My hope is built, I'm nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. Jesus, the anchor of my soul, the ruler of this universe, the one who's in control. He saved me and he will keep me till the end. The rock of my salvation, on Christ I will defend. My hope is Jesus. My hope is Jesus. When darkness hides my Savior's face, I rest on His unchanging grace. When faith is weak and doubt is strong, I still lift up salvation's song. Jesus, He's the keeper of my soul, the ruler of this universe, the one who's in control. He saved me, and he will keep me till the end. The rock of my salvation, on Christ I will depend. My hope is Jesus. My hope is Jesus. My hope is Jesus. When he shall come with trumpets sound, O may I then in him be found, Dressed in his righteousness alone, Thoughtless to stand before the throne, My home is Jesus, the anchor of my soul, the ruler of this universe, the one who's in control. He saved me, and he will keep me till the end. The rock of my salvation, on Christ I will depend. My hope is Jesus. My hope is Jesus. Amen. All right. That was always going to be difficult with Mac. I'm sorry if he distracted you from the message of that. I hope not. My hope is Jesus. Yeah, what a precious song. It's written by Ron Hamilton. And I hope that was an encouragement and challenge to you this morning. We'll dismiss the little ones to go to their class with Mrs. Schor. 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. And I want to say thank you to It's good to remember who he is. And it is that way that we were talking about. When you get in your life and you're frustrated, you're burdened, everything's going wrong. If you just stop and realize who Christ is, he's the answer to everything. He meets every single need. And praise God for that this morning. We're gonna go back to what we were looking at last week. So we're in Titus chapter two again. And we're speaking about grace teaching. And are you listening? Are you listening to the teacher, Grace, which spoke about last week, Helen Keller's teacher, Ann Sullivan. She gave the key of truth to Helen that helped to set her free. And again, Helen said about that teacher, she said, the most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Ann Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. Sullivan, we spoke about last week, had to fight to gain control of Helen Keller, including losing a tooth that was knocked out, wrestling with this little child, trying to help her to submit to her authority as a teacher, to listen to her instruction. That could help her and when she finally did get that control she had the opportunity to spell into Helen's hand Letters and she would spell over and over again Different items and Helen didn't get it. She didn't understand what she was doing until that day that she put her hand in water and spelled out in her hand w-a-t-e-r and Helen's said this Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought, and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that W-A-T-E-R meant the wonderful, cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free. She was trapped in a body that couldn't hear, in a body that couldn't see. But when she was able to have that communication come into her life, it's like all of a sudden, the world was open to Helen Keller. She became a marvelous young lady, prolific author, just a great testimony to what somebody can achieve. And it was so easy to say, I give excuses for why we can't do something. But here, this young lady had a great testimony of what she could do. She was empowered how? by a teacher that gave her truth that set her free. And what I want us to be reminded of this morning is that grace can set us free. Grace can set us free. I mean, that's our hope today, isn't it? I mean, life's tough. Sin is harsh, and sin is bondage, and the condemnation of loss stands over the head of each one of us saying, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. And yet grace comes in and the gospel opens our eyes. It's our teacher, the grace of salvation opens our eyes and we see, ah, Jesus Christ loved me. Ah, Jesus Christ died for me. Jesus Christ rose again. And we look at that and we say. That Christ is my now Savior. He sets us free from the condemnation of the law. He opens our eyes. He transforms us, the Bible says, into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. We're speaking about that this morning at Sunday school. That's what the gospel does when the gospel sets us free. But grace doesn't just, it doesn't end at salvation, no more than faith ends at salvation. The Bible says we walk by faith, not by sight, but part of that faith is to continue trusting grace when grace says, this is something in your life that needs to change, to continue to agree with God and say, yes, God. and to listen to that teacher that then sets us free. Last week we looked at the negative. We talked about that. There's a negative and a positive in this verse. It says, the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, that's the negative, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. So the negative is the idea of putting off or setting aside or discarding. Last week we spoke specifically about what we're going to discard. We're going to discard ungodliness. And so we spoke about that word ungodliness just means irreverence. Anytime that I don't give God his proper place and revere God, whether it's through my speech or my dress or my attitude or my friends or acquaintances and things that I'm participating in. When I don't revere God, that's ungodliness. The grace of God teaches us to set that aside. And then worldly lusts could be lusts for money, could be lusts for