for His Word
to change. But we are the ones changing. Now see, there is a
false gospel that has been in our culture as long as I've been
alive. I've heard it often. And that false gospel goes a
little something like this, many iterations. It is that you know
that you are a true believer and have been born of God because
of the way you grow and mature in the faith and in your sinlessness. That's a false gospel. The Bible
says that you know you are in the faith because God has promised
that his son's death has satisfied his wrath for you and he has
gifted you the inner disposition to believe and rest, trust in
that promise. And we are going to have a little
sub series sometime in November on faith. We're going to spend
a lot of time. We're going to have to keep it
to a few weeks or so because it could just go on through the
next year. But false gospels after false gospels have always
put the eye on the navel-gazing of the human being to look inside
to decide if they're truly saved by measuring themselves through
some standard that's not found in the Holy Writ. The standard
of righteousness in the Holy Bible is God Himself alone and
only. And the only established God,
God-established righteousness that existed in human flesh ever
to walk the earth is Jesus, the God-man Himself. And as Brother
Trey said last week, the only works that are necessary for
our salvation are the works of righteousness, whose are Jesus
Christ. I might not have gotten my possessiveness
correct and all that, but you know what I'm saying. And the church has been bought
by the blood of Jesus and then commanded by divine authority
through Jesus himself, through the writings of the apostles,
to gather together and be submissive to the writings of scripture.
Not the cultural inundations and obligations and overbearing
garbage that always comes by saying, well, if you're really
a Christian, you'll do this. If you're really a Christian,
you'll vote this way. If you're really a Christian, hoo-yah-hee-yay,
who cares? If God's word does not give it
to me in instruction, plain and simple, it is not for us to infer
and then impose upon as a burden on another person. If God's spirit
has imposed it upon us, then that is our personal conviction.
We do well to keep our mouth shut about it. You see what I'm
saying? Life as the church of Jesus Christ
is not about imposing restrictions. It's about living in freedom.
And your freedoms may look different than mine. And some of your freedoms
may be sinful and some of my burdens may be sinful. And by
the mercy of our father and through the teaching of his word and
through the simplistic oversight of the elders with patience and
kindness, without being a burden, we will grow to understand these
things, not to our despair, but to our joy. As he has seen fit
to show us. All that being said, 11 years,
some of you have been with us from the beginning. Some of you
have been with us halfway through. Some of you have just come to
be a part of our family. And beloved, I'm just going to
be very candid today about some things. I have suffered more
in my mind and my heart in the last two, three years than I've
ever suffered in my life. I have tried to give up the ministry.
I've tried to give up the pastorate. I have tried to leave and do
other things. I have tried to make it a side job. I've tried
to do everything that I could and every time that I do, God
shuts the door, breaks my foot, tears up my stomach, bowls down
my eyes, breaks my hand, rips out my shoulder, ruins my elbow,
or does something to prevent me from doing anything but sitting
on my butt and praying and studying the Bible in misery. You see,
you cannot escape the call of Christ. And the cool thing is,
we really don't want to. Our flesh thinks, you know what
would be great? We could do it this way. That's
why there's so many iterations of church all over the world.
So many different Gospels and different Jesuses and all that.
And who cares about that stuff? That's God's sovereign purpose.
He created that chaos for His glory. Hallelujah, thank you
father for the seriousness and the awesomeness of evil Have
you ever prayed that? No, I haven't either But I can thank him in the midst
of it you say he has a purpose in it So for some of us if what we're
learning Anybody who thought I'm an expert on church Really
ought to pay attention Anybody who thinks I'm an expert in scripture
ought to pay attention. Who is the expert of scripture?
The scripture. Who is the expert of church?
The scripture. the one to whom it points, Jesus
Christ, and he's instructed. It's very easy, but we are very
creative and very intelligent and very smart. We love to do
and think what would assimilate and acclimate and appropriate
and all the other A's and A's that we can come up with to get
people active in the church. Well, you're not active in the
church if you're not understanding the church. But imagine for a moment anything. I want to focus completely. A
lot of Philippians for context, but Paul says so if there be
any encouragement in Christ. Chapter two, if any comfort from
love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy,
complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love,
being in full accord and of one mind. He gives instruction on
that practically very next breath. Do nothing out of selfish ambition
or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than
yourselves. Look after the interests of others
as you also would look after your own. And then he talks about Jesus.
