Turn with me in your Bibles to
Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four. Verse
17 through 23, follow along with me as we read in the word of
God. Now, this I say and testify in
the Lord. That you must no longer walk
as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened
in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because
of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of heart.
They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality,
greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not
the way you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about him
and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off
your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life
and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in
the spirit of your minds. Verse 24, and to put on the spirit,
the new self, excuse me, created after the likeness of God in
true righteousness and holiness. When you think about the light
of Jesus Christ, and you stand in the darkness of a building,
you realize just how important light is to sight. Without light,
we aren't able to effectively see what we should be looking
at. We aren't able to effectively
see what's before us. So just as I may have difficulty
seeing the text and the words on the podium today, Spiritually,
without the light of the gospel, we are unable to see the glory
of God. We are stale and stagnant and
dead in our sin. We've seen up to this point,
Paul teaching amazing truth and doctrine about who Christ is.
We've seen the very purpose for which he writes this letter to
the praise of the glorious grace of Jesus Christ. to the praise
of God's glory, to the praise of His grace. And then He's given
us time after time the teaching that helps us to see God in the
face of Christ clearer and clearer so that we might have that truth
that enables us to worship not the God of our own imagination,
but the God of Scripture. We also see that what God has
done in the life of the church is that He has reached into a
dead man and He has brought him to life. We call that the rebirth.
This rebirth then makes an individual saved. And that individual then
forevermore practices and exercises faith, and practices and exercises
good works, and practices and exercises worship, Not in their
own ability, but in the grace of Jesus Christ. We've seen then
that because of the power of God at work within the church,
that the church is not individual people standing on their own,
but that the church is every individual believer collectively
together. I know that's redundant. And
that each individual believer collectively together make up
one body of whom each part is extremely unique. And each part
is extremely important. And so if we are not a gift to
the church, we're a hindrance to the church. We've learned
of that. We've learned that the foundation
of being a gift to the church is what? Is to minister. And the word minister also is
translated the word serve. And that the foundational way
we minister and serve to the church is through the Word of
God. We need to learn it. We need
to hear it. We need to read it. We need to
devour it. We need to meditate on it. We
need to share it with others. We saw last week That because
of what Christ has done, that He brought us to a place of unity. And then uniqueness still unified. And that as we grow individually,
we grow to the praise of His glory, for the display of His
manifold wisdom as one body. And so when one of us is weak
in our faith, the whole of us are weak in our faith. When one
of us is hurting, the whole of us hurt. When one of us is sinning,
the whole of us are dragged down into the mire of that sin. Because we are unified, we must
then no longer walk as the Gentiles do. No longer walk as unbelievers. We are now raised to life in
Christ, so we no longer can walk as unbelievers, but must always
walk as believers. The stress comes, and you see
it in the church today, where there are so many times where
the whole of a congregation We have a very few, slim minority
of people who are extremely sold out and excited about spiritual
things, while the vast majority of people could care less. As long as the doors are open
and the air works, we're coming to church. But there's a lot
of times when trial comes, when things happen, Then what happens
is we see a very apathetic or frustrated approach to what church
ought to be and do. And then what happens is that
we see the true Christians become smothered over by those who profess
to be Christians who have no spiritual affections, who have
no holy affections, who have no affection for the Word of
God. But their whole joy is in what
the church can do for them rather than them being the church. And
it's just the way we do it. We create a place and we come
together and we say, oh, that's where I go to church. Well, that's
not where you go to church. That's where the church goes.
There's a big difference. We don't go to church, the church
goes to some place. So when we change that, and it's
easy to say, but it's so hard to do. Well, what does that church
do? What do you mean, what do I do?
So you need to start answering those questions that way. What
do you mean, what do I do? I do this, and my brother does this,
and my sister does this. We all do the same thing. We live to
the praise of His glorious grace. We grow together as a people
under the teaching of the Word of God. And we, like the Bereans,
look through and through and through to see where the man
of God is in error. or where he's correct. And then
we apply the Word of God to our lives through the Holy Spirit
and we understand things. And at the foundation of all
application, we worship. Above all things, we worship.
And if we love Christ above the world, then our lives will then
in turn begin to do good works. And good works are not for the
world, but good works are for the people of God to do to each
other and for each other. Now see, this is the misunderstanding
that so many times we get dragged into when we start thinking about
the church being the place that the world must see, go after
them, and run after them, and try to draw them with everything
but the Word of God. Yes, we ought to go. We sang
it. We ought to go and proclaim the
gospel to the dying world. But the gospel is this, that
God in His holy and righteous and loving holiness will judge
wickedness, and that every human being, man, woman and child,
infant or elderly, is condemned if they are not believing on
the name of the Son of God. That is the gospel. Jesus is
God who came to earth that men might be saved from their sin.
And if you do not repent and believe in the gospel, you will
perish. But if you are believing, the
wrath of God is taken away from you. Preach that and those who
reject that, we do not have another message for them. For any other
message is a damnable message and a lie. There is no other
outreach but the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no other power
within the church but the gospel, because we who are believers
are not those who have got the gospel. Now we move on to bigger
things. The gospel is the big thing. It is the biggest thing.
