When we got through Wednesday, Jeremy said, made the comment that the Wednesday night message was timely. And I think today's can be, if the Lord would help me get it across, another timely message. Before we go any further, let's just read it. We come to Romans 12 today. And we come to a new section that actually goes from Romans 12 all the way to the end, Romans 13. And I think just because we've just come into it, I'm going to try to spend half or three-fourths of our time giving an introduction to it, so it seems fitting to read it all. Romans 12. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God. which is your reasonable service of worship. And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect. For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, So we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly. If prophecy according to the proportion of his faith, if service in his serving, or he who teaches in his teaching are he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence, he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. give preference to one another in honor, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid. For it does not bear the sword for nothing. For it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore, it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake. For because of this, you also pay taxes. For rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them. Tax to whom tax, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, you shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not covet. And if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Do this knowing the time. that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep. For now, salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone and the day is near. Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness. not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regards to its lust. for you today, the name of your Son, and ask, Lord, to be enabled more and more to put Him on. Lord, help us this day to get a feel for your Word, that if you should will it so, we would go through it more in the days ahead, in Jesus' name, amen. So what are we to make? of this amazing material. Romans 12 and 13. It is amazing. Blessing those that persecute you. Rejoicing in hope. Persevering in tribulation. Fervent, boiling in spirit. It's an amazing section. Obviously, we're dealing with ethical material here. We're dealing with living the Christian life. We're dealing with how we live. And so some explain it this way, this transition. They say, well, Paul has dealt with doctrine in Romans 1 to 11, and now he's dealing with practice in Romans 12 to 16. And that has some truth to it. So it's true so far as it goes, but it's not really the full picture. So let me remind you of something I've used from time to time to help illustrate the need to get to context. I've kind of said, we have a window here, so maybe you could pull up, I'll make it more real. Let's say you pull it up here to the meeting, and you look through that mirror right there in the kitchen from down there, and you saw Tony just beating Monique with a towel. just, I mean, go in and have her with this thing. And you look, and I mean, all you see is, there she is. And then she goes down, and he's just still swinging this towel. And you think, I better go up there and help her. I don't know what happened to Tony, but I need to go help Monique. And so then you come running up the stairs, and then there's smoke everywhere. And what happened is she had got caught on fire. And so, the same is true with context. We can look at things and just see a little bit of it, but there can be a far bigger picture for us to look at. And the same is true here. I mean, obviously, he's switching from mainly dealing with doctrine in Romans 1-11 to dealing with ethics and how we live in 12-16. But surely, Paul isn't just sitting here Like he's writing a textbook saying, okay, well now I've done the doctrine and now it's time to do the practice. And surely that's not just the situation. So I think if we get a feel, we've done this twice already in 159 messages on Romans. I don't know, maybe we're due to do it again. to some degree, to remind ourselves of the full picture and context of the book of Romans. I think if we do, it'll help us get a feel for what Paul's swinging at in Romans 12 and 13. So just let me remind you about the churches in Rome. You can read in Acts chapter 2, verse 10, that some of the people that were converted on the day of Pentecost were from Rome. Jews from Rome. And everybody, commentators, everybody trying to redraw the picture feels confident that's where this church started. So people came back to Rome after Pentecost and that's how Christianity began in Rome. Well, you can read, in other words, it was mainly Jewish Christians. was kind of the complexion of that church when it began. But you can read in Acts 18.2 where the Jews around 49 AD were expelled out of Rome by the Emperor Claudius. And we read about it in Acts 18.2, but in terms of historians, we read this account also where they said there was disturbances in Rome about a guy named Crestus. Probably what was happening in Rome is some political unrest as a result of Christianity. And Claudius, the emperor, thought the answer was expel all the Jews. So you read about that in Acts 18.2. Well, this emperor dies five years later in 54 AD, and so dies his decree with it. And the Jewish