See, this is just not some arbitrary, you know, weird, odd epiphany. This is not some new worldview
that the apostles are trying to establish some strange, I
don't know, nirvana, some strange utopia, some strange ethereal
expression of happiness and joy. This is a display of Christ himself. So to display Christ in the world,
it's not about modern day, phoenistic, grahamistic, demonistic evangelism. And I don't mean to be so ugly
about that stuff, but I just gotta keep the labels what they
are before the haters come and cut my head off. And I don't
want you to confuse a reference as an endorsement, okay? Evangelism
is not banging on doors, telling people to turn or burn. There's
no gospel there. That is not there. Evangelism
is not going and saying, you'll obey the Ten Commandments. Of
course we don't. Well, you're going to go to hell.
You're a self-proclaimed. That's a false gospel. Evangelism
has been taught incorrectly, culturally, my entire lifetime.
And I've been asked a thousand times if once, well, what is
good evangelism? And I'm still working on that
answer as I continue to teach the church and to prepare you
to do the works of the ministry, which includes doing the work of an
evangelist, which is something that I have been guilty of not
doing the last two years. Do I share the gospel? All the
time. Do I talk the gospel? Yes. But
what is that work? We'll talk about that in our
members meeting. So here we are, Jesus Christ
displayed in the life of his people, in the gospel proclamation
of his good report, what he has accomplished and who he has purchased. And now we get together in order
to learn and to do the things that God has called us to do.
And Paul is saying that it all boils down to one simple thing,
that we have love for one another, just as we read out of John 13
this morning, pre-service. If you are a follower of Christ,
they will know that, they who, the world and the lost people
and the self-righteous people and the religious people will
know that you are following me when you love other people. Following
Christ and being born again is not the same thing. One is a
state before God. One is a justified state before
God where there is no condemnation. And another is a disciplined
opportunity for us to obey and live according to Christ in the
world. Love. Love is not a feeling. Love is
not a method. Love is not something that we are able to muster out
in our emotions. Love is not an emotion at all.
The emotions that are usually misapplied as love are infatuation,
obsession, lust, eroticism, whatever it may be. These are other emotions
that are physiological almost. Definitely psychological, love
is where we do with our hands and feet, with the intention
of our heart, for the sake of the joy of our brothers and sisters,
and even, God bless them, our enemies. You gotta say God bless
them in the South. So imagine, any ministry, any
encouragement, any blessing, any prayer, anything that has
been given to you or provided for you in the context of the
ministry of this family, From this pulpit, from anybody else
amongst us at any particular time in your life, imagine what life would be like or would
have been like if we were not a people. What do I mean? What if Grace
Truth Church never came to be? What would be different? For you, what would change? What would you miss? What relationships
would you have never had? What times or investments have
been made in your life for the sake of Christ? As a part of
this church family. Through the teaching. Through
the prayers. Through the encouragement. Through
the training. The suffering, the counseling, the meeting of
needs, ministry, the maturity, the reminders, the stirring from others, all
can be summarized in one nice big fat word, love. That's what love is. That's what
love looks like. Jesus Christ, who, though he
was God, did not take that equality with God, something to grasp,
something to display. He did not come here and say,
look at me, the God man. He came here and said, look at
me, the son of man, the son of God, doing the work of my father. If there's any encouragement
in Christ. I guess we have to ask ourselves, Church, is there
encouragement in Christ through your life in the church? Is the
church a tether to the growth of your faith? Is it a tether
to the joy of your soul? Is the church a tether to the gospel for you? And if it is, is there any encouragement
in Christ? Is there any comfort in love?
