You know, when you reflect on
your week, on your faith, on everything that you've experienced
throughout the last seven days, even maybe the last Lord's Day
where we gathered together and heard the Word, sometimes, deep within ourselves,
we hear a little voice. And that voice speaks to us and
it tells us that things should be better. My life should be
a little more at peace. It tells us that there's something
wrong with our faith, something wrong with our church, something
wrong with our world, and that there needs to be some type of
transformation. Something needs to give. We need
to make changes in our world, in our lives, in our homes, in
our thoughts. And we war with those little
voices. We listen to them. We give time to them. We talk
to them. And the end of the day, the end
of the week, the end of the month, we look back and we try to review,
have we followed our little voices? Now, of course, I'm not talking
about anything but how we think. Our own thought patterns. our
own flesh as it has a conversation forever in our minds. And friends, most of the time,
if not all of the time, everything that we think and consider is
contrary to that which we know is truth in the Word of God.
For when we are thinking, And when our own selves tell us things
that are true, God is the author of those things. And I find it
very interesting that out of this last week, the seven or
so people that I've had the privilege of being able to share the gospel
with, randomly, That's how it works. Random. Just, wow, look
at this. Random. These divine appointments
that God puts in our path as we are going. Opportunities to
make disciples. That most of them have said one
of the following things to me in that conversation. Well, my
church believes this. contrary to that which I was
saying to them. To which I would say, well, you and your whole
church is wrong if it contradicts the Word of God. To which one person would respond,
well, the Bible is not necessarily accurate. To which I responded,
but the Bible itself claims to be inerrant. That if we are not going to follow
the Word, then there is no sense in using it at all, for it will
not contradict itself. To another that says, oh yeah,
my church is healthy, I'm right with the Lord, every time that
I leave I feel really bad about myself, and I'm guilty, and I'm
defeated, and that's how you're supposed to feel when you leave
the Lord's body on the Lord's day. Not necessarily their words,
but when you leave church, that's how you ought to feel. to which
I immediately thought of Romans 8, that there's no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. While we may be convicted of
our present sin, we are reminded of Christ's eternal sacrifice. And the list goes on and on and
on. And amazingly enough, yesterday,
a 13-year-old boy who rode his bicycle over to my house to talk
with my son gave me the greatest example of how the Lord can work
in the lives of anyone that I've ever heard in my life. When he
said something about enjoying time in our church, every few
months when he comes, he'll spend the night, And then he said,
and I really like when we come to your church, when I go to
your church, because you teach the Word of God as it is written. I looked at this kid, and tried
not to grin, and I said, well, what are you typically used to?
He says, well, in our past as a family, most of the preachers
that preach to us talk about everything but the Bible. 13. Interestingly enough, Timothy
was probably about that age when he was taken under the wing of
Paul. Mary was that age when she was
conceived of the Holy Spirit. Most of the apostles We're very
young. Very young. And yet, in our culture,
a lot of times, we have just been so enamored with tradition,
and I'm even allowed to use the word history when it's short,
but short-minded, short-sighted, early, excuse me, not even early,
historical tradition that's not even relevant to the economy
of grace, to the whole composition of Scripture. Well, this is the
way we do it as people, some would say. Like last week as
I preached out of 2 Thessalonians, and we saw that Paul showed us
what the gospel ministry looks like. And time and time and time again,
not just last week, but weeks prior, every single day, nearly,
without fail, I get into a brief conversation, if it's not five
minutes, it's five hours, with someone who defends the practices
of their faith that are unbiblical because they love them, they
love them, they love them more than they love Christ and Christ's
church and Christ's Word. Essence. They love that which
they create rather than that which God has made for their
salvation and for their joy. And if you read Romans chapter
1, Paul says that very explicitly. that they did not give thanks
nor worship God, but in turn they worshiped the creation rather
than the Creator. Therefore, God gave them over
to the lust of their flesh to do that which is not natural.
And before He gets there, It says that all the wrath of God
will be poured out on all the unrighteousness of men who by
their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Friends, that's easy
to see. Listen. That's easy to see. It's easy to see in the world. But most, can I say it again?
Most, most, most, most, most who profess the name of Christ,
who sit in churches this very morning, are those on whom the
wrath of God is now storing up against. Because they love the
creation of their religion, of their churchmanship, of their
liberties, of their Scripture, of their Jesus, of their traditions. than the truth of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. And just as some would go to
drugs, some would go to alcohol, some would go to sex, some would
go to gambling, some would go to whatever vice they could find
to ease the tension of their own calamity, many so-called
Christians go to the vice of worldly faith to appease their
own unrighteousness. And this is why they crucified
Jesus. Because Jesus said what the Word
of God meant. For He is the Living Word. In
His very first public appearance of teaching, not at 12, but later,
when He read the Word of the Lord, and they were just overwhelmed
with joy that He would be so gracious as to honor them when
He said, this has been, what? This has been fulfilled in your
hearing." And they were so overjoyed! And then He said, but it's not
for you, it's for the Gentiles. And the Bible says they purposed
to kill Him! Anybody who is filled with the
Spirit of God, even when our babies, our idols, our religion,
our traditions, and everything that we love most is set at the
table, at the altar of sacrifice. Though we may go, wow, I really
love that. We who are filled with God say,
praise You for this cleansing. Though we may be confused, we
go, Oh Lord, You're so gracious in revealing this idolatry. Thank
You for showing us the truth. No Christian, no true born of
God person refuses the truth. The sheep know the voice of their
shepherd. And in our ignorance, when we
hear truth, we go, Wow! That really hurts. That stepped
on my toes, that stomped me in the forehead. Praise be to God. And sometimes we struggle with
the reality and the implications of what we've just learned. But
we don't hate it. We don't ignore it. We certainly
don't take up arms against it. Why would you come to this? This
is where Paul is now in the second chapter of Thessalonians. And friends, we need to get away
from the day of considering the Christian life as the cakewalk
suburbia lifestyle. There is no such thing. God in
His graciousness has given all of us a cakewalk lifestyle for
most of our lives. And there have been seasons of
difficulty. But even in the difficulty, we have the amenities of liberty,
the amenities of wealth, the amenities of hope in the world,
even in the midst of our suffering. Few of us, in the sound of my
voice, have ever been so destitute that there was nowhere to look,
no one to see, no hand there. The ministry that we had in California
on the streets of Fremont, Hayward, Union City, Newark. We're a large
conglomerate of homeless. It's a perfect weather pattern.