immorality, could be lusts for possessions, lusts for anything other than the right desires, there are biblical God-given right lusts or desires, that word just means desires, but worldly lusts are things of this world. And God says, again, through grace, grace teaches us to set those things aside, discarding. But now we're coming to the positive. How should we live? Now that grace has taught me to set those things aside, ungodliness, worldly lusts, then how am I supposed to live my life? And the answer, again, is found in this verse, that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. And so this morning, grace is teaching us to positively display Christ to a Christless world. Grace is teaching us to positively display Christ to a Christless world. Again, how do we do that? We do that by these three truths, living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. And that's gonna be our message this morning. What does that mean? What's that soberness? What's that righteousness? What's that godliness? And how do I apply that to my life? All right, let's pray and ask God to bless his word to our hearts this morning. Father, we need your help this morning as we come to the Word of God. It's our desire, Father, not just to be in the church house today, but it's our desire to enter into that sanctified, holy place, that place of the presence of God. And Father, the most important thing that could take place today is that we'd be brought into contact with you. Our hope is Jesus. Father, there's nothing that would be better for us this morning. then to come into the very presence of God, to be face to face with you. Father, it's a transforming change that would take place even on godly men in revival times when brought into a place of the manifest presence of God. Father, they might have been strong men, but they wept or they fainted because of their sin, because of their need for the Savior. And Father, we pray for that today. We have no hope of changing anybody's life. There's nothing that we could do. I cannot convince anybody of the need to obey grace, but I praise you that the Spirit of God can. And Father, I pray that the Holy Ghost would help me as I speak. I pray, guide me as I speak. I pray that he give us ears to hear. Father, Jesus would often say, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. But Father, those ears to hear are divine. Those ears to hear are God-given. The natural man receive it, not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. Father, we have no hope this morning without the enablement of the Holy Spirit helping us to get the truth of the Word of God and to take it into our hearts. And so, Father, would you help? Would you guide? Would you direct? It's in Christ's name I pray, amen. So, grace is teaching us to display Christ to a Christless world. How does he do that? He would challenge us to display Christ, first of all, with the right mind, with the right mind. that we should live soberly. That word soberly has the idea of a sound mind. You know, somebody that has their mind in control of something else is not sober. The obvious example of that would be somebody that's drunk. Somebody that's drunk, you could say they're out of their mind. They're not in their right mind. They're not thinking right. Their mind's not controlling their walking right. It's not controlling their speech right. It's not controlling anything right, but it is controlling, right? but it's not soberly. They're not in their right mind. There's other things that control. There could be a controlling passion. There could be a controlling desire. There could be a controlling person and peer pressure and things and somebody's afraid about what somebody would think. They're not being sober. But the grace of God this morning teaches us to be sober, to let our mind have that right thinking so that we can please God. So how do we get that right mind, or how do we display Christ with the right mind? The first thing is use Christ-given wisdom. Has Jesus ever made a mistake? You know, Jesus, in his earthly life or in his heavenly ministry, has Jesus Christ ever made an incorrect judgment? The answer is no. His thoughts, what he thinks or what he does is always right. John 8, 16, it says, and yet if I judge Jesus, my judgment is true. Jesus is gonna get it right. And no matter what the situation is that we're facing, if we had the mind of Christ to give us the understanding, then the decision that we make if we have the mind of Christ would be right. It would be the right decision to make at the right time. In the States, I'm sure there are funny commercials here as well, but in the States, a commercial that I remember is a squirrel jumping out of a bush suddenly onto somebody's face. And it's an insurance commercial or something like that. It says, life comes at you quickly. Life comes at you quickly. I mean, how many times we're going along life and all of a sudden, there's the unexpected. There's a decision that has to be made and we need to make that decision. What do we do? We need that soberness. We need the mind of Christ to help us make the right judgment. You know, this morning, we can have the mind of Christ if we're humble enough to receive it. God's not against us this morning saying, you know, you're the one person that I don't want to understand what I desire, you know, in this type of situation in your life. God is available to us. He's made himself available to us if we're humble enough to receive it. 1 Corinthians 2 16, Paul said, for who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. Does anybody here have the ability to say to God today, God, I know what you should do? No. That's why it