It is the most powerful thing that could ever take place in
your life. It is the power to give you joy when your children
die in front of you. It is the power when your grandparents
die of cancer and when your parents divorce and when and when your
life goes to hell and when everything falls down around you. and your
wife leaves you, and your children rebel, the gospel is the power
of God unto salvation and the power of God to keep you in the
hand of God forever. What God does, He purposes, and
it cannot be thwarted, for God will accomplish all that He intends
to do. That is the gospel. So if we
love those who are not in the faith enough to take the faith
to them, and we don't take to them the true faith, we take
to them a band-aid to make them comfortable as they ride their
merry lives on the road to destruction. It is wicked. The gospel. Now, as we see the power of the
gospel in the church, Paul is bringing us to a place where
we understand we ought to be unified. One faith. That that
I just preached is one faith. The gospel of the Jesus, the
Christ, the Son of God who created the world with His own mouth.
He spoke and it leapt into existence. Big bang, big tang, hoorang,
whatever we want to call it. God created the world and everything
in it, each thing according to its own kind. And friends, I'll
be straight with you. The church can't be unified as
the church is not holy. And that is the next portion
that we see in this text. Last week, I looked at this text
from the perspective of showing you the worthlessness of the
human mind and the human heart, that without Christ, those who
are not in Christ are worthless. Futile, worthless, futile, useless. That's what the word means. So
we who are in Christ are worthy, not because we are valuable,
but because Christ is valuable and Christ has saved us, so it
makes us valuable. Now, see, the problem with that
is, especially in American culture, is that everybody is taught that
you are an amazing person and you deserve the best. We don't
deserve the best. Human beings don't deserve the
best. We deserve the worst. We deserve the judgment of God.
We deserve the cross of Jesus Christ forever. And what God
accomplished on the cross in six hours, for an innocent man,
holy and righteous man, what He has to do to each individual
sinner is to condemn them in that manner forever. Finite man stands against the
infinite God, his punishment must be infinite. The call of God for the church
is to be in unity, and now this call includes purity, purity. Paul is saying, do not be like
unbelievers, church. You have been saved out of darkness. So why is it that you walk in
darkness? John makes the same argument in 1 John. If you say
you have fellowship... As a matter of fact, John does
it so explicitly that there's no other room to talk. He shuts
our mouth completely. We can't debate. We can't philosophize.
We can't theorize. We can't even come to the table
with any cognitive wherewithal to say anything but that. But just hush. It's what Paul
says in Romans, that the whole of the world, their mouths will
be shut before God. There is no excuse. There's no
way that we're going to ever have opportunity to defend ourselves
before God. And this is the message that
we have received from Him, that God is light and in Him there
is no darkness. And if we say we have fellowship
with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and we do not practice
the truth. What is that darkness? The darkness
is the futility of the mind. If we're callous to spiritual
things, if we live for the satisfaction of the flesh, and the satisfaction
of the bank, and the satisfaction of the glory, and the satisfaction
of the purpose, and the power of the world, and everything
that comes in it, we live to make ourselves puffed up in somebody,
in the presence of men. We long for glory. We are not
children of God according to the Scripture, if that is our
mantra, if that is our practice. We must realize that the church
must be holy, that it's proven to be the church. I didn't say
perfect. So let's look at this. You've
heard me say time and time again that God's holiness is a display
of His intrinsic worthiness. I suggest that you remember that.
God's holiness is a display of His intrinsic worthiness. Now,
what does that mean? That means that God is worthy
because He is holy. For if God wasn't holy, he'd
be like just anything else. He'd be just like man. No matter
how powerful he is, and we may give him we may ascribe work
to him just because he's powerful, because he could smite us. But
if he wasn't holy, he would not be worthy. So God's. Immutable holiness is unchanging
holiness gives us the understanding, the picture of how he is worthy
to proclaim all things. He owns all things. He is the
creator. He is the master. He is the Lord.
He is the judge. And so this. View that God has
of humanity. Is perfectly correct. God's thoughts
on the condition of men and women and children is right. The problem
is that we think we can discern what is good within our own hearts.
Well, you're talking about purity. Now you're talking about God
being holy. And so what we do then is we act like Jesus, right? No. Acting like Jesus will not
justify you before Him. We are commanded to be holy.
And when we are holy, when we do holy things and when we do
righteous acts, we're doing what we were supposed to do. We don't
get rewarded for it. But when we do not do righteous
acts, when we rebel against God, when we spit in His face, We
have earned the fullness of judgment. It doesn't matter how bad we
are or how not so bad we are. See, that's what we do in our
minds, isn't it? Even as Christians, we rationalize the level of the
degree of our own sin. We say, oh, you know, I know
I'm a sinner. Very few people under the sound
of my voice would say I'm not a sinner. No, that's I don't
I don't find too many people in the church like that. But
at the same time, out of their breath, but I'm not as bad as
that guy. At least I'm not doing what I
used to do. Well, praise God, you're halfway to nowhere. Because righteousness will get
you nowhere. Nowhere. That's the point. In our minds, we justify. We
say, well, I know in my heart I believe, you know, and I'm
a good thing and I'm doing good things. And so what does the
Scripture say? Well, I know that Jesus is mine. I know I'm the cause of all this
stuff. And we'll get to that in a moment.
