Now before we get to our text,
there's two things that I want us to remember. First of all,
when we read a passage like this text that Brother Eric just read,
we need to remember that even though the Apostle Paul was used
to write it, this is the word of Christ to his church. This is Christ exhorting us to
these things. That's the first thing to remember.
And then the second thing to remember is this is not a word
by which I am to judge you. This is a word that I'm to heed
myself. This is a word that I'm to apply
to me. I'm not to apply it to you. Apply
it to me. So let's remember those two things.
Now, Christ used the Apostle Paul to give five words here
that will help every child of God that he sanctified, given
faith in Christ. This will help us. And if we're
enabled to do these things, Christ will get all the glory because
he's the one who will have given us the heart to obey him and
the ability to heed these words. So he gets all the glory in the
things that we're looking at here. Now in obeying these five
words we're going to find that they're only for our profit. That's the thing I want you to
get out of everything you see here. These things are for our
profit and they're for the peace of the church. So our subject
here is five words to help us. First of all he says watch ye. Watch ye. It means be awake. It means be vigilant. It means
pay attention so that we don't have something harmful overtake
us. Now, turn with me to Matthew
25. When Christ walked this earth, he repeated this several times
when he walked this earth. And he did so as it regards watching
for his return. for the return of the Lord Jesus. And the way we persevere in faith
is by watching Him, by watching Christ as we watch for His return. That's how we persevere in faith,
watching Christ as we watch for His return. Now you remember
there were five wise virgins He gave this parable of five
wise virgins who made sure that they had oil in their lamp. They
were waiting for the coming of the bridegroom, their Lord, the
bridegroom. And that's what we are because
of God's grace and the work Christ has done in purging us by His
blood. We are pure and holy in God's
sight. because we are so in Christ,
and we're waiting for Christ to come. So these five wise virgins
were wise because they had oil in their lamp. They were ready.
And then the five unwise, they didn't take oil for their lamp.
So when the announcement came that the bridegroom was coming,
the five unwise had to run to try to find oil and get oil for
their lamps. And read what happened here,
Matthew 25 verse 10. And while they went to buy, the
bridegroom came. And they that were ready, they
that were ready, went in with him to the marriage, and the
door was shut. Afterward came also the other
virgin saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said,
Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Christ's meaning in
this. Verse 13, Watch therefore, for
you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man
cometh. Now understand what he's teaching
here by watching Christ every day. By watching Christ every
day, we're made ready by Christ. By watching Him every day, the
oil for our lamps, will be provided by Christ, by the Holy Spirit. We keep our eye on Him. It's
only found in Christ. For you who have not yet cast
your care on Him, anybody who hears this has not cast their
care on Christ, you're not ready. That's the urgency of this thing. You're not ready to meet God.
And I would make it the priority in my life all the time to know
Christ, find out who Christ is. Because as Christ says here,
you don't know the hour, you don't know the day when He's
coming again. And if He comes and you don't
have oil in your lambs, you won't be ready. If you're not born
of the Spirit and trusting Him and looking to Him only for salvation,
you won't be ready. So watch, wake up and watch. and seek to know Christ. And
then for you that do know Him, who rest in Christ, watching is to be always looking
to Christ alone for all our need. Watching is looking only to Christ
all the time for all our need. We look to Him for all our acceptance
with God, with God our Father. He is our only acceptance with
God. And we look for Him to provide all in this life. Everything
that happens in this life that causes us fear and would cause
us to stumble is to take our eye off Christ. We are just saying
it. He is ruling the waves right
now from His throne in glory just like He did when He walked
this earth. And that goes for every trial and everything we
need as we walk through this life day by day. And in every
situation in life, watch, anticipating His return. He is coming again. He has bought a people. There
He is. He is coming back for them. To watch for them, anticipating
this might be the hour. And then go over to Luke 21.
I want you to see this. Luke 21. And as we watch for
Christ, this is something else Christ taught in one of His parables.