says in verse, for who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him. Can we give an instruction to God today? No, but Paul says, but we have the mind of Christ. This morning, I don't tell God what to do. God tells me what to do. Because I get it wrong, but where I get it wrong, God always, always, always gets it right if I have his mind. I mentioned recently that we enjoyed watching Major Tim Peake and his spacewalk and his time on the space station. And we watched a documentary about the training that he went through, but as he got to astronaut training, he didn't write the manual, did he? He took something that somebody had labored on, somebody had worked on, somebody had all their experiences and all their knowledge base from what they had done, and that was given to him. And if he was humble enough to take that and receive that, he could become a great astronaut. You know, that's the way it is with us today, is that God is there before us. God is the one that knows the answer. He knows the end from the beginning. And what we need today is not what we think about our life or what we think about decisions that we should make, but God, what do you think about this? And if we're humble enough to receive it, we can have it. But we can have the mind of Christ as well if we ask for it. James 1.5 says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that give it to all men liberally and abrade if not, and it shall be given him. You know, if anybody lacked wisdom, you know, this past week we were praying about our holiday plans. Everything was up in the air and here the car's been worked on for four and a half weeks now at this point. And it was my anticipation, surely we'd have our car back, but we didn't have our car back. And there were some decisions that I needed to make. And so what I did this past week, I was just praying and saying, Lord, what do you want us to do? And I was really unsettled about it. kind of towards Wednesday, not sure what to do. And it was getting close to Saturday and I needed to rent vehicles for us to be able to go on our holiday. And I might still have to do that this next week. But I'm praying about, Lord, what should I do? I don't want to change our holiday plans, I didn't think. But then we noticed that the week after, the week that we had this self-catering cottage rented, that it was still vacant. I contacted the lady and she was super gracious, super kind, no penalties. Yes, that's fine. We'll move you to next week. No worries. Giving us another week to work on it. But you know, that was, I said to my wife, you know, it's the only door that God opened. I could have, you know, yeah, can we do it? Can we make it work? And we might still this next week have to make some of those decisions. Yeah, maybe, but God gave us another week. But I sought God's mind on it. You know, how often as you, as you're going through your day, how often do you find yourself crying out to God and saying, God, I need wisdom. I don't know what to do in this situation. I need to know your mind about this. You know, I praise God. I don't know what unbelievers do. I really don't. Except make poor decisions at times and look back and say, I wish I hadn't made that decision. I praise God. Every decision that we make as believers, we pray about it and say, God, what would you have us to do? We get the mind of Christ and we make a decision that we don't have to look back on and go, I wonder if I made the right decision. Not if we had the mind of Christ. Not if we knew. what God wants us to do. That's why one of my favorite sayings is, never doubt in the dark what God's shown you in the light. There's a time where God makes the light go on. He makes it clear. I don't have to look back and say, God, what am I doing here in Scotland? God, what am I doing in my life, in this situation? Because I can look back and say, no, I sought the mind of Christ. I had the mind of Christ on that. We need that soberness that comes through knowing God's mind. But more practically, how do we get the mind of Christ? And so the second thing is not just use Christ-given wisdom, use Bible-given wisdom. Bible-given wisdom, soberness. You know, if you think about it, God's word has to go through our mind to get to our feet, doesn't it? To get the mind of Christ, we gotta take it in through our mind before we can practice it. We gotta think right according to the word God. when I was speaking recently last night with somebody about their driver's test and having to take the exam here. And I was able to say, we took the exam here. But when we took the exam, I remember very distinctly that for nine months or so, we're driving over here. And it's all new. It's all different. You think you know how to drive. But then when you start reading the manual, and it's telling you about the road signs, All of a sudden, those road signs are speaking to you. I'm driving along and the road sign is telling me something. I'm like, oh, that's what that meant. I always wondered what that circle with the line across meant. Back to the actual speed limit. I didn't know that. I wondered where all the speed limit signs were. It's there, but I didn't know that. And all of a sudden, it's speaking to you. There's information. Why? Because there's understanding about the road. That's what we need, isn't it? As we're going through life, we need to be able to see life through the manual of God's word. There's unbelievers all the time saying, I don't get it. I don't understand it. Why is life like this? Why, you know, if there is a God, then why? But a lot of those answers and a lot of those things are answered in the word of God when you have a biblical perspective