Let's turn in our Bibles to Romans 13. Apologize for being distracted singing that last verse. I'll tell you what I was distracted about later, but I apologize about that. Gotta stay focused on what we're doing here, and sometimes I get distracted. Let's try not to get distracted here. Let's see, it's 11.30, and I've got an hour and a half worth of material here. And we've got to condense it down and get out of here by noon. And I start to put my notes together, and I got to be careful they don't get too long. If you've got the notes, you see it's a full page there. But try to stick with the notes, and we'll get through. And this message was somewhat convicting to me, certainly toward the end of the message. It was a great reminder to me about some important truths in our Christian life. Have you ever been like me and encountered people that don't go to church, that don't have a walk with the Lord, and they wonder why you take it so serious? You know, for them, it's enough to go out on holidays, and they claim they have kind of a real private personal relationship, they do some prayer and maybe some occasional Bible reading. They just don't have to take it as serious as you do. They don't have to go every Sunday and Sunday night and Wednesday. That just occasional going when it's convenient is enough for them. They wonder why you're so serious, why you always talk about the Lord, why you maybe take your Bible to work, or quoting Bible verses, or talk about the activities you have at church. Well, the Bible teaches us, and we're in a passage here that teaches us that it is serious. The challenge before us this morning is do you take it serious? And these verses here, I think, make the point that faith in Christ, our relationship with Jesus, the idea that we're His disciple and we follow Him and He's the Lord, our spiritual life, our religious activity, the fact that we're Christian is something that we ought to take very seriously. It's the most serious thing in all of life. And that's what this passage is teaching, and that's what we're really gonna look at here at this last part, verses 13 and 14. But for our scripture reading, I'll read verses 11 through 14, and then we'll begin our message. Romans 13, 11 through 14. Let us walk properly as in the day not in revelry and drunkenness Not in lewdness and lust not in strife and envy But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts Let's have a word of blessing upon our message time before we begin Father, we do ask that you would bless this time, Lord. We're thankful for the blessing of all of the worship service. Lord, as we sit at your feet for the word of God, we pray that your spirit would open our understanding. We might know what you have for us. We might understand what you have for us in the Christian life. and that as you apply in our life, we would take very serious what you say. You're the Lord, what you have commanded, and what purpose you have in our life. You created us, you designed us, you have a purpose when you saved us, Lord, a meaning of our life you've given to us. It's all sustained by you in our salvation. Lord, pray that you'd give us a seriousness about our faith and our walk with you from your word this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, that's what we learned last week. That's what this passage is about. It says, knowing the time that our salvation is nearer than when we first believe. And remember, the years have been 2,000. And Jesus promised to come back. We're 2,000 years closer. And for some people, that might be you sit back and say, well, he's probably never coming back. I don't worry about that. After all, it's been 2,000 years. But for us today, that is more of an emphasis. These words are more true to us than they were at the time that Paul wrote them in the first century. That certainly today it is nearer to the end, nearer to the time when Jesus will return. This is the end times. Jesus said, I'll come back at any time and you be ready, you be watching because he can come back at any time and we are to be servants ready for his return. Knowing the time that now the salvation is nearer than we first believed. and the personal application is in our own life. How long have you been saved? How long has it been since you confessed Christ as Savior? Some years, some decades, certainly. The time is short, and you're nearer to that time you meet the Lord as you've grown older, but as every day has passed closer to his return. Nearer than when we first believe, and it's a challenge to our thinking. It's time to wake up, the day is at hand. You know, I sometimes say this, some of the guys talking about it, if you wake up, you can make this early as you want, but if you wake up after 6 a.m., you've wasted half your day. Well, is that true? Now, no matter what time you wake up, some of you may feel this way. If you wake up at 7 or 8 or something, the idea is if you oversleep, there is this sense of sleeping till noon, sleeping too long. We're exhorted, we're commanded to wake up, the day is at hand. Stop wasting time. Sleeping as a Christian is a sin, not paying attention, not caring, being lazy spiritually. We're commanded here to wake up. The day is at hand. It's time to get busy. It's time to get work. It's time to get serious. And here it says to cast off the works of darkness and to arm ourselves with the armor of light, that we're not using the world's self-help techniques to cast off those works of darkness. The world has all kinds of answers, but they're called works of darkness. They're in darkness, they're ignorant of God's law, they're ignorant of God's truth, they're ignorant of Christ, they're ignorant of the spiritual reality. And the only thing the world can understand is what's in front of them, what's material, what can it do for me now, how do I feel