It rains 40 days a year and every other day it's just like it is
today. Year round. 40 in the night, 68.6 in the
afternoon. With a nice cool breeze. It's a homeless man's paradise. And it's amazing because you
see people and you think they have nothing. They're eating
out of trash cans. Let's give them food. They don't
want it. This isn't the rule. This isn't
the standard. This is just this experience with this small, isolated
group of people. But even those who were what
we considered having nothing in our country have more than
most anybody in any other country. For when I would take $100 worth
of groceries, canned foods, with the pull tops, a lot of people
would give them canned food and they'd be like, now what do I
do with it? Yeah. Supplies, reading material, books,
literature, Bibles, hymnals, some of them ask for hymnals.
We do some church services out there in the pines sometimes.
It was odd. But we did it. Can y'all lead us in some singing?
Sure. But even these people were not
poor by the world's standards. I want us to see that church.
In contrast to these Christians of Thessalonica, of Philippi,
of the region of Judea and all of Asia Minor, these Christians
were not just homeless, they were hunted. These Christians were not just
hungry, they were harmed. They were pressed, pushed, hated. No one had compassion on their
hunger. No one had compassion on the plundering of their property.
No one had compassion on their dying children. They hated them
because they hated the gospel of Jesus Christ because Jesus,
by His very command, commands all men to repent and believe
in Him. For He is the Lord of all. He is the King of all. He is surely the Lord of His
people and the judge of His enemies. This is the culture. of the martyred
church. This is the culture of the persecuted
church. And so friends, we don't take our suffering lightly, but
we need to put it in comparison. We need not say, woe is me, my
neighbors hurt my feelings. Woe is me, the Baptist Association
blasphemed Christ and defamed our church. Woe is me. Brother
Luke could say, woe is me. It kicked me out of my behind. Lies. Deceit. It's wicked. But we're
still not hunted. We're still not pushed to death. And here we see the gospel ministry
that Paul is revealing. and we see the gospel ministry
of the United States of America, and we ask ourselves, what's
different? What's wrong? Why is there such a contrast?
Because friends, we live in a day where being in a holy huddle
country club is Christianity. We live in a day when people
have more to do every night of the week in the name of Christ,
but Christ has never been a part of any of it. There is no such
thing as sharing the gospel when you're eating. There is no such
thing as sharing the gospel when you're singing. There is no such
thing as bringing people to the eternal salvation of an ineffable,
glorious God through the face of Christ when we're partying
and playing games. There is only life in Christ
through the explicit preaching of the Word of God, verse by
verse by verse, for the sake of the lost who are dying and
going to hell to stand in an eternal judgment, and for the
sake of the church and their eternal joy in the midst of suffering. There is no other ministry but
that. And so myself included, all the
years of the big mega church, of the programs, of the drive
to get other people involved, assimilated, plugged in, and
ownership of something was wicked, equipped through the demons of
Satan's control. It was all demonic. It was all
evil. It was all worthless. And it
convoluted the reality of the Gospel. So that when God gave
me utterance of words through His Scripture, and I began to
preach, when God began to speak, people were like, what is this?
They did an intervention with me in 2005. Thought that I was
losing my mind. You're going to ruin everything
we've ever worked for. That's what I hope to do, I said.
Because what we work for is worthless. And it goes on down the line.
Relationship evangelism. Let's have fun. Let's go fishing.
Let's ride bikes. Let's do this. Fly a kite. Fly
a plane. Fly a bird. Great. Just do those things and quit
pretending like they're evangelism. Nothing wrong with them. Friends, if we've got a kite
flying contest going on and the Holy Spirit moves within us,
there ain't no kites going in the air that day. And if the
Holy Spirit's moving in those who came to compete, there won't
be any string coming out of their bags either because we will sit
down and shut down to do that which is glorious and not erase
it with that which is boring. Man, you seem angry. I'm not
angry. I am compelled. to tell you that this other stuff
is demonic. And the very little voice now
that we hear, hopefully and prayerfully not in our own heads, but if
it is, we say, well, I've been involved in that stuff. Well,
I'm calling your baby ugly because Jesus says it is. And I don't like people calling
my babies ugly. Because I think they're adorable. Friends, the
idols of our lives stand in the way of our eternal joy. You want
to know why most people in the church today feel depressed,
oppressed? Any other S I could think of
that would go with that? Powerless? Because they're not
feasting on Christ. They're feasting on religion.
