Finding the copy of scriptures,
1 Thessalonians, chapter five still. We're going to finish up through
verse 22 today and then get into those final instructions, part
two, which is the doxology, which is deep and beautiful. Maybe
a couple more weeks. Look at verse 12, we'll just
read down through verse 22 just to get the context in our ears. We ask you, brothers, to respect
those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and
admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of
their work. Be at peace among yourselves.
And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted,
help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays
anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another
and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without
ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the spirit, do
not despise prophecies, but test everything, hold fast to what
is good, abstain from every form of evil. Let's keep going. Now
may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and
may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. Brothers,
pray for us. Greet all the brothers with a
holy kiss. I put you under oath before the Lord to have this
letter read to all the brothers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you. Well, it's um, wow, that's just
powerful, isn't it? Make you want to dance. Does
that make you want to dance? I hope it does. Now may the Lord,
may the God of peace sanctify you completely, and may your
whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because we hear these exhortations,
we hear this admonishment, we hear these warnings, we hear
these encouraging things, and we think, there's no way I can
do this, which is a good thought. There is no way that any of us
here could ever accomplish the sanctification that is required,
could ever stand as the picture of righteousness that is commanded. We will never be able to stand
before God or any other human being that has ever lived or
ever will live and say, look at what I've become. Let me show
you how I did it. but rather every person that
stands complete and righteous in Jesus Christ does so as a
testimony of His grace, of His power, of His ability, of His
providence, of His sovereignty, that He satisfied the judgment
of God against us. He paid the sin debt that was
ours to pay. And in His power, He made us
alive and gave us new hearts, new minds, new hopes, new lives,
and an eternal life that can never perish, never fade. The
worms will never eat it. Rust will never destroy. And
for that, we're eternally grateful. And in return of an eternal life,
in response to an eternal grace, is an eternal worship that we
will give gladly, joyfully, fully, forever, and ever, and ever. And we always will do that because
we know that there is nothing within us, any fiber of our flesh,
that can accomplish that which God has purposed for us. Friends,
it boggles my mind that how long I believed in a man-centered
salvation and didn't know it. You ever thought about that?
For those of you who came to the doctrines of grace through the
word of God, midstream, see people who, people like our Presbyterian
friends who are just grow up in it, they're like, nah, it's
just old hat for so many. But when we southern Baptist
types, when we very powerful evangelical types come to see
the sovereignty of God in election, the sovereignty of God in salvation,
the sovereignty of God through the preaching and the sending
and the preservation of His Word, the sovereignty of God in righteousness,
the sovereignty of God in obedience, the sovereignty of God in the
giftedness of faith, they're like, I mean, it's just unbelievable. And we think, how long was my
joy incomplete? How long did I live in this life
pressured to be something that I could not be? How long did
I take the grace of God lightly and try to effectually work out
my salvation in myself? How long did I continue to point
back to the hope of the date, to the hope of the prayer, to
the hope of the isle, to the hope of whatever I did to show
God I meant business? How long that I put my hope in
things that have no hope. To see the truth of the Gospel,
that God certainly and perfectly and eternally saves, that God
through Jesus Christ effectually calls all of His own, and we
who hear the Gospel and believe worship God for that mere gift
that we thought was ours to exercise, we then realize that seeing and
believing was all the work of God. We rest better at night. We pray more fervently. We evangelize
more freely. We realize we don't have to be
the trained, but rather God is faithful to keep us blameless. And we see these exhortations,
don't do this, do this, be this, walk this way, think this way,
and we're like, ugh. And it should cause that friction.
We should sit here under the teaching of the Word, hopefully
prayerfully. This is not the first time you've
heard this this week. Hopefully that the Word of God
has not been absent from your souls this week. Hopefully you're
not using gum more frequently than you use Scripture. But as we get together and we're
reminded of these things that God has surely shown us, we are
enamored with praise. We are overwhelmed with gratitude. We are awestruck with power,
knowing that God is effecting this stuff in us, and that our
work in it is to believe in His work in us. And even that is
a work of Him. It's too simple to be true. It's too simple to be so powerful. Certainly there must be some
other task we must approach or we must do in order to approach
God in this way. Friends, that's the beauty of
it. That's the definition and the example and the illustration
of what grace is all about. Grace abounds only to those who
cannot attain it. Grace abounds only to those who
are unworthy of it. Jesus says, I came to seek and
save the lost. He did not say, I came to try
to save. He didn't say, I came to try
to find, hope I do, wish upon a star. Oh Lord, if it's possible,
could we please save all of your people? Jesus is very clear. I came to seek, and I will find,
and I will save. All that the Father give to me,
all that the Father give to me will come to me, and all who
come to me I will never cast away. The life that we live this
very day, beloved, is for the mere purpose of giving glory
to God the Father. Everything we do, whether we're
a brickmason, a nurse, a doctor, a bum, or whatever we might be,
we are to give glory to God in it all. We are to live in this
world in preparation for an eternal weight of glory that is beyond
all comparison, as God's name will be praised for the work
that He has done in an unworthy people. We gather this day to
be fed and to be equipped. I read out of Ephesians before
the service. And friends, Paul tells us that
the teachers of the Word of God are here for the local assembly
in order to equip them to do the work of the ministry. So
when we gather together, we're not just equipped to worship,
we're not just acquainted with each other through prayer and
intimacy, but we're being equipped through the Word of God to recognize
the great power of God in us so that we might be able to be
effectually ministering to each other. And friends, this is something
that our culture, the United States of America church culture,
has not only forgotten, but passionately resists. Do you understand that
unity requires intimacy? And intimacy requires vulnerability. And vulnerability requires accountability. In many ways. Think about these
things. Understand that we are to be
a people that display the power of God alone. And that none of
us should be esteemed as more able than others. To say that
that which I struggle with is unable to be overcome is to say
that God is not powerful enough. To say that my sin has choked
me and I cannot escape it is to say that God cannot take it
away. Because is it not the work of
God? Here we see these things written so clearly. But if we're
not careful, we will infuse a Oh gosh, what's the word I want
to say here? I want to be careful. A veiled understanding of this
text. We'll want to supply this text
as for those who hate the Word of God, like we preached about
last week. Those who despise the teaching of God's Word. And
we'll see the test everything in verse 21. Do not despise prophecies,
but test everything. That's where we are today. Hold
fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
There's the thought for today. And if we're not careful, we'll
apply this text to those who do such things. Do you know them?
