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country is Great Britain, is
England. This great hymn, The Church's
One Foundation, emerged from a ragged and wearing controversy
that threatened to tear asunder the Church of England. In the
mid-1800s, the liberal views of German theologians drifted
like a poisonous fog over Anglicans worldwide. In South Africa, which
is interesting since South Africa is now the African Church, Anglican
Church is actually the Bible-believing, but in South Africa, Bishop John
William Colenso Influenced by the German higher critics questioned
whether Moses had really written the first five books of the Bible.
He also took liberal views toward Paul's book of Romans denying
the doctrine of eternal punishment. