Would you please open your Bibles
this morning to Philippians chapter 2? Aren't you thankful the Lord
doesn't hide the weaknesses of His prophets? Our great God,
our great Savior, our great Lord, in His wisdom, shares the weaknesses
of His prophets. that we might see a picture of
ourselves as well in them. I've titled the message this
morning, Gracious Warnings. And I call it Gracious Warnings
because God gives us warnings in his
word and he does so out of grace. You say, well, what do you mean
by that, John? Do you remember a time when you could care less
about the warnings of God? I see all the heads bobbing up
and down. Oh yeah, I remember. I remember when I didn't pay
any attention at all to God's warnings. Do you realize that
the reason you do now is because of His grace? And only because
of His grace? I would have read these verses
maybe if you could have gotten me to read them. I seriously
doubt you could have. But if you had said, John, I
want you to go sit down and read these verses that we're going
to look at today, I would have read those and I said, okay, here's
the book back. I'll be on my way now. I'll go
do something with what I'm thinking of. I would have never thought,
never given a second thought to it. Aren't you thankful? The Lord has made us aware. of
His Word, to pay attention to it, to think about it, to contemplate
it. Isn't that the way it is with
our sin? I know, I've asked this question
before and I've seen all the hands go up. There was a time when our sin
didn't bother us either. Aren't we thankful that it does
now? And I know you folks who have
been enlightened of God to know these truths are sitting there,
okay, where's he gonna go with this? But there may be somebody
here today, or somebody online who may hear this in recordings
or whatever, who've never heard that before. All they've ever
heard about is how they can be a better person if they would
just do this, or if they would just do that. Self-promotion,
self-help, build you up, pump you up. That's all they've ever
heard about religion. They've never heard about what
God's people truly go through. The battle that we go through
between our flesh and our spirit. The battle of what's within and with this flesh that we walk
in. What's the one thing continually
expressing to you and I What is the one thing our Lord is
continually expressing to you and I as we walk this path that
he has set before us in this world? Let me give you a verse that'll
help bring your mind to that question,
to that answer. As Moses lifted up the serpent. Remember that story? built this
brazen serpent, and he held it up in the wilderness. The Lord
had sent vipers in to plague Israel, his people, and the vipers
had gone in and bitten all these different ones, and people were
starting to die from it, and they came crying to Moses, and
Moses cried to the Lord, and the Lord said, make a serpent,
a brazen serpent, and put it up on a high post. Now, we're
talking about millions. Millions of Israelis traveling.
This is after they had come out of Egypt. Put it on a high post
up there. Raise it up as high as you can
so that every soul can see it. What's God doing right here in
this book? What does He consistently do?
He consistently raises up His Son to His people. a thing that
was never done to us before. We never cared about the vipers
in the world. Well, we didn't want to step
on them or anything. We didn't want to get bitten, of course. We'd
try to step over them or whatever. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even That's what He's doing. Everything we read in the Bible,
every story that we read, every instance that we read, the Sermon
on the Mount, the Beatitudes, people think that's all about
man. No, it's not. It's all about our Savior who
fulfilled all that for us. Let's not forget, folks, our
God requires perfection in all that He requires. There's no
maybes or ifs or ands or partial this or whatever. It's all or
nothing. So what's He reminding us of?