They're feasting on programs. They're feasting on all sorts
of things. They're feasting on false doctrine. They're feasting
on the satisfaction of doing things that make them feel good
about them. Friends, what else do you need? Why did God take the head of
John the Baptist? For his glory. Because John had
prophesied that very thing when his disciples when His disciples,
people that followed His teaching publicly, who were baptized in
the rivers as a reflection of their new birth in Christ, they
began to gripe and complain, look, all of our people are going
to Jesus. And John the Baptist says what? The bridegroom gets the bride. I must decrease that He may increase. And as long as John lived, people
would follow John. When the foundations, as Paul
talks about, not only in Hebrews, but also in the letter of 1 Corinthians,
is shaken and tested by fire, what will be left of our lives? only that which we do in the
purveying and propagation and perpetuity of the gospel of Christ
as the church. God is not impressed or happy
with the numbers of our activities. Matter of fact, if God could
be, He would be depressed. Should we do nothing? No, do
all that you desire to do. Hold it loosely. It's not the
point. One of the most wicked things
that I've ever had to experience in my ministry, one of the, not
the, one of the, is when calamity hit, crisis hits a family or
a region. And you can't do anything about
it because of administrative responsibility that you have.
How dare we call men of God who have the vocation of ministry,
which by the way in the Latin means calling, vocation. How dare we say they have the
vocation of the ministry of the gospel, but have not the time
to do it because of the things that they are responsible for.
Sinful. And I give you all that because
that's where we are. Look at chapter 2 verse 11 through verse
16. I read through some of these
and quickly I want to just retouch verse 11 and 12 today. It says,
For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted
each one of you and encouraged you and charged you, listen,
to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into His own
kingdom and glory. And we also thank God constantly
for this, that when you receive the Word of God, which you heard
from us, you accepted it not as the Word of men, but as it
really is, the Word of God, which is at work in you believers.
For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ
Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things
from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed
both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displeased
God and opposed all mankind by hindering us from speaking to
the Gentiles, that they might be saved, so as always to fill
up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them
at last." Let me pray. Father, please, in Your wonderful
mercy, please, please guard my words that they not interfere
with Yours. Guard our thoughts. Make our
hearts understand and our minds perceive. Take our affections,
Lord, and point them to the cross of Christ and Him crucified as
our only hope. Lord, stop us from making a defense
of our own idols this very moment. Please, I pray. For if we do
this, we cringe Your Spirit and You will not give us the glory
of this beautiful text so that our joy would wane if we do not
hear. And every fiber of our being,
as we strive to hear, Lord, will never effectually give us hearing.
So we pray to You to help us hear. God, please help us hear. Help these children to hear that
which You, the God of their creation, can bring to their hearts and
minds. Supernaturally. Lord, we see
in the text of Scripture where children stayed around Jesus
while He taught the masses. They were drawn to truth. Lord,
we pray that for our own children. And we pray that for ourselves
this day as we hear Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen. Last week we saw, or in the last
few weeks, we've seen the glorious reality of the election of the
church in Thessalonica. We've seen this church and how
they believed, how they revealed the power of God through their
faith, through their prayers, through their affection. They
heard the Word preached and they believed. Then they proclaimed
Christ. Paul was sure of their election
because they not only heard and transformed their lives, or their
lives were not only transformed, but they proclaimed the gospel. Not just in how they lived, but
they proclaimed the gospel explicitly with their mouths. They taught.
They said, you know what's just happened to us? The God of heaven,
whom we did not know, has given us eternal life through Jesus
Christ, who came from heaven and lived among us and died and
rose from the dead. He has given us life. You must repent and turn from
your sin. You must believe on Christ. They
preached Christ and because of that, they were persecuted. They suffered great persecution. Paul says, as he reminds us,
that they turned from idols and turned to the living God. They learned Christ, they lived
as Christ lived, they loved as Christ loved, and therefore now
Paul wants them to walk in a manner worthy of God. Verse 11. Understand
that this manner worthy of God comes through salvation alone. and that as salvation has come
to them, then the apostles and their teaching, therefore for
us the Word of God encourages us to maintain our walk in a
manner that's worthy. And not just encourages us, but
empowers us as we are charged to walk in a manner worthy of
God. I want you to see here that this
calling, this is sort of a reminder, but it was really quick at the
last 13 minutes of last week. This calling is not Paul's calling. Silas didn't call them. Timothy
didn't call them. God called them. God called them to His own kingdom. God called them to His own glory. There was not a call to be a
part of the church. There was not a call to be a
part of a program. There was not a call to be a
part of a ministry. There was a call of God to be
part of His kingdom and to be a part of His glory. Now think
about that as you hear these words. Where Paul would say,
for all have sinned and fallen short of what? The glory of God. For there is no distinction. all have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. The glory of God is the absolute
standard. God says and commands, be holy
for I am holy. And if you are not equally as
glorious as I, you stand in the judgment of my wrath and my justice. For me, as God, to allow wickedness
of any level would be unrighteous. That's what God teaches. Romans
3 really gives us that exposition. Though the law and the prophets
bear witness to the righteousness of God, the righteousness of
God has now been manifested apart from the law. Who? How? Through
the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. So that God could be the just
and the justifier for all who believe. For He forbade sins. He forgave sin. He let us get
away with sin. He did. But He did not let the
sin go unpunished. Do you hear that church? God's
love for you doesn't allow Him to be evil. Your sin has been
punished. Or you will pay for it. That
is what compels us by the Spirit of God and His Word to walk in
a manner worthy of God. We've not been called to morality.
