It is being declared righteous before God based on the merits of Christ. Often overlooked is the fact that when the Pharisee prayed he was thanking God. He was not saying how great he was by himself. He knew he was not able to do good works on his own, but felt that this infused righteousness he worked with justified him. God does indeed develop righteousness in everyone to whom He imputes righteousness, but we never achieve perfection in this life (Philippians 3:4-19). Works are the fruit, not the root of justification (Ephesians 2:10). This is the great danger, the teaching that the imparted righteousness whereby we can indeed do good works is the grounds of our justification, instead of the imputed righteousness of Christ to our account.
For some to justify means to make righteous rather than to declare righteous (cf. our sermon A Nail Pierces the Darkness). The Roman Catholic Church talks of grace and being saved by the merits of Christ alone. However, they teach that we receive the grace of God, and the merits of Christ, and are made righteous based on our participating in the sacraments of the church. Yet the Bible is clear that the gospel which saves the soul (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) does not include sacraments such as water baptism (1 Corinthians 1:17).
Also the Roman Catholic version of Communion (Eucharist) is turned into a righteous act on the part of the participant in which they maintain or continue their saving relationship with God. They believe that the real physical presence of Jesus is in the bread and wine and that it is the continuing sacrifice of Christ over and over to assist the participant in the continued removal of personal sin. The Bible is clear that this cannot be the case (Hebrews 9:24-28). The Bible clearly teaches that we receive the grace of God by faith alone, and not faith in any work, including a sacrament (John 5:24 / Romans 3:20-24 / Galatians 2:16 / Ephesians 2:8-9).
The difference is the difference between a saving faith that relies on an external atonement for sin and a misplaced faith that relies in an internal abatement of sin. We should be thankful that we have been given a measure of freedom from the power of sin in this life, but we must be careful to never equate this with our righteous standing before God.
In order for sinful human beings to have eternal life, the guilt and penalty of sin must be removed. Jesus does this not only by dying the death we justly deserve but by living the life we should have lived. If Jesus simply needed to impute the righteousness of God from His essence, there would have been no need for him to live for 33 years. However, in order to become a perfect high priest and lamb without blemish, Jesus not only had to die for us but He had to live for us. It is clear that the Scriptures speak of God’s people not only being justified by His death (Romans 3:25, 4:25, 5:9) but also as being saved by His life or obedience (Romans 5:10, 19). On the cross, God treated Jesus as if He lived your life so He could treat you as if you lived His life. That’s the Gospel.
Hebrews 4:14-15, 5:7-10 – this does not mean that Jesus was merely sinless in His essence as the second Person in the Trinity, but that He overcame temptations as a man. He revered and obeyed God. It says He was made perfect. Now if only His essence were needed for our righteousness there would be no need for Jesus to be made perfect since He already was. What this is speaking of is the same thing Jesus meant when speaking to John the Baptist. He was made perfect as a man (fulfilling all righteousness) so that He could become the source of salvation. Jesus was not lacking in any godly quality, but in the full experience of having lived a perfect human life. Jesus obeyed the Father in everything without sin (John 8:29). The lifelong perfect obedience of Jesus (Hebrews 5:8, 7:26-28) provides the basis for eternal salvation (Hebrews 2:10-18, 10:14).
Matthew 5:17 – Jesus did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves (Romans 3:20). Romans 8:3-4 – the problem is not with the Law, but that it was weakened by the flesh and therefore could not do what it intended (i.e. do this and live, Deuteronomy 8:1, etc.). Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin but without that weakness so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be met (fulfilled) in us.
In this verse there are two action verbs, in the present tense, which means they are this continuously, as regarding the Word of God. The first verb talks of what the Word is and the second speaks of what the Word does.
The first verb is living – the Word has the life and power of God in it. The Word of God brings the convicting power of the Lord. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Two other words give us a description of this living.
• Active – full of energy, powerful. It is effective (Isaiah 55:9-11). Its effectiveness may not be immediately evident to us, but as we mature we will understand it is always so, we will see it being effective in changing lives and also in hardening hearts. It will be a surgeon or an executioner, as we see while progressing through Hebrews 4:11-16. It will perform surgery and bring new life, or it will be the death sentence to the rebel. The Word of God either heals or it hardens, and it never fails to do its intended work.
• Sharper – comparative, not just sharp but sharper. In other words, it is not only effective it is precise. It not only gets the job done, it gets it done exactly right. It goes as deep as it needs to, it hits the root. This is what the word of God is; it is living, and therefore effective and precise, and that is why it is able to discern all things.
The second verb is piercing – to penetrate – two applications are given to describe it.
• The first is division – to separate – soul and spirit (spiritual matters), joints and marrow (physical matters). In other words, as written at the time these things would be impossibly hard to divide but that is how penetrating God’s Word is, it can and will find out the problem right at the root, no matter how deep it is buried, no matter how many layers it has to separate. Like soul and spirit, the immaterial parts of man, things we cannot get a hold of, God’s Word can. Back when this was written, bone marrow transplants weren’t available back then. But God’s Word penetrated as deep as that. The point is that the Word of God lays bare our problem; it exposes it for what it is. It gets to the bottom of it.
• The second is discerning – judging – not condemning but ascertaining what is really going on. It is able to see what needs to be done. It gives a critique. The Word gets to the bottom of things and passes judgment on what it finds. A prosecutor presents the facts of the case, but the judge determines what is right and wrong; the Word of God does both. Thoughts and intents, both the feelings of desire and the imaginations of the mind. As we faithfully use the Scriptures we will be trained to discern the wrong ways of thinking that have become fortresses for sin in our lives so that our minds can be renewed and our lives transformed. This is the surgical power of God’s Word. This is what the Word of God does. We cannot take it for granted. The Word of God identifies the sickness and because it is alive it can give new life. It can change the heart.