Through all the stories that we read in the book, in all the
different positions that we see, all these different things, he's
reminding us that his son must be lifted up. That's in John 3, 14. Over in
3, chapter 3, verse 30, John writes this. He says, he must
increase, but I decrease. That's what it's all about. It's
all about the increase of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and our decrease, humbling us to what we are and who we are
before the Almighty God. Let me begin by expressing this,
that God is not required to do anything. He's not required to do anything
to His creation. He's not obligated by anything
outside of himself. If he's obligated by anything,
it's an obligation that he has put upon himself. He's not obligated
to do anything for you because of you. He's not obligated to
save any of his people. He's not obligated to reveal
himself to anybody unless he wants to. Unless He has purposed
it to be so. Unless He has determined it to
be so. That's the God we're talking
about here. Not a God of maybes. People hate
this. Oh, if you don't give a chance
to everybody, that's just not fair. If God gave a chance to anybody,
everybody would fall. Including you and I. He's not obligated to be merciful
to anyone other than those that he promised to himself before
the world began. And his only obligation is because
he purposed it and promised it. In Romans 9, 15 through 16, we
read these words, for he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. Why? Why is it so? So then it is not of him that
willeth. It's not of you. If it could
be of you, it wouldn't be grace. Aren't you thankful the Lord
is gracious and merciful to some? That means He could be merciful
to me. Despite the ugly, sinful person that I am. Despite what
I have done to Him in shaking my fist and telling Him, You
will not rule over me. In other words, despite me. Despite me. He's chosen. to be merciful to me." We, all
men, have sinned and deserve His wrath, yet God has chosen
to be merciful to some. And in doing so, He has given
those for whom He has mercy warnings of His wrath. Why? Why would God give us warnings
of wrath if we don't have anything to fear? To shine His grace. in our lives
of what could be if it was not for His grace. If God was not
gracious to us, where would we be? We'd be right where we were
before He called us out of darkness. We'd be still on that path that
we were on before He called us into the path of truth, the path
of His righteousness, not ours. He's given those for whom He
has mercy His warnings Keep this in mind, nothing outside of himself
obligates him to do that. We have done nothing to earn
his grace, his mercy. In fact, just the opposite of
that. We, yet God is merciful to some. So merciful that he
humbled himself and became a man. He became flesh. He humbled himself in the fashion
of flesh. as a servant. Can you imagine
that? What a God! One who is so great,
so majestic, that He even rules over the particles of air that
we breathe. He rules over all things. He's
sovereign God of all that is. He humbled Himself. He came off
of His glory for a moment and became a servant to His people. Why are you making such a big
deal of this, John? We already know this. If my God is so gracious that He would become a servant
to me, shouldn't I serve Him? Are you with me in Philippians
chapter 2? Read with me verses 3 through 8. be done through
strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem
other better than themselves. Oh, folks, I know, I know that
we depend on our Lord. I mentioned a moment ago, everything
our God requires, He requires perfection. So we lean on Him. But that does not relieve us
of our responsibility. I'm never going to do anything
in this flesh that satisfies my God. But I am going to do everything
I can to serve him the way he tells me to serve him. Let nothing be done through strife
or vain glory, but in the lowliness of mind let each esteem other
better than themselves. Let not every man look not every
man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of
a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found,
verse 8, in the fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Now I'd like to ask you now if
you would turn to our text in the book of Luke. He who has created all things,
all that is, he whose purpose is always fulfilled, has seen
fit to give his people warnings. Warnings of traps. The traps that we face in this
flesh. warnings of temptations that
will plague us in this flesh, warnings of our weakness in this
flesh, even though He knows the outcome before we commit one
way or another, that we may grow in the knowledge of grace and
of our Savior, Christ Jesus. Isn't that what we're doing? We're growing and the knowledge
of his grace to us. I like what Mike brought up in some of his writings. He comes up with some brilliant
things at times. Only occasionally, though. Takes a lifetime to die. That means that you have to experience. You've got to go through this
life and experience what it is. And God has given us some things
to experience. What we're about to see in his
word today may be something you have walked in yourself. I have. Along with a lot of other things,
our Lord told His disciples that they would all leave Him alone.
I'm leading up to what we're going to look at in our scripture
because I want you to get the picture. I want you to understand the
depth of what our Lord is teaching us here. And this is deep. People say
John just flaps around on top of the pond. This is deep. He
told His disciples. that they would all leave him,
and guess what? They did. So when our Lord warns you and
I of something, I would suggest to me, John Readers,
listen. Listen to this. For our own good, we would be
wise to heed the warnings of our God. Can we change what God
has determined for us? No. No, you can't. Job feared God and he eschewed
evil. That's what the scriptures tell
us. Yet his path was determined by
the one who determines all things, was it not? Peter loved the Lord Jesus, yet
it was his path to deny the one that he loved thrice before the
cross, was it not? May our great God teach us this
day with gracious warnings of our weaknesses. We're going to look here at verses
46-50, but before we do, just a quick recap. Let's take into
consideration these verses with all that we just read from. In
verse 28-36, the glory of God was shown to His disciples. They
were on the Mount of Transfiguration. Remember that? God showed them. We're in Luke chapter 9. I'm
sorry, I may not have mentioned it. Thank you. In verses 28 through
36, the Lord showed them His glory up on the mountain. So
here they've seen the power of God in the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ. They've seen the glory of God in the face of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Then they came down off the mountain, and there
was a devil that had possessed a young man. And it was a devil
that the disciples couldn't cast out. You remember that? They'd
gone out. He said, they tried to cast out this devil, and he
couldn't. And the Lord cast out that devil,
showing his power. So he's not only showing the
glory, the majesty of who he is on the mountain. Next thing,
he's showing the power that he has, all power in heaven and
earth in verses 37 through 43. Then the Lord declared again
his death, that he was going to lay down his life and that
he would die at the hands of men in verses 44 through 45.