As we watch for Christ, this is going to serve to keep us
always remembering that the things of this world are not our life. If you have Christ in your heart
and your thoughts all the time, it helps you remember the things
of this world is not your life. It keeps us from making the things
of this world our all. Now look at Luke 21, 34. And
take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged. That is, be overtaken, be carried
away. With surfeiting, that means with
the pleasures of the world, with that which is so happy and so
jolly and makes you feel so good, the pleasures of this world.
And with drunkenness, with the intoxicating temptations of this
world. Have you ever experienced it
where something would come your way and it looked like such a
good deal and you just got so excited and just so, it's like,
And for long you realize this is not going to be good for me.
It's like I've just been drunk all of a sudden. Not thinking
about what's the most important thing is Christ. Intoxicating
temptations of this world and in cares of this life. We have
certain responsibilities and legitimate cares in this world,
but they must not, the ambitions of this life must not become
our life. And that's so easy to happen. And to do so is the
opposite of watching. It's to sleep, it's to have no
oil in our lamp, it's to have our hearts overtaken and carried
away. And so that day come upon you unaware. That day when Christ
returns, come unaware. And so that I'm not ready, I'm
not resting in Christ, I prove I never knew Christ, if that's
the case. Look at verse 35, For as a snare, as a trap, shall
it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth,
all them that are slumbering in unbelief. That day is going
to come as a snare, a trap. But to his elect, he says, verse
36, Watch ye therefore and pray always that you may be counted
worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to
stand before the Son of Man. You know, he says there, watch
and pray. For the believer, watching and
praying is a state that we're always in. Do you not find this
to be the case? We have our times when we actually
think about what we're saying and we pray to the Lord, but
do you not find that throughout the day you're, you know, You're
praying to the Lord, you're talking with the Lord, you're asking
the Lord, you're thinking on the Lord. It's a constant state
for the believer. That's watching and praying. Watching and praying. So that makes you remember and
makes you aware all the time that Christ is more important
than anything I'm doing in my daily life. So you don't get
overtaken by it, carried away with it. And the Lord put it
like this in Revelation 16, 15. He said, Behold, I come as a
thief. How does a thief come? He don't
announce he's coming. And he surprises people when
he comes. He said, Behold, I come as a
thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest
he walk naked and they see his shame. The only way we're going
to keep our garments is Christ keeping us. And He's going to
use a word like this to turn you from whatever that's overtaking
you and say, watch, look to me, trust in me. We got to be found
in the garments of His righteousness before the law and we got to
be found with His holiness only in our heart by Christ being
formed in the heart. There's nothing we're going to
get of ourselves. It's all of Christ. That's how
we're going to keep our garments. That's how we're going to be
found not to be naked and ashamed and be able to escape the judgment
that is coming and stand before the Son of Man in that day. So
Paul said, therefore, let us not sleep as do others, let us
watch and be sober. Alright, here is the next thing.
In our text, you can go to Philippians 4. Our text, he says, stand fast
in the faith. Stand fast in the faith. Now the first thing it means
to stand fast in the faith is to stand fast in Christ alone,
in Christ alone. Paul wrote to the Philippians
and he said, I want to be found in Him, not having my own righteousness
which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of Christ
by the faithfulness of Christ. That's the righteousness I want
to be found in. And so he says here now, Philippians 4.1, therefore
my brethren, Dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and my crown,
so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. Don't look anywhere
but to Him. And since it means that, it also
means to stand fast in liberty that Christ has freely given
us. In Galatians 5.1, He says, Stand fast therefore in the liberty
wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again
with the yoke of bondage. Christ said He came to fulfill
the law and the prophets. And that's what He did. And it's
no more of us to fulfill the law by our doing than it is for
us to fulfill the prophets by our doing. Christ fulfilled all. And He's freed us from the law
so that now we can follow Him and be taught of Him and serve
Him. So don't turn back to the law. You know, if you turn back
to the law as a requirement, It's okay to look at the law
because you have a heart that you'd like to keep it and you
want to see Christ so righteous by it and see your sin in it.
