If you would, let's open our
Bibles again to Philippians chapter 3. I titled the message this morning,
Our Commonwealth. I know that sounds like a strange
title, but I took my title from a word that's found in verse
20 of Philippians chapter 3. For our conversation is in heaven. That word conversation in this
context typically means citizenship. Sometimes the word conversation
might, might mean our walk, the way we conduct ourselves. And
usually in this context we think of the word is citizenship. And
often that's, that is, that is what the original Greek word
means. But this Greek word, it's the only time it's used in all
the scripture. It's a variation of the word
that normally means citizenship. It means a Commonwealth of citizens. And it means the way in which
our affairs are ordered. Now that sounds kind of technical. I know I'm no Greek scholar and
you can look that up same way I did. And I hesitate that, you
know, I don't want to get bogged down in what all the original
Greek and Hebrew words and from the original text of the scripture.
But the meaning of this word that's translated here, conversation
does give us a better understanding of what the apostle is saying.
You remember back in verse 17, or 16, he says, nevertheless,
where to we have already attained, let's all walk by the same rule.
Let's mind the same thing. Brethren, be followers together
of me, and mark them which walk, so as you have us for an example.
And then he says four, verse 20. Four, here's why you follow
us like that, four. Follow our example, walk by the
same rule, mind the same things, because we're all citizens of
the same commonwealth. You follow us as we preach Christ
because we're leading you to Christ. Now the definition of
a commonwealth in the way that we use the term today, it means
an independent group that's voluntarily grouped together. They're grouped
under one head for their common good. People in a commonwealth,
they have a shared loyalty. And it's for their, it's all
voluntary. Now doesn't that describe believers?
We're commonwealth. We're independently grouped together
under Christ our king. And we're not forced to be in
Christ's kingdom. We're not forced to bow to Christ.
We volunteer to be there. Because Christ our king has made
us willing in the day of his power. And we're in this commonwealth
for our common good. Our purpose is the common good
of God's people. And the common good of God's
people that we're seeking is the salvation of our souls by
Christ our King. We have a common goal. Every
believer has a common goal, to be found in Christ and to have
his righteousness. Not my righteousness, which I
earned by the law, but the righteousness which is by faith in Christ.
That's our common goal. We have a shared loyalty to and
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. That is our common goal. And
we also look out for the welfare of each other. Now I've said
all that to say this. Being a member of this commonwealth,
being under this system of government, being under Christ our King,
that directs what we do. It directs where we trust. It
directs our heart's desire. Being under Christ our King,
being in this commonwealth, gives us a common heart's desire and
it directs what our end will be. So five, three points. First, I want to look at our
Commonwealth. I want to see what is this kingdom?
What is the kingdom and how do I get to be a citizen of this
kingdom? Well, this kingdom, God's kingdom, it's a spiritual
kingdom. You know, that's why our conversation
is in heaven. He says in verse 24, our conversation
is in heaven. from whence also we look for
the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. See, our conversation, our citizenship,
where our commonwealth, the head of it resides, is in heaven.
So it's a spiritual kingdom. And we need to remember this.
This is something that churches, religion in general, and even
God's church here on earth, it's kind of been drawn to talking
about the governments of this world. Brethren, our kingdom. is a spiritual kingdom. We're
not fighting with the governments of this world. That's not our
battle. Ruling the conduct of this world,
trying to get people to conduct themselves the way we want them
to conduct themselves in this world is not our battle. That's
not the purpose of the church. Our battle, the purpose of the
church, is to battle for the spiritual glory of Christ our
King. And we're to battle for the souls
of men. As we preach, as we glorify Christ
our King, we're doing it, battling for the souls of men. Now we're
not trying to get people to make a decision, are we? Not trying
to get people to do something. But our prayer is, as we exalt
Christ our Savior, as we declare and preach his glory, our prayer
is that it'll be for the salvation of the souls of men. We glorify
Christ so people will look to him and trust him, don't we?
That's the church's purpose. That is our one and only purpose.
Look at John chapter 18. Our Lord could not tell us that
more plainly. You know, I have some very strongly
held political beliefs and beliefs about conduct and so forth, but
that's got no place here. because this is not our battle.