now? cast off those works of darkness and arm ourselves with the armor of light. God has dropped into this dark world an armor of light, heavenly means, a heavenly answer, a heavenly armor that we can take up and use to to defend and to engage, to approach and to walk out and to live out the Christian life. We looked at the whole armor of God in this. Here it's called the armor of light. Well, the last thing that we briefly looked at that we're going to expand on this morning, also knowing the time, is to walk properly. Also walk properly. When we talk about the Christian walk, many places in the New Testament we're told to walk a certain way. The Bible uses the metaphor of walking. Do you know this is in some ways quite a literal walk? When we talk about walking, it's a metaphor for our conduct. Say that right off. But in one sense, though, for a metaphor to be effective, there's something in its literalness. Walking, in a sense, when we draw from it, is really quite an unimpressive activity, isn't it? It's unremarkable. Everybody can walk. It's slow. It takes time. I looked up what's called race walking. Has anybody seen that? Yeah, they move their hips because the rule about race walking, and I think that they've got it down. The definition of walking that would have something to do with this Christian truth is when you walk, they do stiff leg because you have to have, by the rule, one foot always on the ground. When you run, there's a time you're in the air because you're almost jumping as you're running. But to be properly walking, there's always one foot on the ground at any given time. One foot has to always be on the ground. And so it just really emphasizes the steadiness of this walk. It's quite literal because remember there was a time in Jesus' ministry when in the beginning he was doing the miracles and people flocked to him to be fed and they were intrigued by the miracles they heard of healing and so forth. But Jesus then began to teach and some of his teaching was challenging because he called for repentance and he called for the people to take their faith off of the Mosaic law and off of themselves and off anything else but to believe in him. that he himself was the Savior, the person that they would adhere to and cling to. And it says, as he began to teach that, toward the end of his ministry, it says, from that time, many of his disciples, and I'm not talking about the 12, but this large group that did follow him, from that time, many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. The Lord Jesus walked through this earth presenting himself in his glory as a son of God and Savior and in the teaching. You know, the Christian walk begins the day we get saved. What day was that for you? I do think it's important. You may not remember the time, the exact date, but you must remember that time in your life. That time in your life when your eyes were opened and you realized that you were a sinner, that you were lost without God, that you had not been living for Him, that even if you had died, you would have went to hell because you didn't have a relationship with Him. You thought you might have, but you didn't. And God showed you that you were lost in your sin and that you needed Jesus and you needed to make this step toward Him. This faith in him to call upon him and say quite clearly and directly Lord I repent I'm turning away from all that and you are the Lord and Savior you died on a cross for me I repent of my sin and I believe that you were raised up and you're the Lord and that Christian walk begins the day we get saved the time that we get saved it has a beginning and And so we have to emphasize that Jesus taught and he spoke to them again saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. When did the light of life, when did Jesus Christ's light shine in your life? And the lights went on and you said, that's when I got saved. That's when things were different. That's when the transformation took place. I used to think this way, but I started to think this way. and way I thought was based on scripture, and Jesus became my Lord. The Christian walk has a beginning. The Christian walk also continues steadily. Let's turn to Romans 6. It's right here in Romans. There's another instance talking about a walk. Okay, this Christian walk has a beginning, and it continues steadily. In Romans 6, verse 4, it says, And so what's being taught here is we don't continue in sin because remember the old you, that person you recognize deserved to be punished for sin and was condemned to death, that was dead in sin. Jesus died for those sins. And when you believe in Jesus, you died with Christ. And that old you, that sinful you, that condemned you died with Christ. But Jesus was also brought back from the dead. And Jesus says that a new you was born again. when you put your faith in Christ. And he says that we should walk in that newness of life. And when talking about a newness of life, life is always growing. If something's alive, it's not stagnant. You can go to something dead and inanimate, it'll be the same as it was before. In fact, it may be more decayed and broken down. But the definition of life is something also that is always growing and expanding. We're growing in our knowledge of the Lord. Life is also a growing in maturity. Our children are growing in knowledge, but are they growing in maturity? And that's what we're looking for. We're teaching them things, facts and information, but the maturity is when a person takes these facts and information and experiences and begins to grow up in the way they apply them. They learn from what the information is or the truth or the experience and they can make decisions and apply that truth to have a successful life. They're maturing, they're growing up. And this newness of life is the same way. When Christians get saved, they start to learn more about the Bible, just information, and it's wonderful information that changes your life, but you also learn as you mature in the Christian life to apply the Bible, to grow this way, and it's a steady walk, a step-by-step, sometimes not as fast as we like. Sometimes walking gets a bit dull and sometimes tiresome, but we gotta keep walking and keep growing and keep moving toward A destination. This Christian walk also has a destination. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5. I wanted to include this point because of what we did yesterday. And we honored a brother. that walked the Christian life. And testimony after testimony of family, people that knew him his whole life, of his wife who knew him most of his life, all of his Christian life, young people who were introduced to him, such as Kirsten, that knew Gary as an adult, she was a child, grew up knowing him, gave the same consistent testimony to say this, this man walked with God. This man had a walk, a beginning. He'll tell you when he got saved as a young man. Gary grew in his faith, he served the Lord, and there was a destination. There was a place that he would arrive at. And Gary had that hope in his life, and he expressed it many times, and certainly toward the last years. He expressed his longing to be in that destination. See, the Christian walk has a destination. See, if you're in the world walking through darkness, you don't even know where you're coming or going or began, you don't know where you're going, and you certainly don't have a destination. You want to know the big difference between an unbeliever and a believer? Ask them about the destination. Ask them, say, all right, we could discuss all day long the philosophies of life, but let me ask you this. What do you know about life after death? And they'll tell you they don't know. They'll tell you they fear. They only have theories. Brother and sister, we have truth. We have an assurance. We have something certain here. We know that the destination, the end of this walk, has a place that God is taking us to, a home. And it says right here in 2 Corinthians 5, Verse six, that we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. That's the case that we are in this life. We are at home in the body, we're in this body, we're away from the Lord in the sense that He is in glory, He is in the Father's house, we're here on the earth, He is in heaven. It says in verse seven, we walk by faith, not by sight. What is that faith that we have when we talk to that unsaved person and they say, I don't know? Well, just let me give you one verse. We say there is a life after death. Look at verse one. This is a promise right here, it's a truth right from the Word of God. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 1 says, For we know, we know, this is the assurance, we know that if our earthly house, this tent is destroyed, that's speaking of death. We have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. We know this, and that's the assurance we have as Christians. This walk has a destination, and we walk by faith, not by sight. And the difference and the distinction there is the children of Israel, when they walked, they had a pillar. When they walked through this wilderness, they had a pillar of a cloud and a pillar of fire to guide them. We don't have that, but we have these promises, and we have this word. And you can't see with the human eye, with the material, physical, you can't see what this destination is. But we walk by faith, believing what God has promised, believing that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. He went there and back, He's in heaven, He's coming back, and He's promised the same resurrection for us. We are confident, verse eight says. See the assurance there? Confidence. Yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. And speaking about this time before the Lord's return, if you put your faith in Christ in these days and you pass away, your body may be laid to rest in the ground, but your spirit goes to be with the Lord until his return. And then at that great resurrection day, then we become one with the resurrected body and so shall we ever be with the Lord. This is the promise that we have. Our walk began at salvation. We grow steadily and progressively and our Christian walk has a destination. Well it says, if you go back to Romans now, We're talking about this Christian walk. Let us walk properly. This word's kind of interesting. It's talking about a beauty, really an appropriateness. There's a certain way that this walk ought to be. The conduct is what the walk is, okay? Now let's move into the metaphor. The walk is speaking about the conduct of our life, the way that we live our life in this earth, ought to be appropriate for a Christian. We ought to walk properly. You know, there's some verses that speak about this. The same word properly is used in 1 Thessalonians. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul is telling the people that, you know what? A Christian does this. He aspires to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you. And he says that in talking about our social life out in the community, we ought to be hard workers, we ought to contribute to the community and so forth. Because he says, so that you may walk properly toward those who are outside. You see, people who are not Christians, most of the world's not. Seven billion people. One billion claim to be Christians. That's a minority. And of those, there's a smaller minority that are actually believing the Bible is the Word of God, who are actually trusting in Christ as Savior and not some religious ceremonial work of Christianity. It's always a minority of Christians. And the world's watching. The world's watching these ones who say Jesus is Lord. And what are