But in John chapter 2, it said at the end of that chapter that
many people believed in the name of Jesus because of the signs
and wonders that He did. But Jesus Himself did not believe
in them. For He knew what was in man.
No one had to tell Him about the heart of man. And then the
Pharisee of Pharisees, Nicodemus, shows up and says, We know you
are from God. And Jesus says, You're lost. You're lost. You've not been
born again. You can't see me. Quit looking. You're staring
into an emptiness that you cannot discern. You think you know who
I am. You can't see me until you've
been born again. And then Nicodemus goes, what are you talking about?
You see that? In John chapter three. And Jesus
says, well, you see that wind? Do you know that the wind, according
to the Jews, was always mysterious? They attributed it to the hand
of God. And so Jesus, speaking at Ecadema,
says things that he should understand. He says, you see the wind? You
know how the wind is? You can't see where it goes. You see what it does,
but you can't see from where it comes. Such is the Spirit
of God that gives life. You can't tell it where to go.
You can't make it do it. You can't grab hold of it. You
can't see it. You can't go and grab and say,
that's mine. I'm going to claim it. You can't claim squat. You
can't claim life except it's been granted to you. You can't
claim the promises of God except they be applied to your life,
except they have effect in your life and they're effectual, given
to you by the grace of God through Christ. It's not in our power,
John says. It's not by the will of man or
the decision of man. It's not by the mind. It's not
by the person. It's not by your mom or your
daddy or the family to which you're born. It's not because
of the country that you're born in or the bloodline that you
have, but by the will of the Father that you become children. And
you get the right to become a child because God rebirths you. He
brings you to the newness of life. He takes you dead as a
son of Satan. And He makes you a son of Christ. The problem is we think that
our hearts are good. We think in some sense, even
after we've been born again, that we can trust our hearts.
We cannot. We can trust the mind of the Holy Spirit. We can trust
the Word of God. We can trust the discerning Spirit. But we
cannot trust our hearts. John says that No one had to
tell Christ what was in the heart of man. He knew the heart of
man. The prophets say that the heart of man is intrinsically
wicked above all things. It cannot be trusted, to paraphrase.
So what do we do? Well, sometimes in our hearts
and minds, we think that righteousness is morality. Yes, I'm holy. Look
how I live. Friends, don't look how you live
and call it holy, please. Anybody, including me, that thinks
they're holy by the way they live, doesn't know what holy
is. We are not holy. Even in the
best of our days, we're not holy. We cannot be holy. We cannot
be right before God. We can't go five minutes without
some type of sin creeping into our soul. Because even when we
think we are, when we go, yeah, man, I'm doing good today, sin
right there. You see that? It's a self-righteousness. Not one that saves, but one that
somewhat gives us confidence. Look at that. Oh, man, God, I
haven't I haven't said a word in almost three days. Well, you
should have because you just ruined it. You're so proud of
yourself. To the point is without Christ
and without the grace of God, we're hopelessly lost without
any ability to come before him and stand before him, except
under his judgment. This is the power of the gospel. But see,
purity and holiness is not morality. Holiness is not doing the right
thing. Doing the right thing is existing as God intended us
to exist in righteousness. Purity is not morality. Purity
is not the actions. Although it includes actions,
it's not doing the right stuff. Purity is a condition of the
heart. Purity is a passion of the mind. Holiness begins in the heart
and the mind. And it can only be there when
Christ is in us and through us and over us. When He has made
us alive is then our minds become pure, become holy. But even then,
what's the struggle? We love holiness on one hand,
but we're tempted by sin on the other. Well, I'm not really tempted
by sin, you might say. Well, then quit lying to yourself.
We are tempted by sin, even at the point to say that we're tempted
to put our faith in the fact that we're not doing what we
have done in the past. When we look at the Word of God
and we don't worship, we've sinned. When we're not doing everything,
as it says in Romans, anything that does not proceed from faith
is sin. So everything you do is from faith? No. So what is
our hope? Our hope is in Christ. That's
it. Christ alone. And it's not about our good works.
Holiness and purity is not ours to claim, but Christ's to give.
I want you to see that. And see, ultimately, it comes
down to a headbutt, doesn't it? The worldview in which we live
and Christ's. belief system that he commands. So if you want to put it in this
perspective, we've got the worldview of the world and a biblical worldview.
That's not of this world. We can't merge them. There will
never be a day when the world will look like the church unless
it becomes the church. You cannot make people look Christian. And say they're Christian. Why
do we require a class to petition for membership? Because we want
you to know exactly what we believe and how we hold ourselves accountable
to what we believe. Because sin in the church is
not tolerated. You can't just join the church
and become on the roll and live like you want to live. It's impossible.
It's a blasphemous thing to do. And it is a mockery of the gospel
of Jesus Christ to allow sin to reign unchecked in the church.
And that's with anybody. If every pastor this morning
in America stood up in the evangelical churches and basically said,
I've got a list of all the sins you've committed in the last,
oh, let's just make it exciting, three days. I was going to say
the last week, but he wouldn't be able to put that in his pulpit.