Christians are allowed to come back to what is now a more Gentile Christian complexion of a church. And so now, about 54 and 55 AD, the front burner issue in this church, considering that historical context, is what? How do Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians relate to each other in the church? What do they believe? How do they live? Most conservative scholars believe that's about when Paul wrote the letter to these churches in Rome. So that's a front burner issue for them. How about Paul? What's going on in his life? I'm passing up actually reading these. I'll just quote them to you. If you want to go back and read them later, it'll be on this audio. But Paul in his life is about to go to Jerusalem to carry a gift. You can read about all this in Romans 15. He's on his way to Jerusalem to carry a gift for these needy Jewish Christian saints in Jerusalem that he's received from all the Gentile Christian churches he's planted. Big operation. And he's burdened about it. He actually says in Romans 15, I urge you to pray. strive with prayers to God that this gift may be acceptable. So Paul thought this was a big thing in bringing the two groups together. And then after he gets through with there, he's going to come to Rome only as a skipping stone to go to Spain and be helped on his way, he mentions that in Romans 15, to Spain. So Spain is a place where they've never heard the gospel. Paul's finished his ministry in the Mediterranean. He's at the end of the third missionary journey. He's going to bring this gift. He's going to go to Rome. And he wants them to be his new sending church to send him to Spain. So Paul himself has this thing on the front burner in his life, literally in his pocket, carrying this money to the saints in Jerusalem. So you put all that together, It's not surprising that Paul writes the way he writes in the book of Romans. It's not surprising that we find what I've listed before, three main purposes structuring this letter. It fits the situation like a hand in the glove. Think about it. What do you see in Romans 1-13? Argument. Therefore, so then. About what? The Gospel. And how Jews and Gentiles are both equally wicked, equally accepted. The prompt, God has not been unfaithful to this prompt. You see how that fits the situation? So he's arguing, first of all, that's why he wrote the book of Romans. And then past that, when you get to chapter 14 all the way to 15 verse 13, He has an agreement purpose. Based on his argument, based on this gospel, they should accept one another, both the Jews and the Greeks. And then once that's accomplished, the rest of the letter deals with the advancement purpose. So once all this is settled, once these brothers are settled, then they'll be ready to support Paul and send him to Spain. With that basic introduction, where would chapters 12 and 13 fit in? Well, they fit at the very tail end of Paul's... I'll give you just a second. It's okay. We've all been there. Some of us still are. So, the question is, with that introduction, where does chapter 12 and 13 fit into this scheme? Well, it's the very end of his argument. The very end. Which means, 12 and 13 are written because there's one last thing Paul needs to argue for. There's one last thing he needs to settle for these saints. And what is it? I would submit to you, he needs to demonstrate. Think of it being a Jew, a Jewish Christian, and this heated discussion going on. What he needs, before they're going to support him to Spain, look, he's never been to Rome. He didn't plant this church. Okay? So he needs to demonstrate against all the slanders that are out there that his gospel provides for a righteous life. even though it does not focus on the law. That's what he needs to show. So let me read you this quote from Douglas Moo, one of my favorite commentators. And he says the same thing. He says, this emphasis on the gospel's provision for obedience in daily life. That's what he's calling Romans 12 and 13. I mean, we're talking about did you pay your taxes or not? And do you submit to the government or not? And he's not talking about Ronald Reagan, the so-called best president. He's talking about the homosexual Caesar. Where to submit to? So he's dealing with that. He's dealing with the baked cookies for the meeting or not, practice and hospitality. Weeping with those who weep. All this general ethics here. I mean, Mu says that this fits with Paul's overall purpose in Romans, the explanation and defense of his gospel against those who might object that the abandonment of the law as a code of conduct leads to license. Paul argues that the gospel itself provides sufficient ethical guidance for Christians. So let me just show you that we've seen this before. Romans 3. Romans 3, verse 8. We see here that Paul was slandered in this way. Romans 3, 8. And why not say, as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say, let us do evil, that good may come. So Paul is slandered. He said, Paul, your doctrine means we can just do evil. It doesn't matter how we do it. You see the same thing in Romans 6, verse 1. See, the thing to lay hold of is Paul is not just framing these questions for himself. There were believers wondering about this. They've heard all this about Paul and his teaching. That's why he's writing this. Romans 6.1. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? So some were saying, Paul, you're teaching justification by faith apart from works. It doesn't matter how we live. You know what's going to happen is the prodigal is going to go back to the pig pen according to your Gospel. People are just going to live in license. You see the same thing in 615. Paul had just gotten finished saying, we're not under law, but under grace. Now, some people in reform camps will try to come up to you and say, well, what he means here about not being under law is just for justification. That's all He means. We're not under the law and around. Well, if that's all He meant, no one would have made the following objection. No, He means you're not under it at all. Thus, someone would say, verse 15, shall we sin because we're not under law? So you see the way they were thinking. If we don't have this law, if we don't have this law code, I mean, again, I refer to Jeremy's message mind, committing homosexuality. How are we going to know right from wrong? With no law. It is incredible, we don't realize it, to these Jews looking, these heathens, these Corinthians, even Corinthians, with all their immorality and disruption, he never says, well look guys, we're under the Ten Commandments. Isn't that amazing? He comes at it from a different perspective. So this was the issue, I mentioned Corinthians. It was the issue there. They had said all things are lawful. What were they doing? Turning the gospel into license. And Paul says, you know, I'm not under, I'm without law. To those who are without law, became as without law, but then he has to add, I'm not without the law of God. Why do you have to add that? Because people were saying that. The same thing you see in Galatians. You were called to freedom, but don't use your freedom for opportunity for the flesh. So he dealt with it there. Peter deals with it. He says in 1 Peter 2.16, he says, don't use your freedom as a covering for evil. Jude deals with it. He says, people are turning the grace of God into license. And so those brothers that come at us like that, they say, y'all got to put people under the law. You need to put the saints under the law. You need to realize there is an element of necessity there. Like, people are turning the grace of God into license today. They say it doesn't matter if you prayed when you were five. It doesn't matter how you live. That is antinomianism. It is dangerous. Paul dealt with the same thing and his answer wasn't to put the true Christians under the law. No matter what was happening. He still preached his gospel that way and it's still a test. If you're preaching the gospel of grace, you will get slandered for that. I've been called an antinomian one time from from another dear brother. I do think he's converted. He told me on the phone. I was there to know him. So let me say, this is the issue in our day. Having said that, let me read you a quote from Leiter's book, The Law of Christ. On page 187, he speaks of those who are, quote, fearful, end quote, And this is where I'm adding, of Paul's ethics because, quote, they want an objective commandment for every situation. So Charles is saying there's people in our own day who are fearful of Paul's ethics because they think we need an objective commandment for every situation of life. They're fearful if you don't have that. The Jews had 613 laws. You know, what are you doing? Well, law number seven. You know, what do you do? Well, law number 198. They had it for every situation. Paul gives one. That's it. One guidepost. And that's fearful of people. There's people today, if you've ever heard of the uses of the law, Now there's traditionally these three uses that come from some reform camps. You've got the first use, which is to convict men of sin. Then you've got the second use, which is to constrain society. And then they say you've got the third use, that the law is the rule of duty for the believer, the Ten Commandments. That's what we're supposed to live by, focus on, stare at. And they say, if you deny that, you're an antinomian. And they say, without that, people are going to get, and what I'm trying to get across, that's the very reason Paul wrote Romans 12 and 13. To blow away that very argument that men are making in our own day, that without the law, you'll get into antinomianism. Paul's writing in Romans 12 and 13 to show these Jewish-minded brothers, without the law, You'll be devoted to prayer. You'll practice hospitality. You'll not take revenge. You'll submit to the government. And so on. You'll make no provision for the flesh. Amazing section. You'll know by instinct what is good and pleasing and perfect in God's sight without the law. Amazing statements. I tell you, this is really an amazing section. So, the flow of thought would go something like this. Starting in Romans 12, let me just try to flow through it and help you see the flow of thought. In verses 1-2, Paul demonstrates that the Christian life results in finding the will of God even though it is not focusing on the Lord. That's verses 1-2. You begin to prove by testing what is the will of God. Then, so far from such a life leading to ungodliness, in verses 3-8 he says it leads to humility. And it causes people to fellowship with the saints. They realize they need one another. You don't think more highly of yourself than you are. You see, the person out there Saying, well, I don't have to go to church. I don't have to meet with the saints. Well, their problem isn't that they're disobeying some Sabbath day. The problem is they're proud. And they're haughty in mind. And Paul says they're thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to. They