Yes, we know them. We have lists. People pop into
our minds, oh yeah, that guy, that gal, they don't like the
Word of God, they don't want to hear the preaching. You know, that
false teacher, I heard him on the radio today, that's who this
text is talking about. Listen, this text is talking
about me. And this text is talking about you. And this text is not
only talking about us, it's talking to us. It was written to the
Thessalonians for us. So we hear God's word this very
day as it spoke to these Christians over two millennia ago, it also
speaks to us with the same authority and with the same power. So that
as we hear God's word, let's not impose this text on our neighbor,
but first apply it to ourselves. Do I despise the word of God
Do I hear things that are taught, for example, my teaching on ecclesiology,
the church, my teaching on the called out gathering of the body
of Christ is so foreign in mainland Christianity in our country,
it's opposed. Because everyone has gathered
themselves up, teachers, who like to actually do, sort of
purvey and perpetuate what I was taught in seminary. This is what
the church looks like. This is what polity looks like.
Here's a checklist for this. Here's a checklist for that.
Here's a flanagraph. I had flanagraphs when I was
in seminary. Flanagraph to show you what it's supposed to look
like. Here's how you do the Lord's table. What you want to do is
the big A. You want to assimilate people,
give them ownership, plug them in. You plug in a coffee maker. You put a toilet in its place,
where it's supposed to be, and all the fixtures that go with
it. A toilet can only go in one place, and that's where the plumbing
meets. Why is that on? Because I put two of them in
this week. Well, I put the plumbing in for
two of them. Three times, two toilets. Y'all have had some
plumbing problems this week too. There's nothing that the devil
works in more than plumbing. And neighbors. But that's not what we do in
the church. We don't find the hole. I mean, this has a purpose.
This has a purpose. This works to keep spit off of
this and keep wind from being too bad and, you know, to keep
the germs from everybody who uses it so the kids come up here
and, you know, it's just a good test on sanitation. But as a
person, that's the only place that fits. We don't treat each
other in the church like that. We don't assimilate and plug
people. We don't create opportunities for ministry based on the felt
needs of each other, based on the giftedness of each other.
I've heard more times than not, people would say, well, I just
don't have a place among Grace Truth. I don't know what I should
do. I don't really have a skill. Praise God. Your haughty arrogance
won't get in the way. You just be the body, love the
body, learn with the body, live with the body, and to the praise
of His glorious grace, and come on a work day and help me put
in toilets. I mean, whatever it takes. Feed
us when we're hungry, pray for us when we need prayer, encourage
us when we're doing right, rebuke us when we're doing wrong, kick
us in the butt when it needs to happen. That's our job. And we all have the same role.
We all have the same responsibility in most things. And then some
of us, God calls to different things, different roles. Some
of us are gifted in different ways. Some of you have discerning
spirits. We should all be discerning,
but some of you have the ability to, that doesn't look right,
sound like, taste right. Something's wrong with that.
That's discernment. Be able to look through and see
the root of a claim or a truth or a thought. And the church,
if it's not together, can really run into many, many directions. And as we see, this do not despise
prophecies, verse 21, but the contrast is we don't just despise
all teaching because we heard some bad teaching. You know,
you go, I mean, I'm guilty of this. Somebody says, hey, did
you hear that pastor so-and-so from such-and-such Baptist church?
I automatically think heretic. I mean, I automatically think
that. Why? Because he's still in a big wooden
pulpit, the way I used to have, you know? You gotta have a clear
one. This is the cool way to do it. It's wobbly and it will
break. But, I'm being funny, but in reality, I mean, I automatically,
you have to prove to me that a man of God is sound, because
when I hear somebody say, go listen to this sermon, I automatically
think they've gotta be a heretic. Surely there's no sound preacher
anywhere within a thousand miles. I mean, of course there are,
especially when they're really passionate about it. Or a book.
This is what really drives me crazy. People that won't read
the Bible to save their own lives, but yet they'll read five books
that were recommended to them at Walmart. You walk by, there's
a Christian section. What is it about like this? Oh,
wow, I know my place in ministry. I read the book about God coming
into a little shack. And I rode 16 miles on my bicycle
that day to go buy that book and read it within just a few
hours because somebody was so excited about God because they
read the shack. And so now that anybody, oh,
have you read that book on atonement? No, it's probably bad. I mean,
that's sort of the same mindset. Just because we've had some bad
teaching doesn't mean that we throw away all teaching. If we're
in the body of Christ and we're looking to edify each other and
to grow each other, if there's good things to learn from other
places, then by golly, we share them. If there's good books to
read, we share them, but we need not throw them all away because
most of the books out there are bad or most of the sermons out
there are bad, but we look at it and we discern. And let me
tell you how you don't discern a book. Just as a side note,
don't look at who supported it on the back, because my name's
on the back of a bunch of books. I've never read them. That's
what they do, they call you, hey, would you endorse my book?
I'm like, dude, I don't know what that book's about. Well,
let me send you a snippet. And they send you a paragraph,
and so you write to that paragraph, and my book reviews, or whatever,
are usually several pages, and they pull out the one line. See
what I mean? Well, the work that this guy
did on justification is absolutely fantastic, except where... This
is the greatest I've ever read on justification. I mean, I don't
do those things anymore because they will take... It doesn't
matter if J.R. Packer or John MacArthur or whoever
put it on the back of the book. They probably haven't read the
whole thing. And you sign a little contract,
yeah, you can use my statements in your book. Doesn't matter. That's how it works. So, you don't discern a book,
you have to look at it. But how are you gonna have discernment?
How are you gonna test everything? And that's what this sermon's
about today. How do we test everything, hold to the good, and get rid
of the bad? How do we do that? What does the word test mean
there? The better translated word would be prove. Prove everything. Prove everything not test it
because I mean we could tell what are we testing for we testing
for gold We're testing for dirt. We're testing for germs. We're
testing for strep throat. What are we testing for? We're proving
everything. We're not despising all preaching
all truth claims We're not despising the Word of God as it comes to
us every single time, but every single time we're proving it
as true That's what Paul's arguing here. We're proving this as true. And if it's not true, it's what
false and And then we hold to that which is good, and then,
next phrase, abstain from everything that is evil. Well, we learned
by verse 19 not to quench the Spirit. Don't put water, or better
way of putting it for the church, don't resist. what the Spirit
teaches. Don't resist the Spirit when
God gives you an answer. James chapter 1, if anyone lacks
wisdom, what should he do? Pray, and the Lord gives wisdom. And then what do we do in that
wisdom? We stand firm in it. God, what shall I do? I don't
know what to do. Oh, there's a clear answer. I
don't like that answer. Lord, what shall I do? It's like,
which door do we want? That's not how the Lord works.