The last three days. And I need you guys just to sort
of get with somebody and work these things out if you're struggling. And next week, if you haven't,
we're going to print them in the bulletin. There'd be like
three people there, him, his wife and the daughter that he
dragged there the next Sunday. And that's a joke. But in reality,
and I'm not one of these that think we ought to come up front
and confess our sins every time. We never worship. We never have
time to worship. But I think we ought to be accountable
to our lives as Christians. We ought to be accountable to
growing in Christ. That's what shepherding is. We look at each
other and we go, whoa, I see fruit. Or we say, I see some
fruit, but it's rotten. So let's change some things. Let me help you as you help me.
As one man sharpens another, iron sharpens iron, so one man
sharpens another. As we come alongside one another
as recipients of grace, we aren't those people who have it together,
but we are those people who walk together. in the same position,
in need of Christ and His power. Unbelievers' minds, as we've
seen in this text, are distorted and disordered. Understand that. Our minds before Christ were
disordered and distorted. We were out of place. Our hearts
were out of place. They weren't in tune with righteousness. Why? Because of ignorance. This
is Review. because of the ignorance that
was within us. But now we are not like that,
so we don't walk as the Gentiles do. We don't walk as unbelievers. And this ignorance results in
sinful actions and sinful desires and sinful responses and wicked
thoughts and wicked lustful desires. Wickedness. That's what happens
when we are ignorant of the gospel. We respond with sin. That's what happens. We're not
sinners. We're not called sinners because
we sin. We sin because we're sinners. And except God saves
us and changes us from sinner to saint, we're going to continue
to be a slave to sin. Turn to Romans chapter 1 real
quick. And I said, why am I going there? Because Paul wrote that
too. And what he wrote here in Ephesians chapter 4 is really
just a small version of what he wrote in chapter 1 of Romans,
verse 18. Listen to the words here in Romans
1 18 for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness
suppress the truth. For what can be known about God
is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His
invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the
world in the things that have been made. So they are without
excuse. For although they knew God, they
did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became
futile, useless, worthless in their thinking, and their foolish
hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became
fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for
images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping
things. Four points I want you to see
that relate to the text that we're in. Four things out of
Romans 1 that relate to the text that we're in. The first thing
is that God has made himself known. So all men, atheists,
infants, agnostics, Buddhists, Jehovah's Witnesses, all people
are without excuse. God has revealed Himself through
creation, and because of that, when the world looks at what
has been made in the right state, in a state of regeneration, we
seek after Him. But what happens? What happens
to those who are not believers? They ignore it. They refuse to
believe. I'm not going to believe that.
I'm not going to believe that. And church, don't get yourself
off the hook. Because even in our lives as
Christians, we fall prey to some of this thinking. And the Spirit
of God goes, Hey! Wake up! Watch out! See, that's God's grace. Hey!
That's God's grace. That's what it sounds like. Look
at this. See your sin. See your unbelief. And we repent and believe. Every
segment of our day, every season of our life, we're repenting
and believing and trusting. But see, no one seeks after God.
No, not one, the Scripture says, even though He's clearly made
Himself known. There are no seekers in this world. The world, and
we call them, and back when I was in church growth, a part of a
Saddleback Church, we called it Seeker Sensitive Church. And
we baptized masses every year, and those masses would get wet,
dry off, and move on. Get wet, dry off, and move on. Because they weren't saved. They
never had a holy desire for Christ, for His people. If we don't get this at church,
then we're going to find a church that gives us that. I thought
you were looking for Christ. No, not really. We've got Jesus
everywhere. We'll just find the Jesus we
like. As a matter of fact, that was one of the games that you
played in the church growth movement. Whoever had the biggest marketing
budget would get the most people because we could display Jesus
a little bit differently than the guy down the street with
a billboard or a television ad. God has made Himself known and
no one seeks after Him. The only people who seek after
God are those who have been born of God. The second thing I want
you to understand from Romans, as well as in this text, is that
people refuse to see God. They refuse to see the God of
the Scripture. Even the ones who say, well,
I believe in God. I believe Jesus. In my mind, I believe that these
things are true. Great. Then where's the fruit
of it? The words of Jesus Christ himself, that you will know a tree by
its fruit. And Jesus says in the Gospels
that any tree that does not bear fruit will be cut down and burned.
God doesn't burn his children. He doesn't judge his children.
Therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
So who is he talking about? What about the parable of the
sower? Those who are excited about the
Word and they fall away. Those who receive it gladly and
then the devil is allowed to come and take it away. Those
who are deeply just excited about spiritual things and then the
stress of the world just sort of... Jesus says those weren't His.
And they think they've got something and He says out of His own mouth
that that which they think they have will be taken away from
them. You know what that is? That's
judgment. For those who are unbelievers, it's judgment, and sometimes
I believe church and this is a harsh statement, but I believe
that God is putting judgment in many congregations across
America. And I believe God is judging, and He's judging through
the mouths of pastors, and He's judging through the mouths of
teachers, and He's judging through deacons and leaders and congregations,
and He's judging through children and teenagers and parents, and
He's passing judgment. He's bringing judgment because
He's continuing to allow the lies to be perpetrated over and
over again, where people have then created a Jesus that is
not even in Scripture. People refuse to see the God
of the Scriptures. And when someone says this is the God of the Scripture
and it doesn't agree with them, they go, that's wrong. There's
no way my God could be like that. Now, friends, I used to say those
same things. Be careful thinking that it's
not you. They create gods of their own choosing. In turn,
they are guilty of refusing to see and believe and repent and
be holy. This is done by wickedness. How
do they suppress the truth? They suppress the truth by wickedness. They ignore it, they rebel against
it, and they suppress the truth by wickedness. They live wicked
lives so that they can detract from God's glorious revelation.
