the depths of the mercies of
what God has done in Jesus Christ. Not only that, but that we might
also learn how we are to put on this mind. We believe as a
church that scripture alone is the authority, is the center
of our decor up there, sola scriptura. I pointed out often, I thought
about taking it, holding up here as a visual, but I forgot. Anyway,
or having it missing. What happened to Sola Scriptura?
Let's all ask that question. There's a famine of the Word
of God in the land. We have a conviction that is
theological, not tradition. We have a conviction that is
contextual, not opinion. That God's Word is the authority
over all things. Sola Scriptura. It's not something
that we just hang on the wall and look at or speak of. It's
something that we hold to as absolute. We hold to it as absolute
because Scripture dictates all that we know and understand about
God. Redemption, the gospel, life,
the church, Scripture itself claims authority over all these
things, and at the core of the teaching of the apostles, those
who do not stand in the acknowledgement and adherence to the teaching
of the Word of God, in a sense, have rejected the very gospel
of grace. Paul would say to the Corinthians, you command these
things with all authority. He said that to young Timothy.
Command these things with all authority. And if those do not
listen to what we've written, consider them not brothers. You
realize that? Imagine if we dealt with our
children in that way. You're not listening to dad, you're
not my child. But Paul says we're not listening to the word of
God. We're not brothers. We're not sisters. We're not
family. Why? Because it is the glue that
holds us together. It is the adherence to which
we find life. They rejected the gospel of Jesus
Christ when they reject the authority of the Word. And friends, in
that rejection there is no life, there is no hope, there is no
power, and there is no spirit. We are one body in Jesus Christ.
We use that imagery because it is the imagery that Jesus and
the apostles use about the church of Jesus. We use that picture. We're not a portion of believers
divided on some things and united on others. We are the body of
Christ and because of that, we have the power of God who has
created a people for His own possession. A people that stand
in His power by the Holy Spirit. And nothing else in the entire
cosmos unifies us but the Spirit of God. Therefore, we cannot
be divided on anything if the Lord is indeed our unity. Last
week, we were reminded about the sufficiency of God. The sufficiency
of God, the Holy Spirit specifically, to bring reconciliation to His
people. We've been studying about the church. We've been looking
at how the church should operate for five years. We've learned
scripture. Now, all of a sudden, in our
fellowship, we have been given the opportunity by the grace
of God to practice such things. I've never known of a professional
athlete that ran and did weight lifting and did all of the drills
necessary to condition his body to compete, but he never competed. He just wanted to do the conditioning. I've never in my life seen anything
like that. Paul uses that exact same situation
when he's talking to young Timothy in his second epistle to him.
And He says, it is the one who runs the race that gets the prize.
Beloved, if we want the prize of unity and glorifying and honoring
the Lord Jesus Christ, then we will run the race of reconciliation.
We will run the race of healing. We will run the race of submitting
to the Word of God. And we will run the race of bearing
one another's burdens and being patient with each other. And
to say that we shall no longer run this race is a demonic device
whereby the devil, just like he did with Peter, can come upon
us and cause our flesh to rise up. And the reason that the temptation
works is because we are fleshly people. We're fleshly. If I cut myself today, I bleed.
You too. We're flesh. And because we're
flesh, it is easier for our flesh to be put on than it is to the
Spirit of God. And that's what this text is talking about today.
We're reminded of the sufficiency of God, the Holy Spirit, to bring
reconciliation and dealing with each other and bearing with one
another. The reconciliation of us to God through Jesus Christ
is the ultimate picture that is reflected in the body of faith.
That is those who are the body of Jesus, those who have been
redeemed. Continued reconciliation is the key reality of pure doctrine
and a pure gospel. The prior will always be present
with the latter. We learned last week that each
of us have burdens and that the rest of us are supposed to carry
them. We've learned that Each of us have weak areas of our
life and faith. We've learned that we're strong
in some things, but we're weak in others. And that's not necessarily
even weakness as in wrongness, but sometimes it's weakness in
our ability to deal with it. We have weakness and that we're
required to carry each other's weaknesses. We're required to
love each other at the cost of each other, at the cost of ourselves.
We are to carry each other's burdens. We've learned that intimacy
is having the same spirit despite what the flesh feels, or what
the flesh may bring to the table, and that refusal to be in fellowship
in some sense is a mark of great immaturity, but in another sense
it's a mark of great hurt or fear. Either way, we bear with
these burdens, and it is a matter of discipline, which is discipleship,
whereby we learn to help each other grow. not correct each
other in harshness, but to instruct each other and admonish one another
in humility. And that's what we'll see today.
We've learned that the Lord is gracious and long-suffering toward
us and we all strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the
bond of peace and that we also must be patient with each other. We've learned how to discern
what it is to be sinned against. What truly it means for someone
to sin against us as it teaches us in Matthew 18. We've learned
to be discriminatory of learning how to approach each other and
recognizing that there are some things that we can just confess
to God and there's some things we need to confess to one another.
And when those things come, intimacy is on the table. We've learned
that the marks of a true church, which is a group of people who
hold to the truth of Christ and are governed by the supreme authority
of God's Word, are enabled to be at peace with each other no
matter the circumstances, proven by reconciliation. After all,
if we cannot worship together, how can we do life together?
We've been challenged to understand the purpose of the church's gatherings.
We've been challenged to know that it is not for us individually,
but it is for us collectively, that we might worship God together
through prayer and singing and hearing and the preaching and
the teaching of the Word of God through the Lord's table and
through baptism. We've been challenged to understand the aspect of love. Then also the week before last,
Jesse preached on sacrificial giving. Love in the same way
as sacrificial. Love, by the term agape, means
that it is a love that costs at any cost. It is not a love
that is easy. It is not a love that is just
one that, oh, I've got a few extra dollars, let me love you
with the few extra dollars that I have. No, it's I might have
to change my lifestyle to love you. I might have to change my
lifestyle to love you. True love is the love that changes
us. It's the love that costs us.
And sadly, when we're learning what it looks like, it's the
love that hurts us. This is the mind of Christ who walked out
of glory and took the flesh of a creature. And not only did
he take the flesh of the creature, but he took the guilt that was
not his. So the father would be just and
righteous and forgiving those who are guilty. This gospel is
what made us. He created us and we no longer
walk by the flesh, but we walk by the spirit of God coming to
the light that it is clear that the fruit we bear of our unity
is the work of God. Learning to worship together
rightly is a matter that the Scripture will handle today.