don't understand God has a body and they're only one little part and they need the rest. And so then in verses 9, all the way to 13, verse 7, he says, this life results in love in all of its forms. Verse 9 is just like a heading. Love without hypocrisy. Everything flowing from it. Just like a Swiss Army knife. All the varied forms of love. Abhorring what's evil. Baking cookies for the meeting. That one has just stood out to me. I keep referring to it. It's just amazing. You read through here, like, serving the Lord, fervent in spirit, practicing hospitality. And you really don't ever think about it until you think about it. You think, well, I've never even been concerned about what we eat or baking cookies or anything. I'm glad the Lord has given some people for that purpose. Or else, if it was up to me, we'd all be fasting So then, having established all that, he concludes his argument in 13, 8 to 10 by saying, this love, this very love itself is the fulfillment of the law. That's 13 verses 8 to 10. And then in 11 to 14, he wraps it up by saying, all of this is true and so, because we're part of the inauguration of the new creation. of this yet old creation. And so that's verses 11 to 14. So that's a flow of the thought, and we're obviously gonna go through it all verse by verse, but taking up about half of the time on that introduction, it only leaves me enough time to just begin to deal with the first reason that Paul gives that the Christian life does not result in missing the will of God, but in finding it. And this has been really amazing to me this week. The first word in our English Bibles is therefore. But in the Greek text, it's urge. I urge. So I just want you to notice that That phrase, I urge you. Parakaleo. Para means beside, so we got like parallel lines. And kaleo means to call, it means to speak. So parakaleo, when you parakaleo someone, it means you come alongside and speak to them. That's what it means. It means to speak from the side for some purpose. It's got a range of meanings. Sometimes it's to speak from the side like the guy who's sitting on the bench to cheer a faint heart, comfort someone. Sometimes it's to speak from the side and the image is more like someone's running a race and you're encouraging and exhorting them to press on. So it's got a range of meanings. And here, Paul has in mind, obviously, exhorting us to live the Christian life. And so I use this illustration Wednesday, and it has another purpose. I'm going to reuse it. I was talking Wednesday about how when we were on the vacation, there was a hill. behind where we were staying and Annabelle and I decided, we were crazy and decided to climb it. And the incline we were staying, I mean, it was literally about like this. So it wasn't just a nice, safe hill like this. It was more like, you know, and I didn't realize how high it was until we got about three quarters of the way up there and we started struggling, you know, it's a little bit of ice and mud and slick. and I thought it had more grip of the grass on it and it's actually kind of sloppy. And so we get up there and I finally realized I gotta start, I gotta go into cat mode and dig in with just getting mud all in my fingernails and everything to hold me up and then to kind of hold her along the way until we finally make it. I remember looking down thinking, I'm in a bind now, I gotta make it if she falls. We're going to be going to the hospital. It's not going to be good. So at one point, she began to slip more than she had been. And she really, you would say, lost heart. It was kind of like she was just going to fold the tent and just give up and latch on to me. And that wasn't going to work. It would have been too much weight. And so I was I had to persuade her and encourage her, look, just put your foot here and then do this and I'll push you and you'll be fine. And it was that moment where it could have went either way, but she listened to the exhortation. I persuaded her and she did it. And she went on up. That's the picture. That's what Paul's doing here in Romans 12, when he says, I heard you. He's encouraging us. to make this progress, live this Christian life. He's not beating down on us like, this shows how wrong Catholicism is. You know, some guy walking around and everybody kissing his ring and licking his toe. I mean, Paul is coming alongside the Christian, equal with the Christian, calling them brothers. Slaves in Rome, they were mostly slaves. And here's the apostle Paul saying, brethren, I urge you. Amazing thing. And so the first thing I just want to point out and deal with just for today, and this is it. You can center your thoughts on this for the rest of the time. The necessity of urging in the Christian life. The necessity of urging. If you're ever going to climb that hill, You've got to open your life up to urging. Paul was a man given to urging. Over and over he's urging, exhorting, imploring, translated different ways, and it's the same word. And so what I want to do is just to remind y'all, you don't have to turn to these, but I'm gonna spend the rest of the time, and here's where I think this can be timely for the life of this specific church. Over the last year or so, and really in the last couple of weeks, some of you gonna think, well, he's just talking about me, but believe me, it's several people in different points along the continuum considering this issue. We got some people who've been urged, and they've been helped by being urged. We got