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13 – ESV)
One reason we have to go to church is that we cannot do self-evaluation properly. When you pray like David in Psalm 19:12-14 or Psalm 139:23-24 for the Lord to reveal sins to you, God often answers you through other people. For David it was the prophets like Gad or Nathan. For us it will be through the loving, caring, covenant community of the local church.
We can complain all we want about that certain local church not being a “loving, caring community”, but consider this. In Matthew 7:3-5, Jesus talks about having a beam in our eye. Now consider how having a beam makes us see everything as having a beam in it. Sometimes we don’t notice a certain type of car all over the road until you own one yourself. You see a problem because you ARE a problem, we all are, but God uses the means of each other to help us all out. If you think that you don’t need church you are wrong, but even if you didn’t, even if you did have it all together well then you should come help the rest of us.
If you think you’re spiritual, just get close to your brethren, and you’ll find out what’s really inside you. It doesn’t matter how agitating, rude or unspiritual your brethren might be. This does not justify your intolerance or impatience with them. These attitudes are characteristics of your own immaturity – a weakness in YOU that needs to be perfected. This is why some people run from church to church – because it exposes their bad side. They see their own sins and blemishes revealed in their relationship with the brethren, or they become outraged when their self-willed desires or sins are challenged through convicting preaching or correction.
If a person remains an “island” to themselves they will never have to face up to the spiritual immaturity within them. But exposing themselves to the environment of the church will cause them to face conflicts that must be overcome in order to grow up. A sign of a spiritually mature person is that they can be loving and patient with anyone (1 John 2:10 / Galatians 5:22-23), and they can humbly submit themselves to truth and the correction of authority (Hebrews 13:17).
Hiding away in an electronic church world, where the entire ministry you receive is by radio, television, and the Internet will simply not do. You need more, you need the local body, and without that, those other things can be a curse instead of a blessing. These things can become a form of rejection, not release. Apart from a local assembly, there is no scriptural justification for them. I'm not saying these very things are damning you to hell, but I am saying for those that will not attend a local church, they are manifesting a rejection of discipleship, of personal responsibility before the Lord, of an internal witness on the soul and of scriptural warning.
Television may bring you under conviction but the congregation will help with correction and will bring out your sin in bold relief. You can hide and watch TV but you can’t hide from God. Even if you think you are with God you must expose yourself to the others whom God would choose to mold you. If there’s bitterness or a lack of love, it will become exposed. When you hide from church, you are exposed.
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. (Hebrews 3:12 – ESV)
When temptation comes, you will either dwell on the thought, or pray, as you ought. When you dwell on a thought, the thought dwells in you. The devil’s delight is for you to look at that thing and become intoxicated with it, or fear of losing it, or despair of defeat from it. Don’t let the devil have a place inside your head. Don’t magnify his words and let them develop into your will (James 1:14-16), magnify the Word of God in those moments of evil desire.
The longer you look at the giant the bigger he becomes, the longer you pray to God the closer He becomes. When the temptation comes and what is in front of you seems too big that is when you want to draw back, to let go, to give in to unbelief and feel temporal relief, to be rid of the pressure and to find temporary peace. But it is a false peace. Until you kill that thing it will come back time and again.
Most people will just let the enemy have an outpost as long as they don’t have to battle with him. You think you cannot overcome it and it is true in your flesh you cannot, just as the Israelites couldn’t overcome the giants in the natural unless God had enabled them to be able to. God was for them, and is for you if will but draw near to God when faced with the giant temptations to draw back. They should cause you to realize that you must draw near to God or you will be consumed by the enemy (1 Peter 5:8).
…let us run with patience the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1)
One of the effects of the fall of man into sin is a manifest lack of patience. This has played itself out in every life ever lived since Adam and Eve. We want what we want, and we want it now. The secular media, advertising agencies, marketers, magazines, moviemakers, and just about everybody is guilty of making this the dominant trend in our thinking. The voices are endless. “Time is wasting, what are you waiting for?” “We have got what you’re looking for.” “No need to struggle, we’ve got the solution!” We are all willing victims. No one, it seems, is innocent or invulnerable to the onslaught of “now”.
This helps to explain the explosion of the get rich quick schemes, the lottery, the parade of late night infomercials, and so forth. It also helps explain the lure of cheating in the classroom, the bedroom, the boardroom, and the ball field. It has lead to the proliferation of self-help books, wellness seminars, and New Age mysticism. People are willing to try anything, as long as it’s not the same old, tried and true method of working hard. Everybody is looking for a quick fix, or at least the way to get what we want with the least amount of effort. Our attention spans have been so manipulated that they won’t let us take the time to really learn anything.
The Christian is just as vulnerable to this lack of patience, even when trying to learn about God and His ways. Having to listen to a sermon over twenty minutes, or having to pray for more than fifteen would probably put most of us into a deep sleep these days. An example that might hit closer to home with believers is the tendency to want to have the answers without having to struggle with the questions. That is why we see so much of the “7 principles of power”, or “10 steps to success”, or “5 keys to kingdom living”, etc., etc. Having the answers alone without knowing how to figure out the questions is not all it is cracked up to be, however. Consider the following thoughts.
If I told you that the earth was 93 million miles away from the sun, you would have the information you needed to answer that question, “how far is the earth from the sun?” You could then use this information in a social situation, or a classroom situation, or whatever, or whenever the topic arose. However, if someone were to proceed to ask you, “How do you know this?” do you think they would be satisfied to hear you answer, “well, so and so told me”, or “I read it in a book?” No, they wouldn’t, or even if they were, this knowledge only gets you so far. However, if you knew how to figure out for yourself the distance, you could use this knowledge to figure out the distance from the earth of other planets, and this knowledge could help you to find out other things as well.
In the Christian this idea helps us understand why we must struggle with sin, rather than just expect the desire to be taken away. We want the “thing” to just go away, but it doesn’t. Surely, some Christians have been given a special mercy by God to have an instant moment of sanctifying grace where they no longer desire to do that “thing”, but this is not the normal occurrence. Too often we see those whom have had a crisis experience where they were instantly delivered of this or that vice try and teach others that all they have to do is believe and they will also be delivered. Let go and let God, they might say. When it doesn’t work, the defeated Christian is thrown back into a state of disbelief, either in his faith or his God. This need not and should not be. There is a reason we don’t get the “answer” right away. God wants us to struggle with the questions first.