And it will have authority over each of us, individually and
collectively as a body. Every one of you, including myself
and anybody else in the hearing of this sermon, the Word of God
today will hold authority over us and it will command us and
we will obey it because we have the Spirit of God in us. Not
for our justification, not for God's pleasure in us, but by
the power of His grace, that he might be glorified in the
working of his people. Remember last week the portion
of that text that says, and by what you eat, do not destroy
the one for whom Christ died. To set our hearts at ease and
glorify God today, we're going to set our minds on scripture
and focus how the Lord teaches us to worship. Let me ask you
this morning, how is your heart? Have you come this morning with
a heart of humility? Have you come this morning with a heart
of worship? Have you come this morning expecting to have intimacy
with God, the divine creator of all things, the God of the
universe, the very one who spoke and everything that is came to
be? Is that your heart today? Let me ask you, what are you
thinking of this morning? What obstacle would stand before
you that would chase away the Word of God in you? What obstacle
is on your heart so passionately today that it would push out
the Word of God to your soul? I pray that you would put it
to death and cast it away this very moment by the grace and the mercy
of Christ, so that you could hear the truth of Scripture and
be set free. If this gathering was a gathering
after a disaster and our communities were completely destroyed by
a hurricane or a series of wind storms or tornadoes, and none
of us had any place to live, and none of us had any food or
clothing, and none of us had any water, there would not be
one thing that would cause us to miss information that could
cost us our lives. There would be not one thing
in this world right now that we brought in here with us that
would distract us from hearing what line we should stand in
in order to get the water that would keep us alive. Brothers
and sisters, there is much more grave matters at hand this day. And that is the glory and the
honor of Jesus Christ and what He's done to procure Himself
a people through the blood that He shed on the cross of Calvary.
And the living water that is most essential is what is going
to give us life. That is what you're about to
hear when we hear the Word of God taught. Approach it accordingly.
Approach it with your attitude in awe and wonder and somewhat
trembling. but not in fear, but in love. Not in fear of horror, but in
fear of reverence. In that, realize that what we
do here each week is not about our liturgy. It's not about our
practices or our traditions, but it's about hearing the Lord
and what He has secured for you this day through the teaching
of His Word. We must hold and practice what
we proclaim in theory. The classroom is for the preparation
of the people of God to walk rightly in the midst of life,
to handle things in a spiritual manner, and to help grow and
mature others. God is present with us, beloved.
God is present with us. His glory is before us. The truth
we hear and know and most of all, our love for Him is measured. Our love for Him is measured
by our love for each other. You know, we cannot in our mouths
say that we love the Lord, our God, if we do not love each other.
It is an impossibility. It is an impossibility. And then
sometimes this painful love causes us difficulty. Let's approach
the Scriptures, as I've said, with trembling for the sake of
God's name. Not that our actions will prove anything, but what
our hearts are actually set upon and what our minds are engaged
with joyful expectation. Do you expect God to do something
in you today? Beloved, if you hear His Word,
He will do something in you today. He will give you food, He will
grow you, He will give you power, and He will overcome whatever
it is that carries your shoulders low. He's going to set us free from
the evil of offense. He's going to set us free from
the bondage of unforgiveness. He's going to set us free from
low mindedness and put us in a place where we can relish his
glory. God today. is going to reveal
to us that these things that are of the flesh and these things
that are of the world are part of the evils of the world. And
beloved, we are no longer slaves to the evils of the Lord. We're
no longer in bondage to our flesh. So when we see them, we are to
put them to death. When we feel them, we are to
flee to the cross of Christ. We are to look at each other
as though there is no offense because God sees us just in that
way. Let us see the power and the
glory of God today. Let's pray. God, as I approach
this text this morning, I do so fearfully. For I know my failings, I know
my weakness, I know that I have not the power in my flesh or
mind to comprehend the depth of the greatness of this richness. Those are your words, Lord. The
richness of the gospel of grace. I don't understand it fully,
but I can see it clearly. So I pray, Father, by the power
of Your mercy, grace, gospel, truth of Your nature through
Your Holy Spirit, Lord, that You would, like a wind of fire,
blow among us tonight, this morning. That You would blow in our minds
and that Your Spirit would blow into our hearts and that You
would cleanse us of anything that stands in the way of hearing
and living Your Word. We love you, Father, because
you have love for us. God, bring us to a place of celebration. In Jesus' name, amen. As Reformed Protestants, that
seems redundant, but it has to be said today, as Reformed Baptists,
and that's redundant, but it has to be said today in our culture,
we hold to what is called the regulative principle of worship.
And if Trey can correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's article
number 26 in our Statement of Faith, is that correct? Point two, there you go, 26.2
subsection three. Huh? 22, all right, I got it,
22. But there are some Reformed Baptists
out there that have taken it a lot larger in scale and expressly
added many, many documents to their church documents. What's a church document? If
we need to write a position on what we believe about certain
things, we do that. But we follow, according to our confession,
what we call the Regulative Principle of Worship, and that's RPW. And
what that basically says is, is that whatever the Bible prescribes
for worship together as assembly is what we do and nothing else.
Nothing else. So the Bible prescribes assembly.
Now how we do this and where I stand and where you stand and
what color the walls are, these things are subjective to our
culture. I've worshipped with Afghan Christians
before where we sat around barefoot in a circle passing bread, which
was gross. Feet next to bread. But that's
what they do. That's why you wash your feet
before you eat. Because your feet are next to the food. There are a lot of other things
that we may do. There are a lot of things that other congregations
may do, and in their conscience they are free to do those things.
However, we believe that Sola Scriptura governs even the worship
of the church. And so we believe that it is
assembling, it is hearing, and teaching, and learning the Word
of God. It is singing, and doing the
Lord's Table, and doing baptism, and praying. And that's what
is prescribed to us. in our assembly as worshipers,
that we worship in spirit and in truth. So from this point
of view, we might ask, well, what in the world is happening?
Why are we having in our culture such diversity in worship? Well,
it's easy for us to stand and say, well, everybody else is
wrong. Isn't it? It's easy for me to go, I was
wrong for 12 years of my ministry. Maybe longer, but I mean, not
even that long, really. I was wrong for at least eight
years of my ministry, and what we did as a church, time gets away, wow, it's hard
to believe. It's not that, you were saying that seven years
ago, 12 years of ministry. We're not, Going to say they're
right, we're wrong, and we're wrong, they're right, we're right,
they're wrong, and the same thing over and over again. We're not
going to sit around and point fingers at what church doesn't
do what right. We need to look at ourselves
and we ask ourselves, are we doing what's right? Well, there'd
be a lot of conversation about that. What if we had some tap
dancers? We've got some dancers in the
studio. We've got some dancers who take dance in a studio, and
they're in a congregation. We've got four or five young
girls who like to dance. And I think it would be interesting
to see them dance. But what has that got to do with the worship
of God? I guess if they could tap in Morse code Scripture,
man, we'd really, you know. But we're not going to do those
things. And that way we know, not that we're safe, but that
we're honoring to the Lord and we are trusting in the sufficiency
of His Word to do that which it promised to do. It's not because
we're more pious or more holy or we're more spiritual than
anybody else. It's just that we recognize the authority of
Scripture. Do you understand that? And if we wanted to get
together and do a sing, great. If we wanted to get together
and have the kids dance, awesome. But it's not for the Lord's Day,
which is mandatory for you. It's not an option. It's not,
you ever go to church this morning? No, it's like, man, we're going
to church this morning. Oh no, this came up and we can't. Bummer.
All. Work called. The toilet called. Whatever it is might call you.
Sometimes we can't be here. But what is it that we're supposed
to do? That's what this Scripture teaches us. And there's been
some terms that have gone around over the last few weeks. People
have asked me, not just one of you, not just two of you, but
several of you have asked about specific terms. So I'm going
to use the totality of several of these passages in Colossians
to show us the terms and then show us what the Bible says about
how we should worship together. Let's start in the Word of God
of Colossians chapter 2. Look at verse 16 and I'm going to
read all the way down through 317. 2.16-3.17 2.16 says, Therefore
let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink,
or with regard to a festival, or a new moon, or a Sabbath.
These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs
to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting
on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about
visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not
holding fast to the head, who is Jesus Christ by the way, from
whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its
joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. May
the word be true to your ears today, because I don't have time
to preach every bit of this. If with Christ you died to the elemental
spirits of the world, That's a demonic issue there. Why, as
if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations
such as, do not handle, don't you taste that, don't touch that,
referring to things that all perish as they're used, according
to human precepts and teachings? Why do you do this? He says,
these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made
religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of
no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. If then you have
been raised with Christ, seek this command. Seek the things
that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of
God. Set your minds, another command,
on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear
with Him in glory. command. Put to death, therefore,
what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion,
evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account
of these the wrath of God is coming. In these, you too once
walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them
all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander,
obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing
that you have put off the old self with its practices and put
on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after
the image of its creator. Here, there is not Greek. Here,
the body of Christ, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised
and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ
is all and in all. Verse 12, our text for this morning.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate
hearts. Kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another,
and if one has a complaint against one another, forgiving each other
as the Lord has forgiven you. So you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let,
command, the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which
indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the
Word of Christ dwell richly, another command, teaching and
admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs with thanksgiveness in your heart. And whatever you
do in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Beloved, there's
a lot here. So let's clump verses 16-23 of
chapter 2 in and just review them. Don't do this. Don't worry
about it. Quit following these regulations
of Judaism. Quit being subject to the people
who make judgment of you because, like Peter, wouldn't eat the
food sacrificed to idols. A lot of different things because
these people felt that a higher standard of disallowing their
flesh to eat these things, or touch these things, or do these
things, that it made them more pious, that it made them more
spiritual, that it made them, in some sense, greater in the
eyes of God. This would be what we have termed
legalism. And Paul is saying right here,
this is legalistic. Don't do it. What is legalism?
Legalism, there's several definitions that have gone around through
the years, but ultimately it is a peculiar submission to God's
law that no longer has the divine touch of God's character. It is separating the Ten Commandments
from the heart of God. It is putting the instruction
of Scripture as the point rather than the person of God as the
point. Legalism, and I've been asked
about this this week, is to practice in some sense of tradition and
the law that are actually indulgences of the flesh. Because of what?
It makes our flesh feel better. Well, I would never eat grapes
or I would never eat yeast, or I would never, from a position
that it makes us right with God. It's a slavery to rigid abstinence,
rigid adherence to a rule that's not necessarily prescribed in
Scripture. Paul says this to the Colossians. It's the first
letter, if you will, in the New Testament that is Paul's first
letter. It's the first letter written
from a reformed position. to reform the church of Jesus
Christ, to understand the place of the law and the place of grace,
and to live accordingly. Paul says this in chapter 2 of
Galatians, starting at verse 18, he says, If I rebuild what
I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor of the law.
For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live
to God. I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who
live, but Christ who lives within me. Therefore, I live by faith
in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for me. So I
do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through
the law, then Christ died for no purpose. So legalism says
if I do these things, then my righteousness is secure. If I
do these things, then my righteousness is greater. If I do these things,
then God's pleasure of me from a position of justification or
salvation is more intact. It's adding to the grace of God
in any way. In the garden, God said, do not
eat. But when the snake asked Eve, she said, do not touch. Did God say not to eat? Surely,
did God say? She said, God said not to eat
nor touch lest we die. She lied. You know what that
is? Legalism. She added to the word of God.
She added to the law of God. The atmosphere of the law became
more important than the person of God. than the heart of Christ,
which is what the law is in the beginning, is the illustration
and the revelation of the holiness of God through which we love
God and know God and know the mercy of God. Because it is through
the law that we recognize our inability and our deadness by
the regeneration of the spirit that we see and we believe in
the finished work of Christ. Legalism produces, produces,
a knowing without wisdom. And it is an error and many people
hold to it, one because they may not be converted, but they
love to trust in their works and other people may hold to
it because they just don't know better. They've just not been
taught. Now you know that we've been
in Romans chapters 1-4 and we've been in John chapters 1-3 for
six months. And these are powerfully, powerfully
grace of own texts. It destroys every precept of
the obedience of the Jews, Paul and John. destroys it. So there has been some of you
say, well, what do we got? I mean, well, can we just sin
all we want to? I see the other side of that
coin is antinomianism. And that means no law. Some people
think that's okay. Just like some people think that
it's okay to, to, to hold people to something that the scripture
doesn't prescribe. Legalism is a damaging error. And we need
to learn how to combat it. And how we combat it is through
the Gospel. Legalism robs God of His glorious grace because
it adds to the work of Christ. It downplays the flesh as something
less evil than it really is, which we know, if we had to put
a label on it, which is Pelagianism. Because the flesh is not able
to satisfy God, is it? Legalism produces actions of
the flesh that it could appear glorious but may not be commanded
in scripture. Legalism seeks to justify one's
actions before men as if they are to God. Recent teachers, and I won't
go into this, but recent teachers, contemporary teachers just right
now, have suggested through their writing, et cetera, that we are
justified by faith alone and then saved in some other means
through obedient faith or a faithful obedience. Now, we won't go into
the details, but when we say things, I've used a word recently
that was ill-placed. didn't mean to use the term,
but it's exactly what our flesh does. We're always going to put
our foot in mouth, right? I don't like the way Converse
tastes, or Nike, or any other fancy shoe. No matter how cheap
or fancy the shoe is, I don't want to eat it. But we do. Why?