other people who need to be urged, but they're still not opening up fully to urging. It just seems like human nature to take about four or five years before you finally open your life up and let a Christian exhort you, and you just kind of just If you're gonna do heart surgery on someone, that's the first thing you gotta do, open them up. And you can't fix certain problems in your life without opening up to the saints. We got some people who've just started to open up and receive help. So wherever you are on this, we have some people who are always being led to urge, and they need to be encouraged in that. But then they need to do it in a certain way. And so for all these reasons, I thought it fitting for us, in the light of this introduction, to spend just the last fourth of the sermon considering all these scriptures. I looked up every single one of them. And I put together this list. I just want you to just wave after wave after wave. If you want to try to turn to them with me, You can. First of all, this was the pattern of the early church. Acts 4.36, Now Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles, which translated means son of encouragement, son of exhortation. So he was always urging Christians so much, they said, this is the urging. I think that was his nickname. Acts 9.31. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace being built up and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Now we know that The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter, the Helper, whatever, which you may not know, as it's really the same Greek word. The Paraclete. Okay? Just related to Parakaleia. Same thing. So, we made the statement before that helpers are for those who need help. Well, looking at it this way, urgers, for those who need urging, So God's given us the Holy Spirit, and He's all the time leading us and guiding us, and we're grieving Him and getting guidance so much, Paul says, all who are led by Him are the sons of God. That He's called the Urger, the Helper, the Comforter, the Exhorter. And so we see that there. Acts 11, 23. It says, then when He arrived, and this is Barnabas, the urger, then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all, that's the word exhort, with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord. And then it says, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. So that's a mark of a man, full of the Spirit and faith. The moment he sees a new believer, encouraging him to have a resolute heart and continue. 13, 15 of the book of Acts, Paul and them are sitting in the synagogue and this is part of evangelism. He says, brethren, do any of you have a word of exhortation? So if you go out and evangelize and you're exhorting people. Verse 42, look at this. The Christians, who had just been converted, says as Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging, urging, that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. Isn't this different? When you're lost, and you're in church, you really don't want to be there. You know, if you can think back a little bit on when you were lost, isn't it just hard to go to church? It's just kind of a burden. It's kind of like, yeah, I guess we'll go. There's nothing else going on. But here we see true Christians begging that they might be preached to with much urging that they might stay a little longer, have another meeting. Apparently preachers need to be urged to preach. We see that. 1422. Paul, it says, strengthening the souls of the disciples. Well, I'd like to do that. How do you do it? Encouraging them to continue in the faith. And saying through many tribulations, we must enter the Kingdom of God. 1531. The apostles wrote this. decree that gone out, when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. Judas and Silas, also being prophets themselves, encouraged and strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message. Even a lengthy message can be an exhorting and encouraging. Now just a few more in Acts 16 verse 40. They went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia. And when they saw the brethren, last thing they did, they encouraged them and departed. They exhorted them to do something. And then chapter 20, verses 1-2, after the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples. And when he had exhorted them, and taking his leave of him, he left to go to Macedonia. When he had gone through these districts and had given them much exhortation, he came to Greece. Just over and over. If there was one thing the early church was doing, they were urging each other. They were verbally speaking to one another to continue on. They were saying things like, brothers, you know these suffering, they were saying through many tribulations we must inherit the kingdom. So that's the first thing I want to point out. This is the pattern of the early church. Now to go a little quicker with these others, certain saints are apparently more gifted and urgent. In that list of gifts in Romans 12, he says, he who exhorts in his exhortation. So that means apparently there's going to be some brothers in the church that are just giving the exhortation. They're always wanting to urge, exhort, speak, be verbal. And we don't need to say, well, look at that guy disobeying James. Be slow to speak. No. If he's got the gift of exhortation, speak. Exhort. The third thing we see is apparently it's needed to overcome the hurdle of leaving false fellowships. Apparently that's a hard thing to do, and you