if you haven't already, to Ezekiel
36, verse 22, as we read prior to our service starting. I want you to look at verse 37
for a minute. I want you to see the imagery here in the Old Testament. See, we've done a very poor job
in the last hundred years. of understanding what it means
to preach the full counsel of the Word of God. And we've divided
the letters of God, and in the same way, we've divided the people
of God. We have two bodies of Christ and two revelations of
God, when in all reality, that is Harrison. There's one body. There's one redeemed people.
There's one church. There's one Israel. They're not
separatists. Christ came to pay the penalty
of sin for His people, not His old people and His new people
and some other people. But He came to suffer the judgment
of the Father, to propitiate, to satisfy the judgment of God
against us in His own flesh, that He drank the fullness of
the wrath of God for all of eternity for the sins of those Of us are
us mortal beings so that. We could be forgiven. For God
cannot forgive wickedness. It must. There must be recompense. There must be payback. There
must be judgment. There must be justice because
righteousness is justice and justice is righteousness. So I see that it's very fitting,
not just for us as a church, but also for me as a believer
and for you as believers to see the picture of Christ, not just
in types and shadows, but in the fullness of absolute reflection
and revelation of the Old Testament prophets. It's not hidden. It was. But Paul says that it
has been made known. That mystery which was hidden
for generations has been made known that now the two people,
who are they? God's chosen Israel and the rest
of the world have now become one in Christ. I'm going to take this and I
want you to hear these words. Listen to verse 37 and 38. Thus
says the Lord God, this also I will let the house of Israel
ask me to do for them. Do you hear that? I will allow the house of Israel
to ask me to do this for them. So he's saying I'm going to purpose
in their hearts that they would desire this, that they would
pray for this, that I would give them this. And what is it that
he is saying he will do for them if they ask? Like the flock? He says, to increase their people
like a flock. Like a flock. What is the imagery
of flock? Why does God use sheep as the
image of His people? And wolves and dogs and pigs
as the image of His enemies? Because sheep always live together. You don't have sheep You don't have a flock if you
have a lamb or a sheep sitting in the corner. You don't have
a flock if you've got a lamb in a cage in the back of a pickup.
You have an animal. You have an orphan. You have
a scared beast that will eventually become sick. It will lose its
way. It will be stolen, killed, devoured. And friends, the reason that
God uses not only for his people in the days of the Old Testament
flock, but also in most emphatically flock and sheep of the New Testament
saints is because we are either in the church or we are in the
world. It is not proper. for anyone
claiming the banner of Christ, to have said to have been born
again by the blood of Jesus, to have been satisfied by the
life and death and burial and resurrection of the Lord God
Almighty, and be an orphan apart from the body of Christ, it is
absolutely unimaginable. It doesn't work. At the root
of it, it is rebellion. It is saying, I know what you
say, God, but I know best. It's the same thing that the
devil stood before the Lord and says, I will be like you. I will
sit next to you. I will rise and walk upon your
mountain. I will sit upon your throne.
I will be like you. And God threw him and the multitude
of the heavenly host out of heaven. And there will be a day when
God will Seek recompense on those angels and forever the fire and
the smoke of their torment will rise into the heavens. And for
all who reject the gospel of Jesus, they shall suffer the
same righteous fate. The flock. Have you ever seen
a flock of sheep? Have you ever ridden out west
and seen a flock of sheep? It's unbelievable. They just sort of cover the field.
I'm not talking about a guy with 50 sheep. I'm talking about thousands.
You ever seen that? They cover the field and wherever
the shepherd leads them, they go. If I were to walk out into
a field of sheep and just start commanding things, they would
not probably obey me. But their shepherd, they will
answer to. They will follow because they
know that their shepherd seeks to send them to good places,
to take them out of this field which they have devoured and
destroyed and eaten and take them to new pastures where they
will have food forever so that this field may be restored. I don't think there's ever been
a deception that the devil has
pulled off more effectively than the deception of orphan Christianity.
Because it's not just improper, it's not just rebellion, it's
not just weird thinking and ignorance, it's absolute wickedness. It's
wrong. It's a slap in the face of Christ
who put his arms on the cross at Calvary and was destroyed
according to the scripture and the history says that he was
unmeasurably, I mean, unrecognizable as a man. And it's to spit in the face
of that torment. It's to laugh and mock and scoff
at the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who is God Almighty in the flesh,
born of a virgin, living in this world that He created, that spat
on Him and killed Him and destroyed Him for the sake of the Father's
name. Because God wants to bring a
people to glory for Himself, that He might see them praise
His glorious grace forever. and thus be satisfied with the
fullness of joy. Do you know why the church is
so powerless? Because we have mistaken what
a crisis is. We think a blown tire is a crisis. We think a tie rod breaking is
a crisis. We think a truck about to kill
us is a crisis. or cancer, or death, or famine,
or Ebola, or war. These are not crises. These are
not big deals. What's a crisis is that when
we leave this world and the last breath of our bodies expire and
we stand before the God of Heaven in that instant. And He says
to us, depart from Me, you worker of iniquity. That's a crisis. You know why the church is so
weak and wimpy? Because we think our problems
are big. We think our problems are what the world's around.