Because we're fleshly, fallible people. And unless we're walking
around with phylacteries that we could actually read, we're
probably not going to have the Word of God in us every second. And
then we'd be running into people. You'd think cell phone wrecks
are bad. Could you imagine? Having the Word of God there.
Legalism. But if you look then at chapter
3, if you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that
are above. So Paul sort of marks out, don't be legalistic. Don't
follow all these regulations that aren't set up for you. Don't
think that you're more righteous because you do these things.
And don't add burden to someone else that's not necessarily taught
in Scripture. That is legalism. But what's really crazy about
it is that when you get to chapter 3, verse 3, then all of a sudden
you start seeing Paul say what? You've been set free. Seek the
things that are above. Set your mind on the things that
are above. These are commands. And they're opposite to what
we do naturally in what? In our minds. They're not, it's
not natural, even as redeemed people, to walk around with spiritual
minds. It's not natural for us to walk
around in spiritual actions. It's still unnatural in the flesh. It's supernatural to walk around
in these ways. So that when we are able to do
what God has called us to do, when we're able to be what God
has called us to be, it is a supernatural work of God. It is not the work
of the flesh. But some people, because legalism
is so hard for them, and it's so hard to live under that type
of thing, if you have had parents or pastors or churches that teach
legalism as truth, what's the knee-jerk reaction to legalism?
Antinomianism, which is no law. I'm not following any command.
I'm not doing anything. I don't have to do it. Grace,
grace, grace, grace, grace. Because does not Paul says that
everywhere there's the trespass, grace abounds? But then does
not Paul ask the question in Romans chapter 6, so should we
continue in sin that grace may abound? Absolutely not. It cannot
be. It cannot be. It's impossible. But in sense,
antinomianism is actually legalism. Turned on its head. And the antinomian
actually becomes a legalist in itself. And so when we see these
verses here, put this on, think this way, these are commands.
And then he says, then take this off, don't do this, don't do
that, but do this. What are these? These are commands.
So we cannot come to an anti-law position. We cannot be antinomians
and follow the teaching of the apostles. That's silly. And we
cannot believe in the gospel of grace and be legalists. That's
silly. And it all boils down to what? It all boils down to
the power of man. It all boils down to we, in our flesh, if
it weren't for the Spirit of God, we would set our own religion,
we would set our own ways, and we would create our own law.
So, I just wanted to say those things. I wanted you to understand
what they meant, so that we would not frivolously use these terms
in ways that they should not be used. That we would not offend
each other by saying something that doesn't necessarily mean
what we mean. See, the legalist devours the
work of God and prohibits any working of the Holy Spirit. The
antinomian mocks the grace of God and devours the work of Christ
by ignoring the simple teachings of Scripture. When our children get their teeth,
do we put them there? Do they put them there? No. They
just grow. They grow in and then they have
teeth. Then what do we do? We say, well, there's teeth.
We teach them how to care for them, to floss, to brush, to
not eat certain foods that corrode teeth. The same thing is true
in our salvation. We are justified by faith as
long as it's the work of God, but then we have to be careful
to understand what God has not only empowered us, but commanded
us to do as God's people together. It's about the relationship we
have as the church. It's how we walk. It's how we live. It's how we interact and how
we relate and how we learn. See, the gospel is all of grace
and the instruction of the apostles are also by faith. So because
it's instructed there, we can put to death the flesh. We can take off the flesh. We
can take off our fleshly desires, our sinful conclusions, our assumptions,
our suspicions, envy, murder, strife. We can take them off
and we can put on the gospel of grace. We can put
on spiritual clothing. The scripture teaches us everywhere
we should be watchful. That last phrase there says,
for Christ is all and in all. You've put off the old self and
put on the new self. The scripture teaches us that
we're to be watchful, that we're to be careful. We're to see the
flesh when it rises up and we're to put it to death. It's interesting
how sometimes I know for me, I'm able to see each other. I'm
able to see other people's fleshliness a lot quicker than I am able
to see mine. And sometimes even my responses to your fleshliness
is fleshliness. Isn't that funny? Now, we in
my home want to teach our children to engage in conflict freely
and openly with set boundaries. We've always been able to allow
our children to speak freely. but with respect, especially
if they got older. Now, I'm not talking about, I
mean, as they got older. So they could teach them to reason,
teach them to understand how to interact. And it's always
tough the first few times that the child says to you when you're
getting on to them for something they've done, you know, you sinned
in the way you spoke to them. And, you know, you're envisioning
some Terminator movie or something going on in your head, big explosions. You know, buildings just going
everywhere, cars being tucked upside down because you're going.
But you remember, wow, out of the mouth of babes that can come
a review. We need to heed the word of God,
no matter what form it comes in. We need to listen and understand
that God has set us apart and that we are going to be in flesh.
and that we must put these things off. Our lives are hidden with
Christ. That's how we can do it. Because
we do not live, but Christ lives within us. We are not our own.
We together, if truly in the faith, are one body and necessary
by the grace of God for each other. We are necessary. We grow
in conflict. We mature in strife. We actually
learn to worship more intimately when we have to reconcile with
one another. I promise you. The Creator is renewing our knowledge
in His image this very moment. How? By teaching us the Scripture.
And so I want to talk now in the meat of my sermon. That was
a long introduction. But in the meat of my sermon, verse 12 of
chapter 3, I want us to look at this text. It's very simple.