Do you find comfort in the context of the church? See, it's very
easy when we're stressed out and focused inwardly and focused
on the issues that we have at hand, whether it, no matter what
it be. I don't have to keep giving examples about issues. We all
have issues and we can all define them. Save the breath. We focus on those things and
all of a sudden we get so enamored by everything that's going on that we lose sight of why we're
here to begin with. And one of the ways we escape
that is that it's real easy to say, okay, guys, we need to serve
our community. That's a command of the Lord
for the body of Christ, to serve your neighbor. to serve your
community, to do things, as me and another pastor locally had
a good conversation last Tuesday, without the t-shirt on. Not shirtless,
but you know, without the church t-shirt on. This ministry provided
by Grace Fruit. I mean, you know, we don't have
to do that. Put our banners out front when we're handing out
water. Look it up. There are QR codes so the semi-trucks
can run over our children as they're trying to get it. It's easy. It's easy for me to
say, okay, next week we're going to hand out water downtown. We're
going to hand out tracks downtown. Is there anything wrong with
either of those? No, but it's easy for me to make that the
emphasis of my role and call. And then it makes you feel comfortable
in evangelical life. When I get through exposing some
of my thoughts on evangelical life, you might not like me anymore,
but it's forthcoming. And In the end, we're all busy
doing simple little tasks that have no eternal value in the
name of living for Christ while we're ignoring each other and
while we are ignoring the very root of the reason that we are
called the body. It's easy. It's also easy to
become so myopic, so inward driven, so focused on doctrine and theology
and all this kind of stuff that we push out two thirds of the
sheep among us because God hasn't called them to that hobby. And
it is a hobby. Hobby. And you can get it at
Hobby Lobby too. There's more theology at Hobby
Lobby than there is in most churches. It's easy. We can just be distracted.
We could be distracted. It's like my mind is distracted
today because I say these things and then the rewind in my head
goes, wait a minute. That's irritating. Let's pound
that for a minute. No, got to stay over here, James.
And then the third voice, what are you talking about? And I
see it on some of your faces. We're able to not feel the pain,
not feel the burn, to feel sufficiently purposeful when we're busy with
busyness. Is life not busy enough? Is it
not busy enough to rake up pine cones, change oil, change diapers,
wash clothes, pay the bills, pay the bills, pay the bills? Is it not busy enough? It's busy
enough. So Paul is saying if there's
anything, if you have encouragement, if you have comfort in love,
if you have participation in the spirit, what is that? It's
the power of God working in us, molding us, growing us, teaching
us, delivering us, giving us joy, helping us to encourage
one another, causing you to think about me and pray for me and
me to think about you and pray for you and each other. At a
moment's notice, we're watching television and there's nothing
spiritual about anything we're doing and then we think, I wonder
how Bob's doing. Lord, whatever he's going through,
I just came to mind. Let me text him. Oops, I didn't
know it was 1 a.m. Sorry, Bob, go back to sleep.
We live in a perpetual casino in our day, don't we? We don't
know what time it is, we don't know if the sun's up. We're just
all sitting there looking at something, playing spades or
watching Netflix. Participation in the spirit.
We're born again. We know the truth. We're learning.
We're growing. But it is God, the spirit. It is God himself
who works in us and wills in us for his good pleasure. Philippians
2, what, 13. And so we are obligated, we are
encouraged, we are comforted, we have the spirit of God working. Have you have you had any affection
or any sympathy? If so, Paul was saying, complete
my joy. Paul is focused. He's being selfish
for a minute. It's not real selfishness, but
it's definitely personal. Complete my joy. Why? Look at
this. This is important, beloved. Paul
wants to be joyful and his joy is tethered to the body of Christ
being joyful. And the body of Christ's joy
is tethered to them being encouraged and comforted and participating
in the Spirit and growing in affection and sympathy for one
another and receiving that ministry while giving that ministry. This
is Paul's joy. So complete my joy by having
the same mind. What is the mind? He explains
it. We don't have to ask, what does he mean? The mind which
is yours in Christ Jesus, though he was equal with God, he did
not take equality with God, something to be grasped, and made himself
nothing, a slave, obedient to death, even on a cross. Therefore
God exalted Him, highly exalted Him, raised Him up, showed Him
for who He was, gave the glory that it belongs to Him, exposed
it to the world. The body of Christ can see it
face to face by the Spirit of God, by His grace. This is the