Well, they know that God is there. But in order to feel good about
themselves and to push away that revelation, they just live wickedly,
more wickedly and more and more wickedly. And they refuse to
believe and they refuse to seek and they refuse. So God turns
them over to a reprobate mind, turns them over to the to the
passions of the flesh and seals their heart for judgment. That's
not the God that I know. It better be. It better be. They know that
if they see God and recognize Him as who He is, that their
actions and their desires and their thinking would have to
change. Because they know that their heart is sinful. And they
cannot say that there is a God. And they cannot say that that
is the God of the Bible without changing who they are. The third
thing I want you to see is that God, because of the ignorance,
because of the rebellion, because of the sin and the wickedness,
God has placed wrath upon these people. He's turned them over
to a reprobate mind. That means they cannot stop sinning
and they will fall deeper and deeper into unbelief. He's given
them over to the lust of their flesh. As John says in 1 John
2, verses 15 through 17, he says that the world, those who love
the world, love these things, the lust of the eyes, the lust
of the flesh or the pride of life and the pride of possessions.
It's the same three things that Jesus was tempted with in the
wilderness. Bread that was good to eat. Eve
saw the fruit. It was good to eat. And Satan
said, that looks good. It looks good, doesn't it? And
then he tempted her with her pride and power and possession. Don't you want to be like God?
You're not going to die if you eat that. It's good for you anyways.
It's good for you. Didn't God make it? It's good.
And you're not going to die. You're going to be like God because
you're going to know good and evil. He wasn't lying. But He did lie. He played to her desire to be And then she would have a possession.
Then you know what you'll have? You'll have the knowledge. You'll
have power. You'll have fruit. You can eat
that tree all day. One? What's one? Just eat the
rest of it. You can have it all. God gives over those to that. And church, if He had not saved
us out of that darkness, we would be picking from that tree right
now. Because, as we see, He darkens
their minds. He darkens their minds so that
they continue to sin and bring judgment on top of judgment.
Stacking and stacking and stacking. They claim to be wise, but they
became fools through the proclamation of their wisdom. Wisdom to know
what they don't know. The wisdom to do what they think
they know. Not only were they openly, sinfully
living, but they also had a self-righteous and worthy mind, thinking that
they were worth more than they were. And church, understand
that sometimes we have that same mind. It sneaks back in there
and it tells us. And when we say, well, I'm saved
because of my sinlessness. I know I'm a Christian because
I'm doing so good. Well, be careful. Or you might
say, well, I'm not like those people. Or you might say, well,
I'm okay because I quote, accepted, end quote, Jesus. Really? Many people accept Jesus, but
He doesn't accept them except they be born again. You can accept
Him all day. You're not going to be saved
because you accept Christ. I accept that million dollar
check. Where is it at? I receive it right now. Where is it? It's
not coming. Because you haven't written it. You see the point? See how silly that sounds? That's
what we do. Women will say, well, I'm fine
because I'm in church, or I'm fine because I'm doing well in
the study of the Word, or I'm fine because God loves me. I
know that He loves me. How do you know that? I just
know. But don't say I just know. Do you know? For God loved the
world in this way, that He gave His only Son. Why did He give?
To kill Him. Why did he have to kill him?
So that he could forgive the church, those who believe in
Jesus Christ. And Jesus says in John 3, those
who have not believed, who are not now believing, are condemned
already. For the wrath of God remains
on them. Sometimes we become fools. When
we say, well, I'm not a bad person, or I'm worth saving, or I like
the one I've recently heard, I placed my life fully in the
hands of Jesus. Really? You placed your life
in the hands of Jesus. How did that work? Did you trip
Him? Did you tie Him up? Did you dropkick Him like Chuck
Norris and then jump on in there and tie His hands together? How
did you do that? Well, I don't know. I don't think you put your
life in anything. but your own idea of what it
means to be a Christian. Well, my worship is authentic.
I really do worship well. See, sometimes we say that type
of stuff. Really? I'm of the belief that when we
think our worship is true, it's probably not. We honor Him with
our lips, but our hearts are far from Him. When my actions
are pure, when my mind is set on heavenly things, is it really?
When I'm serving, when my thoughts are holy. These are things that
I've heard just in the last few weeks. As I talk to people in
the communities, these statements get us into trouble. They create
what's called now back to Ephesians 4, the callous heart. It creates
a callous heart, because then when the Word of God comes forth
through brother or sister or preacher or teacher or through
the reading of our own eyes, and we see these things, and
we feel that friction, and we feel that conflict, we go, oh
no, that's not talking to me. I'm not going to feel this way.
I'm not going to be accepting and receiving that type of spirit.