But I want you to look at it through this mind. We're here
this morning to put into practice these things. I want you to hear
this. We're here this morning to learn,
to put into practice these things. And we don't have it in us to
put these things in. But the Word of God will teach
us. I'll read it again very quickly, 12-17. Put on then as God's chosen
ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness,
and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint
against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven
you. So you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the
peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were
called in one body, and be thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell
in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your
hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or
in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the Father through Him. Unpack this piece by piece. Put on them. See, Paul has just
instructed these people who might say, well, I've got so much grace,
I don't have to worry about what my life looks like or what my
heart looks like. No, no, no, no, no. Paul said, no, you got
to look at how your life looks. You got to look at how your heart
looks. You got to look at it. You know, one of the hardest
things to hear in life is when somebody has to correct us. I
hated it. I'd rather be run over by a tractor.
and nibbled on by possums than for my father to have to come
and call me about something. I'd rather have to face the devil
himself than for Nora and her fly flap when I was a child.
You know what a fly flap is, right? It's not a fly swatter,
it's a flapper. Or that godforsaken sound that
you hear when you're a child and you know you did something
wrong but you're hiding out and you hear... The sonic boom of every belt
loop being popped out of those pants. You don't want it, but you know
it's for your good. The Word of God disciplines us. The Word
of God corrects us. The Word of God grows us. The
Word of God empowers us to put on then. We can't go home and
say, OK, we're going to put on love today. Let's go put on some
love. How do we start? You know how
we start putting on love? When the opportunity not to love
is there. You know how we put on forgiveness? When the opportunity
to forgive is there. That's how we put it on. Patience,
you know the old adage, it's the old joke for 40 years, don't
ever pray for patience. You pray for patience and it's
like all you do is lose your patience. Because everything,
your cat bothers you. The drippy faucet in this bathroom
bothers you. Everything bothers you. You bother
you. I hate myself. I mean, you know,
I'm impatient with me. Patience. How can we be patient
when we have opportunity to be patient when the circumstances
speak otherwise? Put on then. This command requires
that we examine what is being taken off. What's the contrast?
Put on then means that we put on what's spiritual. It's like
dressing up for a job interview or dressing up for a funeral.
or dressing up some people for church. We don't do that here.
And it bothers some people's conscience when they visit. You
can always tell the couple who went on the internet, and they
never know, especially when we're in the building. They think we're
this big church because we record the sermons, and all they do
is they see my big head up on the video. They're like, man,
we need to go to this church. And they walk in, and they're like,
I've seen people drive around the parking lot before at the
other building. They know they're in the wrong. This must be their
utility shed. This is where they keep their air conditioning systems
or something. And you remember them, and they walk in the wrong
door, and you're like, yeah, Trans-Sydney, when they first
walked in, he's like, this, we made a mistake. And he had a
bowtie on and a coat, too. Wrong place. And they look, and
then there's been people who've told me after the service, we
just don't think y'all are for us. And I press, because I hate
that. Why? I want you to like me. I want you to love us. I want
you to come. I want you to grow. I want us to be together. It's
awful. And people peek in the window.
I'm like, Jesse, go, go. Somebody peeked in. I mean, go reach them
for the gospel and then bring them into the church. And if I didn't think that, if
I didn't have that heart, I wouldn't be your pastor. But we see them and they say,
well, you know, we just, we were looking for, you know, we just
think it's, Pastors ought not wear jeans. That's what one of
them told me one time. I am so sorry. You know? But you can't
think like that sometimes, but that's not the point of it. The
point is that there are expectations sometimes in certain areas of
life where we have to dress a certain way. Well, beloved, when we worship
together, we have to dress a certain way, not physically, but spiritually. Not physically, but spiritually.
We have to dress with the mind of Christ. We have to dress with
awe and reverence and wonder. We have to dress with expectation.
That's why that long introduction, I wanted you to have the right
mindset. We need to look like this text. And this putting on is not automatic.
They're part of the battle, the war against the flesh that Jesus
Christ is the victor. So put on. Then He calls us what?
God's chosen ones. God's chosen ones. Now, it's
easy to glaze over this. I'm going to preach for like
40 minutes today. No, I guess not. God's chosen
one, the elect. We are the elect of God. That
is the one term that the apostles use more than anything when addressing
the church of Jesus Christ. The elect or the chosen of God. Why? Because it explicitly details
the gospel of grace in just a phrase. And it's a reminder to the church
of who we are. Beloved, we didn't come and decide
to be the church, God bought us through the blood of Christ.
And God sent His Spirit that we might be His people and that
He would be glorified in it. And the fullness of our joy and
the satisfaction of our soul comes from knowing God snatched
us out of the domain of darkness and bought us on the cross of
Calvary. He bore our wrath on the cross
And Jesus is the one whom God loves without measure, and yet
He did it for you, that He might be glorified in His glorious
grace. If that's not enough right there to make us consider what
we put on every day spiritually, nothing is going to change your
mind. Nothing will bring repentance, a change of mind, if the fact that God chose you
doesn't change it. And the response to that, if
God doesn't change you through His Spirit, the response to that
is either you're going to be a legalist or you're going to
be an antinomian. Who is a legalist of his own creation? The question
is, are you the elect? Has God written this text to
you this morning? Is He speaking to your heart
this day as a saint? Or are you still lost in your
sin? Have you been regenerated? Are
you truly born of God? God chose to save you if you
are indeed in Christ. Are you able to heed and understand
the vital role of this teaching for the sake of your joy? For
the sake of the church? What is it that we are to put
on? What does it say? Let's look at them one at a time.
Compassionate hearts. What does it mean to have compassion?
Some people think it's compassion when you're watching a television. You know, I don't even know if
these come on anymore. commercials. I don't know if it's even come
on anymore, but you know the commercials where they show this little puppy?
It said, every day 4,000 puppies are lost. You know? And I'm not
making fun of puppies being lost, y'all. I think that's sad. I
wasn't being facetious either, sarcastic. I mean, it is sad.
I mean, some people have a love for animals and I don't want
to see anything suffer. I mean, I don't hunt anymore. I kill
a squirrel and I cry. I mean, and we skin him and sell
him and eat him. So, it's sad. But these commercials,
you know, they show this dog and somehow they get tears coming
out of his eyes. And they wallow him in the mud and they pull
his ear. And they put ice water on him so he's shaking, you know.