Here's our Savior tells us this is our battle. John 18 verse
36. Jesus answered, my kingdom is
not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered
to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence. See, we're not
fighting the kingdoms of this world because that's not our
battle. We're in a spiritual kingdom. And our battle is a
spiritual battle. In 2 Corinthians 10 verse 3,
Paul said, now we're in the flesh. We are, we're in the flesh, aren't
we? But we don't war after the flesh. Our war is not a fleshly
war. It's a spiritual war because
we're in a spiritual kingdom. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the king of this commonwealth. So our common interest, our common
goal, our shared goal is this. It's the glory. Christ our King. Now he's glorious in everything
about his person. He's glorious in everything that
he does. All of his will, all of his purpose,
everything that he does, every character of his attribute is
all glorious. There's nothing you can talk
about. The Lord Jesus Christ is not glorious. But his glory
is most clearly seen in his redemptive glory for his people. And declaring
Christ's redemptive glory declaring it, preaching it to our generation.
That's our goal. That's our common goal. That's
our purpose. To preach the glory of Christ
so that people will know him. Now you think of the message
God's given us to preach. Our message is this. It's the
glory of Christ. Listen to how this glorifies
our Savior. Christ our King humbled himself to become a man. so that he could suffer and die
for his people. Christ our King is so rich. He's
got all riches. He's the cattle on a thousand
hills of mine. I mean, everything is his, yet he became poor that
ye through his poverty might be made rich. Now you name me
an earthly King that's done that. Not one. Oh, this, our King is
glorious. Nothing could be more glorious
than the King of Kings sacrificing himself for a people who all
call themselves the chief of sinners. Everyone thinks I'm
the worst. Nobody can be worse than me. That's who Christ sacrificed
himself for. Nobody can be worse than them.
He found the worst and sacrificed himself to make them righteous.
He gave himself, he sacrificed himself, everything that he is,
for the most vile, most corrupt sinners that he could find. All
so he could save them by his grace, make them holy, and righteous
by his sacrifice for them. Now that is so glorious. Like
I said in the lesson this morning, I feel a little bit silly trying
to talk about that because human tongue can't tell. There's not
human language to tell the glory of that. Preaching the gospel
that declares the glory of Christ our King. That's the common interest
of everybody in this commonwealth. It's our purpose to preach it.
And I tell you, we have a great interest in hearing it, don't
we? We have a great interest in hearing the gospel preached
for our own salvation, for our own edification, for our own
growth, for our own comfort. And we also have a great interest
in preaching the gospel to our children. Eric prayed for our
children. We pray for our children all the time. You know why? We
have such a great interest in them hearing the gospel. God's
given us the responsibility to preach the gospel to them, to
teach them the scriptures. You know, if you love your children,
you have a great interest in them knowing Christ, don't you?
Well, how are they going to know Christ? By hearing the gospel
preached. For our loved ones that don't know the Lord, for
the people in our community. Oh, I pray that the Lord will
bring people in, His people in, to hear the gospel. I want them
to know and trust Christ. Philippians chapter one. See, this is our goal. This is
this, this controls and directs the way that we conduct ourselves
in verse 27 Philippians one only lets your conversation here.
The word conversation means conduct only lets your conduct be as
it becometh the gospel of Christ that whether I come and see you
or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs that you stand
fast in one spirit with one mind striving together for the faith
of the gospel. That is our sole purpose, our
common interest in this commonwealth under Christ, our king. Now that's
the kingdom. I like the sound of that, don't
you? I sure would like to be a citizen of that kingdom. Well,
how do I get to be in this kingdom? How can I be made a citizen of
this kingdom? You know, we weren't always in this kingdom. If you're
a believer, you weren't always a believer, were you? You can
remember a time that you didn't believe Christ. I wasn't born in this
kingdom. In the flesh, I was born in the
flesh. I was born in the kingdom of
the flesh, I was born in the kingdom of the world. So how
does a person get from there to being a citizen of this spiritual
kingdom of Christ? Look at Ephesians chapter two.