they seeing? And we're told that we ought to walk properly to those who are outside. So they see Christ and not us. Colossians 4, 5 says, walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. You see, Christians claim to have the knowledge of the truth, the knowledge of what's right and wrong. And brother and sister, we ought to put that effort to find out the truth. So many things bombard us in society. Was this right? Is that wrong? What should we answer to that? How do we live to that? What do we react to this? And should we be involved in that? And what should Christians do about this? And it just bombard always, constantly, things changing and shifting. And it takes a lot of effort and work that we're to have this wisdom when we walk toward those who are of the outside. We ought to be able to say to the people around us, I'll help you find the truth. I'm very interested in what's right and wrong. And we'll go to the scriptures and find out what that is. Peter, the Apostle Peter, also gives teaching on this conduct that we have toward the world. He says, Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Having your conduct, he's talking about a walk, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, and the Gentiles are a kind of people that are godless. They're not Christians. That's the idea that's a character of the people. Having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, when they make accusations against you, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. You see, our testimony, the way we live before others, is very important that it match our message. And so when we're reaching out and telling others, they need to come to Christ, they need to believe in Jesus. Well, they're gonna step back and say, well, what's Jesus done for you? Well, they're gonna look at us and see how we live and they'll examine our life. And woe be it to us, brother and sister, when an unsaved person or someone we're trying to talk and convince to believe in Christ, they say, you know what, she says she's a Christian, but she sure don't act like it. Woe be to us. What we want is when we say we're a Christian and we urge others to put their faith in Christ, they can say, well, you do act like a Christian. That's the idea of walking properly. We are to be walking in the way of the new life in Christ and not in the ways of this dark, evil world. Ephesians 5.8 sums it up in one way, saying the similar thing. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the world. Light in the Lord, excuse me. Walk as children of the light. Light always represents truth, righteousness, life. When we walk as children of the light, we're walking in a narrow way. Jesus said, difficult is the way, narrow, and there'll be few that find it. When we're walking in the light, when we're walking properly, sometimes we're walking against the crowd, but we're walking in the right way. Now, he says, let us walk properly as is in the day. Okay, that's the idea of walking in the light and walking in God's way. Then we got these list of sins here. And anytime there's a list, remember, it could always be expanded on. You just throw in every sin that's there. Not in that way, but here is a list that has something in common. These three pairs of wicked behaviors here, right? You see how they're paired up? revelry and drunkenness, comma, lewdness and lust, comma, strife and envy. So we kind of look and see what these have in common, how they're matched together. Well, the three pairs kind of give the character of the darkness of this evil age. So let's just step back and look at them as a whole. This is the character of the darkness of this evil age. And we see them matched together this way, okay? The world is full of pleasure-seeking, insatiable debauchery. That's kind of how I pieced it together as you look at how they're related together. Each pair relates together, full of pleasure-seeking, insatiable debauchery that will only destroy people and their relationships. Okay, so the first pair is kind of pleasure-seeking, and satial debauchery in the second pair, and then destroyed relationships in the last pair, see? The first pair, reverie and drunkenness, speaks about a life of just seeking what's pleasurable. Big parties, reverie, drunkenness. The world today is always concerned with being high. Being high, having a good time, trying to let go and forget, trying to get in a mood, a festive mood all the time. The world's always giving us this idea that it's always got to be fun. Well, did you have fun? If you didn't have fun, then it wasn't worth it. Fun, fun, fun. That's what reverie and drunkenness is describing, the worldly pleasures that people seek after and live for. Lewdness and lust is talking about that immorality. I know there's little ears here, but we're talking about a certain kind of physical immorality. And what we hear today in our country is this has really exploded and just been sort of let loose is that you have a right to that kind of freedom. You have a right to express yourself in this way. But here, what the Bible says is this is an expression of the character of the darkness of this world, lewdness and lust. And so it's describing the selfish indulgences. And that's connected, worldly pleasures, selfish indulgences, and finally, strife and envy. Do you know if you live that way, you're going to destroy your family? You're going to destroy your friendships. And out at the rescue mission, people who have been absorbed and just immersed in these lifestyles have lost their children, have lost their spouses, have lost and broken every relationship with their blood family. They've destroyed everything. And I don't know how you can come to any other conclusion. That's the truth. Don't believe their lies. Don't believe you can live in that kind of immorality and partying