Brethren, let's turn in our Bibles
to Romans 12. Just have one verse, Romans 12
verse 11. Paul says here, verse 11, not
slothful in business. It means not sluggish, not lazy,
not idle, And the word business means earnestness. It means diligence. Let me give you another text,
Hebrews 6.11. We desire that every one of you
to show the same diligence, that's the word, to the full assurance
of hope until the end. So not sluggish in diligence. Fervent, red hot, zealous in
spirit, serving the Lord. So Christ calls His people to
not be slothful in diligence, but red-hot in spirit, serving
the Lord. Now, before anybody can serve
the Lord, we must be born again of God the Holy Spirit. There's
no way to serve the Lord unless we're born again. Paul said in
Romans 8, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. That's
all we are as we come into this world. We're in the sinful flesh,
dead in trespasses and sins, so we cannot please God. We must be born of God. It's
only through faith in Christ that it's by Christ that our
service is acceptable to God. You are lively stones built up
a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So it's only through faith that
anything we do is acceptable because it's by Christ. But for
you and I who are born of God, brought to faith in Christ. Remember
this, our Lord Jesus hates lukewarmness. He hates lukewarmness. Turn with
me to Revelation 3. The word Laodicea to which the Lord
is writing or speaking here. That word Laodicea It means rights. Rights. And when people start claiming
their rights, what they have a right to do, you can be sure
there's not going to be any zeal for God. It's going to be zeal
for the flesh. Listen to this, Revelation 3.14,
unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, These
things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning
of the creation of God. That is, these things say Christ,
our master. I know thy works, that thou art
neither cold nor hot. I would thou work cold or hot,
So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will
spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich,
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. And knowest
not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind,
and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold
tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment
that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness
do not appear, and anoint thy eyes with eye salve that thou
mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and
chasten. Be zealous, therefore. Be fervent
in spirit, be hot in spirit and repent. So the Lord hates lukewarmness. Now we go back to our text. Every believer we know is motivated
by the love of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 14 says,
the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that
if one died for all then we're all dead. And that he died for
all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves
but unto him. that died for them and rose again. That phrase, the love of Christ,
it's used three times in Scripture. And all three times, it's Christ's
love for His people. Every time. Not one of the three
times is it our love for Christ, it's Christ's love for us. Let
me give them to you. Romans 8.35, Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Verse 37 says, No, and all these
things were more than conquerors through Him that loved us. It's His love for us. Ephesians
3.16 Paul prayed that God would grant you, according to the riches
of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the
inner man. That's the only way we're going
to do anything pleasing to God. To be strengthened by His might,
by His Spirit in the inner man. that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ,
which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the
fullness of God. And so 2 Corinthians 5.14, when
it says we're constrained by the love of Christ, it's not
our love for Christ. We do love Christ by God's grace
imparting love in our heart, but the love that constrains
us is His love to us. So with that in mind, if we're
going to see this text and understand this text, we need to look to
Christ. We need to look to Christ. See, we can't earn a righteousness
by doing this exhortation, nor any other precept in the scriptures.
Can we obey it and earn a righteousness thereby? Or holiness thereby? But Christ Jesus came and he
did this in our text. He did it perfectly. And he is
our righteousness in fulfilling it. He even went to the cross
and took our sin and bore our sin for not fulfilling this as
well as all other precepts. So He alone is our righteousness. So if we're going to follow Him
and follow His steps, we're going to have to look to Him. First
of all, our Lord Jesus was not slothful in business. He was
not sluggish in diligence. Not whatsoever. He said in Luke
2.49, I must be about my father's business. I must be. What was
the father's business? What did he send Christ to do?