working of God the Spirit alone. It is not anything that we do
to meet God in any way, any place, at any time with us or anything
that we have. It is all of God, which is as
we say historically, it is all of grace. the work of the knowledge
of salvation, faith, rests in the work of salvation that has
been completed. And now that it has been completed,
we have the mind which is like Christ. So we demonstrate Christ
when we are together. We demonstrate Christ in our
proclamation of truth. We demonstrate Christ in our
patience with one another. We demonstrate Christ in our
giving of our lives to one another. There is no greater love than
this, that a man would lay down his life for his brother. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church. You mean whipping them with a
scourge? No, not cleansing the temple as Christ loved the church,
but giving His life, offering Himself to present her blameless,
holy, without spot or wrinkle before Him. How? sinful, sinful, sinful people,
deserving of all wrath and true righteousness and justice, Jesus
Christ, perfect righteousness, not only as God, but in His humanity
also, and proved it through His obedience and submission to the
Father, fulfilling all the requirements of righteousness therein. Then
He gives Himself unto the government. unto the will of the people who
hated him and who hated the God that sent him, who thought they
were doing the very will of the evangelical God that they thought
they served. And they put him to death by
the will of God the Father that he might be the one who satisfies
the wrath of justice in the eyes of God forevermore in his blood. And how in the world was that
satisfactory? Because he was holy God in the
flesh. proven so through his resurrection
from the dead. And beloved, this is the good
report. So we look after other people.
You think Jesus was looking after his own interests? Well, theologically, technically,
yes, for his glory was at stake. Listen, folks, we're talking
about the practical reality of Jesus walking this earth for
34 years. And not once walking around showing
off as God. Yet the world at large was waiting
for John the Baptist to become something special. And he showed
up looking like the homeless man on crack. And I don't even
know if I should make jokes like that because I've had to minister
to people who were homeless on crack. We've had to take their
children into our house for 10 months. It seems funny, but it's not.
It's real. And that's how John the Baptist came across. People
were looking to him to be something. He was nothing. He was a whack. And all he did is point to Christ,
the bridegroom. Kiss the bride. People had a
problem with that. People have a problem with it
today. People have a problem with the church of Jesus Christ
being his. Pastors have problems. This is my church. It may be
your chair, it may be your podium, it may be your microphone, but
it ain't your people. You see, that may be your Bible,
but everything that I have, God can take. Even you. Do nothing. Do nothing out of
selfless ambition. Count other people more significant
than yourselves. Do not look only to his own interests,
but also the interests of others. See, a lot of times we hear in
evangelical life, we hear in Christian circles, we've got
to die to ourselves, which is true. Husbands, love your wives.
Jesus died in order to establish righteousness for his church.
The marriage relationship is a picture of that. The church
relationship is a picture of that. The church relationship
with each other is eternally secure. The marriage relationship
is like the shadows in the temple. It will pass away. It's impermanent. So here. We don't need to be
told to never look after your interests. How good does that
go? But are your interests as a believer
not invested in the interest of others? Why? Why do we work? for the big house, for the big
truck, for the big vacation, for the big pot of gold at the
end of the rainbow? You ever lost 80% of your net
worth? Rewind to February. That's what it looked like. Just
like that. Why? The economy. Oh, just hold on,
it's going back up. God's the God of money. He owns it all. He made the gold. And he can destroy it. So why do we work? Why do we
do what we do? For the sake of others. How can what we accomplish
be used? 100% no. Nobody's ever asked
that. How can what we do, what we have
and what we are be used in the lives of others? Do we have privilege?
Exercise it. Do we have authority? Use it.
Do we have a voice? Speak. Do we have a dollar? Spend
it. Do we have some food? Share it. Do we have some time? Give it. We got some talents? Put them
on display. for the joy of God's people. It's not hard, is it? But yet
we've built such an infrastructure. I mean, you know, when we were
tearing this building apart, and many of you were helping,
and we didn't have all the nice tools that it required to do
these things, and I was on a double scaffold with a ratchet strap
16 or 20 foot ladder, completely OSHA compliant, standing up there
with a thing, and Brother Levi was down at the bottom, and we
had the wheels on that thing. and he would push me as I sprayed.