So with those thoughts in mind, look with me at verses 46 through
50. Then there arose a reasoning among them. Now this is the very
disciples who had seen his glory on the mountain. The very disciples
that had been given power to heal the sick, to do miraculous things. They arose a reasoning, that
means an argument. They began to argue amongst themselves
which of them should be greatest. It's like those who are arguing
right now to be, hopefully, President Trump's Vice President. Maybe I should, maybe Peter should
be, he's the bold one. Maybe he should be the leader
or the second in command under God's new government. See folks, remember this. The
disciples were still under the impression that Christ was gonna
come back and establish his kingdom on this earth. He had not revealed
to them yet that his kingdom is spiritual, not carnal. So they're arguing about who's
gonna be the greatest in the army of God, in the leadership
of God. And Jesus perceiving their thought,
the thought of their heart. Now look, did you notice that?
Once again, we talked about this a little bit in my last message
two weeks ago. Here is Christ revealing to you
and I the power that he has. He knows your hearts. He knew
the heart of Job. He knew the heart of Peter. He
even told Peter, you're going to deny me three times. Did Peter
listen? He was determined, or he was,
he was destinated to do what he did. Absolutely. But here's
the one who created all things, perceiving the hearts of those
who are arguing. Who's going to be the Who's going
to be in charge of this? Who's going to run this? Who's
going to do this? He took a child and set him by
me. He grabs this child. He says,
OK, I can see what you guys are doing. Grabs this little child. You know, here's an innocent
child. What's the picture of a child?
What's the picture of a child? Innocence? No, that's not it. Dependence, there you go. What
are children dependent upon? They're dependent on their parents,
are they not? Isn't that who raises a child,
feeds them, clothes them, keeps a roof over their heads until
they're old enough to do it on their own? For most parts, I
understand there's some children who lose their parents at young
ages, I understand that. But for the most part, the child
is a picture of dependence. They need somebody to guide them.
And here these men were arguing about, I'm going to be the one
who does this, and I'm going to be the one who does that.
And the Lord says, no, no, no, no, no, no. He grabs this child
and sets him down next to him. What's it say next? Whosoever
shall receive this child in my name. He's pointing this child out
to these grown men. Let's not forget that. These
are grown men. And you're going to see an ugly,
ugly picture of these men here. An ugly picture of what we call
pride. I've been going to school longer
than you have. I've been walking with the Lord
longer than you have. I've been this, I've been that.
I should be this. And the Lord's saying, no, no,
no, you've got the whole picture backwards. These are my people,
the ones who depend upon me. When Peter sank into that sea,
when he took his eyes off of Christ, the whole point of that
story, is that Peter stopped trusting Christ and he started
looking at self. You know what that is? That's
pride. Pride is not just something that
we, you know, see how good I did something?
See how good that turned out? I did that. Pride is anything lifting yourself
up. And what is the Bible about?