You see if we were to have our answer before we understood the problem, all we would do is have a surface solution. When the real, root problem surfaces again in some other form, if all we have done is rely on the answer key, all we can do is attack the problem on the surface again, and it will pop up again and again until we lay the axe to the root. Having to struggle with the questions will inculcate the discipline we need in life to be able to survive the other struggles we may and we will face. “Inculcate” means to instill: did you look it up? Would you have if you didn’t know it? Will it become part of your vocabulary?
It is not the answer key itself that is wrong, but having the answer without understanding the problem is what is wrong. This is why cheating on a test only cheats you out of greater knowledge. You may get the answer right this time, but when the next time comes and you need the prior knowledge to find out the answer, you are going to be in trouble. It is like having the answer to a calculus problem, versus being able to understand calculus itself. See the tremendous difference?
There is no “secret” of spirituality or “formula” for faith. There is a plan, and it involves staying the course, walking the narrow path. We depend on Jesus for our life, and our Father for our daily bread. The Holy Spirit will lead us into a more passionate relationship with God if we will only take the time to struggle with the questions. Then we may learn lessons that will enable us to overcome our problems at the root level. It’s the difference between a brief and a broad victory.
The right way for the people in the church to treat the pastor
Galatians 4:12-20 ·Their attitude must not be determined by his personal appearance or personality. ·Their attitude must not be determined by their own theological fancies or desire for advancement. ·Their attitude should be determined by his loyalty to the apostolic message in the Bible. ·They should love him with tender mercies and listen to him with eager ears.
The right way for the pastor to treat the people in the church
Galatians 4:12-20 · He must be willing to serve and sacrifice for them. · He must tell them the truth, even if it seems to make him an enemy. · He must love them deeply, but never for a selfish motive (unlike Judaizers). · He must desire to see more than mere excitement, but zeal for good things. · He must desire to see Jesus formed in them, not himself in them.
Responsibilities of congregants to elders
1 Corinthians 16:15-16 ·In subjection to servant leaders (support their service)
1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 ·Know them (Respect them) ·Esteem them
1 Timothy 5:17-19 ·17 – honor all elders, special emphasis on teaching elders ·18 – Those that labor to teach are to be remunerated so as to make their living from it and not have to worry about money but focus on the Word (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:11-14 / Luke 10:7 / Galatians 6:6). ·19 – No accusation is to be listened to against an elder unless there is evidence from 2 or 3 witnesses, they are always in public eye and accusation can be common. This also shows us importance of making sure elders are truly called and installed as elders, that they meet and live out the qualifications.
Hebrews 13:7, 17 ·Watch their walk and imitate their godliness ·We should be in submission to our spiritual leaders because they have to give an account (cf. James 3:1) ·We should attempt to be a blessing not a burden
...not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near (Hebrews 10:25 – ESV)
Do you have to go to church to be a Christian? The answer to this is simple, but the reality of what this question is trying to point out isn’t as simple as it may seem, because many are not focusing on what is really meant by this question. To simply answer the question, then, do you have to go to church to be a Christian? The answer is no.
However, lets now propose a different, more pointed question that actually gets to the heart of the matter. Do you have to go to church when you are a Christian? The answer is yes. Lets state them together, so that you may think about this, and begin to realize where we are going next. Do you have to go to church to BE a Christian? No. Do you have to go to church WHEN you’re a Christian? Yes.
Now people can get all up in arms about this statement, but what they are doing is focusing on the legal aspect of it, not the spiritual aspect of it, and they fail to recognize that their spiritual lives will indeed suffer if they are not in church. Period. God knows it, everyone else knows it, and you know it.
What many people fail to realize is the benefit of just being there. It is very much like when I counsel couples; I always get them to commit to praying together at night before they go to bed. I am sure many of them wonder why this is so important. They probably feel like this exercise, as they might call it, has little chance of actually helping them.
However, what they are doing in their fleshly minds is trying to reason out why this is valuable inherently, and come to believe that the prayers won’t solve anything. They are looking at the prayers as some sort of vehicle that will magically deliver a message or some innate power that will get them to the next level. The answer isn’t always in the prayer by itself, it is that we honor God by doing it, and then He begins to line up the events and situations that will help us overcome the obstacles.
People are looking at the prayer itself, and wondering, what can that possibly do, I need money right now, or I need this or that to stop happening, or I need a job. It isn’t that He will give you a message right then and there, that this and this is what you should do, though He may, it is that this and this will start happening, all in response to your obedience to worship God and honor Him with prayer. You are leaving it on Him, in a way. You are coming in to His presence, as a couple, and the mere fact that you do this, becoming more intimately involved with God together, is why God becomes more intimately involved in your situation.
Church is the same way. The message may not have all that jazz for you in your mind, and the music may not move you as much as what is in your CD player right now, but that is only part of the plan God has for church. If you will just submit to God and commit, really now, to the local church, God will commit to your local lives. When you miss church you are not simply missing the message, you are missing the method.
The leading God gives is not only through the probing eye of the pastor, and not only through the community of believers assembled there, it is also just by attending yourself, in that God will then attend to your wants as you have attended to what He wants. Participating in church precipitates the providence and provision of God. When you open the doors of your will, then God will open the doors of your opportunity.
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13 – ESV)
What are you exposing yourself to? What are you allowing into your eyes, your ears, your mind, and your heart? I am not talking about unavoidable things. We all get exposed to images and ideas and iniquity that we would rather never encounter, but it is going to happen at times. I am also not talking about isolating yourself from all of culture in order to avoid these unpleasant events. No, what I am talking about are those things you allow as a regular course.