We've not been called to ethics. We've not been called to patriotism. We've not been called to religion
and churchmanship. We've not been called to evangelicalism. We've not been called to be a
Baptist. We've been called to the glory of God in the highest.
His kingdom and alone His kingdom will rise above the wickedness
of this world. For us to say, well, God will forgive me. God
has paid for our sins already through the suffering of Jesus
Christ, His Son. Why do we then want to walk in
darkness? And that darkness being included
of our worldly idols, of our worldly religion, of our unbiblical
ministerial practices. Walk in a man worthy of God who
calls you. God has called you, beloved. And you have heard Him. And you
have believed. If God has not called you, you
would be condemned this day. But how does God call? Paul tells
us in Romans 10. Blessed are the feet of those
who preach the gospel of peace. How are they to believe if they
cannot hear? How are they to hear if no one goes? How are
they to hear? But the salvation, the calling
through the preaching is God's doing. In Isaiah chapter 6, as
Jesus Himself preached to the Jews and then proved the preaching
was true by raising Lazarus from the dead, they said, this man
must die, for he has made what we have done throughout the millennia
idolatry. We love our faith and our religion
more than we love the object to which it pointed, who is Jesus. Let's kill Him. He's taken away
our power. God calls. And when God calls,
you are His. But He only calls through the
preaching and the sharing of the Word. as it's given, not
our twisting, not our ingenuity, not our creativity. I'm in the
middle of my... about point nine now. I don't
think all the elders even know I'm doing this. But I'm writing
a statement of practices and theology of exposition that Grace
Truth Church will adopt and cement into their documents. So that
if all of us are just hit by a train one day and y'all don't
know what to do, And somebody has to come in here and fill
the pulpit and he pulls up a screen with an image on it or a video
shooting with a rubber band or something. Somebody starts doing
a play or singing secular music to get the point across or telling
a story about a movie. Throw them out in the street. God saves through His Word and
His Word alone. He gives us the power of His grace through the
preaching of His Word. And if I twist it, I make God
a liar. If I need something to undergird
the Word so that children will pay attention, then God is a
liar! And He's not a liar. God's not a liar. God can do
anything He wants to as He wills. And friends, even when the gospel
is preached, sometimes God closes the ears of the audience that
they cannot believe. He says that in the parable of
the soils. He says that, all throughout
the New Testament. We see Paul saying that in 2
Corinthians chapter 4. We see the reality that even
in Isaiah 6, that's where I was, in Isaiah 6 where it says, I'll
go that they may have life. And God says, you go, but I'm
not going to let them believe. And then Jesus in John chapter
12 says, that has been fulfilled in your hearing this day. So the call and the gift of life
is God's. The work of salvation is God's.
It is not a decision of man, nor his genealogy, nor his blood,
nor his passion, nor his will. That's John chapter 1. But it
is God. If your hope of eternal life
lies in the decision you made to follow Christ, when you change
that decision, your hope is workless. I would just go ahead and tell
you your hope is worthless anyway. If that's your hope. Faith in Jesus
Christ is believing in, on Christ every moment. A forever believing. You are a believing one. You
live by faith. And even when you are faithless,
He is faithful. For He cannot deny Himself, Paul
says. And even when we know, wow, how
in the world am I saved? I'm so struggling with my understanding,
with my belief. The Spirit of God testifies to
our spirit that we are His children. And we believe fully that God
has satisfied His judgment against us through Jesus Christ and that
Christ is our propitiation. If we sin, John would say, we
have an advocate with the Father. It is so simple that Jesus Himself
said that it is faith as a child would have it. I can go up to my two and a half
year old and I can say, guess what's in my hand? Nothing's
in it, but I say, guess what's in my hand? What? She's amazed. There's a snake
in there. She believes it. And I show her
there's nothing in it. She goes, where'd the snake go?
They believe it. Friends, you've got to believe
Christ is your only hope. He's called you into His own
kingdom. in His own glory. Paul has already
said, I thank God for some things. Up early in the text, we give
thanks to God always for you. Constantly remembering you in
our prayers. Remembering before our God and Father the work,
what is it? The work of faith and labor of love instead of
fastness of hope in our Lord Jesus. So we thank God for His
work in saving you. He reiterates that again in verse
13. Look. For we also thank God constantly
for this. that when you receive the Word
of God... Alright, let's stop there. We thank God constantly for this.
They never take the credit for anything. Ever. Ever. Man, we sure did preach
today. Boy, did we get the point across
today. Wow! I waxed of eloquence, I've
heard someone say. Wax on, wax off. By the grace of God, we'd all
be that prideful if it weren't for His grace, y'all. So let's
don't get prideful in our righteousness. They don't take the credit. 300
people came to know the Lord. No, 300 people said they came
to know the Lord. Let's set a fire under them and take away their
houses and see how many show up. Let's take away their choir
and take away their children's ministry and see how many stay. They never take the credit. They
rejoice toward God when people believe. We thank God constantly
for this. That you receive the Word of
God. We are so thankful. Why? Because only God can produce
the soil of the heart which is good so that people can hear
the Gospel. Friends, you need to take joy
in that. You need to have peace in that.