We think we're the center of the universe and that all that
we are dealing with, everybody needs to halt, put the brakes
on and whine over us and wail over us. Friends, you want to
see lamentations? Read Jeremiah. Read Ezekiel. Why did Jesus weep over Israel?
Because they had something so much more horrific to face than
being imprisoned by Rome. And that was the rejection of
Him as their Messiah. We've mistaken what a crisis
is. Friends, I think in doing that,
I think what happens is we... and I know it's our culture.
I know it's an intrinsic issue that we are dealt because of
the culture that we live in. We live in a place where the
Word of God has no place. That's America. Land of the free
and home of the brave where the Word of God is gone. And it has
been gone, I would say, as a culture since the day it started. Do
not mistake yourself a Christian because you're American. Do not
mistake yourself a Christian because you are in the church.
Do not mistake yourself a Christian because you think you know what
you're talking about. Do not mistake yourself a Christian.
Do you want to know what's in your food or are you okay with
maybe something else being on your plate? If there was a 50% chance you
ordered something for lunch today in town and it could be feasties,
would you go? What about a 10% chance? Hey, no. Why do we take chances
with our pride? Why do we come to the place where
we would rather be right and proud than saved? It's a beautiful thing, the prophets.
And Israel had done just that. Israel had forsaken God in the wilderness. God, through power, brought them
out of Egypt. God, through power, let them
walk upon dry land and the Red Sea. God, in power, saved them
and guided them by fire and smoke. The tempest. By power, God fed them only when
they needed food. And they whined and they complained. We had better food in Egypt.
The menu was better in Egypt. We'd rather have gourmet slave
food than God-sized miracle food. What's that got to do with us?
I want a church that does this. And I want a people that does
that. And I want to feel this way when I come to church. And
I want to find this. And I want to find that. Find
Christ and you'll have it all. Quit seeking for the perishing
bread that is wicked of your idolatry. It flows out of our
idolatry church. That kind of stuff flows out
of sin and flesh. Oh, remember, God said, remember
your evildoing. Do not forget what you deserve. You see the point? Yet, we also know the grace of
God brings joy. But we don't wipe away our minds
and just live for ourselves. We've been given something new.
Let's look at this text. Therefore, say to the house of
Israel, verse 22, Thus says the Lord God, it is not for your
sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the
sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations
to which you came. Do you understand that? Here
is the people who are set apart. You realize, Israel was not a
people. God chose Abram out of earth. He was a moon worshipper. As he worshipped the moon god,
God called him out as his own. Abram didn't seek after God and
repent and get right. And then God said, look at that
great old fellow down there. Let's just get him and use him.
That's the kind of guy I've been looking for in the world. He
saw an adulterous idolater. And in the midst of his worship
of a false god, God said, Abram, you go where I send you. And
Abram heard the voice of God because he'd been given ears
to hear. And he believed the heart of God because he'd been
given a heart to believe. And he followed, not knowing
where he would go or what it would cost him. He followed. And out of that, God grew a people
that were nomadic so that He could give His revelation to
them so that they could give it to us. Now, you know the history.
They rebelled against God. They rejected God. Not once,
not twice, but many times over as a people. And that doesn't
mean every single person did. But as a people, they did. He
wasn't talking about the government. He wasn't talking about their
capital. He wasn't talking about their seed or their laws. He
was talking about their individual, thus corporate actions. That
when the church of Christ has disease, the church is diseased. If you get cancer in your eye,
you have cancer. You don't say, well, my eye's
got cancer. Look at it. I just leave it, sit over here,
and when it's secure, I'll stick it back in. No, when you take something
out because of cancer, it's gone. The same thing was with Israel,
the same things in the church today. But God is not going to
wait for his people to sort of get straight. Well, if my people
who are called by that name, you hear that all the time out
of context. Then I will heal their land. That was true then. But even if they don't, God will
heal his people. And God will, if you are His,
give you a heart, as you'll see, to love Him and to obey Him and
to be with His people. You cannot do one without the
other. You cannot say, I am born again by the blood of Christ
and by the Spirit of God and yet have no affection and absolute
drive to be with the people of God. It is impossible. It is
not a discipleship thing. It is a God thing that He puts
in our hearts when we are born again. And if it is not there,
tremble, dear brethren. Tremble, my sisters, that you
may not be born again. What do I do? Cry for mercy. God gives grace. God vindicates His name. Verse
23, and I will vindicate the holiness of my name. He repeats
it. Which has been profaned among the nations. Why is the gospel
so polarizing? Because God promised it would
be. And because it goes against everything we are as individuals,
as humans. It goes against the culture. It goes against religion. The gospel of Jesus Christ says
that we are unable and ill-equipped and dead. But God in His loving
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus made us alive again. And
there's nothing we did to deserve it. See, that blows us away.