Do you spend a lot of time wondering if we are allowed to do this or that certain thing? Conversely, do you care at all? I think the answer to many of these type of questions could be solved by first asking ourselves some other important questions. What do you allow to fill your time? What is the background music in the soundtrack of your life? How much time are you allowing the things of God to be impressed upon you? The Word of God is powerful, but if your frequency is overrun with other, worldly things, then all you will hear is a clouded mix.
Many people talk of wanting to change but they say it is too hard to do. They look for some magic formula, or expect God to just bail them out of working at it. They also overlook this whole idea of slowly changing, and slowly sliding back. So some think it is too hard to change. If this is you, I want to tell you the truth. The reason it seems so hard is because your heart is so hard. Your heart has become so hardened because of what you have let in.
Ever have someone say to you that they don’t have time for this or that? Well we all know what this means. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with having no time but it is actually about not wanting to use our time in that way. What they mean, and if you want to be direct what you would say is that you won’t make time for this or that. What are you “making time” for?
The things you expose yourself to do indeed have an effect on you. Now this is true for many areas, but lets take images, for one example. If you say that they don’t have an effect on you, well, then why do you expose yourself to them? As you can see, it is not about the fact that they have an effect, that cannot be denied, it is whether or not they have a lasting effect, that is the real question, isn’t it?
Well, not completely. It is also about cumulative effect, and setting patterns of behavior for yourself as well. Since we know for sure that doing something over time is creating habits, it IS a habit, and multiplied images bring multiple chances for long term retention, then the only excuse you might have is to say that you will not be affected long term, that you can withdraw yourself from this behavior if it gets too much. But saying that in light of the other, undeniable evidence is playing games with your mind, your heart, and with God.
Even if we were to hypothetically admit that exposure creates no long-term effect, however preposterous that may be, we still have a major problem because it would still be, as long as you keep doing it, an ongoing effect. One exposure, one image may not stay with you, but it leads to a chain of events, multiple exposures, and this leads to an ongoing problem. How can you say exposure has no long-term effect when you keep exposing yourself to it?
A.W. Tozer said, “Every one of us is the sum of what we secretly admire, what we think about and what we would like to do most if we become free to do what we wanted to do.” Think about that. If money, jail time, conscience, family, friends, and God were not constraints, would you spend your time following Christ, learning of Him? Be honest, because the way you truthfully answer this question will reveal to you a lot about where you are in your walk with God. What do you want to be exposed to when you have the opportunity? What is lighting your fire, and where is the light going out?
Many want to be allowed to expose themselves to all sorts of things, anything except the Word of God, and they harden their hearts so as to not feel the sting of the Sword of the Spirit. Their consciences are seared and their minds are cleared from the transforming power of the Word and they are instead filled with all sorts of distraction, deception, and destruction. Nevertheless, they are exposed, we all are exposed before the Mighty, Living Word of God, Jesus Christ Himself, and His Word is His Sword in His hand. Christ will either be our physician or our executioner. If His Word is not the instrument of our life, it will be the instrument of our death, if not the instrument of our justification, then the instrument of our judgment.
My authority to speak to you and give a charge, even though I am a pastor of a different congregation it is the same authority any man of God has in addressing any person or group of people. It is the Bible, the Word of God; if I give you that, then what I say is worth receiving.
1 Corinthians 16:15-16 · In subjection to servant leaders (support their service)
1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 · Know them (Respect them) · Esteem them
Hebrews 13:7, 17 · Watch their walk and imitate their godliness · We should be in submission to our spiritual leaders because they have to give an account · We should attempt to be a blessing not a burden
To the deacons in front of congregation so as to let them know ahead of time:
1 Timothy 5:19 – No accusation is to be listened to against an elder unless there is evidence from 2 or 3 witnesses, they are always in public eye and accusation can be common. People will be coming to you from time to time with criticism for the ministers. I'd like to tell you how to handle that. Tell the person to come with you right then and you'll go see the minister in question and deal with it. If they go with you, fine. However, if they refuse to go with you, tell them you'll go but you will be using their name. If they agree, fine. But if they refuse to let you use their name, that's the end of it. Tell them you will not take anonymous criticism to the ministers.
Romans chapter 12
· Vs.1-2 – daily commitment to God · Vs. 3-8 – doing your job well, answering the call to service with diligence, don’t fret over theirs, focus on yours · Vs.9-21 – devotion to one another. Several times in this passage, believers are told to humble themselves, restrain their egos, and to act in love to one another.
This gives us a blueprint for a healthy church. Let a congregation do these three things – daily commit yourself to God, do your job well, and love one another – and most of a church's problems will disappear. If you do these things, the deacons will do well. This church will become a leading light in this community. You will know it, the people of this community will know it, and I will know it, and most importantly God will know it. This is the charge that God gives to you as a congregation from His holy Word.
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13 – ESV)
What are you exposing yourself to? What are you allowing into your eyes, your ears, your mind, and your heart? I am not talking about unavoidable things. We all get exposed to images and ideas and iniquity that we would rather never encounter, but it is going to happen at times. I am also not talking about isolating yourself from all of culture in order to avoid these unpleasant events. No, what I am talking about are those things you allow as a regular course.
Do you spend a lot of time wondering if we are allowed to do this or that certain thing? Conversely, do you care at all? I think the answer to many of these type of questions could be solved by first asking ourselves some other important questions. What do you allow to fill your time? What is the background music in the soundtrack of your life? How much time are you allowing the things of God to be impressed upon you? The Word of God is powerful, but if your frequency is overrun with other, worldly things, then all you will hear is a clouded mix.
Many people talk of wanting to change but they say it is too hard to do. They look for some magic formula, or expect God to just bail them out of working at it. They also overlook this whole idea of slowly changing, and slowly sliding back. So some think it is too hard to change. If this is you, I want to tell you the truth. The reason it seems so hard is because your heart is so hard. Your heart has become so hardened because of what you have let in.