and see what's taking place. So use Bible given wisdom. How do we do that? Well, let your mind seek guidance in God's word. Psalm 119, 105 says, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. A couple of nights ago, as I threw out our rubbish, I just noticed it was really dark outside. You know, there's some nights like that, where if you walked outside, you can't see 10 feet in front of you. And it was a night like that. That's not my favorite night to go on a walk in the woods. And I've walked out in the woods in the States at different times in the dark. It's not my favorite thing. I like to have a torch with me. Why? Because the torch, I can shine it at my feet and I can see what's around my feet so I'm not stepping on something I don't want to step on. And I can see the way ahead. If I hear something, I can turn the torch on that and see what's scaring me, right? A torch is wonderful like that. And the Bible says, thy word is a lamp unto my feet, spiritually, and a light unto my path. How do I know for sure the way that I should take? Well, the word of God. So many times in our life, in our experience, we've been able to make decisions very specifically by the word of God. I'll just give you an example of that as I'm thinking about it. But one time I'm praying about a side garden that we had attached to our house and praying about what to do. I thought I could split it off, I could sell it separately as a separate buildable lot. But to do that, it was gonna take a couple thousand dollars at a time where I didn't have anything extra to be able to do that. But if I did that, I could split it and I could sell it separately when we sold our house and profit from it. And so I'm praying about it. And I'm reading in Jeremiah, and God said to Jeremiah at the time where they're going into the captivity to the King of Babylon, God said to Jeremiah, buy up this inheritance because you're gonna be back in the land. So go ahead and buy this land. And very specifically, God used that in my heart, what I'm praying about, to allow me to go forward with confidence and say, no, God's in this, this is what God wants us to do. That decision, allowed us to profit $34,000 on the properties when we sold them and paid for the travel trailer, the caravan that we're using for our deputation to come to Scotland. God met a need, but he gave us guidance through his word. So many times as a believer you're praying about something and God uses scripture to give you a knowledge of what God would have you to do. That's a blessing. Let your mind seek guidance in God's word. Let your mind seek victory in God's word. Psalm 119, wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. How do I get victory over the sin? It's a besetting sin and I keep struggling with it. It just seems like I can't get victory. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. God wants us this morning to have victory and it's found in his word. You know, if you'll watch after the service today, you'll see something take place. Mr. Alcover is back in the room. All the kids will form a queue, and then Mac will get up to Mr. Alec. He'll get something from the bag, and where's he gonna go? The kids know where he goes. Where's he gonna go? He goes to Mr. Mark. He doesn't go to Mom and Dad, because Mom and Dad say, wait till you get home to open up your chocolate, and then you can have it. He goes to Mr. Mark, because Mr. Mark very kindly opens it up for him, and then he can eat it. Mac isn't gonna take defeat when he can have victory, right? Because he's learned his lesson. from life. You know, for us as believers, I know this is kind of a silly illustration, but why do we live in defeat? When God's given us victory, why do we accept failure when God's given us a truth in his word that can allow us to live above sin and to have victory over sin? Seek victory in God's word. And then let your mind seek understanding in God's word. 2 Timothy 2 15, says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Grace teaches us to live soberly, live soberly, get the mind of Christ, get in God's word, but in God's word is the answer to all doctrinal questions. Yes, Baptist, we're Baptist this morning. Why are we right? Why isn't Catholicism right? Why isn't Mormonism right? Why isn't Islam right? The answer is not which one's right, it's what does the word of God say? Because I come to the Bible this morning, how do I know that Jesus Christ is God? Because he's the judge. And the Bible says God is the judge. Because he's worshiped. And the Bible says God is worshiped because he created, and the Bible says in the beginning, God created. How do I know that this morning? How do I know that that is right because of God's word? How do I know this morning that Jesus Christ's death paid the penalty for my sin? that it was paid in full, that there's nothing I can do to earn my salvation. How do I know that? Because the Bible says that in his word, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. There's no excuse today for anybody, whether unbeliever or believer, to say, but I just don't know what God says about that. And the answer would be, have you looked in God's word? Have you picked up the Bible and looked at it and said, you know, what does God say about this? One of the saddest verses in the Bible written by a minister of the gospel, Hebrews 5.12 says, for when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles or the word of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. The sad thing is today, we live in a day of biblical illiteracy. There's a lack of knowledge of what the Word of God teaches. And the sad thing is there's little being done about it. It's right