We want to feel worthy of getting what we have. I can't remember
who said it. Probably Dale Carnegie or somebody
like that. But he said something like this. Today's reward is
tomorrow's expectation. And if there's never been a phrase
that illustrates the American way, it's that. There's never
been a phrase that illustrates how we feel as Americans. Even
in our faith, it's that. Well, God saved me. Now I deserve
to be saved. Well, God promised me. So now
I deserve what He's got. We don't deserve what He has.
We don't deserve anything but His judgment. We don't deserve
anything but His justice. And justice against humanity
is absolute destruction for all of eternity. But He has put the
destruction of all eternity on His Son for all who believe. So there is no more debt to be
paid. There is no more judgment to
be received. It's an undeserving grace that
Christ, in His own desire, before the world began, before God ever
said, let there be life, He purposed to create a people and a world
and a universe and to speak and the cosmos left into existence,
which is infinite, yet God holds it so that He could create a
people and redeem them, so that He could be worshiped. so that
we could benefit the fullness of joy in seeing the fullness
of His glory in the face of Christ. So God vindicates His holy name. Not through recompense. He does. He will. But look what He's saying
here. I will vindicate My name so that
and the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord
God, when through you, Israel, When through you, church, when
through you, O people of my own possession, I vindicate my holiness
before their eyes. Do you see the significance of
the body of Christ? Just in that. Do you know what's
about to happen here? The world knows you're my people because
you are Israel. The world knows you're my people
because you're sitting in a church by profession. But yet, they
don't see me. They see you and all you do.
They see your way and all your desires. They see your programs
and your plans and your majestic kingdom that when I shake the
world will crumble and it will have no effect in eternity. No
one's coming to Christ through that. No one's coming to faith.
No one's having their needs met. No one's weeping on each other's
shoulders through a VBS. None whatsoever. Countless numbers
of children are being told they're going to heaven. And then 10
years later, when they're 15 and they say, I know I'm lost.
And the man says, you pray to receive Jesus, you're fine, is
a sentence to a devil's hell for all of eternity. It is not
true. It is wicked. It is grossly misinterpreted. And it is the ploy of the devil
who takes the word of God and twists it that he may blind the
nations. For the Lord says in 2 Corinthians
that those who cannot see are blinded by the God of this world.
And the only way they will see is that God in his grace opens
their eyes that they may behold and see and have the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, which
is given to us through this word, both through Ezekiel and through
John, Genesis and Matthew. Wherever you see in the word
of God is the revelation of God unto salvation for his people
alone. Period. Glory. God will vindicate His holiness
by saving a wicked people. Do you see that? Do you see that,
children? Do you see that, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers? Do
you see it? You want to see a crisis? This
is a crisis. This is a crisis when so many
call upon the name of the Lord and Jesus himself says, not everyone
who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven,
but only those who do the will of my father who is in heaven.
Why? Why do we care about obedience? Because that's what God does
when he makes us new. He creates in us a new heart
and it proves that we're his because we desire to obey. We
desire to drive away. And when we try to do it by ourselves,
we're living in sin anyway. Because God has established the
body to support itself. If my left arm is hurting and
I can't get out of bed with it, I have to use the right one.
Or I have to have my wife come help me. Because I can't live
by myself when I'm hurting. It's a crisis. And God's going to vindicate
His holiness by redeeming a people. They didn't know it yet, but
what He was saying there, is I'm going to forgive you and
then I'm going to judge Jesus. I'm going to vindicate my holiness,
my righteousness. I promise to save you and I'm
going to save you. You will be a people. And the
purpose of Israel was to send the gospel to the world. And
now what's happened? Now the world is sending the
gospel to the Jews. How does He do this? I'll take you from all the nations
and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land
See, we who are scattered. What is it Paul is saying in
Ephesians? Do you hear the New Testament? Do you hear the Jew
of all Jews, Paul, Saul of Tarsus? When you hear this stuff, this
man knew this stuff from memory. According to the law, Paul says,
I was blameless. You know what he's saying there? I live perfectly
and you can find no fault in me. And the only confession that
he talks about in Romans 7 is what? Something you can't see.
Covetousness. So here we are. And Paul says
the Ephesians that God has made one man out of the two. You who
were far off, who were without God in the world, who were without
hope, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. I will
take you from the nation. What does Paul say in Colossians?
We transfer you out of the domain of darkness into the light of
His kingdom. What else do we see here? That God is near to
His people. God has brought us here. You will be like a flock. You will be a flock, church.
You will be a flock, O Israel. And not only will He gather His
people, not only has He gathered His church, He says, I will sprinkle
clean water on you. You understand? Psalm 51. Cleanse
me with hyssop. You know, the law, if anybody
touches a dead body, what has to happen? They have to wash
themselves in a specific ceremonial way and then present themselves
to the priest that they're clean. Physically clean. Why? So that
they don't tank their spiritual worship. There's a definite clear
line between what is physical and how it affects what is spiritual.