Ever have someone say to you that they don’t have time for this or that? Well we all know what this means. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with having no time but it is actually about not wanting to use our time in that way. What they mean, and if you want to be direct what you would say is that you won’t make time for this or that. What are you “making time” for?
The things you expose yourself to do indeed have an effect on you. Now this is true for many areas, but lets take images, for one example. If you say that they don’t have an effect on you, well, then why do you expose yourself to them? As you can see, it is not about the fact that they have an effect, that cannot be denied, it is whether or not they have a lasting effect, that is the real question, isn’t it?
Well, not completely. It is also about cumulative effect, and setting patterns of behavior for yourself as well. Since we know for sure that doing something over time is creating habits, it IS a habit, and multiplied images bring multiple chances for long term retention, then the only excuse you might have is to say that you will not be affected long term, that you can withdraw yourself from this behavior if it gets too much. But saying that in light of the other, undeniable evidence is playing games with your mind, your heart, and with God.
Even if we were to hypothetically admit that exposure creates no long-term effect, however preposterous that may be, we still have a major problem because it would still be, as long as you keep doing it, an ongoing effect. One exposure, one image may not stay with you, but it leads to a chain of events, multiple exposures, and this leads to an ongoing problem. How can you say exposure has no long-term effect when you keep exposing yourself to it?
A.W. Tozer said, “Every one of us is the sum of what we secretly admire, what we think about and what we would like to do most if we become free to do what we wanted to do.” Think about that. If money, jail time, conscience, family, friends, and God were not constraints, would you spend your time following Christ, learning of Him? Be honest, because the way you truthfully answer this question will reveal to you a lot about where you are in your walk with God. What do you want to be exposed to when you have the opportunity? What is lighting your fire, and where is the light going out?
Many want to be allowed to expose themselves to all sorts of things, anything except the Word of God, and they harden their hearts so as to not feel the sting of the Sword of the Spirit. Their consciences are seared and their minds are cleared from the transforming power of the Word and they are instead filled with all sorts of distraction, deception, and destruction. Nevertheless, they are exposed, we all are exposed before the Mighty, Living Word of God, Jesus Christ Himself, and His Word is His Sword in His hand. Christ will either be our physician or our executioner. If His Word is not the instrument of our life, it will be the instrument of our death, if not the instrument of our justification, then the instrument of our judgment.
...not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near (Hebrews 10:25 – ESV)
Do you have to go to church to be a Christian? The answer to this is simple, but the reality of what this question is trying to point out isn’t as simple as it may seem, because many are not focusing on what is really meant by this question. To simply answer the question, then, do you have to go to church to be a Christian? The answer is no.
However, lets now propose a different, more pointed question that actually gets to the heart of the matter. Do you have to go to church when you are a Christian? The answer is yes. Lets state them together, so that you may think about this, and begin to realize where we are going next. Do you have to go to church to BE a Christian? No. Do you have to go to church WHEN you’re a Christian? Yes.
Now people can get all up in arms about this statement, but what they are doing is focusing on the legal aspect of it, not the spiritual aspect of it, and they fail to recognize that their spiritual lives will indeed suffer if they are not in church. Period. God knows it, everyone else knows it, and you know it.
What many people fail to realize is the benefit of just being there. It is very much like when I counsel couples; I always get them to commit to praying together at night before they go to bed. I am sure many of them wonder why this is so important. They probably feel like this exercise, as they might call it, has little chance of actually helping them.
However, what they are doing in their fleshly minds is trying to reason out why this is valuable inherently, and come to believe that the prayers won’t solve anything. They are looking at the prayers as some sort of vehicle that will magically deliver a message or some innate power that will get them to the next level. The answer isn’t always in the prayer by itself, it is that we honor God by doing it, and then He begins to line up the events and situations that will help us overcome the obstacles.
People are looking at the prayer itself, and wondering, what can that possibly do, I need money right now, or I need this or that to stop happening, or I need a job. It isn’t that He will give you a message right then and there, that this and this is what you should do, though He may, it is that this and this will start happening, all in response to your obedience to worship God and honor Him with prayer. You are leaving it on Him, in a way. You are coming in to His presence, as a couple, and the mere fact that you do this, becoming more intimately involved with God together, is why God becomes more intimately involved in your situation.
Church is the same way. The message may not have all that jazz for you in your mind, and the music may not move you as much as what is in your CD player right now, but that is only part of the plan God has for church. If you will just submit to God and commit, really now, to the local church, God will commit to your local lives. When you miss church you are not simply missing the message, you are missing the method.
The leading God gives is not only through the probing eye of the pastor, and not only through the community of believers assembled there, it is also just by attending yourself, in that God will then attend to your wants as you have attended to what He wants. Participating in church precipitates the providence and provision of God. When you open the doors of your will, then God will open the doors of your opportunity.
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Hebrews 4:13 – ESV)
One reason we have to go to church is that we cannot do self-evaluation properly. When you pray like David in Psalm 19:12-14 or Psalm 139:23-24 for the Lord to reveal sins to you, God often answers you through other people. For David it was the prophets like Gad or Nathan. For us it will be through the loving, caring, covenant community of the local church.
We can complain all we want about that certain local church not being a “loving, caring community”, but consider this. In Matthew 7:3-5, Jesus talks about having a beam in our eye. Now consider how having a beam makes us see everything as having a beam in it. Sometimes we don’t notice a certain type of car all over the road until you own one yourself. You see a problem because you ARE a problem, we all are, but God uses the means of each other to help us all out. If you think that you don’t need church you are wrong, but even if you didn’t, even if you did have it all together well then you should come help the rest of us.
If you think you’re spiritual, just get close to your brethren, and you’ll find out what’s really inside you. It doesn’t matter how agitating, rude or unspiritual your brethren might be. This does not justify your intolerance or impatience with them. These attitudes are characteristics of your own immaturity – a weakness in YOU that needs to be perfected. This is why some people run from church to church – because it exposes their bad side. They see their own sins and blemishes revealed in their relationship with the brethren, or they become outraged when their self-willed desires or sins are challenged through convicting preaching or correction.