Lifting up our Savior. Are we starting to get a picture
here? Whosoever shall receive this
child in my name receiveth me, and whosoever receiveth me receiveth
him that sent me. For he that is least among you
all the same shall be great. And John answered and said, Master,
we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him
because he followeth not with us. We saw a guy who was preaching
in your name, but he didn't follow with us. We never even met the
guy before. We don't know where he came from
or anything. So we told him to stop. That's what that's telling
us there. We told him to stop. And Jesus
saith unto him, Forbid him not. For he that is not against us
is for us. In Luke chapter 9 verses 46-50
that we just read, our Lord Jesus Christ gives us two very important
warnings. Warnings that need to be taught
in every age. Warnings that need to be taught
in every congregation. Warnings that need to be taught
to every believer. Here our master is telling us
plainly that there are two things we must ever strive to avoid. We must strive to avoid because
they are evils to which we are all prone to, evils that we seldom
recognize in ourselves, yet we are quick to spot them in others. slow to see them in ourselves
and I ask my Lord, my great God, the Holy Spirit to cautiously,
to graciously cause us to hear His Word. It said, then there
arose a reasoning among them which of them should be the greatest
in Luke 9 verse 46. And as the Lord's disciples were
walking, they were on the road of Caesarea Philippi, and they were
on their way to Capernaum, and you can read that in Mark 9.33
if you want, it's the same account. And they began to engage in this
argument about which of them would be the greatest of the
kingdom of heaven, as it gives us in verse 18, or verse 1 of
chapter 18 of Matthew. And then these still men, they
thought the Lord Jesus had established a carnal, was going to establish
a carnal kingdom, which we spoke of a moment ago. And the warning
here is this, that the prophecies of God's return should not be
a matter of great concern to us. You say, what? What do you
mean? Isn't the return of Christ, isn't
that supposed to be a prophecy that we're looking to? Well,
you know, there's a lot of reasons that we should look forward to
it, yeah. Number one, he's gonna take us out of this earth. Number
two, there'll be no more sin in us. We won't sin against our
God. There's a lot of good reasons
for us to look forward to the return of Christ, but when is
not of our concern. He could come back this afternoon.
Okay. He could come back a thousand
years from now. Okay. It's right. Whatever it's
going to be. There's people who get all tied
up. We know of that man over in the Bay Area who got all tied
up in knots about predicting the return of Christ. And all
of his predictions were wrong. And he led a whole bunch of people
down a path of torment afterwards, saying, they never came true.
Where is our God? God's people know that our Lord
will return when He's good and ready. Has He given us things in His
Word to point that direction? Well, if you start with that,
you can go all the way back to the day that He arose from the
dead and say, there you go, there's everything that He's given us
right there, but it's been 2,000 years and He still hasn't returned.
Does that make any difference? No! It's the same today as it
was then. We rejoice And when the Lord
comes again, absolutely, when our salvation is complete, yet
we should not be in the least concerned about looking for signs
or wonders, trying to figure out when the end shall be. Here's our business today, our
business right now, all of us. This is what we need to be doing. We need to be seeking how we
can serve our Lord, honoring Him until He comes back. That's
what we need to be doing. You and I both. That's what His concern for us
was, wasn't it? What did we read in the beginning?
He became a servant. If becoming a servant for Christ
is good enough, Is it not good enough for us? These men weren't
concerned with being servants. They were concerned about who
was going to sit at the highest seat of the table. Who was going
to sit next to Christ at the table? Should we not also have
the same concern as our Lord, who made himself of no reputation?
and took upon Him the form of a servant." Isn't that what we
just read? The lessons here is we can be plagued in our own
pride and forget our service. Thinking more of ourselves than
we should is an easy trap for all of us. Listen to... Listen to Obadiah 1, verses 3-4,
"...the pride of thine heart, have deceived thee. Thou that
dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high,
that saith in his heart, who shall bring me down to the ground?