Well, one thing he was sent to do was preach the gospel. He
was sent to preach the gospel. Look at Isaiah 61. Scripture says, and this is speaking
of Christ. Remember, this is what he read
from when he stood up in the synagogue. The Spirit of the
Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted. And all of these things he's
saying here, this is what he does through the preaching of
the gospel. He binds up the brokenhearted, He proclaims liberty to the captives,
the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee, when all
debts were erased and everybody obtained their liberty. He says,
in the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn,
to appoint unto them that morning sun, to give unto them beauty
for ashes, the oil of joy for morning, the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness. Everything He gives you is better. Do you see that? Everything Christ
gives us is better than where we were and what we were. that
they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of
the Lord, that he might be glorified. Look at Mark 1. I want you to
see this. Mark chapter 1. Look at verse 38. He said unto them, to his disciples,
let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also. For therefore came I forth. Let
me go to these other towns to preach the gospel because that's
why I came from heaven to this earth was to preach the gospel.
So that's the first thing he was sent to do. And in the face
of danger, in the face of persecution, And where is some travel that
required him to walk all these different places to these different
towns? The Lord went preaching the gospel and he never shrinked
back and he was never sluggish and lazy from what the Father
sent him to do, to preach the gospel. And then remember this
too, Christ is the gospel he came to preach. He is the gospel
He came to preach. He came to declare God's righteousness. And He is that righteousness.
He's the head and representative of God's people who took our
place literally in every way. He fulfilled the law in precept
for His people. And then He took our sin and
answered to justice for His people and satisfied it completely.
So He gave the law everything the law demanded. Fulfilled it
perfectly. And now it's just for God to
shower us with mercy. It's just for Him to shower His
people with mercy. because He manifest the righteousness
of God. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. He reconciled His people to God. He began saying, I must be about
my Father's business. How did He end? I finished the
work. He finished it. Everything the
Father sent Him to do, He finished it. He was not sluggish. He was not lazy. He went about
doing his father's business. Then look, secondly, back in
our text now, it says in Romans 12, verse 11, fervent in spirit. Our Lord Jesus was fervent in
spirit. 1 Peter 4, 8 says, Above all
things, above all things, have fervent charity. fervent, red-hot,
zealous love among yourselves. For charity shall cover the multitude
of sins. If you don't love somebody, you
won't cover their sins. If your love grows lukewarm and
you leave your first love, you won't cover their sins. You'll
expose it because you don't love them. But charity covers the
multitude of sins. And there's no charity that covers
the multitude of sins like Christ's charity. Christ's charity covered
the multitude of His people's sins. Our Redeemer walked this
earth zealous, zealous for the honor of His Father's house.
Look at John 2. John chapter 2. He was fervent
for the Father's house. And when he found this house
was being turned into a house of merchandise,
he was filled with indignation. This was how fervent in spirit
he was. This was how zealous he was for the honor of God.
Look here in John 2 verse 14. And he found in the temple those
that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money
sitting. You know what these folks were
doing? They were making it so you could just pull up to the
temple and go in and make a quick sacrifice You didn't have to
put up a sheep or an oxen. You didn't have to examine it,
make sure it was spotless. In other words, you didn't have
to give any thought to the sacrifice whatsoever. You could just come
up. It was like a convenience store. You could just come up
and in a convenient way offer a sacrifice and be on your way.
And they were making money for doing it. And He said, when He
had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the
temple, and the sheep, and the oxen, and He poured out the changers'
money, and He overthrew the tables. Can you just picture our Lord
Jesus doing this? I mean, He probably looked to them like
He had a meltdown. But he was scourging them and
he was throwing over their money drawers and throwing over their
tables and he ran out even the sheep and the oxen. And it says,
And he said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence,
make not my father's house a house of merchandise. And his disciples
remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up. The zeal he had for his father's
house consumed him. It was all consuming. That's
how jealous he was for the honor of God. He was fervent in spirit
for God's honor. Are we that fervent in spirit
for God's honor? That's how he was. Perfect fervency
of spirit. Over in Isaiah 9, verse 7, we
read this. Isaiah 9 verse 7, it says, Of the increase of his government
and peace there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and
upon his kingdom to order it, to establish it with judgment
and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the
Lord of hosts will perform this. He came and performed justice
in this earth. He came and performed all things
that the Father sent Him to do. And the Father is so pleased
with Him, He raised Him to the throne of David. To His right
hand, where Christ is reigning and ruling right now, executing
justice in this earth for His people. And it's His fervency
in spirit. It's the zeal of the Lord that
has performed this. And then in Isaiah 37, verse
32, he says this, Isaiah 37, 32, he says, Out of Jerusalem Let's read verse 31. He says,
The remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah shall again
take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem
shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of Mount
Zion, the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. And just
like the remnant of his elect Jews that he saves, he has a
remnant in this earth right now, today, by grace. And the zeal of the Lord of hosts
will make them take root. He will plant them through this
preaching of the gospel. That there might be trees of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.