If a person remains an “island” to themselves they will never have to face up to the spiritual immaturity within them. But exposing themselves to the environment of the church will cause them to face conflicts that must be overcome in order to grow up. A sign of a spiritually mature person is that they can be loving and patient with anyone (1 John 2:10 / Galatians 5:22-23), and they can humbly submit themselves to truth and the correction of authority (Hebrews 13:17).
Hiding away in an electronic church world, where the entire ministry you receive is by radio, television, and the Internet will simply not do. You need more, you need the local body, and without that, those other things can be a curse instead of a blessing. These things can become a form of rejection, not release. Apart from a local assembly, there is no scriptural justification for them. I'm not saying these very things are damning you to hell, but I am saying for those that will not attend a local church, they are manifesting a rejection of discipleship, of personal responsibility before the Lord, of an internal witness on the soul and of scriptural warning.
Television may bring you under conviction but the congregation will help with correction and will bring out your sin in bold relief. You can hide and watch TV but you can’t hide from God. Even if you think you are with God you must expose yourself to the others whom God would choose to mold you. If there’s bitterness or a lack of love, it will become exposed. When you hide from church, you are exposed.
…let us run with patience the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1)
One of the effects of the fall of man into sin is a manifest lack of patience. This has played itself out in every life ever lived since Adam and Eve. We want what we want, and we want it now. The secular media, advertising agencies, marketers, magazines, moviemakers, and just about everybody is guilty of making this the dominant trend in our thinking. The voices are endless. “Time is wasting, what are you waiting for?” “We have got what you’re looking for.” “No need to struggle, we’ve got the solution!” We are all willing victims. No one, it seems, is innocent or invulnerable to the onslaught of “now”.
This helps to explain the explosion of the get rich quick schemes, the lottery, the parade of late night infomercials, and so forth. It also helps explain the lure of cheating in the classroom, the bedroom, the boardroom, and the ball field. It has lead to the proliferation of self-help books, wellness seminars, and New Age mysticism. People are willing to try anything, as long as it’s not the same old, tried and true method of working hard. Everybody is looking for a quick fix, or at least the way to get what we want with the least amount of effort. Our attention spans have been so manipulated that they won’t let us take the time to really learn anything.
The Christian is just as vulnerable to this lack of patience, even when trying to learn about God and His ways. Having to listen to a sermon over twenty minutes, or having to pray for more than fifteen would probably put most of us into a deep sleep these days. An example that might hit closer to home with believers is the tendency to want to have the answers without having to struggle with the questions. That is why we see so much of the “7 principles of power”, or “10 steps to success”, or “5 keys to kingdom living”, etc., etc. Having the answers alone without knowing how to figure out the questions is not all it is cracked up to be, however. Consider the following thoughts.
If I told you that the earth was 93 million miles away from the sun, you would have the information you needed to answer that question, “how far is the earth from the sun?” You could then use this information in a social situation, or a classroom situation, or whatever, or whenever the topic arose. However, if someone were to proceed to ask you, “How do you know this?” do you think they would be satisfied to hear you answer, “well, so and so told me”, or “I read it in a book?” No, they wouldn’t, or even if they were, this knowledge only gets you so far. However, if you knew how to figure out for yourself the distance, you could use this knowledge to figure out the distance from the earth of other planets, and this knowledge could help you to find out other things as well.
In the Christian this idea helps us understand why we must struggle with sin, rather than just expect the desire to be taken away. We want the “thing” to just go away, but it doesn’t. Surely, some Christians have been given a special mercy by God to have an instant moment of sanctifying grace where they no longer desire to do that “thing”, but this is not the normal occurrence. Too often we see those whom have had a crisis experience where they were instantly delivered of this or that vice try and teach others that all they have to do is believe and they will also be delivered. Let go and let God, they might say. When it doesn’t work, the defeated Christian is thrown back into a state of disbelief, either in his faith or his God. This need not and should not be. There is a reason we don’t get the “answer” right away. God wants us to struggle with the questions first.
You see if we were to have our answer before we understood the problem, all we would do is have a surface solution. When the real, root problem surfaces again in some other form, if all we have done is rely on the answer key, all we can do is attack the problem on the surface again, and it will pop up again and again until we lay the axe to the root. Having to struggle with the questions will inculcate the discipline we need in life to be able to survive the other struggles we may and we will face. “Inculcate” means to instill: did you look it up? Would you have if you didn’t know it? Will it become part of your vocabulary?
It is not the answer key itself that is wrong, but having the answer without understanding the problem is what is wrong. This is why cheating on a test only cheats you out of greater knowledge. You may get the answer right this time, but when the next time comes and you need the prior knowledge to find out the answer, you are going to be in trouble. It is like having the answer to a calculus problem, versus being able to understand calculus itself. See the tremendous difference?
There is no “secret” of spirituality or “formula” for faith. There is a plan, and it involves staying the course, walking the narrow path. We depend on Jesus for our life, and our Father for our daily bread. The Holy Spirit will lead us into a more passionate relationship with God if we will only take the time to struggle with the questions. Then we may learn lessons that will enable us to overcome our problems at the root level. It’s the difference between a brief and a broad victory.
The right way for the people in the church to treat the pastor
Galatians 4:12-20 ·Their attitude must not be determined by his personal appearance or personality. ·Their attitude must not be determined by their own theological fancies or desire for advancement. ·Their attitude should be determined by his loyalty to the apostolic message in the Bible. ·They should love him with tender mercies and listen to him with eager ears.
The right way for the pastor to treat the people in the church
Galatians 4:12-20 · He must be willing to serve and sacrifice for them. · He must tell them the truth, even if it seems to make him an enemy. · He must love them deeply, but never for a selfish motive (unlike Judaizers). · He must desire to see more than mere excitement, but zeal for good things. · He must desire to see Jesus formed in them, not himself in them.