Puppies every day are lost without love. And then you're looking
at it and you're going, oh my gosh, I hate dogs, but look at
that sad little dog. And then they give you this toll-free
number to call for just 30 cents a day. You can feed this puppy. And some of us do it. Oh my God,
that's compassion. And it's misplaced. It's misplaced compassion. The
same thing is true with the children that we see on television. That's
not misplaced compassion. But it's still misplaced compassion
in the context of what Paul is teaching. Compassion for the
church. For each other. That means that
we should look at each other with a heart of pity. A heart of mercy. A heart of
true concern and understanding for people. Beloved, here's a
newsflash for you. If you look around the room,
it'd be cool if this was a big circle and I was standing in
the middle. It's an idea, huh? You got your
favorite seats? We're about to take them. And I would say to you, who is
easy to love? Point at them. You know who you'd
point to? Either yourself, right? Or the
person you don't know very well. That person's easy to love. You
know who's not easy to love? I'm not easy to love. I have
zero tolerance for some things. I won't tell you what those are
because I don't want to discourage you from talking to me. But I have zero
tolerance. How many of you have zero tolerance
for certain subjects and topics? Okay. Yay! I'm not alone. We're
all sinners. And I'm not making light of that.
I'm just saying we have our nuances. We have things that we don't
like. We have things that bother us. And it's easy to what? It's easy to attack a person
who's hard to love. The Bible says we have to put
on compassionate hearts. And especially in the context
of this verse is those who sin. Those who sin and we see their
sin. And you know what's crazy is that we all have sin. And
we all have sin of different varieties and different varying
degrees and different consequences. But because we all have sin,
we should look at each other with compassion because that's
what God did when He put our sin on Christ. That's what God
did when He put my guilt on Jesus Christ the righteous and He shoved
Him on the cross and He bled Him out and He died. It's not easy. Put on compassion
at heart. Secondly, put on kindness. See, we all think it's kind.
to do something nice. And it is kindness. And we should
be kind in serving one another with gifts of ministry. Helping
each other in our homes. Helping each other in our yards.
Helping each other with our finances. Helping each other with our depression
or problems or you know meals or whatever it might be. Teaching
the scripture. Kindness though by definition
is having the right attitude toward those who don't deserve
it. And we don't deserve it. So we
all want kindness, right? Listen, my nickname in Virginia
was The Prophet. You want to take a guess why?
Because I was difficult to be around. If you think that I am
this way in the pulpit sometimes with the preaching, imagine when
I'm talking to you if I've talked that way. If I got loud and animated
and you had to back up because I was hurting your hearing aid.
Not because I was mad, I just, my personality is so I would
tell. You're the prophet. I was the prophet because I opened
the Bible. Somebody come in there and say, Pastor, you know, so-and-so
didn't get the trash out. I'm like, what does the Bible
say about it? Ah! Quit complaining! I mean, you
know. And my wife and friends and others would tell me, you're
hard to deal with. You're impossible to be around.
We can't even blink. Did you blink for the glory of
God? Did you burp for the glory? Did you thank God for that meal
that caused you to belt? I mean, you know, and I'm using
extremes in that sense, but that's who I was and it was difficult.
And there were people who were kind to me, though I didn't deserve
it. People who were compassionate. People who sat down with me instead
of charging me as this wicked man. You need to straighten your
butt out like I was doing. They came to me with compassion.
What is wrong? Can we help you? Something's
wrong. You know what? I was very depressed and I hated
myself and I hated life and I hated ministry. And I hated everything
about everything I was doing. I hated it. And that was a sin. But it's where I was. Kindness
and compassion. Sometimes Christians can be hurtful
and ill-hearted and unkind. And we want to say, well, you're
not a Christian. And then we're thinking, well, that's unkind. How about ask people what's happening? Meekness. Meekness. This is a
foreign thing for us today. What in the world? The meek shall
inherit the earth. And everybody says, oh, I don't want it. I don't want meek. What does
it mean? It means to be gentle. It doesn't mean to be, you know,
a coward. But who is Jesus? Jesus was God
who at any given moment could blink for the glory of Himself
and eradicate the cosmos with a word. And He didn't. He cries to the cross, Father
forgive them for they know not what they do. Meekness does not ask for its
own way, but it dies for the lesser. Patience, we've already
brought this up, why? Because it's one of the biggest
problems, right? I defined patience last week as how I teach my children
what patience is, is that waiting without complaining. Waiting
for what? Anything. And in this context,
waiting for people to get their lives together. Waiting for people
to stop complaining. Waiting for people to stop sinning.
Waiting for people to grow up. Waiting for people to mature.
Waiting for people. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.
It's always something to wait on. There's a Taco Bell opening
up in Claxton. Beloved, you're going to wait
if you go to that thing. Go to Hardee's for a quick biscuit.
That's not fast food. That's, I don't know what that
is. That's mail order food. And we get impatient. What do
we do? They come out. Would you move up there? Would you go across
the street to the dollar store? And there's a line of people
waiting on you. And what do we do? We get mad. Driving around
in big cities. Go to Atlanta. Go to LA. Go to Oakland. You're driving
around and you're impatient. Why? Because you get sick and
tired of having to deal with the people around you who aren't
doing and driving the way that they ought to drive because you're
the expert driver. And if everybody would just be like you, then
things will be well in the world. We can sing, it is well, it is
well in my car. I mean, patience, bearing. What does patience look like?
In this way, verse 12, patience is bearing with one another. Bearing. I don't know if you've
ever worked out with heavyweights. I have. I used to tie heavy weights
around my ankles. I used to do pull-ups so that
I could do amazing feats with my fingers when I bouldered.
I could hang by my fingertips. I enjoyed that. I used to do
a lot of weight lifting and now I have arthritis in every joint
of my body. I enjoyed it. But it's terrible to bear the
weight of things. It hurts. Jesus Christ bore the
sin of His people on His shoulders. Jesus Christ bore the wrath of
God that was ours to hold. Jesus Christ bore shame and reproach
that was not His to bear. We can bear with one another.
We can carry the burden of people who we have no patience for humbly. because patience is bearing with
one another. It's holding the fire. It's holding
the heaviness. It's standing under the oppression
for those who are like us. The one another is dealing with
the church of Jesus Christ. He's not talking about it. I'm
not saying that we don't bear the burdens of the world, but
friends, God commands us to bear the burdens of each other. That
is not a positive statement. It doesn't say hold hands with
one another like a Coke commercial. Robin was reminding me last night
of some of the songs we used to sing in our early days of ministry.