Yeah, that's what we did. We did a lot of work, just went
and did and what was it for? Just so
we can have something nice to look at? We're thinking about how we invest
in the lives of others. What is it that we can give What
is it that God's called us to? Where are our passions? Is it just being in the seat?
Is it just receiving? Or is it also giving? That's
what it means to put other people's interests as just important,
if not more important than your own. You've heard the stories of parents
who suffer with addiction. to the neglect of their children.
I've counseled many of them. I've been advocates in courts
where people have lost their children and never gotten them back. I've mentored people through
years of trying to overcome these things, but at the moment when
it mattered, the person or persons interest in being high or having
certain things was more important and more powerful. It isn't that
they didn't love their children, but at that moment, it had more
power in their lives than the necessity and the obligation
of taking care of their family. And so the courts took away their
children. See, we can become that self-centered
and not even know it. The body of Christ is going to
always be in a flux of levels of self-centeredness. Why? Because
Merry Christmas, we're all human. And if you don't think I'm self-centered,
just come to my house and hang out with me for a little while. I can be extremely selfish. But at the end, what does the
Spirit of God do? And we don't fall on the ground
and mire and roll and cry in our snot and guilt and depravity.
We stand up bold, as I prayed in the beginning, because Christ
is risen. He's standing. So we stand with
him. We've been raised to the newness
of life. We are alive because Christ stands, because he's alive. So all the instruction of the
saints and all the promises of God in Christ are manifested
in, I believe, this short paragraph, all of it. And I don't have time
to go through it all because this needs to be a succinct message. This is a practical instruction,
but you get the point. The point is there. Now let me
opine some more. As God's people, We are to be
like Christ in the giving of our lives for the sake of others,
not in the receiving from others. Now see, that's tough, isn't
it? Why do I have to give? Why do I have to serve? Why do
I have to give up? Why do I have to readjust my
life for other people? Because that's what Christ's
example teaches us, and that's what Christ instructs us, you
see. But it's not. Does that make
you feel good? Is anyone sitting here today
going, I swear, I was a little depressed when I got here today,
and this is making me so happy. No, it's not. Because it's not
the gospel, is it? See, we've already heard the
gospel and we've packed it up and put it neatly in our pocket. And we've already put it away,
now we're pressing upon ourselves this undue burden of being servants. Aren't we? And now some of us
are going, I'm just such a horrible person, I keep pressing myself
and undue guilt. Now you're guilty about feeling
guilty, about pressing yourself being guilty, and you're self-condemned. Stop! It is good news always,
every day, 24 hours of the day, 7 days of the week, and 365 and
¼ days of every year. Good news. Not good news if,
or good news only. Or good news, maybe it is. Christ
has done it. He is the perfection. He is the
picture. And in my best of days, I'm still
worthy of all of His wrath, but no more shall I fear it, for
He has risen Himself for me. And now I stand, and now you
stand. And I'm going to say something right now in this next sound
bite that might really bite me. For the first time in my life,
I understand from a gospel position why the happy-go-never-talk-about-sin
pastors are so popular in America. About how a guy like Osteen could
have 60,000 people a week sitting in an audience listening to that
psychobabble. Because people are sick and tired
of being chained to the floor and set on fire. People are sick and tired of
people coming into the life of the body of Christ and telling
everybody what's wrong with everybody else but themselves. And then
humble bragging and going, oh by the grace of God only. I'm
not like that. The example of that for that
type of person is death and condemnation. You see what I'm saying? Jesus
didn't accolade them, but that's the historical record. Those
are the wagon wheels of the trajectory of the church of Jesus Christ,
supposedly, quote, quote, quote, of America. Starting with the
boats over here, the westward expansion, the Puritanism. We
the people. Freedom of religion or none at
all, if we so choose. But yet there's always going
to be a group of Pharisees who try to reform theologically the
people of a culture and they're always going to try to establish
their own righteousness through some type of behavior modification. And the baddest way to modify
people's behavior is to offer them some type of extremely awesome
benefit or an extremely harsh consequence. God's people are to be a giving
people, not a receiving people. So when I say that, I am not
doing what you are feeling. Don't be guilty. You didn't know
where I was going with that, did you? Merry Christmas, I unpacked
it. But the second point is, as God's
people, when we give, we actually receive. How? If I give you these keys, how
do I receive my keys? You might not receive my keys, but I might
receive your keys. If I use my key to open a door for you, someone
else in this congregation will use their key to open a door
for me. And what I need may be different than what you need,
but I have what you need. You don't have what I need, but
somebody else may have what I need. You see what I'm saying? So if
everyone is looking after the self-interest of others, then
everyone is receiving their interests. Could have had a V8. Could have
just got the gospel right to start with. We receive as others give to
us. And not just the things that
we need, not just the counsel, not just the prayer. See, most
of us are even thinking about money right now anyway, aren't
we? Or, oh crap, he's about to start
a committee. He's going to ask me to serve on it. Now, I only
do that for civil stuff. Ain't no committees in Grace
Truth Church. We're all one big fat committee. No matter how
big we get. Maybe you need to help teach.
Maybe you need to help train. Maybe you need to walk in suffering
with some people. Maybe you need to meet some needs. Maybe you need to help mature
others. Maybe you need to help remind each other or stir each
other or love each other or whatever it might be. There's a lot of
things that need to be given here as a people to each other. Because if we're honest, we can
all sit here right now and go, well, I've only, only that guy
and that girl, that person, this person, that family, this family,
they're the only ones that I've ever really received anything
from. Never got anything from James. Never really got anything
from Bob. We don't have a Bob. That's why
I use that name so much. When we get a Bob, we're going to
have to change stuff. Just make up a
color. Chartreuse. But how self-centered is that
to have received all the blessings that are required and provided
and then be upset that they didn't come from the right person? So
I get that a lot as pastor. But believe it or not, my life
in certain seasons is upside down in shambles. It is not controlled
chaos, it is chaos. And the control panel is somewhere
in the midst of the rubble. And it's disconnected, so I'm
trying to find the wires. You see. As God's people, we have instructions
and commands. Things that are wise and things
that are required. So what are those things that
are wise and required? Well, they're insisted upon. And there's a lot, but for the
sake of simplicity, let's go through a few. First, being with
the body. Trey talked about it last week
and the week before. We've been talking about it for years. Being with the body. Not on Facebook,
not on a Bible study, not on a sewing group, not on a hunting
club, not at a men's breakfast, not through the live stream,
being with the body and flesh, face to face. Why? Because that's what God has said
is required for Him to exercise and infiltrate our
lives with His grace. Listen to last week's sermon. If we aren't here, we can expect
to receive nothing. Do not forsake. Do not neglect. Let's see what happens. What
happens when the pastor says stuff like that? Everything I've
just done, I can get to the whole spiel again. What happens is,
Oh, now I'm feeling guilty. Don't feel guilty, just do it. I've never felt guilty for missing
a meal. Just make it up on the backside. You know what those are like.
Hadn't eaten all day, and you go to bed, and you just eat a
piece of toast, and you're like, gosh, I don't have time to eat. I'm going to
eat at 11 o'clock. I'm just going to go to bed. And you wake up the next morning,
and you've got half your pillow down your mouth. You make it up. You just pick
it up the next day. Or for those of you who like
to go to the gym, and, man, I haven't worked out all week. I just,
I'll quit. I mean, when we're kids, we don't want to be told
what to do, much less when we're adults being told what to do. However, when someone, and more
specifically, when the elders of the church say, beloved, this
is what we're going to do. Let me give you an example. We're
not going to allow, I know that word is hard, isn't it? We're
not going to allow, and that might not be the best way to
say it, but this is how I think. We're not going to allow our
church members to fight on Facebook anymore. About anything. Politics or polyester, I don't
care what it is, we're not going to fuss over it. And if I see
it again, I'm coming to talk to you about it. Now what's the
consequence? Decapitation, of course. It's the only way to stop. We
could do the hands, but Siri really can pick up about 80%
of the correct voice. Tongue out, maybe? I don't know.