First of all, we get in this kingdom, become a citizen of
this kingdom, by the grace and mercy and love of God. Ephesians
two, verse one. And you hath he quickened. You
were dead in trespasses and sins. When in time past, you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. We walk that way because that's
the citizenship of our flesh, isn't it? among whom also we
all had our conversation. This is where our citizenship
was in time past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the
children of wrath even as others. Oh, but God, who's rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
are you saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. See, it's by grace,
that's how we got in this kingdom, and here's why God did it. That
in ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are
you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. See
everybody in this commonwealth, they're not going to boast about
what they do. It's not their works. It's not their righteousness.
It's not their faithfulness. It's Christ faithfulness. It's
Christ righteousness. It's by God's grace. That's what
we boast in. All right. Now look at Colossians
chapter one. We're in this kingdom by God's grace, his mercy and
his love. Secondly, we're in this kingdom,
the spiritual kingdom by the will and power of God. Colossians
one verse 12. giving thanks unto the father,
which has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light who have delivered us from the power of
darkness. And he's translated us. He's transferred us into
the kingdom of his dear son. And here's how we get into the
kingdom of God's dear son, this spiritual Commonwealth. God picks
up his elect and he moves them from one place to another place. He takes them. He reaches his
hand of mercy and grace down. And he reaches down, he lays
hold on his people who are in the kingdom of darkness, and
he picks them up and he transfers them into the kingdom of his
dear son. See, that's by the will, by the
choice, and by the power of God. That's how we get in this kingdom.
And it's by the power of God, who has both the right and the
power to change us. He has the right to change our
citizenship. from darkness, from this world,
from this flesh, into a spiritual kingdom of light, the kingdom
of his dear son. God has the power to translate
us, transfer us from the kingdom of Adam to the kingdom of Christ.
He has the power to take us and change us from the kingdom of
self to the kingdom of Christ. That's by his power and by his
grace. Aren't you thankful for the grace
of God? Aren't you thankful for the power of God that he does
as he wills? He doesn't wait for us to decide,
you know, I'm tired of this kingdom of darkness, I want to move.
He doesn't do that because we'd never choose that. So he overrides
our will. And he takes us from the kingdom
of darkness and puts us by his grace into the kingdom of his
dear son. And aren't we thankful? All right,
number two. That's the commonwealth we're
in. Now, where does everyone in this commonwealth look? Every
citizen of the commonwealth of Christ, this commonwealth we're
talking about, they're looking to Christ. Verse 20 in our text,
Philippians 3, for our conversation is in heaven, for whence also
we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the scripture
talks about looking to Christ. Here's what it means. It means
to trust Christ. I remember being a little guy.
I wish I had nickel for every time I heard Brother Andrew say,
look to Christ. And I would always think if you just tell me where
to look, I'll look, just tell me. We didn't mean look with
these eyes. Looking to Christ means to trust
Christ. You look to Christ and you're
looking to him because you depend upon him for everything. Everything you need, everything
God requires of you. you look to Christ to supply
it. Almighty God requires a perfect righteousness, a perfect obedience
to the law to be accepted of him. Well, people who believe
Christ, they look to Christ to be our righteousness. We look
to Christ to be made the righteousness of God in him, by his obedience
for us, by his sacrifice. God requires a perfect holiness.
He requires a nature that's perfectly holy to be in his presence. Well, that's the opposite of
us. We can't produce that, can we? But we look to Christ to
be our holiness, who's been made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. Salvation requires faith in Christ,
not our works. If you're gonna be saved, you're
gonna have to quit your works. You quit trusting in your works
and start trusting in Christ. And in case you don't already
know it, you can't produce that faith in yourself. Please don't
make the same mistake I did. I wish I could tell you how many
years I tried to make myself believe on Christ. We can't produce
faith in Christ. But I tell you, we can look to
Christ to give it to us. Look to Christ as a beggar. I don't know that Whenever I've
been in the United States, I've ever been in a place where I've
truly seen a beggar. I've been in Mexico and buddy,
I've seen poverty and I've seen people who are real beggars. You look to Christ like a beggar
who's got nothing and he's your only hope. I mean, there's some
desperation involved in this. There's some seriousness involved
in this. I look to Christ as a beggar because if he doesn't
give it to me by his grace, I won't have it. Oh, you can't produce
righteousness or faith in your, you can't produce righteousness
in yourself either, can you? You can't produce faith in yourself,
but you sure can't ask God to give it to you. You can do that. Salvation requires a new nature
that's not of the flesh. It requires a spiritual nature.