That as you walk out these doors today, and you walk across the
street, or you get into your car, and you stop somewhere,
and you see somebody witness to me Friday from the window
of a pickup truck in the grocery store parking lot. Hey! Roll down the window. Do you
know Jesus Christ? And I'm like, do I really want
to do this? You know, we had about a three
minute dialogue about the gospel. People looking at us like we're
crazy. Took his tag number down. He's from Tattnall County. Maybe
I'll see him again. I mean, this guy just driving by. Hey, you
know, Jesus, boy, you better get right with Christ. I mean,
some of his language wasn't exactly the way I'd state it, but this
man was bold. And his wife, sitting in there
with a hat on, said, Jesus is the King, or something like that
on the front of him. And I'm like, oh yeah. These people aren't, they must
have been hanging out with Jesse or something. They have nothing to fear. The
work is in the hands of God. The message is in our mouths,
so we proclaim. Paul says, we proclaim when people
laugh at us, and scoff at us, and go weirdo, or say cult, or
loser, or beat us up on the street, or whatever they may do, we rejoice
and we smile knowing that the work is God's. And we weep for
them. We don't hate them. and we give thanksgiving to God.
What is it that Scripture says? And His grace extends to more
and more, increasing thanksgiving to God. That is why we can rejoice
this day, saints, no matter what darkness stands underneath us
or overcomes us. Seemingly, God has saved us. And that's all that matters.
If we die in this life through torture, or old age, or disease,
or disaster, we live. And we thank God for it. Friends, I'm going to tell you,
I could preach verse 13 right now just by itself, but listen
to this, and then we'll move on. And we also thank God constantly
for this, that when you received the Word of God, which you heard,
you accepted it not as the Word of men, but as what it really
is, the Word of God, which is at work in you believers. There
are people this day who claim Christ, maybe in your life, who
do not rejoice at the preaching of the Gospel, because they find
it archaic, irrelevant, and confrontational, and they grumble just like the
Jews of the days of Jesus grumbled. People who profess Christ and
grumble at the preaching of the gospel are the sons of the devil. Well, that's very dogmatic. That's
a polarizing... Then blame Jesus. He said it.
Don't blame me. Well, I just don't think people
ought to be doing open air preaching. I don't think people ought to
share the gospel. I don't think people ought to knock on doors. I don't
think people ought to do exposition. We live in a different day. They're
the sons of the devil. Now, there could be people that
go, I don't really understand that. What showed me? I'm not
talking about those people. I'm talking about those people
that grumble when people hear the gospel and people come to
faith. But when you do it their way, they love it. Why? Because
they're being glorified in their methods. God is not being glorified
in His power. If I handed out gold nuggets,
I could have every one of you on your feet. Gold nugget! Come get it. Starbucks gift card
to boot. Oh yeah, here we go. There's never any room for grumbling
in the heart of a believer who is sealed by God the Spirit when
the truth is preached and the lost are found. What does Jesus
say in those parables? That all of heaven rejoices when
one sheep, one coin, one son returns. In Luke 15, the prodigal
son, the older brother, is representative of Israel. who had the oracles of God for
hundreds of years. And they grumble that God dare
bring a Gentile, pig-eating, workless, squandering maggot
into the fold. When you heard, you received
the Word of God. Remember, God called them into His Kingdom,
so they did receive. They heard, and they heard the
Gospel, which you heard from us. We brought it to you. We preached it to you. We brought
the Gospel with our mouths, but it was in the power of God, not
men. It wasn't our philosophy. It
wasn't our traditions. It was the truth of the Word
of God brought to you, and we brought it to you with our mouths,
but it was brought in power. That's just a few weeks back.
You received the Word of God in power, much affliction and
the joy of the Holy Spirit. That's what Paul says. So we're
not just teaching you. I've been complimented recently
in the last few weeks of my teaching style and exposition. One brother
said, it was good to hear some teaching rather than preaching.
And I'm thinking, I've got to go take a nap. What was I doing? But to him, it was teaching.
Things that go hand in hand. But the Word of God exhorts,
encourages, rebukes, instructs, corrects, entrains in righteousness.
And sometimes these things, the implication of pure language,
must be forcefully expressed. If I saw a snake slithering down
the wall about to bite Levi on the ear, I'm not going to say,
well, I'll tell him after service. I'm not, whoa, whoa, whoa, get
up! Come here! And Robert and everybody else
in that vicinity would move. What's more important than hearing
Christ? I've picked up my Spurgeon in
the last few weeks, just trying to get back into that linguistic
beauty. I love how he wrote. It sharpens
my writing. It sharpens my oratory. I was reading through a sermon
the other day and it took me an hour to read it. I'm like,
this is a transcription. How long did it take him to preach
it? And I started looking at that and did you know that the
average sermon was three hours for Spurgeon? And so all the
historical things that I've learned through the years, and I hear
him used to grumbling in his journals about how people would
fall asleep in the pews and just lay down on the floor. I'm thinking,
how rude, because they're tired. It's time for lunch. It's time
for supper. It's time for breakfast. I mean,
you know, he's even quoted in saying there's going to come
a day when the church will not endure three hours of preaching.
Now friends, we could get more seating quickly. if we begin
to exposit the Word of God in such a way. I'm going to tell
you this. I've waited an hour at a steak restaurant before
I even got a table. And I've waited another hour
for my stinking salad. And then another hour for my
entree, which stunk. And then I went back a few months
later. And then paid too much for it. You ever done that? Well,
that wasn't too good. We might not come back here a
month later. Let's go back. Let's give it another try. If
I'll labor for three hours doing nothing for a piece of meat,
why not the Word? They received it. They heard
it. And they knew that it was not the words of men, but the
words of God, because the Word of God has all authority over
us, has all power over us, and it does all the work that God
does. God does all the work that He does in the lives of the lost
and His church through His Word. You want to be blessed? Know
and hear and heed the Word of God. You want to be rich in the
blessings of Christ? Then listen and heed the Word
of God. You want to be happy? Then listen to the Word of God.