need someone to urge you. So in Romans 16, verse 17, Paul says, Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances, contrary to the teaching which you learn, turn away from. So apparently a Christian can be weak and they need to turn away and they need someone to come along and urge them to turn away. It's interesting. Sometimes apparently it's needed to get, quote, spiritual children to act right. Paul writing to the Corinthians, he says, I do not write these things to shame you, for Corinthians 4.14, but to admonish you as my beloved children." And look at his argument. He says, if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, so everybody trying to teach you and help you. He says, yet you would not have many fathers. Okay, so everybody in here, we don't have many fathers, right? In the natural realm, we just got one Father. Paul says the same in the spiritual. Four, in Christ Jesus, I became your Father through the Gospel. Therefore, I exhort you, be imitators of Me." So He says, I know everybody else is telling you about the workings of the Spirit, but here's one working of the Spirit. You know, through Me you were born again. Therefore, as My beloved child, I exhort you, walk the direction I'm walking. Amazing thing. But sometimes people need to be told that. And without urging, you wouldn't have it. Another thing, we need to make arrangements like what we've done today. Someone's watching Abram, Jeremy, I suppose, Chali's in here. Remember what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14? It's this principle to get out of here, verse 31, he says, you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted. So how do we apply that? There needs to be some kind of, we don't have to have a schedule, but there doesn't need to, you know, I see Justin serving a lot, or Jeremy down there, and that's good. But, they need to be exhorted. Okay, so they don't need to be down there every single, but then you can throw in here, too. Maybe Jeremy and Justin could listen to sermons on their way to work, or maybe Chali or some of these other moms don't quite have that time. So then it might be fitting, you know? Let them sit in and listen, because otherwise, they may want to listen to the audio, but never have time during the week. So that can be something. But maybe if one of them is down there too much, another brother can say, I'll watch or another lady and keep that thing moving. So we're talking about the necessity of urging in the Christian life. It means one guy can't do the nursery all the time. It's just amazing the practicality of this. It's needed sometimes apparently to get Christians to submit to spiritual authority, 1 Corinthians 16, 15. Now I urge you, brethren, you know the household of Stephanas, that they were the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves for ministry to the saints, that you also be in subjection to such men, and to everyone who helps in the work and labors. I mean, that right there is amazing. He says, This brother here is devoting himself to the work. He says, I urge you to be in subjection to it. Apparently Christians need to be urged about that. Obviously, as another area, Christians need to be comforted. So I said this has a range of meaning. Sometimes it's the race scenario, it's the climb in the hill scenario, where you're trying to urge and to come alongside and sit and speak words of comfort. We read about that in 2 Corinthians 1. You remember this verse where God of all comfort is comforting us in all our afflictions so that we will be able to comfort those who are in affliction. And as I've said before, God comforts us not to make us comfortable only, So those of us who've suffered and who've been comforted and who've experienced the pains of this life and the comfort of Christ, need to be the first people always looking for that part of the Epsom area. Where may I go? Come alongside and speak. And so right here, I mean, think of the arrogance of saying, They're comforted in pain and they're necessary for your comfort. You ain't ever going to know how to figure out what to do in this situation unless you open your life up and say, I'm hurting in this area, what can you tell me? Apparently it's needed in restoring a disciplined brother lest he be overcome by excessive sorrow. 2 Corinthians 2.7, he says, on the contrary, you should rather forgive and comfort him. Parakaleo, you should come alongside, speak tender words, lest such a one be overcome by excessive sorrow. So if some brother sins and he has to be disciplined, and when he's coming back in, he don't need to repeatedly hear about his sin. There needs to be this overwhelming sense of acceptance and comfort lest he be overcome by his sins. So it's needed there. Apparently, it's needed to overcome depression. Again, 2 Corinthians 7 verse 6, But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus. Amazing thing. That you could come and have a conversation with a Christian and you could drive on your way home and say, God who comforts the depressed comforted me by the coming of chance or whatever the case may be. Think how many people are depressed. It would be an interesting question. Are you talking to saints? Are you getting counsel from them? Are you opening up your life to them? It's needed to convince us to allow a brother to help. This is what I mean by this. 2 Corinthians 8.4. These people were impoverished. These Christians, these Macedonians were poverty stricken, and they wanted to help Paul