Responsibilities of congregants to elders
1 Corinthians 16:15-16 ·In subjection to servant leaders (support their service)
1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 ·Know them (Respect them) ·Esteem them
1 Timothy 5:17-19 ·17 – honor all elders, special emphasis on teaching elders ·18 – Those that labor to teach are to be remunerated so as to make their living from it and not have to worry about money but focus on the Word (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:11-14 / Luke 10:7 / Galatians 6:6). ·19 – No accusation is to be listened to against an elder unless there is evidence from 2 or 3 witnesses, they are always in public eye and accusation can be common. This also shows us importance of making sure elders are truly called and installed as elders, that they meet and live out the qualifications.
Hebrews 13:7, 17 ·Watch their walk and imitate their godliness ·We should be in submission to our spiritual leaders because they have to give an account (cf. James 3:1) ·We should attempt to be a blessing not a burden
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psalm 139:23-24 – ESV)
How many times have you thought, said, or heard, “well, God knows my heart”? This happens often with people who want to justify themselves from the fact that they are blatantly ignoring the teachings of the Bible. We must be careful, for our motivations are not always as pure as we think them to be, and even if we are sincere, this doesn’t mean we are right. In fact, some might think that they want to do what is right but what they actually want is to get out of having to do what is biblically right. They say, well God knows my heart, and I say yes, He absolutely does, they are right about that (1 Samuel 16:7 / 1 Kings 8:39 / 1 Chronicles 28:9 / Proverbs 15:11 / Jeremiah 17:10 / Acts 1:24, 15:8 / Revelation 2:23).
Read through those scriptures and realize something important here. The problem is that while God knows your heart, YOU don’t know your heart, and let me further prove it to you.
Hebrews 4:12 – For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
You say God knows your heart, and God says the Bible is how you know what He is thinking about your heart. God knows your heart and He shows you what He wants you to know about it in His Word. In His Word your heart is revealed. His Word reveals the condition of your heart, and so no matter what you think your heart looks like, God says that if you are directly disobeying some explicit command of His, then you are not as pure an innocent as you assume your sincerity makes you. Sincerity is no substitute for truth. The truth is that just because no one else is fulfilling their obligations, this doesn’t excuse you from fulfilling yours. Their disobedience doesn’t justify yours.
Yes God knows your heart, and He uses His Word to reveal to you the condition of it.
Proverbs 28:26 (KJV) – He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Proverbs 21:2 – Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart.
Perhaps it is time to pray in accordance with Psalm 19:12-14 / Psalm 139:23-24, and ask God to show you from His Word about that “heart surgery” you need.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15 – ESV)
But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are – we read this verse and we think, in our hearts, "No way, Jesus never had to deal with what I've got to deal with". Or perhaps, "Yeah, but Jesus didn't have the magazines, the billboards, the short shorts, the movies, the TV shows, or the computer in his face all day long". Or we think of some other modern manifestation of the old sins, and think Christ didn't have it as hard as we do. Or we tell ourselves that Jesus had the power of the Holy Spirit, and so He had the advantage, and the list goes on and on.
When we seriously meditate on the Bible and what it teaches about sin, we can see the truth of verses such as 1 John 2:16 – by this verse we understand that all temptation comes into three categories: pleasures, possessions, and pride/position.
He was tempted with all this in the wilderness (Matthew 4 / Luke 4) –
Stones turned to bread – lust of the flesh (pleasures)
Kingdoms of the world – lust of the eyes (possessions)
Top of the Temple – pride of life (position)
We know that Jesus was tempted numerous other times, but here we see that He was indeed tempted in every respect. If you have had cancer you can sympathize with someone else who has it, even if it is in a different body part, it is still the same disease. Jesus was tempted under stress and pressure to abandon the will of God, to use His divine prerogatives and find His own fulfillment through His own way, instead of relying on God for strength. That is what He was tempted with, and that is what we are tempted with, and He can sympathize with us. That is what Jesus was tempted with in the wilderness, that is what the Jews were tempted with in the wilderness, that is what we are tempted with, and the question is will we make it out of the wilderness by entering in? Will we cave in to the pressure, or enter in to the throne room?
Yet without sin – Jesus did not yield under pressure. Now this is saying more than that. He is the Son of God, and is impeccable; He was not able to sin. If He was peccable it would mean He was able to sin, but didn’t. He can’t sin, and He did not know sin but He did know temptation.
C.S. Lewis, imagining someone objecting here, said, “Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is . . . A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in . . . Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means – the only complete realist.”
Jesus did not have internal temptations to sin as we do, but Jesus had the limits of hunger, thirst, and weariness, and through these the enemy strikes. He sympathizes with the assault of temptation in times of crisis. Jesus knows temptation in a way we don’t, because only the one who never gives into temptation knows the full strength of temptation.
The pressure mounted until it reached its peak in the garden of Gethsemane. “If it be possible let this cup pass” was His cry, yet He also said, “not My will but Thine be done”. Unlike Christ, we feel the least bit of pressure and we go running back into the wilderness of our own worldliness. It is true that Jesus never faced temptation in an inner sense the way we do, because there was never a sinful nature pulling Him to sin from the inside. But He knew the strength and fury of external temptation in a way, and to a degree, that we can never know. He knows what we go through; He has faced worse. Thanks be to God that He passed every test.
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. (Hebrews 3:12 – ESV)
When temptation comes, you will either dwell on the thought, or pray, as you ought. When you dwell on a thought, the thought dwells in you. The devil’s delight is for you to look at that thing and become intoxicated with it, or fear of losing it, or despair of defeat from it. Don’t let the devil have a place inside your head. Don’t magnify his words and let them develop into your will (James 1:14-16), magnify the Word of God in those moments of evil desire.
The longer you look at the giant the bigger he becomes, the longer you pray to God the closer He becomes. When the temptation comes and what is in front of you seems too big that is when you want to draw back, to let go, to give in to unbelief and feel temporal relief, to be rid of the pressure and to find temporary peace. But it is a false peace. Until you kill that thing it will come back time and again.