What's the consequence? No consequence, because a well-minded,
well-reasoned, logical child of God who loves the Lord and
his people, when they're told what you're doing online is destroying
the faith of some, they'll go, I am so sorry. And if they don't,
you'll warn them again. If they don't, you excommunicate
them from your life. So that they'll come back and go, I love
you so much. Don't let this come between us. I'll stop. What business is it of yours
about my Facebook? It's not my business. You do
what you want to online, to the glory of God, but when it starts
to affect the lives of the people around you that you say you love,
and you're not wise enough to see it, and sometimes somebody
has to come in and say it. Put it down. I'm asking you to
put it down. You've sinned against me. You
see? Teachable. Patient. How long
do we give the guy? 12 seconds? That's a perfect
number. 144,000 seconds? 7 seconds? 10 seconds? 8 seconds? Is he riding a bull? I don't
know. I mean, how long does it take? 490 times? 7 times 70?
I mean, have you ever had to forgive anybody 490 times? If
you're married, you have. If you have children, of course.
But if you really count it up, you're probably in the same number
being forgiven. We're to be patient. A church
member must be patient and teachable. They must bear with one another.
We have to bear. It's not an option. We have to
bear with one another. I don't really like Bob. That's
why he doesn't come. He's never been because nobody
likes him. I like Bob, but you can love
Bob and not like Bob. And you don't have to smile through
the grit. You don't have to pretend. You don't have to put on a happy
face. Stop telling people to smile, folks. That's not the answer
to the question. Just tell a joke. See if they
smile. Have some humor. That'll make people smile. Be
smilable. Look ridiculous. They'll laugh
at you. Whatever it takes. But we can't just tell people
to smile. Just be happy. Just be happy. Don't worry about
it. Just stop thinking that way. It doesn't work. You know what? I love you in the midst of your
scowl, in the midst of your frustration, in the midst of your cantankerousness,
and that's what I love about you. You're so unique. You're just a big frowny turd.
You see? And Bob's going, that's funny. Appreciate that. Brother, that's encouragement
to me. I'm a big frowny turd. Hats and
t-shirts for sale after the service. That'd be our new mascot. The command and the things that
are wise and required is that the member of the church
supports the church in its ministry with money and with service. Why money? Well, this stuff ain't
free. Our gathering place isn't free.
Electricity is not free. Your pastor doesn't have another
job he can go do. I tried. Doesn't work like that. But finally, I think the biggest
thing that I want us to see as we sit here this morning of having
one mind is that we're worshippers together. Because I think if
we're worshipping, and this is a whole other sermon, so get
ready. If we're worshipping, what are we doing? Every name. God exalted Christ for His humility. God exalted Christ for His sacrifice. God exalted Christ for His giving.
God exalted Christ because He took on the form of humanity
and sat in the place of His people to save them from the wrath of
righteousness. You ever heard it like that before?
Wrath of righteousness? Because that's what it is. Wrath is righteous. God's anger is righteous. My
anger is often not. And I may be upset about something
biblically, but it's not a righteous thing, it's usually sinful. If
I'm expressing anything that causes animosity between me and
even my enemy, it's a sinful anger. If I'm causing strife
in the name of truth, and it causes any type of friction between
me and a relationship of a complete stranger, it's sinful. And we're
gonna learn how that looks, Lord willing, in the years to come.
But we need to be prepared. What does it mean to be a worshipper?
Being prepared to hear the Word. Putting aside the Lord's day
for at least 90 minutes so that we can come in and prepare to
hear the Word. And then being in the Word as much as we can
through the week ahead. Well, what do I read? Let me
tell you something. Until you've memorized it, just read John's
Gospel every day, and when you get to the end, start back over.