So if we're seeing the physical life in the Old Testament, if
you touch this or if you look at that or if you eat this, you're
unclean. That means you can't worship God. It's a picture. It's a picture of uncleanliness
in the body of Christ when we purposefully sin and ignore the
commands of the Lord. They will know you by your fruit.
They will know that you are my disciples because of your love
for one another. But yet we walk around hating,
feeling unforgiving, talking about people behind their backs
in the silence of our soul and spirit. If you love me, Jesus says, you'll
obey my commands. How am I to obey your commands?
Because God will do it. He has forgiven you. He's gathered
you. He's sprinkled you with clean
water. And you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness and
from all of your idols I will cleanse you. All of the guilt
that you have, I'm going to wash it away. You're not guilty before
me anymore. How can God do that? Because
He will put that guilt on Christ some hundreds of years later.
That's how. And then He does some magical,
mysterious, awesome, wonderful, supernatural work. What does
He do? And I will give you a new heart. You know what's amazing about
the world? There's never a time of hopelessness for the world. God can save the most wicked
of people. God can save the coldest of people. God can save the most apathetic
of people. And God can save the most religious of people. I will give you a new heart and
a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart
of stone and give you a heart of flesh. You ever know anybody
who had a heart transplant? You know what they're doing when
their heart's being transplanted? Nothing. They're laying there
exposed, and for just a few minutes, when all of that is gone, when
their old heart is taken out, and there's just a cavity in
their chest, and their blood is being managed and maintained
by machines for just a moment. And if the doctor, if the physician,
if the surgeon does not complete his work, the man is dead. When God gave a new heart to
Israel, He transformed them. They had fallen in love with
the world around them. And in some sense of their history,
they actually even sacrificed their children in fire and their
infants in fire and cut babies out of their mothers to sacrifice
to God. That's horrible. But it's not
as horrible as forsaking the Lord. It's the fruit of it. Israel worshipped with the pagans.
Israel became invaded by worldliness. And then, you know where the
Pharisees came from? They were the first Reformers.
They were the Reformers of Israel. After the Hellenization of Israel,
after the Maccabean Rebellion, the Pharisees said, we don't
even want the Greek culture in our life. We want to become pure. And yet, see them now. Remember
the reformers of our reform? The Protestant Reformation? They
were zealous. They were purists. They were
like, the Word of God alone is the measure of our faith and
salvation and hope. Where are the reformers today?
How many people who sit in what we would call Protestant churches
or apostate? How many pastors who are Baptists
don't even believe the gospel? Well, how do you know they don't
believe it? Because they don't preach it. If you believe the gospel, you'll
teach it, you'll share it, you'll preach it. If you believe the
word of God actually has the power over sin and death, then
you'll preach it. It's not good counsel that saves
somebody. It's not good presentation. Paul
says, I come to you not with great oratory. I come to you
not in wisdom, but in brokenness. Barely able to stand. Barely
able to speak. Stuttering. But I preach nothing but Christ
having been crucified. That's it. That's all I can do. God put a new heart. Jesus tells
Nicodemus in John 3, you must be born again. You must be a
new creature. You must be a new creation. Paul
says it very clearly that it's the new creature, that we've
been given a new life. We've been made new, not fixed,
not patched up. God does not put a Band-Aid on
sinfulness. He doesn't change. He doesn't
massage a stiff heart. He takes the old one out, puts
a new one in. and He fills it with the power
of His Spirit when He puts in us. There's a difference in being
indwelt by the Holy Spirit and being filled. The Scripture's
very clear with that. The filling is a continual thing
that we seek after, that we pray for, that comes only through
the Word of God and petition and prayer and communion with
the saints. Verse 27, it says, I'll put My
Spirit within you And that spirit that I put within you will cause
you, listen to these words, will cause you to walk in my statutes
and to be careful to obey my rules. Did it say you'll be perfect?
No. Did it say you'll always obey? No. But it will cause you
to walk in my way. It will cause you to obey my
rules, my command, obedience. is the work of God in the church. Obedience is the work of God
in His people. And we may struggle with certain
areas throughout certain seasons of our life, but they don't hold
us captive. We cannot do this and say that
we are born again and live in a sense of worship. We can't
pray and worship effectively when we're living in non-rebellious
sin. And you might say, well, I can't
get over this. I can't stop. I don't have the
desire to be with the church. Well, then you know what you've
got to do? Obey God anyway. Be in the fellowship of the flock
so that through the true intimacy with the flock, we actually know
what's happening in your life. We know how to help you. And
then, in turn, you help us. We help each other. You can't
do it. alone. It was not God's intentions
for Israel, and it was a shadow of the church. That's the point. We love to do what is right.
Verse 28 through 31, I'll sort of summarize this. It says, You
dwell in the land that I give you, your fathers, and you shall
be my people, and I will be your God, and I will deliver you from
all your uncleanness. And I will summon the grain."