with what I was just talking about, this gift to help the Jerusalem saints. Now look what Paul says in verse 4. Now you know, given that case, Paul would be not prone to take their money. I mean, they're poverty stricken. Like, brother, you know, just fix your house up and it's okay. You've got serious needs here. But we read in 2 Corinthians 8 that these Christians were begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints. So you know, sometimes a Christian wants to do something for you, and you're like, ah, just, so you need to urge them. You need to, no, I really am led. I'm not doing this under compulsion. I really feel like the Lord wants me to do this. It's right to get all that out there. Where's some other things? It's needed to spur, urging is needed to spur believers to sacrificially give to the saints. 2 Corinthians 9.5, I thought it necessary to urge, so we're talking about the necessity of urging. I thought it necessary to urge the brethren that they would go on ahead of you and arrange beforehand your previously promised bountiful gift so that the same would be ready as a bountiful gift and not affected by covetousness. Free as we may be in Christ, and as freely led as we need to be in our giving, apparently, it's necessary every now and then to have a brother urge us away from covetousness. Christ did. He said, be on your guard against all manner and form of greed. This is amazing to me, maybe of all. 2 Corinthians 13, 11, he says, finally brethren, He tells you several things to do. Rejoice, be made complete, be like-minded. One of them says, be comforted. You are responsible to be comforted. Just that one verse demolishes the modern day idea of depression. You say, be comforted. I mean, you are responsible, in other words, to listen to the urgings that believers give you. It's needed to prevent division. I mean, on the one hand, it's needed to divide. If it's a biblical division, on the other hand, it's needed to prevent it. In Philippians 4-2, Paul says, I urge you, Odia, and I urge Syntyche, to live in harmony in the Lord. So sometimes you need to say, brother, chill out on this thing. You need that, lest you rend the body of Christ to pieces. You start thinking about these things and you'll think harder and more weighty on the next saint that comes to you in sincerity and says, would you consider this? We're commanded to receive it in an effective way, pointing that out, to prevent division. It's needed to impress on us the seriousness of living a holy life. You won't ever even know the seriousness. of living a holy life. 1 Thessalonians 4.1 Paul says, we urge you and we command you in the name of the Lord that each man is to possess his vessel in honor, not in lustful passion. And he says, God is the avenger of such things. So sometimes you need a brother coming, you need a talk like this morning. You need someone coming alongside saying, glorify God with your body. You need that. You wouldn't grip and grasp the seriousness of it. Apparently, it's needed at the graveside when a child of God dies. Paul gives that teaching, he says, on the coming of Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4. He's gonna come back, dead in Christ will rise, trumpet will be blown, so we shall ever be with the Lord. And then he says, therefore, comfort one another with these words. You can't make it through a funeral unless you have some Christian come alongside and comfort you with these words. It's needed for the faint of heart. In 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 14, he says, comfort the fainthearted, encourage the fainthearted. There may be somebody who came here today just burdened, just under the weight of things. Paul says, comfort, encourage the fainthearted. You need to be thinking, how can I slide an up-building word in there for this person? It's needed, apparently, to spur believers to go get a job and work. Think of this one. 2 Thessalonians 3, in verse 12, he says, Now such persons, these are the people not working, we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work. That's an interesting thought. You may need to come alongside and say, brother, get off the couch and go support your family. Go get a job. Work. Make money. You know, he may just want to study theology all day and say, well, hang on. You know, we don't know when Christ is returning. Come down off the roof and go get a job. It's needed to overcome the difficulties and calling out false teaching. You know, Timothy had a tough... Paul just was dump load trucking stuff for Timothy to do. Remember, he was fearful. In 1 Timothy 1-3, he says, As I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on in Ephesus, so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines. Paul's getting ready to leave, and as he's leaving, he turns and he urges Timothy, do this, point out these false teachings. So apparently you need that. Some of these are just so comforting because you think, well, I'm kind of fearful and you think, is there something wrong with me, you know? But remember Samuel, little Samuel, he was fearful of what the Lord had given him to say to Eli. I think he went ahead and said it. So the saying can be true. We can have a struggle with fear. It's why... Let me add this one. I need to add this one. Urging is needed so that we don't become jerks when we're talking to older people. 