You know, if we're going to be in a spiritual kingdom, doesn't
it seem the reason you have to have a spiritual nature? Of course
you do. Well, we can't produce that.
All we can produce is the nature of the flesh. That's all we can
produce. I remember when our babies were
little. Oh my, oh my. I mean, they were
so precious. We just loved them so much. Ooh,
it didn't take long to see. I gave those precious babies
my nature. I'm sorry, honey. That's all
we can produce. Oh, but I tell you what, we can look
to Christ to birth that nature in us, can't we? He has the power
to do it. Salvation requires that we be
faithful to the end. We must be faithful. You have
to strive and be faithful all the way to the finish line. You
can't quit now. Well, that's discouraging. We can't remain
faithful in anything. I mean, we can't keep faithful
to do anything. I mean, even fleshly things.
Start an exercise regimen tomorrow to lose some weight and see how
long it lasts. We can't stay faithful to anything.
Spiritually speaking, boy, you know, that's true. I mean the
slightest thing Ruins our liberty ruins our Brother Henry said we one time
he said I came back from preaching somewhere came into a study He
said well, how'd it go? So well one good feel like that's
a liberty. He said well, you know Liberty's good He said but
truth is better. He said a fly buzzing around
can ruin your Liberty I mean, the slightest thing can just
take our mind off Christ and just derail us. The slightest
thing can derail us. But I tell you, we can keep looking
to Christ. Oh Lord, we can look to Him and
depend on Him to keep us by the power of His grace. See, we can't
depend on ourselves for anything, but we sure can depend on Christ
for everything, can't we? Look at Hebrews chapter 12. That's
what the writer to the Hebrews is telling us here in Hebrews
chapter 12. He says in verse one, wherefore
seeing we also are compassed about was so great a cloud of
witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin with which
does so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race
that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured
the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right
hand of the throne of God. Now the command of scripture
is look. The command of the gospel is look. Look to Christ, depend
upon him. Look to Christ, and the writer
here tells us, keep looking to Christ. depend upon Christ and
keep depending on Christ because He's the beginning and He's the
ending of our faith. It all starts and ends with Christ.
So keep looking to Him. Now, I know we don't have everything
in our possession that Christ has purchased for us. We don't
have it in our possession yet. We have it, God's given it to
us by faith, but we don't have it in our possession yet. That's
why we patiently wait and patiently keep looking to Christ. I tell
you, if we're looking to Christ for our salvation, now we're
looking to Him for everything. He's everything we need. We're
looking to Him for it all. Now that's a spiritual thing.
But that directs the way we live in this life. It directs the
way we live our life in this flesh. We're looking forward
to the next life. That's our goal. That's our common
interest. That's our common goal. We're
looking to the next life. But our gospel also directs how
we walk in this life. You know, believers are pilgrims. We're pilgrims, aren't we? We're
on our way home. We're not citizens of this world.
God's changed our citizenship. We have a citizenship that's
in heaven. We have a spiritual country that
we're citizens of. So our heart's not in this world.
Our heart is with Christ. Our heart is in the spiritual
kingdom. Now that's where our heart is.
then we ought to live like it. We ought to live like it. And
I want to preach this in such a way, I'm not trying to put
a burden on anybody. I want to encourage you by looking to Christ. This directs our heart. You know,
we who believe, now we still have the same nature of flesh.