God's Word does never contradict Him. God's Word never comes in
opposition to that which is clearly commanded. So God's will and
God's direction that we receive, that's clearly indicated in the
Word, is not the answer from God, but rather the flesh and
most certainly the enemy of God. So we've got to be able to prove
everything we hear. The Spirit, of course, as we
learn, teaches. He illuminates. The Spirit of
God gives us the wisdom and the sight and the hearing and the
senses to receive truth and to understand it as truth. That's
how you know if I say something really off right now, that even
if you can't put your finger on why, you know it's a little
off. Now, if you don't always trust that, how do we test that?
By the Word. Well, I don't, that didn't sound right. Oh, okay,
the word justified that or clarified that. Well, the word contradicted
what pastor just said. We better sit down. Please do
sit down. Don't Facebook it. Sit down. Let's talk about it. The spirit
teaches and in that same way, the spirit gives us discernment.
As we saw, I think Jesse in a couple of weeks ago, opened up the service
with 1 John 4. Test the spirits. The question
on Tuesday night came, I think, from you, Julie, about testing
the spirits. Now, what does that mean? What
is the spirit of things? Well, every claim, every bit
of information comes from two sources. Comes from the goodness
of God, or comes from the wickedness of the world. From the enemy.
So if I'm teaching, if someone else is teaching, if we hear
something, the Spirit of God within us gives us the discernment
to test whether what we're hearing or seeing or learning is actually
biblical. Is it biblical? We learn from
God through the Spirit. Therefore, we learn God by the
Spirit. And in so doing, we know truth. Jesus says that the Spirit of
God will guide you to what? all truth. So, what is truth
then? If we're going to prove everything
is true, we need to ask ourselves very quickly, what is truth?
Now, for the philosophers in the room, forgive me, because
dogma and philosophy don't go together. It just doesn't work. I mean, I like to theorize, I
like to contemplate. Well, I'm not even gonna tell
you. Right now, I'm looking into some
chemical compounds with Zyrtec to see if the compound for the
over-the-counter Zyrtec, the generic, is the same as the,
because it doesn't work the same. Something's different. I'm interested. So I've emailed some doctors,
some chemists. I've got friends who are chemists.
Check on this. Look at this. Why? Because I just like to know
things. I want to know. I want to know everything. I'm
the kid that in my third grade year, I read four sets of encyclopedias
when they were in print form. Loved it. Loved it. I wish we could have some more
encyclopedias. I love those things. Anyway, truth. What is truth? without getting into an incredibly
long, boring lecture, let's just define truth in a way that we
can all agree upon. Truth, if it, truth, if it be
truth, is absolute. You with me? So if something
is true, that means it's not just true for me or true to me,
it's true. And that at no time in any point
in history can it not be true. Otherwise, it's not true. And the truth, this is something
that used to get me in trouble when I was a kid, is the truth, no
matter what you think the truth is, no matter what you wholeheartedly
believe in, the truth of the matter is still the truth of
the matter. The truth of the claim is still the truth of the
claim. And I remember being 13, 14 years of age and dialoguing
with my parents and saying stuff like that where the truth is
the truth no matter what you think the truth is. Well, your brother
said you did such and such. Well, my brother's a liar. The
truth is this. Well, you may be right, son,
but now I'm gonna paddle you. I mean, you know, don't talk
back to me. The truth is absolute. So all
things are either true or untrue. Can we go there in a simplistic
way without getting into the philosophy of things and argument,
rhetoric, logic, all that? Let's just be fundamentalists
for just a few more minutes. Sorry, I had to go there. Or
like I heard today, hardshell. Must be hardshell. And let's
just say that that works when it comes to the things of God.
And I say that if it comes that way for the things of God, if
it comes that way from the context of theology or scripture or the
written word, then doesn't it parallel in reason to say that
God, that He is imminent and transcendent, that everything
in life then is either true or a lie? You might say that the
Garden of Eden, when Lucifer, through the serpent, spoke to
Eve and said a truth, did he not? He asked a question related
to the truth of what God had ordered and commanded. Did God
surely say you would die? Now, for Eve, it was not truth
that God had said that. Think about it for a second.
It was not true for Eve, because Eve didn't hear it from God. Eve heard it from Adam. So, for Eve, she's thinking,
Don't know if it's true. It's not true for me. So the
truth of God's commands for Eve was we're relative at that point
Maybe Adam is just telling me these things So all it took was
just that little bit of doubt and then all of a sudden everything
else that the devil said Eve just flowed down it like a river
Then he told her some other truths. He told her some truths and that
were half-truths, which makes them lies. And the truth was,
see, God knows that these trees are good for the body and to
make one wise. And He knows that if you eat
of them, you will be like Him. All true statements. Every one
of them. God knows these trees will give
you knowledge that you don't have. God knows that you'll be
like Him if you eat of this fruit. And that was true! How would
they be like God? Because they'd know good and
evil. They would know evil. God knew
evil. So in that way, they would be like God in that they knew
evil. They comprehended it. But yet
it wasn't true, was it? So, If something is partly true,
like a sign that I saw once on someone's desk, if it's almost
right, it's wrong. There's no gray area in life.
Now there's grace, which is what? Not gray, but true. Grace comes
when the truth is we are condemned in our actions no matter how Heroic they may be or good they
may be to the common good. If they're wrong, they're wrong.
No matter how justified they may be in our certain circumstances,
like the man who robbed people's freezers three years ago because
his children were hungry. Right here in this county. And
when they went to arrest him, they asked him just to please
spend a few days getting his affairs and orders and then to
come down to the sheriff's office so that they could process him.
Because they don't want to drag him out in handcuffs in front
of his children. But he burglarized houses so he could feed his kids.
And most people say, oh, that's okay. It's not okay. It's wrong. It may be okay for us. It's not okay for God. It may
be okay that people define love differently than we do in our
world, in our culture. Love is our feelings, love is
our this, love is our that, but God is love, therefore that which
God does defines love and there's no other definition. Love is
that at the cost of us, we die for the sake of the joy and the
blamelessness and the holiness of someone else. So that no matter
how hard life is, when the love and the feeling is gone, the
love is still there because the love says, I will not quit. God
will not quit to redeem a people who spit upon
His face, the very same people who pulled out His beard and
beat Him and hung Him on a cross to die. It's an interesting brief conversation
some of us had yesterday at how the world seems to take that
which is most vile and accept it, and that which is most holy,
hate it. Just like when Jesus was arrested,
they let the most vile murderer they could think of go in his place. Truth. It's either true or it's a lie. So because of that, we must test
everything. Not just teaching. Most certainly
teaching, but not just teaching. And this is where I want us to
put this application in our laps today and let it purr. You don't
like cats, I guess you're a lap dog. If you don't like that,
a good quilt. Cozy up to it. We must test everything to prove
it as true. According to what? According
to God. Well, what are some things? What
about what we hear? You know, we've got a really
cool fad now in our culture, fact checker. The fact checker. F-A-C-T, checker. If you watch
any news show, they've got the fact-check team now. I don't
watch it, but you don't have to watch it. Just, you know,
talk to somebody, listen. It's always, well they fact-checked
Obama's speech, they fact-checked Hillary's speech, they fact-checked
Trump's speech, they fact check it and here's, they've got a
60% and 80% or whatever, this was a little off, there's always
a fact checker. So what we hear, if the world's
looking for the truth, then oh my goodness, should not the church
be looking for the truth? What do we hear? What are some things
that we hear? We hear gossip. What if it's
true? What's the truth of gossip? It's
not truth. Even if what is said is true,
the very act of gossip, the very act of listening to gossip is
a lie. Because the idea of what we hear
makes us think we're in concern. Sort of like prayer meetings
I've had in the past. Pray for Brother Johnny, beat
his wife up and burn his neighbor's house down. You know, for 35
years I've seen him drunk every single day. I mean, you know,
that's not prayer meeting. That's a soap opera. That's a Lifetime
movie. No. Even what we hear, we must
test, we must prove it, that it is godly. That it is godly
in its context, that it is godly in its reception, that it's godly
in its transmission, that it's godly in its truth. Is it worthy of praise? Is it
excellent? Is it holy? Is it glorious? Does
it give praise to the name of God? We've got to test and prove what
we hear. We've got to prove what we know. What do we know? And I hear people all the time,
well, Calvinists believe this, or Armenians believe this, or
Methodists believe this. Really? Where'd you get that?
Well, that's just what I've always learned. From who? You see, just
keep asking questions from the back of my brain. I mean, you
know, that little small guy that lives in there named Smith. Really? What do we know? What do you know about Christ?
This coming week I get to do the inaugural chapel at Pinewood. I probably do it about four times,
five times a year. And their theme and their push
this year, they want to really push missions and evangelism.
So I'm going to talk about this coming Wednesday what we know
about the gospel. and what we're going to say about
what we know. Do we know the Gospel? Do we
know the good news of Jesus? Do you know Christ? Do you know
right doctrine? Do you know that what you hear,
what you believe, what you hold fast to, the confession of your
hope, is it true or is it someone else's thinking? Is your hope
and your security in Jesus Christ The result of my study and preaching?
The result of your neighbor's Bible study? The result of a
TV preacher? The result of a sound book? Are
we ditto heads or do we really know what we know? Can we take
this little old Bible right here and when someone says, all men
are good, can we know that that's wrong? Yes, we go to the Bible. No man are good. No man has ever
been good but Jesus Christ the righteous. The very word Christ
means holy, anointed, one of God. Some people think this is last
name. We have to prove that we know everything as truth. And if we do not know it, Lord
give us mercy not to perpetuate. What about what we think? You
know, I could talk for five hours about thinking. And I could think for 50 years
on thinking. I think a lot about thinking,
which is a lot of wasted time. It's just a problem. I mean, years before when I'd
sit with one sock half on one foot and my wife's like, are
you having a seizure? I'm sorry, what? I just like
to think about things. Hot water runs out in the shower,
because I haven't got in yet. Not like that much anymore, but
what do we think about? Where are our minds? Where are
they focused? Talked to a gentleman this morning
that said one of his family, one of his nieces just got her
driver's license. Turned 16, got her driver's license
today. Lives in Candler County. And they came over here to get
a tire fixed or something like that, and she's driving back.
She can't get to Metter from Claxton. Can't get there. Her whole life been coming from
Claxton to Metter, Claxton to Metter, Claxton to Metter. Can't
figure out how to get off of 280 to Metter. Why? Because every week when they
come to Claxton, her face is in a screen. The world goes by
like this, and she's like, What do we think about? You know
what we think about? Everybody else's business. What we're doing. Where we're going. Do we even
think about it anymore? We're just like little drones.
Friends, as Christians, God has given us a clear mind, a new
mind, a right mind, a powerful mind that ought to be continually
fueled and infused by the Word of God. The Spirit of God ought
to be speaking to our conscious state every moment of our day
through the Word that sets rests in our hearts. We ought to continually
be praying without ceasing. Had somebody interrupt me the
other day because they were talking to me at breakfast and said,
oh, I'm sorry, I didn't let you pray over your meal. I said,
I've prayed already. And he sort of looked at me. Oh, because
I didn't do this? You know? God doesn't start listening
until he sees this. And we're just talking, talking. Wait a minute, there's somebody
like that. We can pray with our eyes open.
We can pray with our mouths open. We can pray in our pajamas. We can pray in a plane or a boat
or a train. Green eggs in hand. We can pray
with all of it. We can pray anywhere at all times. The question is,
is our mind more consumed with everything else that's going
on? Are we having little conversations about our lives and the lives
of others? Or are we really testing and proving that our thoughts
are indeed true? What about how we feel? See,
this is a big one. How do you feel? I would suppose that a lot of people
who weren't able to make it to church today have a problem with
how they feel. Emotionally, physically, all
these things. How do we feel? Does how we feel
always line up with truth? Probably never. Because what
we do is we take what we feel and we compare it to what we
know which is truth from God's Word and we reject that which
is not true, which is evil. Life isn't worth it. But Paul
says even the depravity of life and the frustrations of life
and the harshness of life and the death of life prepares us
for an eternal weight of glory so that no matter how hard life
is, it is worth it. Life's too difficult. None of
you have been tempted unto bleeding. None of you have ever tempted
to the point where you prayed and your capillaries in your face
burst blood. None of you have ever tempted
enough to the point of death on a cross. So we have a high
priest that not only has been tempted in every way, but sympathizes
with us in our weakness. I just don't think God's listening
to me. I could go on. How do we feel? I don't feel like my spouse loves
me. Probably doesn't. I mean, if we really separate
love from like, how many times do we really like each other?
When we're all busy doing all things and when we've got our
little paths set and we like each other, great. And we think
that's love, that's light. We love the likingness of each
other. But when we get in each other's
way, it's like, get out of my path. This is my path. You go over
there. Chip, chop, chip, get. Now, yah. And when somebody disrupts
our things, our stuff, our way, our plans, our focus, gets in
front of whatever we're looking at on TV, I mean, that was a
big pet peeve at my house. Never gonna be a TV in the kitchen,
ever. I mean, if, you know, if God said, you must put a TV in
your kitchen, I'm gonna live in rebellion. I mean, I'm just,
I'm not doing it. I remember growing up as a kid
and the news is on and you can't talk, can't breathe, can't jiggle
your glass, I can't hear the news. I mean, you know, no TV's
in the kitchen. But we get, we don't really like
each other all the time. We don't really feel loving What
is the truth of love? In our dead state, God loved
us. When we were wicked and rebellious,
God loved us and saved us and gave us Christ. While we were
enemies, Christ died for us, that we might become friends.
While we were dead in our trespasses, Christ died for us. While we
were seeking to destroy the name of God, God gave the Son to satisfy
His wrath against us. So most of the time what we feel
doesn't jive with truth. What about what we enjoy? Is
it true? Is it pure? The sense of comedy,
and some of you, well, some of you that are out here, I mean,
we have a really, really jaded sense of comedy in our culture.
I do, I have a jaded sense of comedy. I mean, I grew up with
the slapstick stuff that moved to the self-deprecation. And
the funniest thing to me in the world is to see somebody slip
down the stairs. You see the video, you know, right? I mean,
like, see, we're all laughing. Why do we laugh at that? That's
depraved. I mean, it's funny because it's a 12-second clip.
But it's not the Three Stooges. It's somebody's kid filming their
dad flipping down the stairs. And in 2008, I flipped down the
stairs and messed myself up bad. Walked like Quasimodo for like
five weeks. It's not as funny. But we have
a... Everybody's laughing, sorry. But what do we enjoy? I mean,
just little things like that. When we see Paul teaching to
the Ephesians about not having some things, not coarse joking
named among you, I'll read that textbook. I believe that that's
one of those areas where we have, we find entertainment in things
that really are not funny. Because never a time was there
ever anybody, I mean, when I was a kid, there was never an opportunity
for us to just see life happen at random. Now there's a 12 megapixel
video camera with live feed everywhere. Periscope, you can, don't ever
turn that thing on, because it's like, boing, boing, boing, boing.
I mean, you can watch people do anything, anywhere. It's Periscope
Live, Periscope, Periscope Live, I'm about to talk about Jesus.
Yeah, that's not the Jesus I believe in. You can watch anything, anywhere,
at any time, and so that which was done in an entertainment
sense before with actors and stuntmen is now what we laugh
at in real life. Clinger on match Remember him
he wanted to get out of it was a Vietnam Korea Korea. He wanted
to get out of there so bad He thinks well, I know what I'll
do. I'll dress like a transgender And I'll and they let him wear
that dag blasted dress for what nine seasons He come in and we
just laugh that's a funny thing we're not laughing much anymore
are we Because the truth is, that's
not funny. Well, who decided that women
wore dresses? The body that God gave them.
The function of the clothes matched the form. I had this conversation
with my daughters a few weeks back, that even the tunics of
the days of Jesus were different between the genders. Could you
imagine a man putting on his wife's tunic and the way she
wore it? and wrapping his chest the way
she'd wrap her chest and walking out looking like he had a brassiere
on. The men of the village would
be like, you lost your mind wearing your wife's clothes. You don't
need that. What do we enjoy? What's our
pastime? What are our hobbies? How much
interest do we give them? How much affection? I used to
get, and I'm loud. I mean, I started out as a street
preacher, y'all. It's hard to whine that stuff. Jesse's gonna
be yelling his entire life. It's just what happens when you
have no megaphone and then you get a megaphone. It's just, so
you know, monitors, world's best friend. When I hurt my own ears,
I simmer down. But, what was I saying? Enjoy. I've had people tell me,
you know, you're just a little too loud. And I might be the
case. I back this up a lot. Sometimes
you see me do that. You're a little loud. You get too excited. And,
you know, you put people on edge and, you know, God's word needs
to be more mundane and lecturing. Just this isn't even in seminary. I mean, y'all there on Tuesday
nights, we get the Trinity study. I mean, yeah, we'll have 40 minutes
of just, you know, talking and then the word of God. Well, you
need to simmer down a little bit. That puts people off. Aren't
you the same fool who just had your face painted orange at the
Vols game? Going, oh! Lost your voice because you were
yelling for three hours. Sunburn at the Braves game. Saw
you at the Little League cussing out the coach because the tee
was too short. Struck out in tee ball. And how do you do that? You see what I mean? What do we enjoy? Is it true?
It's what we do in life. What about what we consider?
What about what we consider to be right or theorize? What about what we desire? What
do we really want with life? What are the plans for our future?
What are the plans for our children? What are the plans for our grandchildren?
What are our biggest dreams? Are they true? Are they wasted
life? My grandfather celebrated his
80th birthday a week or so ago, and we had his party last night. About 200 people showed up here
to celebrate his life. And he's done a lot of things
in his life, and he's been a pastor for a while and a missionary
for a while. He owned a construction company here. He built almost
every building you see. So we had pictures of the First
Baptist Church when he was out there, the scaffolding, putting
in all these things, and the high school, and all the pictures
of me when I was this little. And, I mean, my mom and her brother
in the middle of the house that we lived... when we started Grace
Truth Church, when they built those houses, a picture of them
in the middle of that. slab with the bricks up, it's
just really neat. And we're setting all this stuff
up on Friday night and about 10 o'clock I'm looking at like,
I mean, hundreds of pictures and all these relics and old
things and I thought, I'm glad that he had a different life
than just this. He's not dead, he was over there.