1 Timothy 5.1 Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal, parakaleo, exhort, urge, appeal to him as a father. So look, look around the room. We got different ages. If somebody wanted to go talk to someone older than them, significantly older than them, he says, talk to them how you would your father. In other words, you don't just go up to a guy and say, hey, you idiot, you need to be doing, let me help you with this in your life. He said, don't do that. You appeal to him. It has a certain flavor to it. It has like, you know, I see this area here and I'm just concerned. Would you consider this? And just think about this. That has a different feel than, you know, look, stop this right here and let me show you what you need to do. He says not to do that. So this is something different than just poking people in the eye. In 1 Timothy 4.13, he says to give attention to it. So all the believers here, he says always give attention to what's happening right now. To the reading of Scripture and exhortation. He says always make it a priority. Apparently, we mentioned work earlier, it's needed sometimes to spur believers in their work if they work for other believers. So the only situation I know of in our church is like Justin's situation. Some of you may be working for believers, I don't know. Apparently, sometimes, because this guy is a believer and we know each other that way, there can be a temptation to kind of be slack. And so Paul is writing In 1 Timothy 6, He says to those who have believers as their masters, they must not be disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but must serve them all the more because those who partake of the benefit are believers and beloved, teach and exhort these things. So He says sometime when you come together, say, Brother, serve that brother all the more because he's a brother. This is so highly esteemed that it's a qualification to be an elder. In Titus 1.9, he says this man must be able to exhort. Must be able to exhort. It's necessary for love's sake. Look, when we're urging, here's what we're not doing. You remember Paul's example in Philemon? Remember how he spoke to him? In verse 8, he says, therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is proper. He could have just said, Philemon, I am the Apostle Paul. I have authority. I have seen the risen Christ. I know His will. Do this. It is just a matter of obedience. Do it or disobey. He says, yet for love's sake, I rather appeal to you. Exhort you. Urge you. In other words, he wanted what Philemon did to be Philemon's desire. And so, when we talk about exhorting this way, we're talking about it in contrast to commanding each other. Like Moses or something. Like we came down the mountain with the law or something and we're just giving it out. There's something else to think about. Just three more of these. It's necessary, this is much more serious, it's necessary to endure to the end. Hebrews 3 tells us all to be careful that we don't have a deceitful and unbelieving heart. encourage one another day after day, so long as it is still called the day, so that none of you will be hardened by the mischieffulness of sin. He says, for we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast to firm confidence all the way to the end. So it's an amazing thing. God has put together Say it a different way, eternal security is a community project. Or say it a different way, Christians save Christians. Or to say it another way, you could modify the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Let's call it the perseverance of the saints by the saints. You endure to the end by encouraging, exhorting, So what I'm saying is, if you're not opening up your life to exhortation, you may not endure today. You just have to humble yourself and open it up. It's why we get up on Sundays like this and come to the meeting. Hebrews 10.25 says, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, urging one another. Well, there are others I could point to, but all those waves upon waves after this introduction is just meant to impress upon us, this fellowship, as we had different people considering this, the necessity of urging. in the Christian life. The first thing Paul mentions, if we're going to live a holy life and we're not going to get up under the law, there's one thing we need to get. Someone beside us urging us. We need to be given the urging. We need to be getting the urging. All the time, we need to be opening up our lives. And look, who is going to love you more than people in whom is the Spirit of Christ? What are you gonna say? You're not gonna, a lot of times when people talk to me, they preface something, they say, well, I know this is probably gonna, and I just have to say, you're not gonna shock me. And they come out with these several skeletons from their closet, and I'm like, yeah, I know him, I've seen him. Some other people had that in theirs. There should just be this reality, we're brothers, we're sisters, we love each other. And God's ordained this thing as a means. So all of that is from this one phrase, I urge you. May the Lord help us to be urgers, to receive urging, open ourselves up to it, ask each other, brother what do you think? What do you think, sister, about this thing? What should I do? And if we do that, Paul says, we'll be healed. Let's pray. Alexi, won't you close us, brother? Heavenly Father, we thank You for this day. We praise You. When we go our ways, we always follow our minds and follow our thoughts on You, Lord. And on You, Lord, we praise You. Be encouraging to one another throughout the week. Christ, I am afraid.