Now God's changed our citizenship. He's given us a new nature, but
we still have that same flesh, that nature of flesh that we
always had. I mean, the flesh is not just the skin and bones. It's also, it's talking about
the nature of the flesh. So the ways of this world, the
way this world thinks still appeals to our flesh. You're the nature
of selfishness, the nature of just doing whatever it takes
to get what I want, no matter who it hurts. That's still in
our flesh. It still appeals to our flesh. You know, you hear about people
trying to get ahead in business and they cheat and they hurt
people. And we think, what? Yeah, that worked. That's the
way to get ahead. It still appeals to our, you
know it's wrong, but it appeals to our flesh. And worse yet,
the religion of this world, the religion of this flesh to earn
our way to God by how good we are, being good little boys and
good little girls and earn our way to God, trying to please
God so he'll give us more trinkets, that still appeals to our flesh,
doesn't it? You who believe you fight it
every day because it still appeals to this flesh. Well, looking
to Christ, that directs how we conduct ourselves in this life.
Looking to Christ means we fight against that attitude of selfishness.
We fight against that attitude, particularly of self-righteousness
so that the believers in this world, but we're not of this
world. We're not of it. The believer
lives our life fighting against the ways of this flesh. And the
best way to do that, you think, well, how can I fight against
this flesh? I'm just going to be determined
to act different. That's not really it. Here's
how you do it. Look to Christ. Look to Him. Depend upon Him. Look to Him
to worship Him, to depend on Him, to be found in Him. You
have to remember this, the believer, remember the parable the Lord
told about the wheat was planted and the enemy came in and sowed
tares among the wheat? Well, the field is the world,
the Lord told us. Believers are wheat planted in
this world, surrounded by a bunch of tares. Now remember this,
by God's grace, you're not a tare. He's made you a wheat. He's given
you the nature of wheat. Not the nature of a tare, the
nature of wheat. You're a child of God. Now live
like it. And I'm not telling you to go
out and live so morally and so, you know, up on your high horse
that, you know, people say, oh, you know, here's a righteous
man. You live like you're weak by looking to Christ, by continually
depending on Christ. Here's the track. Now we ought
to live morally. We ought to be good husbands,
good wives, good neighbors, good workers, and people see us You'd
like to think that they notice, here's a moral man, a moral woman.
But if we make that our goal, ooh, you know what that we're
gonna end up doing? Trusting in ourselves. We're
looking for evidence of salvation in ourselves. The nature of the
weed is to keep looking to Christ, to keep depending on him. How'd
you first come to Christ? How did God first save you? Was
it by your works? No, no, no, no, no. He showed you the worthlessness
of your works, and you turned to trust Christ, didn't you?
Now continue the way you started, looking to Christ, depending
upon Him. You're not of this world, so
you don't have the same goals, the same desires, you don't have
the same common interest. And the best illustration I can
think of that is when I used to go to Mexico every year. Now,
I was in Mexico, got off the plane. I was in Mexico. The first
time I landed, I looked at Brother Dan Morgan and said, we're not
in Kansas anymore. We're in Mexico. This is different. I was in Mexico. But it was obvious. I'm not a Mexican. I tried my
best when I was there. I wanted to be a nice guy. Cody
would take us down there to the market and just everything you
can imagine for sale down there. Not just in the pueblos, or the
churches, or with the brethren. I'm talking about everywhere
I went. I tried to be a nice guy. I didn't want somebody to
think I was a selfish, entitled American. I'm an American citizen. I wanted to represent my country
well. I wanted to be a nice guy. And while I was in that country,
I abided by their laws and by their customs. I just tried to
keep a low profile. And I was there one day, and
Brother Walter was watching the news. He was very, very interested.
announcing some change in something they were doing. He was very
interested to find out what was happening here. I wasn't. I'm not a citizen of
that place. What's going on there doesn't
affect me. I was in Mexico, but I'm not a Mexican. And you know,
it's just, it's never entirely comfortable to be in a place
where you don't know the language. and you don't know the customs.
I mean, when you were in Mexico with Walter Groover and you were
depending on Walter Groover to be your translator, I mean, sometimes
he'd just leave you. You got no idea what anybody's
saying. One time, Walter was being the translator for me and
brother Elio. And he started talking to Elio
in English and started talking to me in Spanish. And Elio and
I, I mean, we just kind of smiled and nodded. Neither one of us
had the heart to tell Walter, wait a minute, you're doing this
wrong. I mean, it's just not comfortable. You don't know what
people are saying. You don't know what you're doing or why they're doing it. And
I loved being there. I loved going out to those pueblos
and preaching and worshiping together. I loved it. But boy,
when it came time to come home, I was glad. I was glad to get
on that plane and come back to the United States. But once we
landed. You know, we still had to get
through customs. Now, we were in the United States, but we
had to get through this before I could come back to Ashland.