You better, because it's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
is the only spirit that convicts you of your sin. And when you
feel convicted, when you feel the need to test your faith to
see if you're in Christ, you better not quench it. Because
by suppression of the truth, you'll find yourself in judgment. And that callous heart and that
callous mind will render us unable to see or hear the words of Christ.
What is callousness? Callousness is ignoring the Word
of God. A refusal to hear sound teachings. 2 Timothy 3 says there
will come a day that in these last days, there will be times
of difficulty. Times for difficulty. There will
be times where people will not... How does it say that? Will be
lovers of self. They'll be lovers of self, lovers
of money. They'll be proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their
parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, treacherous, slanderous,
without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous,
reckless, swollen with pride, lovers of pleasure rather than
lovers of God. Listen, having the appearance of godliness,
but denying its power. Do you know who Paul's talking
about? People in the church. Folks, he's not talking about
people in the world. That's obvious. Oh, look at the
sinners over there. Paul is saying to Timothy, there'll
come a day when those who stand and proclaim Christ boldly will
not believe in sound teaching. Folks, it started then and it's
worse now. Sound teaching gives you eternal
life. Sound teaching holds you in the
hand of God. And sound teaching, the divine
power of God, protects you and gives you everything you need
for life and godliness. And what does Paul tell young
Timothy? Those people who have the image of godliness, the appearance
of godliness, but deny its power. He says, avoid such people. Avoid them. Avoid those who are
in the church who say that they're part of the body of Christ, but
they're unappeasable and they're treacherous. They don't love
good. They're without self-control. They're disobedient to parents.
Push them out the door and tell them never to come back until
they repent and believe the gospel. How? When did we do that? We
better be spiritual, hadn't we? If heaven helped, we'd throw
a brother out who just didn't get the opportunity to repent
and make it right. See why we can't just see each
other for an hour a week. Avoid such people, for among
them are those who creep into households and capture weak women,
burdened with sins and led astray by various passions. Listen to
Paul. Always learning. never able to
arrive at the knowledge of truth. You want some examples of this?
You want some examples of some of this type of wisdom, some
of this type of callousness, this psychological manipulation,
psychological biblical counseling? Some of this stuff that, well,
you've got to just say it. You've got to just believe it.
You've got to just do this. You've got to just do that. You've
got to do nothing but repent and believe the gospel. Quit believing the lies that
God wants you to be happy, holy, and healthy. He does not. As
a matter of fact, He promises you suffering, weakness, destruction,
hate, and poverty. God promises, Christ promises,
and the Apostle all promised poverty on this earth for Christians. Now, God does give some people
blessings. of financial wealth that those
people who are truly his give it away, so they're not really
wealthy. Theological extremes, as we've
been going through church history on Tuesdays, we've seen some
of these extremes. We've seen this modernism and this liberalism
and this neo-orthodoxy and some of this extreme fundamentalism,
this extreme theological spectrum that creates false doctrines,
improper understanding of the gospel, traditional practices
of church management and church growth. Do you realize that most
churches that I've been on staff with when I got there, and most
of them now still to this day, have a sinful, wicked polity? What does that mean? That means
they manage themselves like a corporation instead of like a body. Now,
you do have to have some corporate structure. The church in itself
is corporate. That's what it means. Together. One. But you
don't have a board of directors who lead the church. You have
a Savior who leads the church. A lack of desire for holiness.
Discontentedness. That's a big one. Sensuality. There's examples of sensuality.
We know what sensuality is in the world. We know. We see it.
But what about in the church? Well, that's not good for me.
This doesn't make me feel good. Or I don't really want to do
that. Or I don't really like that. You see it? Sensuality. This is my church. And I want
to go here. I want this. I want that. I want
this. Or how about in our liberties? I can do that because I'm allowed.
I have a right. We don't have a right. We have
no entitlement to anything but judgment. But God, in His great
mercy, calls us to be born again to a living hope in Christ Jesus.
And if we want to hang our hat on the luxuries and the awesomeness
of this world, then we are not hanging our hat in eternity.
It's not even going to make it. We're not putting our heart there.
Now, what about practice of impurity? We know what impurity is, and
they're greedy to practice impurity. They can't wait to practice impurity.
You know what those look like. What about in our own lives?
How does it look in our own lives, church? And all this comes, as
we saw last week, from the darkened understanding that God, as we
saw in Romans, puts on the mind of those who do not believe.
Those who refuse to believe. This gives way to a false idea
that we're united with the world. This darkened understanding makes
us think that, oh, we're the church. We need to go change
the world. You can't change the world. How many songs have you
heard by Christian singers that sing that junk? You know how
you're going to change the world? Die to it. I'm not a separatist. Be in the
world. Be visible. Be seen. Your holiness is not
a private holiness. It's a personal holiness, but
it's visible. Your stand for truth is not a private stand.
It's a personal stand, but it's visible and it's audible. How
does that work? Depends on how God's called you.
It makes me frustrated when people stand for certain things publicly,
but yet in 20 years, they've never stood for the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Actually, it makes me want to
use profanity, so then I have to actually go and repent. Because
I want to publicly get on a video and just say, what's the beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep, beep? Get off it. You can fill in the beeps. But it doesn't make you angry.