lifestyle and not damage your relationships with other people. Because right here it says strife and envy. And it's talking about unloving broken relationships. And if you've ever allowed some of these sins, if you ever had part of your life where these sins encroached and took over and got a hold of, you know that a result of that was broken relationships, strained relationships with strife and envy. See, the Bible is very straightforward. and talks about these hard truths that we need to hear. And here's the truth, brother and sister. Did you know that this world is not a good place? The world is full of darkness. It's an evil world with evil people. And our problem is sometimes we don't always believe that. The big lie is that really, yes, there's some evil, but there's always some good out there. And you just find a good person. If you can just do a good deed. But what the world doesn't recognize when they say that is the Bible teaches the world is full of darkness. See that? Cast off the works of darkness. It's night time, the day is dawning, the day is coming, but it's night now. And look at these, without properly to say, look at those sins. That's only some of them. If there's anything good in this world, if that person says, well, sometimes there is a good deed, and sometimes you do find a good person, and there are some goodness in the world. Well, brother and sister, we know the Bible teaches that's a gift of God's grace. That God's given that because He's good. The Bible says His goodness leads one to repentance. And what He's doing in that goodness is He has given humanity good things. It rains on the good and the evil. And He does feed people. And that's what Apostle Paul said, food, he's provided, he's provided good things so that people might turn and say, God, it's an evil world, but you've been good to us. Who is this God that's brought good into this evil world? Because if someone was truthful with themselves and believed what God said and their eyes were open, you could agree right here that it's a dark world, it's an evil world. And we're to turn from that. Let us walk properly as a day, not in. the darkness, and here's a list of sins. Our problem is, brother and sister, we don't always fully believe. We doubt that it's that dark. Let's not do that. Let's go with what the Bible says. Now, we're encouraged here, commanded then to have a proper walk is also to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And to put on the Lord Jesus Christ is not an outward adherence to religious ceremony. Too many parts of Christianity, I think the Catholic Church teaches this way, that really to be a good Christian, you've got to be doing these religious ceremonies. You've got to come and do religious works. And people confuse that even in a church like ours. They think, oh, well, to be a good person I need to start coming to church and then start doing things like the Lord's Supper and good deeds to the church. That is not what the Bible teaches. That's not what putting on the Lord Jesus is. It's not some outward adherence to religious ceremony. Don't you do that. Don't you be confused with that. That's not the way you gain Christ. But to put on Christ means to be more like Christ. It's a metaphor of putting on a garment. We put on His character and wear it in our life. To put on Christ is to be more like Christ in His character and following His example. And to be so identified with Him, it's as if He's a garment that we wear. That begins in the heart. That begins by faith. We put on Christ through knowing his word and obeying his word. Do you believe that these are the words of Jesus? Well, you say, yeah, then every word falls in your heart. And you take in every word, it's so precious. And then you read what he says. He says, if you love me, you keep my commandments. You start to realize he's commanded us certain things. He's told us these truths and made these promises to us. And I sort of just put all that on me and I'm comforted and I wear that and I draw close to Him in a relationship through knowing Him and obeying Him. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible has a habit, if you've noticed, of many times ending on the negative. I almost reverse these around because I wanted to cover, make no provision to fulfill the flesh, to fulfill its lust, and then I want to end it on something encouraging and talk about putting on Christ. Sometimes I do that. It's just a prerogative of the person bringing the message. It's not wrong. But the Bible, many times, puts the negative at the end. You'll notice that if you read. Look, this is a summary of the chapter we talked about. Look how the chapter 13's summed up. I mean, it begins so positively. Make yourself a living sacrifice, don't be conformed, take the marching orders and go, and you can do it, and it's encouraging. That's how it begins in chapter 12, verse one, and these two chapters go on, but look how it ends. Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. We have to be reminded of this because we still have the flesh. We can still be a sinful people, no matter how long we've been saved. This is another straightforward truth that the Bible gives to us in a raw way. You might think you're a Christian for a long time, you might have cleaned up some things in your life, that's really good, but the flesh can never be cleaned up. It's the sin nature in every believer that remains. And remember, brother and sister, no matter how long you've been saved, and we have some old saints in here that have really given good testimony of their life and have changed lives, they'll be the first to tell you, by the way, that the sin nature never improves. The same sins they struggled with before and the day they got saved can be some of the same sins they struggle with now. And it's really not gotten easier. When