You want to have the power over sin? Then hear the Word of the
Lord. That's it. And when I said rich,
I'm not talking about monetary. Ephesians 1. We have all spiritual
blessings in Christ. This Word is the authority of
God, is the power of God. This Gospel, the Good News preached,
is the power of God unto salvation. Paul would say in Romans 1, it's
the power of God, not just for salvation, but look what he says
there. I know I'm 13 still. The Word which is at work in
you believers. He didn't say the Word which
worked in you. He said the Word which is currently
at work, this very moment, is the Word of God working in you. For what? For election, salvation,
sanctification. We'll get there. It's coming.
Joy, ministry, all of it, the Word of God works. Go a day without
the Word and watch what happens. Watch what happens. You will fall into the trap of
fleshliness and selfishness, self-pity, self-focus, myopic
vision. You will fall into the flesh
before the sun goes down. You will! I wish I could just
get my life together. Then eat the Word of the Lord. You cannot hear. God has called
you. You cannot read. You cannot say
with your lips. The Spirit of God cannot speak
to your soul. God has called you to His kingdom
and to His glory. And then get up and just go live
in your flesh the very same second. You just won't. You may be at war. You may be
looking. You may be trying to fight the good fight of faith
by feeding on Christ. This Word is at work in you believers.
It is the power of God. There is no other person working. There is no other program working.
And there is no other power working. Do you hear that? Nothing. And so that if we are to minister
to each other as we see to the letter of the Ephesians, if we
are to be an agent of change, we would like to say that, if
we are to be a ministering soul, a ministering servant, we're
to meet the needs of each other, do you know what it teaches us
in the letter to the Ephesians? We are to minister to each other
through the Word of God, above feeding each other. Feed each
other, but give each other the bread
of life. first and foremost, and finally. And you're thinking,
well, who's got time for Bible study every time we pass somebody?
I didn't say that. I still don't know what I'm going to do. Well,
it's morning about 4.30 and I'm reading in Romans. The hope that
we have comes in the fact that Christ gave us faith to believe
on Him. What else do we need? Well, how am I going to change
my circumstance? Probably won't. But your perception of what is
eternal versus what is temporary will be solid. Verse 14, for you brothers became
imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are
in Judea. These are the first churches. The gospel birthed there first
and then spread out. And Paul is saying, you look
like all the other churches. You look like everybody else
who has been saved by the gospel. You and they all over the world
right now are identical in mission. Identical in method. Identical
in message. I think I tweeted that out somewhere
in my sleepiness this morning. If there are two churches in
comparison and one has a different method and message than the other,
one of them, if not both of them, are ungodly. So how do we look at our own
lives and the life of the local church? We look at the churches
of the New Testament and we say, does our church look, act, breathe,
live, and love like the church of Thessalonica? Do we look like
the church of Ephesus? Are we doing those same things?
If we're not, we're not doing that which is fruitful. I'm not talking about that which
we do in our social fellowship. Social fellowship. Is that even
possible? All things together socially.
All things in common in Christ. That's what fellowship
means. So everything that I am is yours. Everything that I have is yours.
Everything that I can do is for you. And vice versa. For all of us. Fellowship. Somewhere along the line, the
casserole dish became the icon of fellowship. I love casseroles. I just think we miss the opportunity
when we think that intimacy is that. Can you eat with somebody
and not be intimate with them? Absolutely. We do it every day.
You didn't do it in the day of Christ. In fact, when we have
our next fellowship, I'm willing to bet that there's some of us
that won't even talk to the others. We've got to make that a mission. I don't know this person very
well. Let me spend the next hour and a half with them and see. Maybe they will sharpen me. Maybe
God will use them to encourage me. Maybe I will be a minister
to them as well. You'd be surprised what lies
behind the hearts and eyes of everybody in this room. The suffering
is taking place. Paul was sure of their election
and the power of God. They had heard the Word of God.
The power was still evident, not just in their conduct, not
just in their testimony and their affections and their preaching
and their passion, but also in their mission. And what was this
mission and their manner and their message? He says, for you
suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did
from the Jews, those in Judea. So that's their martyrdom. It's
their persecution. Paul says, I know that the power
of the Lord has come to you through the Word preached to you because
you are suffering. Friends, this is what one person
this past week really got on with. It seems like when I hear
you preach, and they've listened to me online, you always in some
way bring up suffering. Because that's why Paul wrote
the letter. Every New Testament letter is
dealing with a problem or a pain point and allowing the church
to have the power of God to rest in it and overcome it, even if
it doesn't change. It is the mark, one of the marks
of a person truly living for Christ is persecution and suffering. And friends, if we really saw
our Charismatic partners in this
world, and we really follow them around, they do not have joy. They fake it till they make it. They put on the show of pleasure
to hide the pain. Because there's no man living
in this world this day, no human, that doesn't have pain of some
kind. Our Christ is with us in the
midst of it. And we know that when we suffer
for the Gospel, we have received the Word of
God. And these very people here were
not just suffering, they were suffering by their kinsmen. By
the hands of their own people. Not just by the Jews, as Paul
says in verse 15, who killed the Lord Jesus. The Jews killed
the Lord Jesus. Their own people killed their
own prophets. Paul is talking about himself. Paul said, I was part of the
persecution. I led that stuff. I taught them
how. It was my plan. We got rid of
Stephen, who told me that we murdered the prophets and with
Jesus. Now Paul is preaching Stephen's sermon, plagiarist. Should have gave him credit.