If it takes you six weeks to read through it, then start over
every six weeks. Just read John's Gospel until you can just about
quote it. And then when you get that under
your belt, then go to Ephesians. Yeah, then Romans, third. If
you don't know what it means to be the church, if you don't
know the gospel and you don't know what it means to be the
church, don't get into the theological weeds of Romans. But that would
be a good third. Stay away from Revelation, just
go read my 37, just go listen to my 37 weeks in the hogwash
on that. Settle your mind that God's got it and it doesn't matter
and He's not talking to us anyway about anything in particular
but that history that has unfolded. We're worshippers. We're prepared
to worship by hearing the word. And then by doing so, we're worshippers
by learning and then learning to do. Do you realize that as
the church we're learning to do? If we learn a doctrine, that
means teaching. If we're learning some teaching
about a particular subject like prayer, that means we're going
to do prayer. If we're learning a particular
subject about justification, that means we're going to do
justification. How do you do justification? You live out as
if you are not a sinner before the Lord, as you relate to one
another. If you're justified by grace,
the work of God and his mercy and love for you, then by golly,
you and I can treat each other accordingly. See, there's always
an application practically in the lives of the people. If we're learning about propitiation
and the wrath of God is satisfied, then oh my goodness, Jesus had
a lot to say about this, didn't he? Then we are going to be a
forgiving people. We are not going to hold anything
over each other's heads. We're going to be the walking
example of 1 Corinthians 13, not the simple part, the other. We're going to prepare to take
of the means of grace. We're going to take the Lord's table. We're
going to participate in baptism. We're going to pray. We're going
to learn. We're going to be here. Listen to last week's sermon.
Please, I don't want to reiterate it. And as we're here, we're going
to do all the things required of us. We're going to have a
vision as a church, as a family with one purpose. We're going
to have direction of places, places we're trying to go, things
we're trying to accomplish according to that vision, which is according
to the scripture. We're going to have ideas on
how we're going to reach out to our community and be involved
in our community and be a community and how we can serve others.
We're going to understand the role and the position and the
service requirement of the pastors, elders, and deacons and the church. We're going to
understand what it means to do the work of an evangelist, to
be able to teach and admonish each other and encourage each
other. We're going to do it. We're going to learn to do, not just
sit and hear, but do. See, that's the conflict with
people who can't read. always have with the book of
James and the book of Romans, where they think that James is
conflicted with Paul, and Paul is contradictory to James, but
there's a context in which James pastorally is saying, get up
off your butts and be the household of God. You see? Paul is saying, this
is how you are the household of God. Jesus would even do the same
thing with His disciples. Beloved, I'm going to tell you, we are
not in any place, if Paul were to write a letter to us, and
I may be saying this because I'm jaded, but if Paul were to
write a letter to us, I think it would be more like Philippians. I think it would be more like
Thessalonica. I don't think we'd be Corinth.
We certainly wouldn't be a church in the region of Galatia. We're
not inundated and overcome by all this nonsense and false teaching. We put quick work to that stuff. I think it would be a letter
of endearment. A letter that says, Grace Truth Church, remember
the love of God for you. And continue to love each other
as you're doing, even more so And you've gone through a lot
and you've had a lot of things, but the Father has sustained you and
brought you together for this very purpose that you may give
glory to God in your lives together. So that's where we are today,
beloved. We're not guilty. We're free. And so in that freedom, we can
rejoice in worship and we can be the people that God has called
us to be. by His grace and for His glory. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for your patience. God with me. Everything that is in my head
and in my heart, just nonsense. So if I feel the pressures this
way, I know that the rest of us are feeling similar things.
Though they all may be different, they have the same result as
we are downtrodden and often angry or frustrated or fearful
or whatever it may be that suits our nature and character. But in it all, it's that we're
not trusting in you and Lord, that in and of itself is not
a reason and a season for guilt, but is an opportunity for thankfulness. Lord, we don't have to have great
faith. We don't have to know that your
promises are not tied to our resolve. But Father, the simple things
about being in the body, Lord, if we would just be together,
and not try to be occupied with other obligations on the Lord's
Day. If we would just be together, we would grow, that you would
hold the elders of this church very tightly to the written word,
that we would see and know and understand the needs of our congregation,
and that we would teach accordingly, and that we would then lead by
example by doing. not whining about who aren't
doing, but celebrate those who are so that the rest of us would
see the ones serving and follow suit. Lord, help that be the
footprints of Grace Truth Church. And as we take the Lord's table
today, as we meet and fellowship, as we talk about the next chapter
and some of the needs that we desperately have, Lord, I pray
that they would all be seen and heard for your purpose and that
anything that needed to be removed that I would just forget about.
And we thank you and all these things we pray in Christ's name.
Amen.