And then you look in the mirror and you realize, wow, I'm glad
God's not angry with me because I'm just like Him. Maybe not
in this situation, but I'm no better because if set by God's
grace, I'd be there. And there's many things in my
life that you can't see, and there's many things in your life
that I can't see. And so we're walking through this life together,
testing ourselves to see if we're in the faith. In 2 Corinthians 13, listen to
the words of Paul. For he, Christ, was crucified
in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are
weak in Christ, but in dealing with you, we live with Him by
the power of God. Do you see the point? Paul has
said the same thing in Ephesians. The power of God that is at work
within us empowers us to live weakly in the power of God. So
we're not the ones who are supposed to be strong and bold. Christ
is strong and bold. The power of God is strong and
bold. In our weakness, He is strong. His power and strength
is made perfect in our weakness. God doesn't work powerfully in
the lives of the proud. He opposes them. This is the
God of Scripture. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ
that actually eliminates all boasting of the flesh, all boasting
of credentials, all boasting of ability, all boasting of everything
except that Christ alone. I am a potted clay, and I'm cracked
into pieces, and if Christ doesn't use me, I'm worthless. That's
the point. And then you don't brag when
somebody sweeps you up in a dustpan and Christ spreads you to where
He wants you to be. And you say, look at me, I'm
a bunch of glass flying around. Look how strong I am. No. If you want to see a little more
how that looks in Scripture, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. For this treasure that we hold
is not of ourselves, but in jars of clay, so that the surpassing
knowledge and power may be clearly seen that it is God's and not
us. For we are crushed, but not struck down. You know, all those
things struck down, but not destroyed. Always being given over to death
in the flesh. Our bodies are dying, but our
spirits being renewed. All of this stuff. So we do not
lose heart. Paul has already said it to the
church of Ephesus. Don't lose heart. Because here's the thing,
church, we're not on the side of the world. We
ought to examine ourselves to see whether we're in the faith.
Paul says, test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about
yourself, that Christ is in you unless indeed you fail to meet
the test? You know why Paul would put that
as a possibility? Because it's a possibility. Why would he say
you might fail to meet it? Because you might. We're not
on the side of the world. We're not here to change the
world. We're not going to agree with the world. We're not going
to agree with peace. There's never going to be peace
in the world with the world and the church. We're not going to
serve the lost and bring them to Christ. We're not going to
partner with the wicked. We're not going to justify sin.
Church, we don't do these things. All people are guilty and deserve
wrath. The only truth and the only hope is in Christ Jesus,
and the only place to find that and be saved is in the Word of
God. No other place. And so the Jesus that is in you,
if you are a child of God, is the Jesus of the Bible that justifies
sinners through His perfect life and perfect death and perfect
sacrifice. Learning Jesus is how we circumvent that. Look
at verse 20 of chapter 4. But that is not the way you learn
Christ. He says that emphatically. I assume, assuming that you have
heard about Him and were taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus. To put off your old self which
belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through
deceitful desires. And to be renewed in the spirit
of your minds. And to put on the new self created
after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Now there's a lot here and I'm not going to preach all that
today. But I'm going to close with you thinking like this.
The learning of Christ gives eternal life. The learning gives
love and affection for Him. The reason you love God is because
God loved you. It's not the other way around.
God loved you while you were an enemy. God loved you while
you were dead, and He brought you to life while you were dead,
church. You didn't have a little bit of life on you and jump off
the cliff into the hand of God. God picked you up and brought
you to life. Do you know what it means to
have Christ Jesus in you? It means that you are the righteousness
of God. You are the reflection of Christ's
righteousness. And that righteousness is not
ours to claim, but it's Christ that's been given to us. We battle
sin and we fight for personal holiness. We fight because we
have been set free from sin. We fight because we have been
forgiven through the body of Jesus Christ, by grace, through
faith. And these things are not of your
doing, but are a gift of God. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. Jesus is God. He created all
things. Jesus is holy. He is perfect.