It's the Word of God, not of men. Paul was the one who got this
started. He says, and they drove us out
of your place. They drove us out of Judea. They
drove us out of Thessalonica. They did not want us here. And so they drove us out. It
has been said of Grace Truth, in a meeting of pastors in 2012,
something must be done. This church needs to leave our
calendar. No lie. It's in the minutes. Why? I don't know. Because for the
most part, I keep to myself on these things. God's planting a church among
us. We are the body. We are the church. We're growing
deep, intimate, glorious. God is working through pain and
suffering to grow us into worshipers, who worship because of the truth
of the gospel and worship because the Spirit of God inside of us
testifies to each other. We are here as a people, not
a place. But these people persecute the
truth. They want it out. They drove
them out. And Paul, if you remember what
he says to the Romans, he said, I would give up my own salvation
for my brothers. of Israel. Did you hear that?
So as they drove Paul out, he wept and cried out to God, God,
would you condemn me and save them? Is this retribution? Is this vengeance? Is this haughtiness?
No, this is absolute gospel-powered humility. Friends, keep this
in mind as we move in this life. Sometimes persecution, a lot
of times persecution will come from your spouse, to which you love them unconditionally
and you stand firm. Sometimes persecution will come
from your very family, from your job, from your city officials,
from your government, from just the world at large. And we keep
silent about our faith because it's such a joke to everybody
else. God is greater than that. Well,
I used to persecute this type of stuff. I did too. I remember
the first time somebody called me a Calvinist. I didn't know
that I was. I thought I was going to Judy
Chop him in the eye. It angered me. Because in my ignorance,
I thought that was bad. You must be one of those reformed
guys. Calvinistic. If I had a trash can, I'd hit
you with it. You know? Lo and behold, he was right.
So when God shows you His Word and all of a sudden you see historically,
ah, it is the same thing. Didn't know it. Don't hide. Don't hide the gospel because
you're afraid of the backlash. At the same time, don't become
an annoyance. Stand out with signs at First
Baptist Church or whatever town you live in and say, heretics.
I mean, you know, that's not the point. Every time you have
a conversation about the gospel and somebody's laboring over
their suffering, laboring over their prayer life, laboring over
the pain in their lives, you say, well, you know, that's all
well and good, but you understand election? preach the Word of God. I think
Kevin DeYoung said it years ago. I think that's who it was in
a conference that Luke and Jesse and I were at. And he says, when
you come to the doctrines of grace, the best thing that someone
could do for you was to lock you in a cell for two years where
you couldn't have any access to the outside world. And I'm
like, why didn't they do that to me? I made more enemies in
the first six months of my comprehension of the Gospel than I will ever
make converts, you see. You too, huh? But by the Lord's
grace, some of them are now coming back and saying, you were really
a jerk, but now I see the work of the Lord. Patient with those
who doubt. Paul would give up his own salvation
because he loved his enemies so much. He'd be willing to suffer
the wrath of God for all of eternity so that they would escape it.
That should be our heart toward those who hate us. That should
be our heart toward those who persecute us. But let me show
you the reality of what persecution of the Gospel is. We don't want
you in our town. We don't want to hear this word.
We're going to write a law to make it against the law for you
to preach outside the walls of your congregate building. Paul
says, these people displease God. Look at that. They displease
God because they oppose the truth. They are sons of the enemy of
God. They are sons of the devil. They don't want the gospel of
Christ to be given. They don't want it to come up
in conversation. They want you to enjoy your life. The devil
wants us to enjoy time together apart from the Word. He wants
us to have so much fun playing chess and shooting rifles and
fishing and sewing and cooking and gardening. All the things
that I would enjoy doing. Wrestling, fighting, karate,
kung fu, whatever, you know. Camping, some of you like to
do that. I'll camp. As long as there's Wi-Fi, that
type of stuff. You know. Whatever it is we like
to do, the enemy wants us so involved in those things, thinking
that that is actual intimacy. When we can do these things,
but when we're together for these things, the purpose of God for
the church is that the Word of God is front and center. And
it's not a bait and switch. Some of the sporting season is
coming up. Some of you play ball. Play ball! But friends, God has
you there more than just to win. And for most of us, we probably
never will. God has us together on that team to preach the Gospel. God has us at our work and our
job to be light in the darkness. And as opportunity gives itself,
God expects and empowers us to proclaim the grace of His mercy,
of His Son, So when we push back on those who preach, we displease
God. And look what He says. And not
only do we displease God, but we do so because we oppose all
mankind. Now that's a bold statement.
to which few people would ever have the opportunity to have
given the title. Somebody like Adolf Hitler, or Mussolini, or
Ho Chi Minh. Oh, these people hate all of
humanity. Maybe some of the most heinous serial criminals that
ever walked the earth. These people hate everybody. Paul says
those who desire the church to leave town hate all humanity. Why? Because all humanity is
dead in their sins. And those who don't want the
gospel to be preached, who happen to say they are of God, hate
humanity. People who say that exposition
is lazy, hate humanity. People who say that we ought
not preach outside, hate humanity. People who say we ought not share
the gospel because that's keep your work there, keep Jesus in
your Jesus closet, they hate humanity. Our own flesh hates
humanity. And we hear those little voices,
well, I don't really have to be the superpower Christian.