Thou, though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou
set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down,
saith the Lord. Proverbs 29, 23, a man's pride
shall bring him low, but honor shall uphold. the humble in spirit? What can be more honorable than
bringing the gospel of Christ and him crucified to death deserving
sinners? What if, what if God had not
put a church here in rescue 25 years ago? where would John Reeves be today? We can learn here in this story a question that we should be
asking ourselves, is my pride reeling up its ugly head again? We can learn a second thing,
Lord help me not to judge others of what I myself am guilty of. It says in 1 Corinthians 4, 7,
Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that
thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hast not received it? If this
is our thoughts, then there is no room left for self-promotion. You know what Pastor Gene has
learned over the 40-something years that he has walked with
God? God has purposed this for me,
is what he's learned. I was thinking about this, and
I won't be much longer, but just give me a minute or two more
if you would. I was thinking about this earlier
today, or yesterday I mean, as I was wandering around moping,
wondering what I was going to be doing today. I'm guilty of complaining about
the man who sits at the head of our government. I'm guilty. You know who I'm guilty to? I'm
guilty to my Lord. My God has put him there. Someone once told me this when
I said that the disciples made a mistake in choosing, what was
his name, Matthias? The man who you never hear from
again, they chose a 12th disciple, they were waiting, they didn't
wait. Paul hadn't been chosen yet. They drew straws, or reeds,
whatever. I said this statement, I said,
they made a mistake in doing that. And a man told me, he goes,
did God ever make a mistake? No. That's a great answer. No. He hasn't. Did God make a
mistake putting that man in office? No, he hasn't. Will God make
a mistake in putting the next one in office? No, he won't. Folks, we have the greatest hope
that any man has ever known, could ever know. And that is
the hope that our God rules all things. That's all there is to it. And
He is gracious to His people. This One that spared not His
own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not
with Him also freely give us all things? Is that not the point
that we profess right there? What do we have to complain about? What does this have to do with
me and my pride, John? Watch out for it! Heed the warning
that God has given us. Ask yourself that question. Is
this an action of my pride? Oh Lord, humble me. That can be
painful. Don't think it wasn't painful
for Jonah. Don't think it wasn't painful
for Joel. Don't think it wasn't painful
for David. And I'm absolutely positive that
it has not been painful for you. By the grace of God, we are given
the revelation of what we deserve, and that's what those warnings
are. Warnings of what it could be if we were left to ourselves. We could be walking right along
that same path going, I'm gonna be the one who's sitting at the
head of the church. Or maybe the pastor will let
me be the secretary. Or maybe I can be the greeter
at the door. By his grace, he has given us
revelation of what we deserve and what we could fall into if
we were left to ourselves. And with that grace of what he
has done for our love, I'm sorry. for His grace and what He has
done for the love of His people. Not for the whole of all men,
but for those that He had loved with an everlasting love, He
became flesh. He died in our stead in that
flesh. He was buried with our sins in
that flesh. And because of His righteousness
and obedience, death could not hold Him. He arose the victor
over death. Turn over to Daniel chapter 3.
We'll just make this real quick here. Daniel chapter 3. Look
at two verses there with me if you would. You know the story. In Daniel chapter 3, beginning
at verse 16, we read of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered
and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, now remember, they had refused
to worship the idol that the king had made, the king was going
to throw them into a fiery furnace, and here is their answer to this
matter, verse 17, if it be so, fiery furnace, and he will deliver
us out of thine hand, O king. Then verse 18, but if not, be it known unto thee, O king,
that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image
which thou hast set before us. You know what they just said
to the king? They said this, did you catch
that? If thy will be done. If I'm going to be delivered
from my pride, my request to God is this, Lord,
if it be Thy will, it'll be done. He's warned me of it. I'm going
to watch for it. And I'm going to pray I don't
fall into it. And here's my prayer, Lord, if Thy will be done. If
it be Thy will, it'll be done. He is the Lord. what His purpose
shall be. And because of Him, we worship
God in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus. Beware, dear brother
and sister in Christ, the sin in this flesh can rear its ugly
head up in an instant. But when it does, when it does,
and we'll close with these words over in 1 John 1. 1 John 1, verse
10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and
His word is not in us. Then John writes these words,
he says, my little children, these things write I unto you
that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, the righteous. And he is the propitiation for
our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the
whole world. Folks, there will always be a battle. Those who
stand in pulpits and say, your life is going to get so much
better, they're not telling the folks about the battle that we
fight between the flesh and the spirit. And also in doing so, they're
not telling about the one who's fought the battle for us, our
Savior, the Lord Jesus. Lift Him up. Turn to Him. Quit looking at those things
like, oh, see? See what I can do? Instead, look to see what He
has already done. It's everything we need. And
it satisfied God Almighty that He has saved His people and will
spend an eternity with Him in heavenly bliss. Amen?