You're my brother, you're my sister. I'm like, do we even
say that? No. No, I'm so glad I'm a part
of the family of God. You know? Or this one that came
to mind. He's Still Working on Me. You remember that one? Trey
never heard that. And there's a lot of just happy-go-lucky,
skip-down-the-road songs about fellowship and unity, but guess
what? Those are lies. Those are lies. Those are lies. The body of Christ on earth is
not a happy go long, skip down the road, merrily along our way
existence. It is a, hey, let's link arms
because we're about to fall off a cliff. I mean, you know, somebody's
about to die. And then the guy in the middle
goes, I'm so sick of carrying this weight. And half the church goes
that way and the other half flies off that way. And it's like a
bad acrobatics show. We bear with those who are like
us. And we do it with patience. Patience
is bearing one another in love and then forgiving one another.
What does forgiveness actually look like? The same way it looks
for God today to look at you and know everything about you.
And to know everything that you've done and everything that you
will do. And know the core of your DNA is wickedness. And then
He stands there and He looks at you and He says, you are innocent
of all these things because Christ paid them all. And the devil says, hey, remember
James? He's maniacal. He's aggravating. He's irritating.
He's not so kind. And Jesus Christ, the advocate,
says, no, I was aggravating in his place. I took his aggravation.
I took the sin of his. I took the sin. I took the sins
in the Father's life. He's innocent. He's been paid. That's forgiveness.
You know how forgiveness really is tested in our lives when we're
driving home from church? Or we're driving to work. Or
we're driving anywhere. Because you know, when we're
driving, we think a lot, don't we? That's when I really get
to thinking. I miss exits and just drive to a different state.
I don't know. So the GPS, even if I know where
I'm going, am I supposed to go somewhere? And we think about
it. And when things come up and when
people, we don't think about things, do we? We don't think
about conversation. We think about people. And when
people come to mind, and all of a sudden we've got our grips
on the steering wheel a little bit tighter, and they're like,
why's my hand, oh, I just stabbed myself on my fingernails. That's
unforgiveness. That's how it fleshes out. Was that a neck I was holding?
I mean, you know. Sorry. And we're guilty. Unforgiveness.
And you know what the Lord does when we recognize that? He reminds
us of the gospel of grace, and we're able to go, wow, boy, I
have not been forgiven. So I put on forgiveness. I put
on patience by bearing and forgiving. We don't hold grudges. We're
unified. God forgives us of all of our evil. We also should forgive
others of their evil. And this verse 14, beyond all
these things, put on love. Beyond all these things. That
means everything that I've just taught you, The most important
aspect is love. Love, remember we talked about
in the beginning, is a sacrificial thing that causes pain. Love
hurts us, it hurts us, it hurts us. But love, according to this
text, binds all of these things together. Because some of us
are good enough in our ability to be professional human beings
to put on the air of patience, the air of forgiveness, the air
of all this other stuff, bearing, and we can act in front of each
other as if that's really who we are. But deep down, if it's
not love, none of those things are really there. If it's not
love, none of those things are really there. So when someone
offends us, even wrongly, we love them. We don't go after
them. We don't come in and, you know,
you hurt me and I hate you. You may feel that way, but hey,
have a little bit of adulting in us. Don't say it. Put it to
death. And the unity that comes from
this is the work of God. All this love seeks to put all
these things on for the sake of others, even when we're offended,
even when we're hurt, even when they're not patient with us.
Friends, if I'm not patient with you, you still have to be patient
with me. And then you should, of course,
teach us. and teach each other that we
should be patient. See, we cannot worship God without these qualities.
No matter what we feel or think, we cannot worship God. Look at
these commands here. Let the peace of Christ rule
your hearts. You might be asking the question, how can I worship
in this way? How can I be this way relationally? And the command
is, let the peace of God rule in your hearts. What does it
mean to let? It's a command. The peace of
God is to rule in your heart. So God has commanded this for
His saints. We are able to do these things by putting off the
old man of unforgiveness and impatience and unlovingness.
And we're to love. Why? Because Christ loves us.
It's the gospel of grace that we focus on. He's already said
in chapter 2, put your minds on the things that are above
and where Christ is, where He sits. You know what you cannot
do when you're sharing the gospel with a lost person? Be upset
with your neighbor. Be upset with your spouse. Be
unforgiving in your heart. You can't do it. Because you're
sharing the gospel of grace and forgiveness, and then all of
a sudden, how dare you go back and turn the switch on. Peace rules. This is the governor of our soul.
It is what we yield to, which is the peace of Christ, which
is the gospel of God. This is not our flesh and our
feelings or our fears. This is not yielding to our circumstances
or to the chaos around us, but it's yielding to the peace which
rules us and the product of peace is tranquility with ourselves
and tranquility with God and tranquility with each other.
Do you know if you don't have peace in your heart with somebody
else in this life, you do not have peace with God and Christ. That's a tough thing to say,
isn't it? I said, oh my goodness, what
do you mean? Well, the peace of Christ that rules us, we're
beloved, we're the elect, so the peace of God in the context
of judicially salvation is ours, we can't lose it. But friends,
I mean, how dare we be at odds and have enemies with the brethren
and then pretend that we're at peace with God in a relational
way? Intimate way, through prayer and service How do we serve one
person while hating another and say this to the glory of God?
It doesn't work. So the peace of God is the reminder that we are at peace with God
through Jesus Christ so that this truth rules our conscience. So that we are able to say, when
so many people lose their peace, when conflict arises, it's because
they are not at that moment believing or trusting in their flesh, and
they're not believing in the peace of Christ. They're not
believing that God has ordained and can equip them to overcome
these circumstances. He has done so. And we sometimes,
we look sometimes for what we call circumstantial perfection,
but it's impossible. But to sit there and say, but
because it's impossible, we're not going to do anything. We're
not going to try to work out anything. That's just as evil.
We work with each other. We care for each other. We want
to labor and do all that we can for the sake of peace. Because
it is the name of God that is at stake, not our name. Grace,
truth, church by name is nothing. Jesus Christ is the banner. Jesus
Christ is the name. And the Word of God gives us
what we need. Peace is the opposite of war.
And how do we know we have peace? Look at what it says with thanksgiving.