that sin rears its ugly head and that flesh comes out, It doesn't improve. The flesh will always be corrupt. And this is what God wants us to know. The flesh will always lust after what is selfish and will always be contrary to God. Make no provision for the flesh because it's not getting any better. It's not reformed, it's not improving, and it'll always be with you and it's just as evil as it's always been. And make no provision for it. And the idea of making provision is to, the straightforward way of understanding is don't pre-plan to indulge yourself in the flesh. You wanna deal with the flesh? Here's a strategy God's given us. Christian, don't pre-plan to indulge in the flesh. Let me ask you this question. What's more serious? And I termed it a crime of compulsion. Sometimes that's called crime of passion. But I wanted to broaden it out to any kind of crime. Sometimes people commit, sin or crime in the spur of the moment. And you ask him, why did you take that? And he said, I don't know, it just kind of came upon me and I grabbed it. Or it came upon me and I said it. And I didn't plan on it, it just came out. There are those kinds of crimes and sins, aren't there? But what's worse, a crime of compulsion or a premeditated crime? It's clearly a premeditated. And I'll make this charge The accusation, but it comes from the Bible right here. The pastor's getting ready to say this. Every one of us in here is pre-planning to sin. Can you believe that? He's telling us right here as a command. Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. Why would he command that if it were not happening amongst God's people? And so the Bible says every one of us, to some degree, is pre-planning to sin. Premeditated sin. And here's another way to prove it. If I started to ask every one of you, write down a sin, that you know it's gonna happen. You know it's gonna happen later today. You know the stress is gonna come upon you and you're gonna find, you know you're gonna be in a weak moment because you can't avoid that. There's gonna be problems in life. And you know when you face that, you're gonna sin. You know it's gonna happen, you know what it is, you've not stopped it, and it's gonna rear its ugly head. And at times you resist it, but you're gonna do it again. Whether it be with your thought life, with your tongue, with your actions, with your attitude. It's sad to say everyone can name multiple sins that way. It's true because that's why He's commanded us not to do that, because we do that. And the strategy that we have is to make no provision, and here's the error we make. Brothers and sisters, so here's, so the pastor's accusation, all of you are premeditated sinners. But here's what the Bible says is part of the solution to that, and here's what I'm working on, here's what convicted me. The solution is, here's what you can't say. Don't say I can't help it. You know you're gonna sin that, don't say, but I can't help it, that's just me, that's the way that it is. That's the lie of the darkness of this world, the lie of Satan. Here the truth is, Jesus said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, he acknowledged that. Here it's saying make no provision that we do pre-plan sin, but don't make the greatest error and say, but that's just the way it's gonna be. because here we're told to make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. That it's possible, that it's right for us to resist that, to put in efforts, to make continuous efforts, to arrange our thinking and our habits of life in order to remove those opportunities, to acknowledge how wicked and sinful the flesh is, and to acknowledge that openly. We don't pretend to be better than we are here at Village Bible Church. We're not Christians that tout ourselves to be high and mighty and holy and righteous and religious above everybody else. We're a room full of sinners with so much potential sin. But what we do see is right here, this commandment means something to us. And if we're to have a right, proper walk in this world, we're to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and to not pre-plan to sin, to continuously make this effort, to continuously put on the Lord Jesus, confess sin, put out all of the efforts that we have, acknowledge that it's in us, and work and apply and pray and ask and deal with this in an open, honest way. Continuous efforts, that's the walk, it's steady. Putting off the flesh, not giving it any advantage, not pre-planning anything, but arranging everything in our lives so that we're putting on the Lord Jesus, taking upon ourselves Him personally and everything about Him. The Bible says in the same way, if we walk in the Spirit, you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Brethren, sister, that's what we are this morning as we come to this place to have a proper walk as a testimony of Jesus Christ in our lives, to be well-pleasing to Him and to be a testimony for the lost. Don't you want your lost loved ones and family members and others to be saved and to see Jesus in you? We ought not to walk like the world in the darkness. We ought to be putting on the Lord Jesus and not making provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. What are those things we could confess to Him and say, Lord, there it is. I know this is what I'm dealing with. I know what my flesh does to me. Help me not to do it. What can you throw out? What can you change in the habit of your life to deal with this head on? To get serious, ready? To get serious about sin in your life. To get serious about dealing with this fleshly sin that can cause destruction in your life. and to get serious about putting on the Lord Jesus, be serious about your Christian walk. What can you confess to Him and say, Lord, help me to do that? Let's stand together as we have a time of invitation.