And it's the fervency of the Lord, it's the zeal of the Lord
that will perform this. The fervent love of Christ for
the glory of the Father, for the salvation of His people,
moved Christ to fulfill all that was foretold of Him. It was His
fervent charity by which He operated, by which He was constrained.
Remember, Christ's work on this earth was a tiresome labor too. You and I get to thinking about
Him and we know that He's the God-man and we think, well, He
had extra power and He, you know, no, He willingly submitted Himself
to be a man. And as Adam just read, to trust
the Father. And he was touched with all the
feeling of our infirmities, all the same feelings our sins cause,
he was touched with it, yet without sin. You remember, it says Jacob's
well was in this certain place, and Jesus therefore being wearied
with his journey, sat thus on the well about the sixth hour.
He was weary. He was tired. been walking a
long way. In the Garden of Gethsemane,
He told His disciples, wait here and pray with me. We don't have
much fervency and spirit to pray, do we? They fell asleep. They'd been with Him all day.
They'd been everywhere He'd been all day. They were tired. It
was late. They were sleeping. But where
was Christ? He was praying. striving against
sin. Knowing He was facing separation
from the Father that He loved, and yet as His servant, He prayed,
not my will, but Thine be done. This was His fervency, His jealousy,
His zeal for the honor and glory of God, and for the salvation
of you and me, who He saved. Aren't you glad he's zealous?
Aren't you glad that he's fervent in spirit? It's by this, brethren,
that he has conquered all our enemies. And it's totally, totally
delivered us from bondage into the liberty of the sons of God. And one day, he's going to redeem
us fully out of this world into the glorious liberty of the sons
of God. So he calls on us now. And he
says, don't be slothful in business. Don't be slothful in diligence.
This is the Lord's business we're talking about. And for that matter,
don't be slothful in any business. But you're talking about the
Lord's business here. And he says, be fervent in spirit, serving
the Lord. And our Lord served the Lord
in perfect faithfulness. Jesus said unto them, My meat
is to do the will of Him that sent Me and to finish His work. He was serving the Lord God in
everything He did. He said, I must work the works
of Him while it's day. A night cometh when no man can
work. And then when He got to the end, He's praying to the
Father. Was He serving the Father? Was He serving God His Father
this whole time? He said, I have glorified Thee
on the earth. That's what He was about. That's
what He was doing. I finished the work which Thou
gavest Me to do. And by His zeal, by His fervency, by Christ serving God His Father
perfectly, He gives us everything we need for acceptance with God
freely. He gives us the land for which
we did not labor. He comes to us dead in sins and
He brings us the gospel, the unsearchable riches. He gives
us life. He grants us faith and repentance.
He brings us to cast our care on Him. We can't even do that
of ourselves. And then He preserves us and
protects us all our days as we go through this life. And one
day He'll bring us home to Him, giving us a land for which we
did not labor. He's made us joint heirs with
Him to receive the same inheritance that Christ received. That ought
to end all this notion of rewards in heaven, shouldn't it? We're
joint heirs with Christ. Whatever Christ inherits, that's
what we're going to inherit. All equally together. All because of His fervency and
Spirit. Now, let's look at this exhortation. And let's hear it and heed it
from the constraint of His love for us. As we consider how fervent Christ
was in working out a righteousness for us, it's an easy and light
yoke for Christ to say to us, don't be slothful in business.