See, thanksgiving is the outcome of the lack of bitterness, the
lack of indifference, the lack of dissatisfaction. When Christ's
peace rules over us, we're able to be thankful for the problems,
even, and for those who hurt us. And in verse 16, He commands,
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Let the Word of
Christ dwell in you richly. So the peace of Christ is ours
that governs us because it's the gospel of grace that governs
us. And the Word of God dwells in us richly teaching and admonishing
one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Let the Word of
Christ dwell in you richly. This means that the Scripture
is the power through which the Lord works. It is the Scripture
that teaches us about the work of Christ. It is the Scripture
that reminds us of the gospel of grace. It is the Scripture,
sola scriptura, that governs every piece of peace, every aspect
of peace in our life. It is the Scripture. So if we're
able to sit down under the Word of God, God can correct us, God
can instruct us, God can equip us, and God can bring peace between
us. Teaching, admonishing. What is teaching? We teach each
other the Word of God. Just like today, I'm teaching you the Word
of God, you're learning the Word of God, but you're also able
then to go and teach each other. You're able to teach yourself,
you're able to teach your kids, you're able to teach your spouse,
you're able to teach your neighbor, you're able to teach each other. It's
always beautiful to be able to say, hey, remember what we learned
last week? Let's put it into practice. Let's put it into practice. Admonishing, by definition, means
a warning against the consequences of not listening to teaching.
What's the warning? A lack of peace. You want peace
in your heart? You want to quit being fearful?
You want to quit being offended? It's about the Gospel through
the Scripture. We admonish one another. And
I speak of intimacy, and many people don't like it. They want
a false unity and say, well, we're all sitting in the same
chair, so that's intimate enough. My friends, when we want intimacy,
it comes with the good, the warm and the cuddly, the sweet, and
all of the good puppies that aren't starving and lost. And
it comes with the nasty. It comes with the dirty. It comes
with the broken. It comes with the pain. Intimacy comes. The
difference is that as the church, we don't delight in the world.
We confront it, we stay humble, we stay patient, and we trust
that the Lord will work through it. And He will. So we admonish,
we should desire the instruction of God's Word in all wisdom.
Who is Jesus Christ? And all of the instruction and
admonishment, the teaching, it produces the aforementioned characteristics. It produces in us patience and
kindness and love. It produces, the Word of God
teaches us these things and the Spirit of God produces these
things for us. You might ask, then how does
this happen? Anything to do with worship? right here. How are
we, unless we all have positions of teaching in the church, able
to do this? Paul is so clear that when we
gather together in worship, that we're doing it for each other.
He even shows that even when we sing, we're doing it for each
other. We sang A Mighty Fortress this morning. Some odd language
in there. I mean, what's a bulwark for
those of you who don't read older language or older books? We see the singing that comes
through that and we hear the words of that and we hear each
other's voices singing that. We're singing about God and to
God and we're singing for each other. We're singing for each
other because we're enriched, we're blessed. When I step away
from the microphone up there and I can hear your voices, I'm
richly blessed by the teaching that you give me when I hear
your voice singing the truth. That's why we don't sing frou-frou
songs. We don't sing what they call that 7-11 song, 7 words
11 times, that kind of stuff. We sing deep, rich, theologically
contextual songs. And there's some that I don't
like, but they're so true I just put up with them, because my
taste is different than all of you probably. But how we're able to teach and
admonish with the Word of God richly dwelling in us is that
we sing spiritual songs together. And a song is not something you
can fake. You can't fake a song. When do
we sing when we're happy? When do we sing when we're joyful?
When do we sing when we're depressed but a song might give us a little
bit of lifting of our spirits? What did Paul and Silas do when
they were arrested and thrown in chains? They began to proclaim,
Touch not thine anointed, the Lord will smote you. No, they
sang songs of hymns to God. Why? Because their heart was
full of thanksgiving. Singing is a product of thanksgiving.
Singing is a product of the gospel. Singing truth is a product of
our intimacy with God. And it is only possible in truth
and in spirit because we have intimacy with each other. We
sing and we communicate this truth. And in doing so, we feed
the church together. We feed each other with thanksgiving.
We sing and worship from the Word of God, and we sing and
worship for each other's worship, admonishing and teaching through
the singing of songs. And we do so because it is a
command. And we also sing and worship to God for the sake of
His name. Verse 17, as we close today, and it says, And whatever
you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Now, beloved, I
could have I could go on and on and on and pull out some deep
things out of this text. But I think the truth of what
I've tried to communicate today through the Word of God is sufficient.
And I have to trust in His Word to do the teaching that is required
for us as a people. And I want you to know beyond
all things that this is not lip service that I'm giving you.
When I say I love you, it means that I sacrifice my life for
the sake of your joy. I sacrifice my lifestyle for
the sake of your joy. I sacrifice my time for the sake
of your joy. There is no accolades in being
a minister of the gospel. There is no public fame that
comes from being a preacher of God's word. There is no love
in this world for exposition. And so when I say I love you,
I love you in many ways. And when there is things that
come into our midst that we are not able or willing to sit down
and deal with through the Word of God, it grieves my soul. And it makes me understand what
Paul meant when he said, Have I come to you in vain? But the
Lord's Word is true, and I thank you above all things for the
honor and the respect for the Word of God that you've shown
this morning by your presence. for the honor and the respect
that you show each other by your submission to the Word of God.
And friends, we will see days that hurt. We will see days that
cause calamity. We will see times when we feel
like the world is crashing down around us and nobody understands
us and nobody gets us and nobody understands how hurt we are.
But friends, if we can just put to death that flesh long enough
to praise God, in the peace of the Gospel and come together
under His Word, He will heal all of it. And if He doesn't,
then God lied. But God cannot lie. So if it
doesn't come together, then who's at fault? We are. If I fail to
teach rightly, it's my fault. If you fail to listen, it's your
fault. We are in this together. And
I want us to truly This byline is not something that I thought,
well, that sounds quippy. But to be a people for His glory,
by His grace, because God gets the credit for it all. Soli Deo
Glorio. And that's what we're here for.
Let's pray. Father, we are humbled by the
teaching of Scripture this morning. Lord, You hear us. You hear what's
not happening. You hear what is in the silence
of our hearts. And Lord, I thank you for that.
I thank you that you can know everything about me, even that
that I cannot know, and that you can love me anyway, and that
you can love me to the point that you will give my sin debt
to Jesus Christ. And so, Father, as we close our
service today and as we have a short meeting afterward, Father,
I pray that you would be honored in it and glorified in it. Lord,
we continue to pray for each other. We thank you for that
train. We praise you, Lord. We know
that all that we have experienced and will experience is for our
good and for your glory and for the sake of your name. And we
long to love each other more intimately, and only you can
bring that. Only you can bring intimacy to the point that you've
called us to. So help us rest and be satisfied
in the peace that is Christ's, a peace that is ours in Christ,
and help us to love each other with all the affection of Christ.
In Jesus' name.