It's okay to use the law that way. It's given to show us our
sin. But to use the law as a requirement, I better do this just in case,
you have to keep the law. To turn back to it is to break
the whole law of God. is to break the whole law of
God. There is one way we establish the law. Paul said it in the
last verse of Romans 3. We establish it by faith in Christ,
because He did it. So, with that being the case,
you stand fast only in Christ, you stand fast in the liberty
Christ has given you, and not be entangled again with the yoke
of bondage. It also means this, standing fast only by faith. Only by faith. For by faith you
stand, Paul said. By faith you stand. We're not
saved by our works. We're saved by faith alone. By
faith alone. Only Christ makes his people
stand. And when I say by faith alone, I mean the object of our
faith. Christ alone makes his people
stand. And he does it through the gift of faith, and that gift
is always in him. That faith he gives trusts him.
And standing fast in the faith is to stand for the gospel of
Christ. Look at 1 Corinthians 15. We saw this a little earlier
in our study of 1 Corinthians. It is to stand fast in the gospel
of Christ. In other words, we have the doctrine. We have the doctrine of God.
We have the gospel of God and we are to stand fast in it. He
says here, 1 Corinthians 15 verse 1, ìMoreover, brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have
received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if
ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed
in vain.î Christ is the gospel we preach. All the glorious attributes
of God are found one place in Christ. The fullness of the Godhead
bodily. So we preach the gospel. We preach
Christ, the triune God manifest in all His glory in Christ in
a body. We preach sovereign electing
grace of God because we chose God because He chose us. That
gives God the glory. That's our gospel. We declare
Christ came to this earth for a particular people given to
Him of the Father and He made a limited atonement and limited
in the sense it was only for his elect. It's full atonement,
it's full redemption, but it's limited just to those elect.
Because he accomplished that, and we want him to have the glory
that he accomplished it. And we preach our total ruin
and sin, our total ruin. We don't add a thing to Christ's
Word. That's the whole point, is that he get all the glory
for this. So we don't preach anything we've done, we preach
Him. And we preach, this is our gospel, we declare therefore
that the Holy Spirit had to come and irresistibly enter into us
and give us life and give us faith and form Christ in us and
draw us to believe on Christ. That's our gospel. We preach
that He's keeping us. He won't lose one of His people.
He bought us with His precious blood. His glory is at stake.
We're the fullness of His body. His body won't be complete if
He doesn't save all His people. So He won't lose one. He promised
the Father He would. He's going to deliver them all
up one day to the Father, spotless and without blame, robed in His
righteousness, purified by His presence in His people. And so
He said, now you stand in this Gospel. Don't turn back from
this Gospel. And then look at Philippians
1.27. Because we stand in this Gospel, We're to stand fast in one spirit
with our brethren for the defense and furtherance of this gospel.
Look at Philippians here. Let me get to it. Philippians
1 and look at verse 27. Brother Scott read this last
Sunday. Only let your conduct be as it
becometh the gospel of Christ. Whether I come and see you or
else I'll be absent, I may hear of your affairs. I may hear of
what you're doing in the church, that you stand fast in one spirit,
with one mind, striving together, not striving against each other,
striving together for the faith of the gospel. Now brethren,
stand fast in the faith. That's what it means. Stand fast
in Christ. Stand fast in the liberty he
has given us. Stand fast only by faith. Stand fast in the gospel
of Christ. Stand fast in one mind striving
together to defend and further that gospel. Stand fast in the
faith. The next thing he tells us is
this. You can turn to Deuteronomy 31. He says quit you. Quit you. That means be courageous. Be courageous. Quit you. Be courageous. And he said, and be strong. Be
courageous and be strong, he said. Look here in Deuteronomy
31.6. You know, the last words a man speaks, they are very important. Especially when he is talking
to the saints. The last words he speaks are very important.