Be fervent in spirit, serving me. That's a light and easy yoke,
isn't it? Considering what He's done for
us. Serving the Lord is not merely external. It's not merely outward. It's from the heart. It's from
the inner man, the new man that He's given. It's a matter of
conscience and a matter of the affections. Constrained by love. Doing what we're doing, constrained
by love. It's not starting and stopping.
It's a constant, ongoing submission to the Lord. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. Serving the Lord is actually
spending and being spent for the Lord by His strength. By His strength. And what's the
preeminent business that He sent us on? What's the preeminent
commission we have from Christ in which we serve Him? I'll preach
another word. He said in Mark 16, 15, Go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth
not shall be damned. He didn't say, He didn't tell
us to convert them, He just said go preach the gospel to them. We preach, we pray, we ask Him
to bless the Word, and He's the one who has to give the increase.
He's the one who adds to the church daily such as should be
said. But above all else, brethren, this is how we love one another.
This is how we provide for our brethren. This is how we provide
for needy sinners is through the preaching of the Word. And whatever else we do for brethren, in providing physical needs and
monetary needs and whatever else we do. You know what it's for?
It's to take the burden off of them so they won't be distracted
from hearing the Word of God. You know why we sent a gift down to that brother
that was flooded? You know why we did that? So
he could get back to preaching the gospel and not be worried
with remodeling his house. And that's whatever we do, brethren,
that's why we're doing it. For the preaching and hearing
of the gospel of Christ. So, what does that mean? Go to
1 Peter 3. Well, that means we need to be
not slothful in diligence. We need to be not slothful searching
the Word of God and hearing the Gospel ourselves. Why? Why is that important? Look here
in 1 Peter, look at chapter 3 and verse 15. Sanctify the Lord God
in your hearts. See, look and behold Him high
and lifted up, all-powerful, that He's going to protect you,
that He can bless His Word and sanctify Him. That way, you won't
be sanctifying whoever it is you're facing. If you sanctify
them, you won't do this. You'll be scared of them. and
you'll be afraid you're going to offend them or lose your job
or whatever. But if you sanctify the Lord
and know that He's above all, you can speak. Watch this. Sanctify the Lord God in your
hearts and be ready, be ready always to give an answer to every
man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear. If you were asked today what
your hope is, would you be ready? Be not slothful in diligence.
Be diligent so that you're ready. You're ready. You can speak it
and you're ready. The more we hear the gospel preached
and the more we're in the Word of God, He'll sanctify Himself
in our hearts so that we behold Him high and lifted up. So that
when we have opportunity to speak, we won't be afraid to speak.
And we'll be ready. We'll know what to speak. We ought to give the more earnest
heed. There you go, that's fervency.
Earnest. The Hebrew writer said we ought
to give the more earnest heed to the things which we've heard,
lest at any time we let them slip. We let them go, we let
them out of our hands. I've heard of brethren before
who sat and they heard the gospel preached, heard the gospel preached,
and they sort of just get numb to it. And all of a sudden some error
crept in. And they didn't notice because
they were just kind of numb and just on autopilot. And somebody
spoke to them and woke them up. And they realized they'd been
slumbering. And they woke up. And they got
rid of the error. And then they were just more
zealous than they had been in a long time. Because it was like
the gospel was all brand new to them again. That's what he's
talking about. Be diligent, be fervent in spirit. Don't let this become, don't
lose your first love for Christ. That's what he's saying. And
secondly, whatever else the Lord gives us to do in His house,
whatever it is, no matter how big or how small, let us not
be slothful, but fervent in spirit serving the Lord. Colossians
3.22, go there with me. Colossians 3.22, listen to this. Servants, I know we are speaking
here to servants in a physical manner, but this is true of you
and me too. Servants, obey in all things
your masters according to the flesh, not with our services,
men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. And whatsoever you do, do it
heartily as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the
Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve
the Lord Christ. I preach. I want to do this with
singleness of heart for God only. I don't want to preach for men.