I said, because isn't it sad that at the end of 80 years,
if this were his memorial service, his whole life would fit in that
box? Everything that he ever was is just a memory on a piece
of paper. And then I just said, sort of
boldly, And if we do not live for the glory of God every moment
of our lives and leave a legacy of other people who live for
the glory of God, investing in His Word, investing in His church,
I said, we have lived for nothing. For nothing. It's all gone. What about our plans? What do we want? These things
must be weighed against the sovereign truth of God. His worldview is
different than the worldview in which we live. The worldview
that we have as Christians should be formed by the sovereignty
of God, who is truth. When we see things that conflict
with that, we should say, that's not who I am. That's not the
world that I'm a part of. Well, my great-grandmother Adams,
I was about 88 years old. She told me as we went to leave
her house visiting one day, she said, son, I am scared of the
world in which we live. She said, I look out there and
it's not the world that I know and I don't know how to embrace
it. And I didn't really understand
fully what she meant. But the older I get and the more
the Word of God comes alive to us, we should recognize that.
The world that we live in, the world that we live in, does not
line up with the truth of God's Word. Now, I'm not talking about the
religious right and the Christian coalition. I'm talking about
the truth of the Gospel, the truth of Scripture, the truth
of God. But we need to be able to discern
these things, to look at them and set them apart. Do you test
everything? is what you see in your worldview
tested. There's no other time in history,
in my history, my history, short history, where I've heard the
lesser of two evils than this season, election season. Evil number one, evil number
two. Well, if you remember thing one and two, they just stood
face off right forever. And the whole world revolved
around him. They never moved. Stubborn. What's that now? South
going thing and the East going thing. Maybe that's something
else. Maybe that's the cat in the hat, folks, I'm thinking
of. Does it matter? Lesser of two evils is evil.
Yeah, but this person would be better for that. Okay, and I'm
not gonna get into politics in here. But I've gotta get into
discernment. because it's an issue that God's
commanded us to do right this very moment. Test everything. The truth that you hear on the
political scene, beloved, is as much an act of worship as
you sitting in these chairs. Listen to me. If Romans 12 is true, then everything
we do is a reflection of how much we love, know, and want
to live for the glory of God. If Paul would take it down to
if we're going to eat food and drink, drink, be careful that
we eat food and drink, drink, not to defame God's name, then
don't you think our politics should follow suit? And Dr. Grudem and others like
him, Lord bless them, they got no business, no business, church,
persuading the body of Christ one way or the other trying to
show how this candidate is a better Christian example than this candidate. What do we do? We prove it. We prove it. What if there's
no candidate to vote for? There's plenty of candidates
to vote for. They just may not be the top of mind candidate
for you. They may not have a chance at all in winning in a general
election, but y'all forget what the Old Testament teaches us,
is that man may cast the lot, but God decides the vote. We should be discerning. We should filter all that goes
through our lives. Are you able to know what is good and what
is evil? Or do you just suppose? I'll tell you, when we want to
try to find those answers, a lot of times in our day, where'd
my phone go? Let's just look it up. Let's
just Google it. What are we going to say when
Google goes out of business? Because Yahoo didn't catch on like that.
Let's go Yahoo it. That didn't work. Let's Bing
it. That's when you hit somebody
with a hammer. Let's Google it. Let's look it up. Let's go to
YouTube and find some guy that's got a 45 minute video that he
did on his home laptop and let's make him the expert. See, Dr. Blah blah blah blah says I should
do this. He's got more initials than the
alphabet after his name so he must be an authority. Where are we gonna learn what
good and evil is? How are we gonna know what is
perfect and good and right. We don't go to Google. We don't
go to YouTube. We don't go to our neighbor who's
not a believer. We don't go to the cult down
the street. How many of us have ever gone
to Kingdom Hall to figure out what's right? How many of us
have gone to go to the Mormon tabernacle and bang on the door
and talk to the elders and say, would you show me righteousness?
No, we go to God's Word. We go to God's Word and we're
perplexed. Friends, God is established.
God has never intended for Christians, for the local assembly, to be
so invested in Christians across the globe in their learning. God has never intended for us
to sit around and be preached to by somebody who's never seen
us, never heard us, and never prayed for us in our lives, and
that be sufficient. God has never intended the local
church to circumvent God's amazing, miraculous, manifold plan and
go someplace else. The Word of God alone gives us
what we need to learn truth from. To learn what is good, and what
is acceptable, and what is holy, and what is right. And when we
find ourselves perplexed, inside this local assembly, there is
plenty of wisdom. And there is plenty of accountability. There is plenty. But yet we have
an epidemic in our age to say we believe in the Gospel, we
believe in the New Testament, we believe in the Word of God,
but we get all of our food and all of our answers from somebody
who we don't even know how old they are. We don't even know
their middle name. We only know what's on the wiki page. And
it is repulsive to me. Because as a shepherd of the
Word, as a shepherd of the flock, as a servant of God, to have
to labor over the Word of God, people will rather believe a
YouTube video on a particular passage than the local assembly. And it's frustrating. It's the grass is greener, it's
idolatry in the purest form in a spiritual sense. It is something
that we need to understand. God has not purposed the church
to live that way. And people like Stephen Furtick,
if you don't know who he is, he's a class 3 heretic with a
grand stage. People like Joel Osteen. I don't
even want to give him the title heretic. Surely can't say apostate because
you have to be in to apostate. But yet these people have their
own shows, their own publishing houses, their own channels on
XM radio, and by the millions are getting dollars by the billions
because they're scratching the ears of people. And all of us
are going, I ain't listening to that. You probably should,
at least once. But you know what we do? We'll
decide we're gonna understand how we should live for Jesus
by going and watching a series with John MacArthur. Well, how are we gonna live with
John MacArthur and the family of grace to you in Master's Seminary
How are we gonna live out that that he's teaching us? We're
not. You know what God's teaching
Grace Truth Church as a body right now? This. You are being
taught this by God. For you are in this local assembly.
And each of us are accountable to each other to not only learn
this correctly, but to live it accurately as well. And so we
must test and prove what is good. This universal idea of I'm the
church of Jesus Christ. No, you're not. You're just a
lone ranger orphan living in disobedience. And you should
be brought into church discipline through which if you do not repent,
ostracized completely from the family of faith. No coffee, buddy. Abolish human abortion has really
been on the blogosphere lately. It's a well-meaning What is it? Group of people. I started to
say a ministry. It's not a ministry. Yes, abortion
is wicked, it should be abolished, but the only thing that's ever
going to abolish abortion is the preaching of the gospel.