Most people will just let the enemy have an outpost as long as they don’t have to battle with him. You think you cannot overcome it and it is true in your flesh you cannot, just as the Israelites couldn’t overcome the giants in the natural unless God had enabled them to be able to. God was for them, and is for you if will but draw near to God when faced with the giant temptations to draw back. They should cause you to realize that you must draw near to God or you will be consumed by the enemy (1 Peter 5:8).
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:14 – ESV)
It has been said that practice makes perfect, but it is not just that any type of practice makes perfect but that perfect practice makes perfect. A baseball pitcher cannot simply throw the ball around and keep missing his target, and then think that because he has spent time throwing that this alone will lead to perfection. No, he must hone his skills and get to the point where he can hit his target, time and again, so that then when he is in a game he will repeat what he has practiced. He has to get it right first, and then repeat that process, perfect practice makes perfect. Imagine the pitcher who never threw a strike in practice, taking the mound, and believing he will succeed hitting the strike zone just because he has been throwing the ball in practice, yet never actually hitting his target! Ridiculous, isn’t it?
Well it is the same for our biblical life. We have to learn to learn. Those that are “perfect”, or mature, have learned to handle meat because they have learned to handle milk, they have become mature, skilled, and they practice, they know how to grow, they exercise their judgment and know how to exercise judgment. They have learned to discern.
One true and first test of discernment is that godliness leads to discipline and diligence (2 Peter 1:5, 10 – eagerness and earnestness, which implies effort to be speedy) and if not it is deception. Godliness wants to be godlier, it exercises (the word for trained in this verse is our root word for gymnasium) their senses, their perception. Their judgment is exercised that is why they can exercise judgment. Learning leads to maturity, and mature learning makes for mature discerning. A baby doesn’t run before it crawls.
When we are immature, the truth becomes a toy, when you have something but don’t know what it is really for, you don’t know how to properly use it. They are unskilled and unproductive. Those that won’t discern will not be able to apply the truth or they will turn truth into lies, and take something advanced to advance their own agenda.
We must concentrate on Christ. Why is this so hard? Because your natural instinct is to turn to yourself, instead of to Jesus. That is why we want moral exhortations rather than true grace, we want steps, programs, formulas, and things like that because we want to be able to use God to get things right rather than actually trust Him with controlling it all. You see we can even give it all to Him and yet still be in control of it, we sort of loan Him the leadership of our lives, and then snatch it back when we feel threatened, persecuted, frustrated, or that we are suffering too much. We say, “wait a minute, this isn’t going right, you are doing it wrong, or I can do a better job, or you are missing something”. We want results but He wants a deeper relationship. God is able to change your instinctive patterns without you having to jump through hoops. It will take real work, not cookie cutter formulas, but real fellowship, and this is what good relationships are all about. If we will submit to His will and commit to study, then God will use our own experiences to teach us more precisely, we will learn to discern.
When you are facing hard or disappointing circumstances, boredom, loneliness, money problems, fighting with a spouse, distance from a friend, it’s easy (and instinctive) to turn, and we think we are trusting God but we are only turning to ourselves many times. You need to go to God, He hears you, but will you hear Him, from His Word? God gets better, He gets brighter as you trust Him and are able to see Him through the circumstances. That is how He shows His brilliance. He can shine when nothing else can. I hope you can learn to discern that. You can over time if you are willing to do what it takes to become mature. Perfect practice makes perfect.
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:14 – ESV)
The mature know what to look for; they know what to swallow, unlike a child who will swallow anything and everything it can get its hands on. The baby just wants an experience of what this or that tastes like. They haven’t been trained yet. Their senses are wired for “now” and they aren’t ready to decide what they eat yet without getting hurt.
This is talking about decisions that are not laid down specifically in a list. If you are mature you can know God’s will without some list. You see the devil is a liar and he knows how to take something and package it so that it does not look or smell or even taste like poison. The label doesn’t exactly match some explicit warning in scripture, and for those who are untrained they don’t know how to discern by using the scope and sweep of scripture. You don’t need a proof text to have proof that the devil is at work. If you know God’s character by having been trained in God’s Word then you will know if God is at work or not. Don’t assume you do. Too many Christians are babies playing around with poison thinking they know God better than they do.
By reason of use (KJV) they practice until they are trained, which means constantly doing it, but they have learned to do it with the milk first. Then they have matured to the major leagues. They have become productive, fruitful in every good work, and the fruit isn’t poisoned.
This does bring up an interesting question, because there are people who read the Word every day, they apply themselves, they teach others, and live what many would call obedient lives, but they still fall for every fad and fraud that comes down the pike. Why? They don’t practice their discernment skills, and then they think that meat is something other than it is. They think they have a handle on it all. They aren’t so much looking to be trained as they are looking to teach, and they actually need to be taught again.
Just because someone teaches kids math in elementary school doesn’t mean they don’t need to keep doing advanced math on their own. If they stay put mentally they will regress back. People may seem obedient compared to others, but what about where God is trying to take them, are they submitted to that? To whom much is given much is required. I confess this is a big area for me in my spiritual life; I can’t just compare myself with everybody else. Neither can you.
Now, ask yourself this: Does this give any instruction for how we should deal with ourselves, as we strive to grow in Christ? Does it give any instruction as to how we might deal with others whom we disciple? Discipleship requires effort, physical, mental, spiritual. Grace is not opposed to effort. The opposite of grace is not effort, but merit. We need to recognize that we need to give the effort. We need to recognize that God is demanding an effort. We need to demand effort from those we disciple. Instead of taking the easy road or looking for the microwave miracle, we need to heed the biblical message and methods. There may be episodes of great movement in short amounts of time, but the key is to keep moving all the time. No pain no gain.
We need to become mature in our learning or we will just waste our time. We need less trial and error and more trial and triumph. We can pass the tests if we will submit to the teacher. The best way to prepare for the trials of tomorrow is to live like they were here today. I am not talking about worrying; I am talking about focus.
Luke 18:9-14