there. The Word of God is there to instruct us. This morning, how much time do you spend in the Word of God? I've been convicted of this. I'm a minister. I mean, I study it. But I've been convicted of this, and by God's grace, I do my best every night to spend some quality time in the Word of God, just reading through what God says, that I can have the mind of Christ and see what God says. So use Bible-given wisdom. Use Christ-given wisdom. Use Bible-given wisdom. Use Spirit-given wisdom. You might think this, I speak about reading the Bible, you can say, but Pastor Ben, I'm not a theologian, and honestly, I'd raise my hand and say, you know what, neither am I, neither am I. But you know what, I don't have to be a theologian, I don't have to be somebody with great intellect to be able to understand this book. The one thing that I need to understand this book is a person, and that person is the Spirit of God. And everybody that's saved, when somebody gets saved, the Bible says, what, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God? The Holy Spirit is given to somebody that accepts Christ. And when the Holy Spirit is given, all of a sudden, the Word of God begins to make sense, and we can understand it. John 16, 13 says, how be it when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself. When the Spirit of God came, he's the one that opens man's eyes, helps man understand. If you get saved someday, it's because the Spirit of God opened your heart to the truth of the gospel. And as he comes in, it's the same thing that we're speaking about, the grace of God that bringeth salvation and sense. You can say the grace of God and the Spirit of God, they're kind of one and the same. They're teachers. teaching us, helping us understand, helping us to get it. 1 John 2.27 says, but the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. I praise God this morning. If it wasn't for the Spirit of God, not anybody in this room would be saved. Nobody. Because the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness unto him. But God in his mercy, God in his grace, opens men's hearts, helps them to see, helps them to get it. That's why when the light goes on, don't reject it. Don't say, later, light goes on, I need to get saved. Light goes on, I need to obey God. Don't reject it. Don't turn away from it. Why? Because that's your only hope. That's it. It's God helping us to understand. You know, how do I live today? Well, grace would say to us, hey, live soberly. Think right. Think right. This world thinks wrong. This world is filled up with their own ideas, their own thoughts. Think right. Think biblically. Use spirit, give in wisdom. So display Christ with the right mind. Secondly, You should display Christ with a right body. A right body. The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, and then what? Righteously. A right body, right actions. Righteously means as is right, just, uprightly. Dr. Bob Senior started Bob Jones University. He has a phrase, I think it became a song, but it's, do right till the stars fall. We're looking at Revelation on Thursday nights, and there's gonna be a time where the skies, the heavens are gonna be changed, and that's what he's speaking about. He's saying, do right till the end. Do right till the stars fall. God wants us not just to be right in our mind, he wants us to be right in our actions and what we do. You know, this morning, that's not gonna take place without a purpose in our heart, without a commitment in our heart. So first of all, to have a right body, purpose to protect your body. Purpose to protect your body. Daniel, in Daniel 1.8, it says, but Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore, he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Some of you are familiar with that story, but what it is, Daniel was taken captive by the king of Babylon. He's a teenager, he has some of his friends that are with him, but they've been taken by the king of Babylon and they're being trained to be leaders within that kingdom that the king of Babylon's setting up. But to do that, the king has given him a special diet, he's given a special instruction. But what that diet is, is meat that's been offered to idols or wine that's been offered to idols. And Daniel doesn't want to defile himself. He doesn't want to sin against God. And so he purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. And so he asked the prince of Unix, can we eat basically oatmeal or What's the word over here? I don't think you say oatmeal. Porridge. Porridge. Just have porridge to eat. Well, let me ask you a question. Who told Daniel to do that? Nobody. Daniel's a teenager. He's living in a foreign land. Nobody's there. His parents aren't there. He doesn't have an authority there. The only person there is Daniel and God. And Daniel says, you know what? I'm gonna keep my body pure. I'm gonna live righteously. He purposed in his heart. You know, we're not gonna make a great decision like that without purposing in our heart that, hey, I'm gonna protect my body. I'm not gonna sin against God easily with my body. I'm gonna do what's right with my body. So purpose to protect your body. And then purpose to serve the Lord with your body. Joshua 24, 15. Joshua is leading the children of Israel and he says to them, if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Have you seen that statement before? As for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord. If you come to my house, you'll see it three or four times. It's on different places on the wall. It's a great statement. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. How can we live righteously? By serving the Lord. By serving the Lord. My youth group, as... I was growing up, I had a good youth pastor. God blessed us with a good youth pastor. I had a good size youth group, about 20 young people in my youth group. And as I look back at my youth group, in the graduation from high school, at that point, people generally went one of two ways. They either went on to Bible college to serve God and to please God, or they went into the world. I was amazed, just a few years after high school, how many of my you know, young people in the youth group that you thought, well, it's a church youth group, and, you know, surely these guys are going to go on for the Lord, and they're off into sin, and they're off into the world. On the other hand, there are ones that were doing what's right. And praise God, today I could list a long list of young people that are actually in full-time ministry for the Lord that came out of my youth group, that purpose in their heart, hey, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. You know what matters this morning is not what your person sitting next to you is gonna do, it's what you're gonna do. Are you gonna serve the Lord? Have you purposed? in your heart that this body is gonna be used for God, this body is gonna glorify God, this body is gonna be invested for God. God says, live righteously, live righteously. And then purpose, thirdly, to sacrifice your body to the Lord. Purpose to sacrifice your body to the Lord. Purpose to serve the Lord, but purpose to sacrifice. Romans 12, one. Says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Since this is true, Jesus Christ died for me. Isn't the least I could do is live for him? Since he took my death, shouldn't I take his life? Makes sense, doesn't it? How can I, you know, claim the name of Christ and live a life that's anti-Christ? The least I can do is to present that body back to the Lord. You know, I think salvation and surrender are two different things. You might be here this morning and you're saved, but that doesn't mean you're surrendered. You can be saved, that means you're not gonna die and go to hell, but that doesn't mean you're a disciple of Christ, that doesn't mean you're somebody that's using your life for the Lord, but God would challenge us to, hey, live righteously, present your body to the Lord. It's your reasonable service to give that to the Lord. In the Old Testament, I'm reading through the Old Testament, I'm up to the book of Judges, but not too far back, I read about the year of Jubilee when slaves would be set free. But if there was a slave that was serving his master that on that year of Jubilee said, I don't want my freedom, I want to continue in your service because I love you and I love my family, that he would take, the master would take it all and he would bore a hole through the earlobe of that servant to show to everybody that this servant is not a slave, they are a bond slave. They're somebody that has given themselves back to their master. You know, is God our master today? He is. But is he our master by choice? Have you said to God, God, I want to serve you. God, I want to please you. God, I want to use my life for you. I want to be a bond slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's our choice. It's our reasonable service, but it's our choice that you present your bodies. And so, grace would come to us this morning and say, hey, are you thinking right? Are you thinking Christ-like? Are you thinking spirit-like? Are you thinking word-like? He would say to us, are you living right? Are you living righteously, doing what's right? Are you serving the Lord? Have you presented your body to the Lord? And the third way to display Christ, to a Christ-less world, is with the right heart. That we should live soberly, righteously, and what? What's the last one? godly in this present world. He would have us to live godly or piously. If you're living Godly, then you're pleasing God with how you feel. We've talked about pleasing God with our mind. We've talked about pleasing God with our body. This is pleasing God with my emotions, my affections, my attitudes, my motives, my heart, my heart. Not just thinking right, not just doing right, but God, doing it with the right spirit, with the right attitude, with the right heart. So how do we do that? Well, get a clean heart, first of all. Get a clean heart. You might have heard somebody say it different times. You might have said it yourself. They have such a good heart, right? Have you heard that? Such a good heart. They're such a, you know, they're a good person. And we can say that, right? And I know we mean well when we say that, but as we say that, do we really have the ability to see their heart? No. But you know, God does this morning, have the ability to see our hearts. 1 Samuel 16, seven. It says, but the Lord said unto Samuel, look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord seeth not as man seeth. For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the inside. heart. You know in our churches again this morning there could be somebody that maybe they've been in church for years. I mean they look the part. I mean they dress right. They sound right. But God alone knows this morning whose heart he has. God knows this morning who loves him. God knows who's serving him because he has a desire and a burden and just wants to please God. God knows that. And God would have us this morning to serve him with our heart, a good heart. You know, you might say, well, I've got a good heart. Well, the heart that God wants us to have is a clean heart. And our heart without Christ, the Bible says, Jeremiah 17, nine, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. God knows that