As Jesse goes to the abortion mill on Savannah on Fridays,
it's not don't murder your baby, it's not what are you going to
do, you know, this, that, it's not come over here and let me
give you some cupcakes, it's not that, it's that God created
the world and everything in it. The child within you, though
your act might have been a sin, God created the soul in the womb
that He gave you. And you don't have to murder
to be free. For Jesus Christ was murdered
to set you free from the judgment of God. There is no hope outside
of Jesus Christ. You think the answer is to escape
your circumstances, but friends, the answer is to escape eternal
judgment. And God in His mercy gives you
that out through Jesus Christ. That changes hearts. That message
alone gets people to run out of an abortion clinic and get
in their car. But Abolish Human Abortion recently
has actually... They're not in a church. They
call themselves a church. They are picketing churches who
don't have people outside of abortion clinics. And when you ask them, oh buddy,
hey, as I asked one this past week, what's the name of your
pastor? Block. Block. They don't have a pastor. They
don't have a local assembly. They've got nobody, but they're a long
range of mavericks living for their own glory, violating the
very Word of God that they say they hold to. Hold fast to what
is good. Test. Discern. We should be together
in our discerning. Paul even tells the Corinthians,
as troubled as they were in chapter 14, he says, let two or three
prophets speak and then let others weigh what is said. You realize
you're supposed to be weighing what I say. Not just mouth open like the
pharmaceutical companies, shoving drugs down us. Oh, this will
help me. Sure, I'll take it. What is it? I don't know. Just
take it. Don't just take what I teach. Weigh it. Discern. Test. Prove it. Keep what's good. Throw away what's not. And correct
me. How? Patiently, kindly, humbly. The same way I would correct
you. How are we to do these things? How are we to hold fast to what
is good? Well, what is good? Don't we
have to know what that is, as I've already asked? Well, we
know some things, and just in general, we know what's good.
We know that holiness is good. Righteousness because of Christ.
His work in our world is righteousness in the church. We know that having
an affection for holy things, having an affection for God,
for Christ, for His Word, for His church. After all, is not
the greatest of the two commands, the greatest two commandments?
To love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself.
All the laws of the prophets hinge on these two. Don't we
understand that this is what's good? If we don't love the people
of God, we cannot live in obedience and love with God. What about
the boundaries of obedience? There's a hyper-grace movement.
I want to be careful not to broad stroke a brush here, but friends,
grace is amazing. It's overwhelming grace. We don't
need anything but grace. But we don't sin because of grace
that it may abound. Paul answers that very clearly
when he says, of course not. We don't sin more so that we
can get more grace because the very idea of being forgiven,
the very idea of someone else paying for our sin drives us
to want to strive for holiness. So that's good. Strive and obedience. The boundaries of the principles
of God's instruction through His Word are beautiful to us. John says that. For the law of
God, for the commands of God are not a burden to the church. So we know those things are good.
Purity is good. Glory is good. Evangelism is
good. Sharing, learning, loving, living,
all these other L's that we can think of, they're good. So we
should look and test to see if all these things that we think
and hear and live and plan and desire and all this stuff that
we've talked about this morning, does it line up with the truth
of what is good? Whatever is excellent, whatever
is holy, whatever is pure. Think on these things. Live out
these things. And at the same time, abstain
from evil. Let's close in that thought.
Abstaining from evil. What evil? Every kind of evil.
What does that mean? Well, I just got some three categories
today, just for the sake of time, of what is evil. Evil is anything
the Lord calls evil. Right? We can agree with that.
Evil is slander. Evil is murder, malice, covetousness,
greed, gossip, lying, sexual immorality. Stealing, it's hard
to think of them all. Homosexuality, I mean, just keep,
there's a bunch of lists. Everything the Lord calls evil,
we need to abstain from. We need to shun it. We need to
run from it. What does the Bible call Job?
A man who stood up right before the Lord and shunned evil. You
can't stand upright and walk in evil, Psalm 1. You can't walk
in light and live in darkness. It doesn't make sense. So we
must abstain from what the Lord calls evil. And on the contrary,
we probably are going to have to abstain from most of what
the world calls good. Did you hear that? So if we abstain
from evil, most of what the world calls good is probably evil.
Why? Because the world in all of its
ways and the natural state of man is hostile to God. I mean,
these are words here. The natural man is hostile to
holiness. God is holy, holy, holy. But the natural world is hostile
to holiness. So if the natural world says this is good and acceptable
and pure, then it's probably not. Except that what? We test it and prove that it
comes from God. God is holy and we're hostile
to Him, so we should abstain from evil, all forms and all
ways at all times. Because in not doing so, we quench
the spirit and we despise the teaching of God. Some people
say, well, you know, we've got to understand there's some cultural
differences here from there to here. Yes, but the transcendent
theological principles of the Scripture never change. I'm not a sheep herder, doesn't
mean that I don't listen to John 10. We don't live in a society where
we have communal property, like in Corinth, so I just ignore
what they taught about the spiritual gifts in Corinth. No, we apply
it all as it sees fit. We abstain from all forms of
evil, lest we despise the teaching of the Bible. And sometimes abstaining
from evil, listen to this, It's what the Church of Christ does.
We must abstain from what we do as Christians. I have a list in my mind of horrifying
circumstances and things that have happened in the local church
throughout the last two decades. If I shared them with you, you'd
be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe a pastor would do that. Oh, I
can't believe a deacon would do that. Oh, I can't believe a church
member. I can't believe a Sunday school. Believe it. Believe it. We as the church
are not exempt from falling into sin, being snared by it. That's
why living as a community, accountable to each other, not as spiritual
police officers, tweet, tweet, tweet, there you are, I saw you
sneering at your wife. I mean, you know. But we know
that there's a way to go about growing in grace and growing
in discipling each other. But what is it? How do we discern
what we do in our own lives? Well, let me ask some questions
that may not can be answered very quickly. What are you known
for in your life? What's on your mind right now?
What's on our minds more than anything else out of the given
day? That job that I hate. Even as we hate that job, we
praise God for the sufficiency of it, for the temporalness of
it, and for the purpose of it. How are others witnessing God's
power in our lives? Are we enamored in fear? Are
we overcome with grief? Are we bound by sin and addiction?
Are we unable to be freed from these things? Are other people
able to witness the power of God in our life that we have
resolved? Much like Peter would tell those Jews that were Persecute
in the dispersion, what does he say? As you're hurt, as you're
killed, as you're imprisoned, as you suffer, always be prepared
to what? Give a reason for the hope that
you have with gentleness and kindness. When? During suffering. Do we
take stands against error? Do we take stands for truth with
gentleness, with patience, with kindness, with much prayer? Do
we who are spiritual, are we known for correcting those who
have fallen into sin and love? Do we allow evil in the world
just because it's the world? Well, you know, that's the world.