And He's always right in everything that He ever did. As a man, He
grew in stature, grew in wisdom. The divine Jesus, the divine
nature of Jesus the God, did not empower the human nature
of Jesus the man. It did not go and give Him omniscience. The brain of Jesus the man did
not have omniscience, but the mind of Christ Jesus the God
did. Jesus had to be fully man. The
hypostatic union where Jesus was all man and all God, but
they did not merge. They were separate in one person. That is important to understanding
the atonement. You cannot say that Jesus divinely
interwoven with the man. It's just impossible. It doesn't
teach that. The Scripture teaches that Jesus grew, remained holy. He never disobeyed. He never
cried. He never cried out of sin. He
never did the things that most children do. He did not reveal
himself in authority until he was 30 years old, because at
30 is when the Jews would allow a man to teach. At 30 is when
the Jews would allow the Levites to serve, because they believed
the apex of a man's life was at 30. He didn't come out and say, I'm
going to do it against the grain. He obeyed the laws of Moses. He walked wholly before God. Then at 30, he revealed the glory
of the Father and showed himself as the Lord of the Sabbath. And Jesus created Mary and created
the womb from which she was born. and grew as a person because
man is sinful and man must pay for his sin, but man can't because
man is sinful. So all that man has to look forward
to is forever damnation. Jesus became a man so that God
could kill him who was sinless. And Jesus, as a man, fulfilled
the law. He was holy forever for everything. He never took glory to his own
flesh, but he always pointed to the Father. Why? Because a
man can't take glory from God. But He is God. But Jesus, the
man, was obedient unto death. Then He was glorified. Now He
walks with all authority, not subjecting the human mind to
blocking and learning. He knows all things. That's a
whole other class. A whole other sermon. So God, Jesus Christ, the God-man,
came to live a holy life, to give glory to the Father, to
walk with man sinlessly, born of a virgin, so that Christ would
be the worthy sacrifice to receive God's wrath unjustly as a payment
for the sins of all who believe. Jesus then forgives. His church. And He gives righteousness that
rightfully belongs Him, for He has earned it as a man and gives
it to us. So, when we are in Christ, He
is in us. His righteousness is displayed. His glory is displayed. His wisdom
is displayed. When we live wholly and purely
before men, the wisdom of Christ and the reflection of His worth
is displayed. When we live apart from the world,
we are showing our bond with Christ and His power over sin
and death. When we do good works and we
have holy affections, our holiness is a reflection of Christ in
us. But when we continue to sin,
we are acting as unbelievers and we are acting as useless
and worthless beings. We are displaying a false picture
of the righteousness that is Jesus's, that belongs to Him,
that we are displaying erroneously. We are denying the power of the
gospel when we continue to live in sin. We are worshiping our
flesh and we have divined a view of God and begin to start to
define His grace based on our own whims. But we have not learned
Christ this way, have we, church? We've learned the Christ that
we spoke of earlier. The truth of the saints is that
we fight sin. We have the power to resist the
flesh in Christ. Let our sin be no more. Let our sin and our desire be
put to death in the flesh of Jesus Christ. Our holiness is
personal, but it is not private. It is corporate and it is visible.
And the body is hurting when one part is sinful. See, the point is this in closing,
I think I've said that 10 times. God's mercy is apart from his
judgment. God's mercy is a part and opposite of His judgment.
Judgment brings sin on top of sin, and callousness that brings
more sin. Mercy brings awareness of sin
and repentance. Judgment brings condemnation
and judgment. Mercy brings mercy and glory. Judgment brings callousness.
Mercy brings tenderness. Judgment brings hardness. Mercy
brings joy. Where are you in the depths of
your soul? Where are you? Are you tender and humbled by
the Gospel? Or are you indifferent to it and hard toward it? If
you find that you are hard, repent and believe the Gospel. Pray
that God may grant you repentance and give you mercy, if it pleases
His will, that you might repent, that you might be saved. See,
we who are in Christ have been delivered from the power and
the penalty of sin unto new life. Let us walk in new life. Let us renew our minds on the
truth of the Gospel, who is Christ Jesus, and then test ourselves
to see if we're walking in Christ. This is not determination. This
is not willpower, but a supernatural, unreserved, eternal commitment
to the power of God in Christ Jesus. Let us be a new creation. Let's pray. Lord God, we are amazingly humbled
by the power of Your grace. And we thank You so that You
saved us, that You brought us out of darkness. Lord, give us the discernment
and the conviction to see sin in our lives. Put in us a desire
for Your Word that we might eat and meditate and live on the
Word that You've given us so that we might fulfill the call
to display Your glory and to display Your wisdom. Create in
our hearts worship. Bring a fire continually burning
in us that we might not take pride in our flesh, but Lord,
forever humbly rejoice in Your grace. Father, I pray for those
who are here who listen to this message that You and Your mercy
may cause them to be born again in Christ Jesus who is an absolute
Savior. God, through it all, give us
joy as we fight sin, not to be dragged down into guilt and shame
and condemnation, but Lord, give us joy that we know that Christ
has paid that sin off fully. And then help us to see that
our righteousness is just Christ's righteousness in us and that
we ought to display it by Your power Help us to confide in one
another when we are struggling beyond our ability, for it is
in Your wisdom, Lord, that You give us brothers and sisters
to help us walk in this faith. And Father, let us proclaim the
Gospel to everything that breathes through our mouths, text messages,
e-mails, conversations, celebrations. Let it all be for the sake of
Your name. We pray this in the name of Christ, our Saving King.
Amen. Thank you for being with us and
worshipping with us today. And continue to be in prayer.
We've got a good bit of our folks who are out and sick. I know
Robin's mother and stepfather are continuing to deal with some
infections and things, so continue to pray for them. The Barnes
are asking for prayer as they travel back from Athens today
in the bad weather. And of course, the pregnant ladies
in our church. We're about winding down. We've
only got one more. Is Belinda the last one? And
we'll be done for now. But continue to pray, not only
for those you know, but also the families who have not requested
prayer. Because we all, all of us need prayer. We all need the
prayers of the saints. And let us continue to do that
for each other. God bless you. Love each and
every one of you. Fellowship some. And we hope to see you
Tuesday night at 7. God bless. Yeah, but she keeps telling everybody
she's the winner. I'd be nothing without you Yeah,
I would die If I didn't have your hand, if I could