I don't really need to share this. It comes to our hearts,
doesn't it? The truth of the gospel comes
there, and it gets right there. And we go, I better not say anything
today. And we'll pray, ill-effectively,
thank you God for giving me the grace to be patient. There's never a time not to share
the Gospel, except that God doesn't put you in front of somebody. If God's got you in front of
somebody, and you feel compelled, the Word of God comes to mind,
share it. Will it cost you your job? It could. Do it with gentleness and respect. Preach the Gospel. Leave the
results to the Lord. Someone especially who professes
to be a Christian. People all over our communities
who live and work and own businesses and they are all part of churches
and they're members of churches and they go to church and they
give their money and they serve in ministry and they curse and
hate and gossip and blaspheme. And if we let that take place,
we're just giving credence to it. When sometimes a brother
or sister, what they need is a private moment to say, hey,
I've noticed that your stress level today is unbecoming of
a Christian. The outcome of what you're saying is not light in
the darkness. And your purpose here is not
for your company to succeed, but for you to be a light in
the darkness. Can I pray with you? Is there something that
we can do? And they say, get out of my office. You say, gladly,
but first I want to pray with you. You're fired. Good. Since I'm no longer working
here, consider me an evangelist. Listen to the Word of the Lord.
I seriously doubt a true sister or brother in Christ are going
to fire you. Even if it's just that quick.
Waitress at a restaurant, doesn't get anything right, never fills
up your drink, comes in, the food's wrong. We get grumbly,
wicked, grumbly, sinful, evil, selfish, grumbly. We ought to
take the opportunity to think, what is this person, this living
human being with a soul that stands in the judgment of God
going through? For crying out loud, they're
waiting on me. That's horror enough. The amount of rice and French
fries that we're going to leave for them to clean up is uncanny. Let me see if maybe they need
the Gospel. They oppose all mankind because
only through preaching of the Gospel can one be saved. And
they hindered us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might
be saved. See, salvation and preaching
are inseparable, church. Do you hear that? We pray for the salvation of
our friends and loved ones. We pray for the salvation of
our neighbors and our leaders. Lord, save them. Save them. Save them. And we think somewhere
in our mystical minds that at 4 o'clock in the morning or 2.30
in the morning when we're praying these things, that God's just
going to get them up in the middle of the bed and go, pow, pow,
pow, pow, save! Like a Benny Hinn show or something. It doesn't work that way. God,
save these people. To which God's Word responds,
go proclaim the Gospel, and I will. Well, I can't get to the White
House. Well, okay. That you're out. But you can talk to the
mayor of your city. And you can call them out. Privately. and you can pray with
them. You can talk to your neighbor
and you can talk to your loved ones gently, persuasively, but
most importantly, powerfully through the Word. Would you just
let me read the Bible to you? God, send Your Word into the
hearts of these people that they may come to know Christ. You
know, there's no such thing as a plan of salvation we need to
present. The Gospel is the plan. God's
plan is done. It's finished. Now we're in the
tail end of it. To tell everybody about it. Salvation and preaching are inseparable.
To prohibit the preaching of the Word of God is to hinder
salvation. That's why my brothers and sisters,
our brothers and sisters, in these countries where it is illegal,
are willing to die for the preaching of the Gospel. And Paul says then that their
destruction, their wrath has come upon them at last. Because of their hindering, they
are filling, always filling up to the measure of their sins.
Now there's a lot in that, but for time, I say this to you. To those who are not the children
of God, who despise the Gospel, they are not the ones who belong
to Christ. And their judgment is certain.
Their judgment is sure. Their judgment is pending. And in some sense, it is expected
that they hate it. And that they hate us. What is our response to such
things? Paul says their judgment, the
wrath has come. It's coming. Do we wipe our hands? Giddy? Get them, get them, get them
God! We weep. We pray. that God may grant them repentance. Whether it be a cantankerous
neighbor, a devilish deacon, ISIS. We pray that God would grant
them repentance. And if I could give my life in
martyrdom, and if you could give your life in martyrdom, that
the gospel be proclaimed to a wicked, hateful generation. Bring the
sword. These Christians stayed the course.
And one day they will receive the glory of Jesus Christ as
their crown. Church, the power of His Word
gives us the endurance to stay the course. We thank You, Father, for this
opportunity to hear Your Word. To believe, to understand, to
worship. Lord, we rejoice. It's a lot. It's so much. I fear I may be
going too quickly through this letter, but Lord, You will be
done. Help us to absorb all these things. to find application in
our lives, to test ourselves against Him. And most importantly,
to worship You because of it. Lord, I pray that Your Word as
given to us today will be fuel for us, food for us, power for
us, for our children, for our neighbors, for all those who
are part of our lives as we go into the world as light shining. Lord, help us to see opportunity
to share the Gospel. Help us to stand unmoved in the
midst of persecution. Help us to love our enemies. You loved us when we were Your
enemy. And though we may be hurting
these days, we are yet to be hunted for our faith. Lord, put us into the open fields
of this world. to bring in a harvest of supernatural
proportions. And help us not to lose sight
of the lost, and help us not to lose sight of each other,
as the Gospel is the power unto eternal life, and the Gospel
is the power unto endurance for those who receive it. In Jesus'
name we pray, Amen.