These are Moses' last words right here. Deuteronomy 31.6. Be strong. They are supposed to be going
in the land of Canaan. And he tells them this, ìBe strong
and of a good courage.î ìBe strong and of a good courage.î This
is probably where Paul got what heís saying. ìBe strong and of
a good courage. Fear not, nor be afraid of them.î
Talking about all the enemies that lay before them. ìFor the
Lord thy God, He it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail
thee, nor forsake thee.î Thatís our strength and our courage.
It's not of us. Our strength and our courage,
you can't muster this up. Our strength and our courage
is, it's the Lord our God. Christ, our strength and our
courage is going with us. He said, He doth go with you
and He will not fail thee, nor will He forsake you. Go over
to Joshua 1, Joshua chapter 1. Look here, Joshua 1. This is
Christ the Lord saying the exact same thing. This is when they
are going into the land of Canaan now. They are going. They are
going in there now. Joshua. He says this to Joshua.
Look here, Joshua 1 verse 5. He says, There shall not any
man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I will
be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake
thee. Be strong and of a good courage. Be strong and of a good courage,
for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the
land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. See, our
courage is Christ is going with us. We have his word. His word. You shall deliver this inheritance
to my people. In other words, all that I've
promised to give my people, they're going to get everything that
I've promised. And that's His word to His people.
And His word is, I won't forsake you. I'm going to deliver you. No man is going to stand before
you. Because I've sworn this. God can't lie. I've sworn this. And so if anything doesn't come
to pass that he's sworn he would accomplish by his word, that
would take away from his glory. That would do away with his glory.
And that's not going to happen. So there's our courage. There's
our strength. So quit you. Be strong. Be courageous. Be brave. Be strong. And then he said there,
and do it like men. Do it like men. That doesn't
mean gender. He's not talking about gender.
He's meaning do it like a mature believer. Be courageous and be
strong like mature believers. You remember he said in malice
be ye children, but in understanding be men. Be mature. It's the opposite
of children. Be mature. Be grown up. Mature
believers are grown in grace and knowledge of Christ. Any
mature believer would tell you, it's all by God's grace, it's
all by Christ's knowledge teaching me. When you teach your children
at home, when you homeschool your children, where's the knowledge
coming from? It's coming from you. You've given it to them.
Growing in the knowledge of Christ is first and foremost Christ's
knowledge being imparted to us. And it is to grow in the knowledge
in which we are growing in is Christ Himself and what He has
done for us and doing for us now. And a mature believer has
grown in that. He is not soon shaken by trouble. And he does not get tossed by
when somebody comes along with some new wind of doctrine. And
he has experienced the truth of God's Word and God has proved
Himself to him through long experience. And so he's mature, and he's
courageous, and he's strong, trusting the Lord. Now, the point
of this is, brethren, we are in a fight, but the captain of
this warfare is Christ. And he tells us in Isaiah 40,
the warfare is already accomplished. Can you imagine, Kevin, if you
went into a war and knowing the war is already won? You can have
some courage and be strong going forth. The battle's won. The
war's won. And that's what Christ says.
The war is won. I've given my people double for
all their sin. I made them righteous and holy.
They'll never be turned away. The war's won. But now there's
some people to get off the battlefield. There's some that haven't been
called out yet, and he's sending us forth. And so we're supposed
to be good soldiers fighting the good fight of faith. What
does a soldier do? Who does he obey, Kevin? Is that
important to obey in the Army? They break them down, so they
got a broken and contrite heart, and then they build them back
up again and say, now go out there. So that when the bullets
start flying and things get tight, they're going to obey their commanding
officer. And you know what Christ does
with his people? He breaks us. He gives us a contrite heart
submitted to Him so when everything gets, the battle gets fierce,
we obey His command. And He says to us, now be courageous
and be strong. I'm going with you. I'm not going
to forsake you. Nobody's going to stand before
you. You're going to overcome them all. That's good news, isn't
it? All right. The next thing He
says, and this is very, very important, in our text, in verse
14, he says, ìAnd let all your things be done with charity.î
ìLet all your things be done with charity.î And when a sinnerís
dead in sins, we donít have any love for God or His people, for
Christ or His gospel. We donít have any love at all.