This is one of the things that's so hard about going to a conference
and preaching. Because as you're trying to prepare
a message, you start thinking about all different kind of things
and start thinking about who's going to be there and you start
thinking about men and you end up You don't have that singleness
of heart for the Lord. And that's what you got to have.
That's why it's so hard. That's why it's extra hard to
preach at a place like that. If I'm a musician, I want to
be the best musician. If I'm a singer, I want to be
the best singer. If I'm cutting the grass, I want
to be the best grass cutter there is. If I'm holding the door,
I want to be the best doorman there is. And do all this heartily
as to the Lord. That's what he's talking about.
Whatever it is, God puts in our hand to do. No matter how small
or no matter how big. Colossians 4, look there at verse
2. This is what we want to be said of us right here. What was
said of Epiphas. Colossians 4.12, I'm sorry, Colossians
4.12. Epiphas, he says there, who is
one of you, a servant of Christ. Look at that, a servant of Christ.
He saluted you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers. There's what we need to be always
doing, laboring fervently for one another in prayer. You pray
for your brethren. Are you zealous in praying for
your brethren? Do you anticipate the time when
you can get along wherever your quiet place is and where you
can pray for your brethren, name them by name? He said, this brother
right here, Epiphas, is fervent in praying for his Colossian
brethren. that you may stand perfect and
complete in all the will of God, for I bear him record that he
hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea, and
them in Hierapolis." See that? That's what we want to be known
as right there, a servant of Christ. It's a great blessing
Christ has given us to have a heart to help needy sinners. Do you
have that heart? Do you have a heart to help needy
sinners? I've showed you all things, Paul said, how that so
laboring you ought to support the weak and to remember the
words of the Lord Jesus. He said, it's more blessed to
give than to receive. He said, do good and communicate. Forget not to communicate, for
with such sacrifices God is well pleased. When He says they're
communicating, He doesn't mean just speak to one another. He
means monetarily. Help. Help. When we grow weary, and we do
grow weary, let us think about Christ. Think about how he served
the Father. This will help you. I'm telling
you it will because I grow weary. You can read any other book and
you can read it and read it for hours. You sit down and start
reading this book and you're going to get weary fast. And
once you start thinking on the Lord Jesus, think about what
he accomplished, how fervent in spirit he was and how he was
about his Father's business. It will help you go on a little
farther. It will help you stay up a little later. You think
about Him. Think about His people that He
loved so much He laid down His life for them. That will help
you. That will help you. Push on a little further. And
remember this, God is able to make all grace abound towards
you. That you always having all sufficiency
and all things may abound to every good work. That's the only
way we can do anything. God ordained these works before
the foundation of the world. And so He brings them to pass
in His people by giving us abounding grace and making full sufficiency
in all things so that we come upon this work that He's given
us and we don't even sometimes even recognize it that we've
done anything. And yet we've done what God ordained
to be done before the world was made. And He gave you the grace
to do it. It's the only way we'll do it.
It's the only way. We have to have His strength
to do these things. But we're commanded to be responsible,
aren't we? Look at 1 Corinthians 15. We'll
end with this. This is what Paul tells us now.
1 Corinthians 15, look at verse 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be you steadfast. See, it's a marathon. Be steadfast. Slow and steady wins the race.
Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord. For as much as you know, your
labor is not in vain in the Lord. He said His word will never return
to Him void. Nothing we do in the cause of
Christ will be in vain. Nothing. God's not unrighteous
to forget your labor of love and serving His people. He won't
forget it. Let's stand together and go to
the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank You for this
Word. We pray that You would bless it to our hearts and make
us truly instruments in Your hand that we might be fervent. Give us a red hot
zeal considering Your great zeal for us, Your great love and charity
by which You covered our sin. And help us, Lord, to serve You.
in serving our brethren and serving needy sinners and carrying the
gospel forth. Make us truly be servants of
the Lord. Forgive us our sins, Father.
We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. All right, Brother Art.