our heart is so easily corrupted, it's so easily against God. So what do we need? We need God to cleanse it. David said it this way, the man after God's own heart said in Psalm 51, 10, created me a clean heart, oh God, and renewed a right spirit within me. God, give me that a pure heart, that clean heart. He said in Psalm 73, one, truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. Oh, do you have a heart that's clean this morning? We know in our hearts, do I have a dirty heart? Do I have a heart that has guilt? Do I have a heart that's burdened with sin? Do I have a heart that is in the sight of God, it's full of sin because it's not been cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? Or have I gone to God and said, God, please, my heart is, it is a sinful heart. God, please, I need that cleansing that you give. God, give me a clean heart today. Have a clean heart. When you get a clean heart, then fill it up with God. Joshua. So many times in the Word of God, it has the phrase, all your heart, all your heart, all your heart. It says in Joshua 22, verse five, he says, but take diligent heed to the commandment and the law, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, charged you, to love the Lord your God and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cleave unto him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. You may not have seen it, but in that verse, there is mind, body, and heart. It's there. The mind is there, take diligent heed. The body is there, walking all its ways. The heart is there, serving with all your heart, all your soul. You know, God this morning doesn't want a partial heart, does he? He wants all our heart, he wants to fill our heart. Only fear the Lord, it says in 1 Samuel 12, 24, and serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider how great things he hath done for you. Jeremiah 29, 13, and ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Joel 2.12, therefore also now sayeth the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Is God pleased this morning in half-hearted Christianity? He's not. What does God desire today? God desires all my heart, that I would give to him my heart in its entirety and seek him with all my heart. And then, get a clean heart, fill it up with God, and then pour it out to others. Luke 6, 45, says a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good. An evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil, for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. Do you know one of the greatest evidences of my heart is what I say? We want to share Christ with others. We want to invite others to Christ, but how pure a heart we need to have so that Christ can come from our heart. A good man of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good, for out of the abundance of his heart his mouth speaketh. Grace, if grace was here this morning, grace would say, yeah, denying godliness, worldly lusts, discard those things, but display Christ. How? With the right mind. How? With the right body. How? With the right heart. And you might look at that this morning and say, that's discouraging because how can I do that? I feel so unable to do that. You know, the answer is to go back to the beginning of the verse, isn't it? The grace of God, which bringeth salvation. Grace is God doing for us what we can't do. The first thing for somebody is to get saved. Why? Because then they have a right mind, then they have a right heart, then they have a right body. It's been cleansed by the grace of God. And without God's grace, we can't continue to live like that, thinking right, doing right, and having a right heart. But you look at that story again, it's just a story, but Helen Keller was set free when? When she finally got what her teacher was trying to get through to her. When do we have victory? God this morning wouldn't discourage us, he'd say to encourage us and challenge us and say, hey, you can do this thing. You can live soberly, righteously, and godly, but it's only when you submit to grace. It's only when you let grace instruct, grace teach. and get the mind of God and get the body of righteousness and get the heart that says, God, you know what? More than anything today, I wanna please you. I wanna serve you. And God's grace can help us to do that. So I hope that's a challenge to you. I helped you this morning in your walk with the Lord. Let's pray and ask God to bless his word to our hearts. Father, we're thankful for the grace of God. And Father, that's what we need today. Father, I praise you that the Spirit of God is able to speak to our hearts through a simple message about what grace desires to teach us. And Father, we've looked at expectations on an impersonal level this morning, just about what we need to think right, we need to do right, we need to have a right heart. But Father, you don't do that, you deal with us individually. And Father, you'd say to me this morning, Ben, do you have the right mind? Do you have a right body? Do you have a right heart? That you desire me to live in victory today. And Father, that's the same with every single person in the auditorium here this morning. It's your desire that we live in that victory. And Father, you do have high expectations. And you do have these desires because you give us the grace to do it. And so I pray, Father, don't discourage any heart. And certainly, Lord, that's not our desire today. Our desire is to encourage our hearts that we can do this, we can live in victory, that we can have the mind of Christ, that we can have a right body, that we can have a right heart. And so Lord, encourage us in that truth today. It's in Christ and we pray, amen.