As Paul said, ìWe were hateful in hating one another.î when
we were sitting in a church pew and saying amen and glory this
and grace that and the other, we were hateful and hating one
another. That is the natural heart. That is all it is. But
then Christ appeared. He entered in and when He entered
in, that new man is Christ in you. That new man, that new spirit
that He gives is the love of God dwelling in you when you
have Christ dwelling in you. The love of God is Christ. And
when He is dwelling in you, you got a heart now that loves God,
and loves His gospel, and loves His Christ, and loves His people.
Everything that you hated about God before, now you love about
Him. Because He has put a new heart in you. But even then,
when He has done that, we still do not look to our faith or to
our love. We look only to Christ. True
faith and true love looks to Christ, looks to Him. and does
everything constrained by His love for us. There's a lot of
folks who would take New Testament exhortations like this and turn
them into legal works. A lot of churches do that, so-called
churches, turn them into legal works just like they do the old
covenant law. We're not looking to our love
and our faith. True faith and true love looks
to Christ because true faith is the gift of Christ to us and
it looks only to Christ. It comes from a heart of love
that's in love with Christ and in love with God's way, in God's
terms, in God's grace, in God's gospel. And true love is the
result of Christ constraining us by His love for us. His doing and dying for us constrains
us to do for Him. See, that's love. That's not
doing something to get a payment. That's not doing something for
a mercenary reward. That's doing it because you really
love somebody. You take a nurse, for example.
You take a nurse, for example. She loves what she does, and
she might even have a great attachment to those that she's her patient. But at the end of it all, she's
getting a payment. She's getting paid. And she's got great motivation
to do what she does, because she's going to get paid. But
you take a mother who stays up all night with her sick child,
you know why she's doing that? She loves that child. That child
is her reward. That child is her pay. She's
one with that child, and she wants to see that child provided
for. That's the thing here. Everything
that a sanctified child of God does in truth and in spirit is
done in submission to Christ. And it's from a heart of love
that's been produced by God. He wants to do it. He wants to
do it because he loves God and he wishes he loved Him more.
And he loves his brethren and wishes he loved them more. But
he's not looking for a reward. He's not looking for a payment.
He's doing it because he has the love of God in his heart.
And you see, that was the difference between the Pharisees. After
all those wonderful works they had done, and the works themselves
were good works, a lot of them that they had done. And after
all of it was said and done, you know what Christ said? I
know you. You have not the love of God
in you. You are doing everything you
are doing to try to indebt God to you. That is what He told
them. That is the opposite of love. That is the very opposite
of love. The only thing that God is going
to regard as being done in obedience is when it is performed from
a heart of love which He has acknowledged for producing and
for which He gets all the glory. That is the only thing He regards
as obedience. It comes from a heart of love,
no other motive than the love of God. And it comes forth acknowledging
it was given by God and it gives God all the glory. That is what
love does. That is what love does. Here
is the last thing. And this is right here. Now watch
what he says here. I learned something in this verse. These few verses here. This is
the last thing. Christ says, submit yourselves
to a faithful pastor in a faithful church, acknowledging and respecting
them as faithful. Now read verse 15. I beseech
you, brethren, Now he is going to give us a parenthetical expression. We can lift that out, but let's
read it for now. You know the house of Stephanas,
that it is the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted
themselves to the ministry of the saints. He is talking about
here a faithful man and his house being faithful. Now go back and
read it. I beseech you brethren, now take
out the parenthetical expression, I beseech you brethren, that
you submit yourselves unto such, and to everyone that helpeth
with us and laboreth. I am glad of the coming of Stephanas
and Fortunatus and Achaicus, for that which was lacking on
your part they have supplied, for they have refreshed my spirit
and yours. Therefore, acknowledge, respect
ye them that are such. The house of Stephanus was the
first that God saved when he sent Paul into Achaia. Corinth was the capital of Achaia.