They're going to do what they do. That's true. We can't expect the world to
live righteously. But it doesn't mean that we sit
down and just go, whatever. At a minimum, when we see the
world getting more and more evil, we ought to preach harder, share
the gospel more frequently, and pray like we're never going to
quit. Do we give license to worldliness? These things will hit us. What
does that look like? Well, what about accepting sinful
actions as stages? A lot of people, well, you know
kids, you know young men, you know teenagers. You know teenagers?
Go to hell. They don't believe in Christ. Well, you know how young people
are. No, I don't. I know how people are at any
age. We don't give license to sin.
We don't tell our children to just go ahead and sin, just do
it at our house. We don't buy things for our children that
the law even says is illegal. We don't license worldliness
by preparing others for worldly ventures. in lieu of the high
calling of Christ. You know, the most important
thing you can do, son, or the advice you give your neighbor,
you know, you've got to really think for yourself. You've got to think about yourself.
You've got to think about your family. You've got to think about
everything that you've got planning. You know what the gospel says?
The good news of Christ, if we apply that worldview to our life,
you know what? You should be willing for your
family to die for the sake of your salvation of your neighbor. Do we license worldliness? abstain
from evil or do we embrace it? by proving what evil people do,
what evil governments do, what evil groups do, what cults do.
Oh, it's okay. Let's just let them do what they
do. We do what we do. We all get
along. We don't get along. Light and darkness don't get
along. They don't mix. Because everywhere the light
walks, the darkness is exposed. So darkness doesn't exist when
the light is present, which is why throughout all of history,
throughout all of the history of Christendom, they kill the
church to put the light out. Do we give license to worldliness
by making an effort to support people who are evil at heart?
Who are greedy, murderous, liars, slanderers? Friends, the Bible
says to abstain from all kinds of evil. And what we need to
understand is that means we must shun it. Have nothing to do with
it. Don't stand around it and leave
when it shows up. If a skunk rolled through the
middle of this room, we would bolt. We would bolt. What does that mean? We'd tear
out. What does that mean? Leave very quickly. We would
not stay here to see if it was going to spray someone. We would
leave. If a ravenous dog came through
the back room, we're gone. If sin comes into our life, if
evil comes into our community, we do not stick around and support
it. We do not show support of even
the consequences of evil. The way we support people when
they're feeling the consequences of sin is that we teach them
the truth of the gospel and we pray that God would grant them
repentance. And only those two ways. God's work in redemption, friends,
is a holy people. We must desire to be holy and
to know that Christ alone makes us holy. Otherwise, we're not
abstaining from evil, but we're believing it. In James chapter
4, we see these words. Come now you who say today or
tomorrow we will go into such a place and such a town and spend
a year there and make a trade and a profit, yet you do not
know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are
amiss that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead,
you want to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this
or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance.
All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing
to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. So abstaining
from evil is not only shunning that which is evil, obviously,
but also doing that which is good. We must not Be evil by not doing
that which is good. Friends, this is a lifelong journey.
What is right is good. What is right and abstain from
is evil. We must abstain from not doing
what is right. What's right? We know what the
Scripture teaches. We know what our role is here.
We know how we ought to love each other, how we ought to grow.
We know that we're forgiven, so we ought to forgive others. And it's very easy for us to
sit this very day and be condemned and feel guilty. But the Scripture teaches that
some of which some of you were, What? Lost and dark and dead. But now we're in Christ. Therefore,
be imitators of God as beloved children, Paul would say. Be
imitators of God. Walk in love as Christ loved
us and gave Himself up for us. A fragrant offering and sacrifice
to God. Paul says, but sexual immorality
and impurity and covetousness must not even be named among
you, as it is improper among the saints. Let there be no filthiness
or foolish talking or crude joking which are out of place. But let
there be what? Thanksgiving. For you may be
sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral, sexually
impure, or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with
empty words, beloved, for because of these things the wrath of
God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners
with them. For at one time you were darkness,
but now you are light in the world. Walk, ye children of the
light, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take
no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose
them. For it is shameful even to hear,
to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed
by the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible
is light. Therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from
the dead, and Christ will shine upon you. Look carefully then
how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best
use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not
be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not
get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled
with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making medley to the Lord with
your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the
Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one
another out of reverence for Christ. And it was years ago
when we went through that text, and that's probably 10 sermons
and that little 21 verses there. But friends, that really summarizes
everything we've been talking about today. We, as the church
of Jesus Christ, ought to be marked and known for the righteousness
of God, through the power of God, through the Holy Spirit,
and through His Word. We need to be so starkly different
from the world around us, not in nuances, not in all these
sort of weird old cultural things, but in righteousness, and love,
and affection, and power, and purity. This is who the church is. Because
this is who their Lord is. This is who our God is. And we
are a reflection of His very person. Because He has made us
and our righteousness belongs to Jesus Christ. So when people
see the church, they must see the Lord Jesus. In every aspect. Friends, we'll never get it all
together. But the verses 22 and on, we
saw what it said this week. We saw that it teaches us that
the Lord is faithful to present us blameless and pure and righteous
before Him. And so as we close our time today,
I want you to understand that. I want you to recognize that
that is what it does. That is what God does in His
children. That is what happens when we
believe on Jesus. And so to say otherwise is to
despise the prophecy of God. It's to quench the Spirit. and
is to grab hold of that which is evil and not do that which
is good. Let's pray. Lord, the very idea of Your mercy
is fabulous. God, in Your righteousness, if
You were to condemn every one of us that have ever lived eternally
to judgment, you would be right. But somewhere in your wisdom,
in the person that you are, you have purpose to save us in spite
of us and to present a man who could satisfy your wrath by sending
the Son to become like us. To live as we should have lived
and to die as we should have died. Lord, You raised Him to life,
and we do not deserve that resurrection, but You give it. You give it
freely, and Lord, You give it particularly. And Father, I pray
that You would give that life to those here that do not believe,
that they would hear the gospel, they would see Your face through
Jesus, they would believe, Lord, and be transformed. Lord, comfort
us as we work our lives, as we work out our salvation, as we
labor and toil among each other and each other's lives for the
sake of Your great name. And we praise You for this great
time of worship. In Jesus' name, amen.