You had to have a passport. You had to have the right credentials
to show you belong. You had to have a passport. So
I'm a citizen. I belong here. I remember one time I came back.
And normally, it's just you pass through customs, and it's fine.
But this one, it was different. This giant of a man. I mean, he looked like he was
an NFL linebacker. I mean, he had a gun. He didn't
need no gun. I mean, he's a giant man. He took my passport, and
he was real serious. He studied me real good. I had
a goatee, but I didn't have a goatee in my picture on the passport.
And he was studying me real good. He asked me a few questions.
He was scowling. I mean, this doesn't feel too good. And then
in a minute, he folded my passport back up, and he smiled. Handed
me my passport. He said, welcome to the United
States of America. I'm telling you, I was so happy. The way he said it made me so
happy to be American. I want to just bust out singing
the National Anthem or God Bless America or something, you know.
I would have looked silly, so I didn't do it. But that's the
believer. Traveling through this world.
We're on our way home. We don't belong here. We don't
belong here anymore than I belonged in Mexico. We don't belong here.
We're on our way home. The ways of this world. And the
language of this world is not ours anymore. And one day, the
Lord's gonna call us home. And when we get there, the Savior,
there's gonna be no scowling. The Savior's gonna smile. And
he's gonna welcome us home. And you think of all of our weakness
and all of our failure here, and you know what the Savior's
gonna say? Well done, my good and faithful servant. And we're
going to want to burst out singing his praises. And it'll be all
right to do it, because everybody else is doing it too. That's
where we're going. And you remember that. That's
where we're going. That'll direct how you handle
this war. It surely will. All right, here's
the last thing. I've already kind of told you
this. What is the end? What is the end of everybody
in this commonwealth? Verse 21, back in our text, Philippians
3. We're looking for our Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it
may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the
working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. Now we who believe, we're still
in this body of sinful flesh now, aren't we? We're walking
around with a nature of dead flesh we're carrying around with
us. And we have two natures. Believer also has a holy nature
of the spirit. We've got that dead nature of
the flesh, but God's birthed us again. We've got a holy nature
of the spirit. That nature that's been born
into the spiritual kingdom. And having those two natures,
that's what makes the believer miserable. Really, our misery
ought not be the dumb stuff people are doing out there in the world.
I got another problem, this dead nature of the flesh I'm lugging
around with me. No matter where you go, you're dragging that
dead guy with you, aren't you? And you're in a civil war with
him. The flesh and the spirit are fighting against one another.
And it's miserable. It makes this journey miserable.
But here's the good, I got good news for you. First of all, if
you got that struggle in you, it's good news. That means you've
been born again. Somebody with just one nature doesn't have
that If you've got that battle going on inside of you, I got
good news for you. You've been born again. God's
birthed you again. And the other good news is this.
This war, spiritual warfare, it's not going to last much longer.
When the Lord calls us home, he's going to change this vile
body into a holy body, just like his glorious body. He's going
to have our body and our nature match. Holy and righteous, both
of them. And we will be done with sin
forever. And if we're alive and we remain
until Christ returns in a moment, with the twinkling of an eye,
He's going to change this vile body into a body just like His. Look at 1 John chapter 3. Kind
of hard to believe that's going to happen now, isn't it? When
you look at this dead body, kind of hard to believe. But it'll
happen. 1 John 3, verse 2. Beloved, now, right now, are
we the sons of God. And it does not yet appear what
we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we should
be like him. For we shall see him as he is. When Christ returns, we'll see
him as he is, and we'll be made just like him. That's the end of every believer.
That's how it's going to end up for everybody in this commonwealth.