And this is for what it's worth. This is what I think. I believe
that when he says his house, it probably means the church
that Stephanus ministered to. Because there was more than one
church in Corinth. It's called Corinth because that's
the capital city of the state, Achaia. It is like us saying
that we are the church of Princeton when we are in Ewing. But this man Stephanus was one
of the first ones that God saved when Paul went there preaching.
He is the one that Paul said, I baptize in his house. So you
got here a faithful man and a host of faithful brethren. And he
said, and they proved themselves faithful, they proved themselves
being mature believers because they addicted themselves to the
ministry of the saints. So you get this now, they are
some of the first that God called. That means by the time Paul is
writing this, they have been in the faith a long time. They
are mature believers. They are mature believers. And
they have proven it by their dedication to Christ and His
people and the furtherance of the gospel. to the saints. And so Christ gives this exhortation
through Paul to them and to us. Now this is what he said to them
and to us. He says, submit yourselves unto
such. Faithful pastor, faithful reverend,
faithful church, and to everyone that helps with us. all that
are faithful in the Lord. Submit to them. And He says here,
And they labor with us. And He said it to them, And acknowledge
ye them that are such. That means respect them. Provide for them. Honor them.
Respect them. Submit to them. Unite with them
in a faithful church. And acknowledge and respect them
as faithful. And in fact, if you submit to
a faithful pastor and unite yourself with a faithful church, you are
acknowledging, you are giving them great respect, saying they're
faithful. I wouldn't be with them if they
weren't faithful. When a professing believer habitually isolates
himself from the gospel, it is disrespectful to a faithful preacher
and to faithful brethren who labor tirelessly for the same. As it would be if you personally
invited someone to dinner, but after all your labor, they didn't
show up and they just ignored you altogether. It would be that
disrespectful. It's just that personal and it's
just that hurtful and it's just that disrespectful, not only
to that pastor but to all faithful pastors and to all faithful brethren.
You get what he said? He said, and do this to all men.
He said, if you submit to Stephanus and to that faithful house that
are there, you're not only showing a respect to them and acknowledging
them as being true faithful brethren, you're doing so to everybody
they fellowship with. And if you don't, You're doing
the opposite. You're disrespecting them and
everybody they fellowship with. Why? Because we're one. We're
one. We got one gospel, one faith,
one Lord, one baptism, one spirit abiding in us. We're one. So,
you know, I guarantee you the Kellers, if one person, if somebody
disrespected Sarah, They might as well be disrespecting William
and John and Robert. And I would imagine they're going
to let them know about it. Why? Because they're of the same
family. And if somebody disrespects one
of God's pastors, one of his faithful ministers or his people,
he's disrespecting every one of them. because they're of the
same family. They're one. So submit to faithful brethren
by uniting with them under the gospel, by addicting yourself
to ministering to the saints with them. In doing so, you'll
acknowledge and respect them and all who they fellowship with
at being faithful. That taught me something. That taught me something. That's how one we are. What's
done to one is done to the other. And not only that, Christ said,
and it's done to me. It's done to me. All right, brethren,
let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for this
word. We thank you that you've used men like Paul, faithful,
that you made them faithful, made them obey these exhortations
themselves. and sent them forth and preached
the gospel to us, called us back, joined us together with brethren,
made us to honor them for their work's sake, to honor them for
their great labor. Lord, make us always value these
kinds of exhortations to us. Make us heed them. Make us obey
you. We want to honor You. That's
our heart. That's the heart You've given. It's this flesh, Lord. It's the sinful flesh that makes
us act like we're the only ones that matter. Lord, we ask You to bless the
Word now. We ask You to make ready Your
lost sheep before You come. We ask You to bless the Saints
down there in Florida and the preachers there and everyone
in attendance, Lord, that your gospel go forth in power. Arrest
your people. We ask, Lord, that you strengthen
those you've already called. Make us respect the faithful
by our union together, by our commitment to this gospel and
to one another. Do it for your honor, for your
glory. And Lord, we praise you. In Christ's precious name, we
ask these things. Amen. All right. Brother Eric, if you'll come
and...