You see what's happening there? He's just recapitulating. He's
reiterating that He's going to save them. He's going to gather
them into His place. Now, we can talk about land and
location. And for the Jews, they were thinking this way. And God,
in some sense, in the first part of understanding this, yes. But
now where? Where's the land of Eden? Where's
the Garden of Eden today in the presence of Christ? Who's going
to be there? All of Israel who are the body
of Christ. Only who are in Christ are the
people of God. Period. And I do believe that
God will bring revival in this world during certain seasons.
I do believe that God may and probably will bring a revival
to ethnic Israel. And we will see many Jews come
to faith in Jesus Christ. But we may not. And we may see
it and then for a thousand years not see it again. I pray the
Lord doesn't tear it up. But what is he saying? More than
a land, more than a location, he is saying, I am going to have
you dwell in unity. I'm going to bring you to a place.
What's the purpose of the land? To be together. To be identifiable. Why? Where do you get that? I
will vindicate the holiness of my name through you which you
profaned. among the nations. So I will
gather you up, and when you are together, you will vindicate
My holiness." Because people will say, there is the Lord's
people and God is their Lord, their ruler, their master. Church, you have been delivered
from your uncleanliness and you've been brought to the land of promise,
to the domain of light out of the domain of darkness. It is
only lived out together. What we do here on the Lord's
Day each week is not church. It's the church gathering to
be instructed, to be filled, and to be equipped to do the
work of the ministry, which is, if you look to your left and right,
see it. That's the work of your ministry. What's this grain mean? What's
this no famine? What does Jesus say? If you come,
all who are thirsty, and you will never thirst or hunger again,
drink. Do not labor for the food that
perishes, but labor for the bread that endures to eternal life.
I'm the bread that comes down from heaven. Woman, if you knew
who it was who was asking you for a drink, He would give you
a drink and He would give you living water that wells up to
eternal life. Oh, give us this bread always,
they said. Give us this water. Give me this
water. How are you going to get it?
You have no picture. I'm the water. I'm satisfied. All your
needs. Christ in his church satisfies
the needs of his church, even when it gets bloody and dirty. What's that mean? Because if
you think we're going to live together for the glory of Christ
without opposition in amongst us, you are thinking incorrectly. Because groups of people that
get together and never have conflict are the devil's people. They're
blinded. They're blinded. The difference is that God at
work within us satisfies our need to be right and proud and
have power, and we succumb to humility together, and we love
each other in spite of these things, because to whom much
is given, much is required, and the concept of that is My Father
will forgive you as you forgive others with the same measure."
Forgiveness? If it comes up in our head, we
don't quench our steering wheel. We don't think about it. We don't
go to bed at night wondering how we're going to deal with
it. We don't do the what-if game. We celebrate life in Christ,
and when it does come up, we pray for it, not against it.
And if it happens again by the very same person, we look at
it as though it's the same the first time they've ever done
it. Not, you always do this to me. Why did you slap me? I've never
been slapped before. And that person will go, I slapped
you yesterday. The mark's still there. What
mark? Did I do something to offend you to cause you to slap me?
See, that's counter-cultural. That's counterintuitive. It doesn't
work inside of our hearts, does it? So what's this fruitfulness?
What's this grain, this famine? I will make the fruit of the
tree and the increase of the field abundant. There are people of God all over
the world right now starving today. There are people in this
city who are Christians who are starving, hungry. They're broke, can't
pay their bills. They're homeless, sitting on the street. In every
city in America. What's he mean by that? What
I think he means by that is that your fruitfulness, you'll have
a unity and you'll have a spiritual prosperity. And the fruitfulness
of the church is what? Worship and affection. Worship
and affection for God through Christ and worship and affection
for each other. Worship of God through affection
for each other. And ministry is giving to each other at the
cost of ourselves. We don't give into the excess. We give to the full sense. That's
not a real word. The fullness. We give ourselves,
our lives, our time, our treasures, whatever it might be that God
has called us to give to whomever it might be in this body to give
to. The congregation of the whole
church at large, each congregation, the reason that the Lord has
established congregations in cities is so that we know who
we are. Because in the days of the New
Testament, there are a lot of people trying to become part of the
church. And then when they looked out, and they looked and saw,
they inquired what it might be to be a part. And when they saw
what was required of them, they went, no, I'm not going to be
that. I'm not going to make myself accountable like that. I'm not
going to be that. Why? Because they weren't born again. The
church is people who are born again living together. As the Lord has called us. As
the Lord has equipped us. So I believe this fruitfulness,
this increase, an abundant increase of the field and of the tree's
fruit, is the continued perpetuity of the church of Jesus Christ,
that it never dies, and the continual perpetuity of the expansion of
the gospel through each and individual Christian who is a very vital
member of the body at large. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, 13. You see that. The body is vast
in its members. And everybody is a member of
the same body and thus just as important as each other. And
I know people, what do you call people with no arms? Or with,
who are blind? That's an impairment. People
who can't hear, it's impaired. They can't function just as all
normal people function. And what's normal anyway? The
church, with a piece of its congregation AWOL, is an impaired body. It's diseased. It's impaired. It's crippled. That's why church
discipline is most of the time inclusive of people who are members
of the church who aren't in church. And they can't be found. Nobody
knows where they are. What do you do if you go home
and your teenager's missing? You call around, don't you? And
what do you do when the sun goes down and you still haven't found
them? You're freaking out. Do you sit there and do you talk
to the picture of them on the mantle and say, please come home,
son. Please come home. No. You get
on the phone. You get in the car. You call
the police. You call the GBI and the FBI and the NSA and NASA
or whoever else maybe went to the moon. You call everybody. And then everybody starts looking.