I mean, try to think about that for a minute. I mean, I know
we can't really enter into it because all we know is sin, but
you think about no more sin, no more sinful desires, no more
sinful thoughts, no more self-righteousness that you got to fight against.
Just a perfect body, a perfect nature, just like our Lord Jesus
Christ. And it is in that body, in that
body, that we will be with our Savior, worshiping Him forever. Now that's your future if you
trust Christ. Isn't that good news? Oh, that's
so glorious. And if you know that's your future,
you know that's how this thing's going to end up. That'll direct
your path as you're going through this world here below. Just keep
remembering this. I'm going someplace far better
than here. And just don't get too caught up. I mean, you got
to be involved. You got to take care of your
life. You got to take care of what God's given you. You got to do what
you got to do to supply for your family. But just don't get too
caught up in things going on here in this life. It's just
temporary. Governments are still going to
do stupid things. Treat them just like I treated
that newscast Brother Walter was watching. Doesn't really
matter. Doesn't really matter. Be a good
citizen, vote, be a good citizen. But listen, who really cares? I'm leaving this place. I'm going
someplace better. See, let your future direct your
present log. The glory, how thankful we are,
that'll direct our present log. And here's another thing. Don't
get too caught up trying to gain more of this world's goods. Now, you've got to have what
you need to live. But just don't always try to
get more, more, more, more, more. Because I tell you what, just
because of the nature that we've got, we'll probably, number one,
be selfish with it. And then it's just going to be
more of a burden to lug along as we go on this trip. You know,
in the Western expansion of this country, people traveled West
on covered wagons. I mean, they either walked or
they sat on a piece of board and rode in this wagon. You know,
we watched it. Jane and I watched a show about that one time. And
she said, if we lived then, you and me wouldn't be going West.
Our bike, neither one of us could take it sitting on that hunk
of board. You know, we just been wood wheels. I mean, just, I
mean, these people were determined to go West, weren't they? Well,
when they got there, they wanted to make a nice life for themselves.
So they took stuff. They loaded up that wagon. They
took stuff. And they went over rough terrain. And they found
the going was tough. And suddenly, that piano that
they put in the back of that wagon went out. Them china dishes,
they were probably broken anyway. They went out on the side of
the road. That big old china cabinet. Well, I don't need a
china cabinet if I don't have any china. This thing's going out. And they
just left it right there in the middle of the prairie. They just
unloaded and left it. Somebody else come walking along,
there's a piano just sitting out in the middle of the prairie.
How'd that get here? It was too much to lug along. That piano
was mighty important one day. But on their way, they found
it's not all that important. That's the way we're going to
end up treating all the stuff in this life. It's really not
that important. Hope you have a piano if you
want one. But you know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, it's
nice to have stuff. I want you all to be comfortable.
You know what I'm saying. It's this greed. It's too much.
If I got to throw it away so I can go be with the Lord, I'll
happily do it. I'll happily do it. It's hard
to hang on to this life when you're hanging on to the next
one. It's hard to get all worked up about the government of this
life when we remember we're citizens of the commonwealth, a spiritual
one in heaven. If the Lord will help us remember that, it'll
make us thankful, it'll make us grateful, it'll make us gracious. When you think about the grace
and mercy of God to us, looking at those things, trusting in,
I mean, I'm really trusting in those things for your salvation.
That'll direct our steps here below. and that's what I want
from me and you. See, I hope I preached that in
such a way, I don't want you to feel I'm putting a burden
on you on how to act. Look to Christ. The rest will
take care of itself. All right, let's bow together.
Our Father, how we thank you for your word, the teaching of
your word, that no matter what subject we look at, no matter
what page we turn to to read, the message consistent is look
to Christ. He's all we need. He's our all
and in all. Father, I pray you'd give us
the faith to believe Him, to trust Him, to love Him, to adore
Him, to cling to Him, and cause that to direct our steps here
below, that we might be a blessing and a help and encouragement
to each other. Maybe you'd give us the opportunity to point some
poor lost sinner to Christ our Savior. Father, it's for his
glory that he'd be glorified. Not that we get any recognition
or credit, but that he be glorified. It's for his glory and his sake.
We pray. Amen. All right, Sean.