Then they start speaking. And then we move out of our area. We look. Why? Because we love. Why do we do it for our own children,
for our own blood family, when it's temporal anyway and we don't
do it for our church? Let me tell you something. My children and my wife are temporarily
my children and my wife. If I live to be 80 or 90, when
I die, I am no longer husband and daddy. And when they die,
they're no longer children, but sisters and brothers. So what
we do here is more eternal than what we do at home. Jesus even makes that perfection,
doesn't he? Even the pagans take care of their kids. If somebody
asked for a piece of bread, he'd give them a rock. Or he'd give
them a snake. You hungry? He'd go, eat this. No. So even the world take care
of their children. Should not the church take care
of their own? Should not the church have more concern over
their own? God, in the same way, is like
this. Why are you worrying about what you're going to eat tomorrow?
Why are you worrying about what you're going to wear, where you're going
to go, what you're going to do? You know, not a sparrow. You
know, it's getting cooler. You've seen sparrows? Count them. You can't. You've never seen,
well, I don't know, a sparrow, whatever they are. Those birds
that fly in those big flocks. It's like a cloud of black. You
don't see one flying around like, yo, what's up? I'm glad I'm out
of that crowd. They're there. They're numerous. And if you
see 50,000 in this area, how many more are there around the
world? And God said that if one of them falls to the ground,
that the Father notices. Jesus says, if one of your hair
fall out, which falls out continuously, by the way, that God knows He
knows. He knows the number of hairs
on your head. So if God's concerned with hair, which is not alive,
and with birds, which are just creatures that he cares for and
loves, how much more important are his children? So if God has an affection for
his children, why do we not have affection for each other? I think
part of the fruitfulness of that is not only the gospel, but the
affection and the worship. In verse 31, He says, Remember
your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will
loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. God wants
us to remember that we've been saved from our own demise. He wants us to remember that
we've been saved from His judgment by His grace. Because of the
great love with which He loved us, God saved us in Christ Jesus. God saved Israel, not because
Israel did it right, but He wants them to remember that I saved
you and restored you and vindicated My name and vindicated My holiness
in you and through you while you were rebelling against Me.
That's how Paul could easily say and understand that while
we were dead in our trespasses and sins against Him, Christ,
He made us alive in Christ. He repeats in verse 32, It is
not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord. Listen
to this word. Listen to this phrase. Let that
be known to you. Why has He said it so much? He
wants us to know it. He wants Israel to understand
that you are not the reason I am saving you. It's because you
are mine. And you've defamed my name. And
I'm going to restore it for my sake. Verse 33, on that day that I
cleanse you from your iniquities, and then he sees the physical
attributes of this salvation. I will cause the cities to be
inhabited and the waste places to be rebuilt. The land that
was desolate will be tilled. Instead of being the desolation
that it was in the sight of all who pass by, it will be prosperous. Friends, I just want to play
this for a second. I want you to think about how
that looks in the church today. Most churches are the place that is
desolate. Most congregations is a land
that is desolate. And all who walk by go, why do
I want to just give up another day of my week to do that? To be with those
people? Where's the restoration? It's only for God's people. So
if it's not there, what's wrong? It will become like the Garden
of Eden and it will be fortified and inhabited. The nations that
are left around you shall know that I am the Lord. You see the point? If we cannot live life together
now, we will not be together later. Do you hear this? If we cannot live life together
as the church today, we will not be together in eternity tomorrow.
It's impossible. Israel, if you're not restored,
then you weren't Israel. You know what that doesn't have
anything to do with? Worldly treasures. has everything to
do with we have been given, what does it say? Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in heaven and earth. Every spiritual blessing. He called us before the world
began. He elected us. He chose us before the foundation
of the world that we should be holy, in love. He predestined
us to be formed in the likeness of His Son. Holy. Perfect. Immutable. Giving. Affection. Forgiving. Together. Friends, when the church isn't
like that, it's a crisis. It's a crisis. It's a crisis. It's a crisis. See, God builds a people. He
builds a flock. Not only is a flock, but it's
a flock like the flock for sacrifice. That means it's a holy flock.
It's a good flock. It's not blemished like the flock at Jerusalem during
their appointed feast. Like the vastness of the flock,
the expansion of the flock, so shall the way cities be filled
with flocks of people. Friends, the purpose of the church
is to display the manifold wisdom of God, Ephesians 3 10, so that
the world would see that there is a God in heaven. Jesus says
you obey and then when you obey, you show that you love me. And
why do we do the works of God? Why do we obey the law of God? the commands of Christ, to love
the Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and
to love our neighbor as ourself, so that we can obey the other
commands of Christ, which means that we lean on each other, that
we lift each other, that we pray for one another, that we take
each other's burdens, that we tend to each other in need, that
we rebuke each other in kindness and gentleness, that we obey
the Word of God together. Together. This letter, Ezekiel
didn't write this to Abe. He wrote it to Israel. John didn't
write his gospel to a guy named Bob. He wrote it to the church. Paul didn't write Ephesians,
you know, to Frank over there in Ephesus. He wrote it to the
church in Ephesus. To the saints. What about Titus? He wrote it to Titus, but who
did he send it to? Everybody. Sent it to Titus,
Titus sent it to all the churches. Timothy, the same way. So what do we do? The reason there's a crisis of
faith and a crisis of evangelism is because I think there's a
crisis of churchless or Christless people making up the church. Because God builds His church. I guess the question now is,
are you the church of Christ? Are you a member thereof? Are
you bought by the blood of Jesus? Saved by His glorious Christ?
Are you in Him, of Him, and living for Him and through Him? And
is it proven by living your life for the family of Christ that
you call home. Do you pray for the people of
your congregation? Are you burdened sometimes to
want to help them? How am I supposed to help them?
I don't know. You'll see the burden. See the brother with
his truck brought down? You fix his truck. See the grass
up his neck? You cut his grass. See him eating
out of the trash can? You give him something to eat.
See him not showing up? You run after him and find out
what's going on. Because these are symptoms of things. Not being in the fellowship of
the saints is almost the last straw of symptoms. That means
that there's a spiritual decay at such a place that there's
guilt and condemnation that have taken root in the man's soul.
Or the woman. You know, when a marriage is
in trouble, and all you do... Have you ever known somebody
All they ever did was fight. It's easy to want to stay late
at work, isn't it? It's easy to want to get a job out of town.
It's easy to put an extra bed in the guest room and just sleep
separately for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. It's easy to just forget
about it, pack up and leave. Why? Those aren't the problems,
those are the symptoms of the problem. The problem is they
forgot the intimacy They forgot forgiveness. They forgot the
Gospel. Now, unbelievers, what about us? What about us
in the church? Are we forgetting the Gospel
by thinking about ourselves all the time? You know what I think
keeps our crisis in perspective? When we share our crisis with
someone else, and then they share their crisis with us, and we
spend our days helping pray for them. And they spend their days
helping pray for us, and we get off the selfish horse. But there's one gift that I don't
see in Scripture that I wish God would bestow upon me, and
that would be mind reading. And I'm being funny. Most people think pastors and
church members and elders and deacons and everybody in the
light have mind readings. That we're able just to sort of walk
in the room and go, oh, what's that? We get hit by this big
pain and we close our eyes and hum like a Hollywood sci-fi movie
and we see a vision. Oh my gosh, Sally broke her toe. I better go see her. You don't tell us. If you don't
let the church know what your needs are, they'll never get
met. Ever. And that's why when we're gone,
we need to go after each other to see what our needs are. And
to understand that our greatest need is the Word of God. So if
I feed you a sandwich and don't feed you the bread of life in
three to four hours, you're going to flush that sandwich and you're
going to be hungry, having never satisfied your soul. God builds a people. by His grace,
for His glory, so that His name would be great. And I believe
the name of God is great when His people worship together.
I believe the name of God is great when people have a mutual,
supernatural, spontaneous affection for one another. We're concerned. And our temperaments are different.
I'm not sitting here saying everybody needs to be as huggy as everybody
else. You might not be a hugger. You might not be a talker, be
a listener, be a prayer warrior. to each one is given gifts in
the measure of grace that Christ has given them. Some people are
good at doing these things. Some people are good at doing
these things. Nobody's good at doing everything. Don't expect
everybody to be like everybody else. Don't expect every elder
to be like every elder. Don't expect every pastor to
be like every pastor. Don't expect every church member to be like
every church member. Don't expect it. We're different. And there's
a purpose in that, that we work together. We worship in unity,
but we act and function Not in disunity, but in complexity.
It's a complex thing. That's why it's the many wisdoms
of God. And I believe God's name is great.
We worship together, having mutual, supernatural, spontaneous affection.
And also that we have a supernatural unity around a common faith.
That's why in our covenant for membership, the last thing that
we say there is that we adhere to and desire and agree to pursue,
not perfect or do, but we want to pursue together according
to the commands of Christ, a cooperation as a people to see grace through
church flourish as a community of faith. How does that work? How do we flourish? We agree
with a common faith. It says that we agree with the
doctrines of grace and with the purposes of the church as outlined
in Scripture. We agree that the world's ways
are not to infiltrate the actions of the body, but that proper
doctrine produces proper actions and methods. Are we in unity? Are we in unity
when we say we want to pursue Christian affection and love
toward each other? We want to pursue this as we walk together
for the glory of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, that
we walk that way. That's our covenant together.
Where's it come from? Be imitators of God, then, little
children. Do not be filled with wine, but be filled with the
Holy Spirit. Do not quench the Spirit. Do
not let the sun go down. We just summarize it. We've agreed to pursue reliance
upon God. How do we rely upon God? By prayer. We pray personally as we pray
for each other and corporately as we petition God for His will
to be done in our lives and in our world. We commit to praying
for each other and for God's purpose for Grace Free Church.
We also agree to pursue worship. How do we worship? Romans 12,
1 talks about our lives being a spiritual act of worship. Sacrificing
ourselves for the sake of Christ. Sacrificing ourselves for the
sake of Christ's Church. Giving of ourselves. Being obedient.
Living out our gifts. We are all gifted. We're all
gifted. We have the same spirit within
us. We worship through our service
to one another. We worship through our submission to one another.
Through our submission to the Word of God. Through our submission
to the leaders of the Word. We worship through our action,
what we do in our daily lives, that it reflects a good image
of ourselves, of our congregation, and of our King. We worship through
our knowledge as we speak to understand the immeasurable grace
of God every day. How are His mercies new every
day if we're not in His mercies? We worship through affections.
We worship through study. And who do we worship? God through
Christ. We agree to pursue meeting together
regularly and weekly in corporate worship in our homes and in our
communities as we are able for the purpose of encouragement,
growth, mutual concern. That's a nice way of saying how
we're going to sort of check on each other. And accountability. We
agree to pursue accountability to God through the local church. Guess what? Your faith is not
private. Who told you that? It was between
me and God. That's a lie. Your faith, your
growth, your spiritual act of worship, your understanding of
the Scripture, your teaching the Bible, your obedience to
the commands is not your business. It's our business. As mine is
your business. And if what I do in the world
contradicts what I say in here, you better, by the grace of God,
love me enough to say, hey, James, something's not measured there.
Even if you're wrong or mistaken, tell me, please, for the love
of all things. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't
feel good to be sitting down with a brother after teaching
a class for three or four weeks and he's saying, man, I recorded
all these, but some of your little humor that you threw in there,
I just can't publish them. It seems crude. People will look
at you differently. I don't want it on my website.
I'm like, OK. I thought it was a little over
the top. But then when I changed that behavior, some of the other
brothers in the church came up to me and said, man, I've really
seen a humbling in your spirit lately. I've seen you, when you're
saying things that are polarizing, you're doing it in such a way
that's not so jabby. I didn't know I was jabby. But we canned him. Like I said
a few weeks ago, we all got a little Jonah in us. Accountability of God through
the local church or elders and members that submit that the discipline
of the Word of God is prescribed for the sanctity of the church,
a holy people. This accountability includes,
listen to this, right living, pure testimony, holy pursuits,
church attendance, encouragement, direction, discipleship, and
other means by which we will obey Christ in the spirit of
worship. We agree to pursue holiness and
the power of grace in the Holy Spirit made possible through
the Word of God. We understand that Christians
are no longer slaves to sin. that are free to willingly pursue
righteousness. Friend, I just read to you our
covenant. What we agree to agree on about
how we live together as the Scripture calls us to. Are we living that way? Most of us, yes. But not all
of us. None of us are living it all
out the way we should. That's why it's a continual effort.
Togetherness. to walk for the sake of the name
of Christ who has saved us in Himself by laying Himself on
the cross to die for our sins. So now I go back to my question.
Are you in Christ? His name is great in worship,
affection, unity, obedience, as unto holiness, so that the
world will see that we have a God and He is our Lord. Christ has made it all true.
It's not just a shadow anymore. Even though our salvation that
we currently possess is a shadow of what is to come. We continue
to work into that place. And friends, I don't have a lot
of time to go into this today, but if you want to understand
what the joy of heaven is, it's getting as close as you can to
Jesus before you get there, so that your love for Him is so
great, that your perfection is so driven, that your holiness
is so tasteful, that when you get there, it's more exciting
than it could ever be. Your joy is not complete if you're
not pursuing life together with the people of God unto holiness. So believe that gospel, Church,
that Jesus Christ makes this true. And in Him, He is preparing
a people for the presence of the Father. Let's pray. Father, we are so unworthy but so grateful. You have declared us worthy because
Christ is worthy. Plant this Gospel in the hearts
of all of us. Every moment, make it fruitful. Break us and change us and rearrange
us and bring us continually into Your presence in worship, not
just in our soul, not just with the truth, but in the life that
we live as Your people. And Father, most of all, when
we feel as though we're walking rightly, let us not become proud,
but remember that which we came from. Lord, I pray You would
multiply Your church. And that we as a congregation
would grow deep as we grow wide. We love You and praise You in
Christ's name. Amen.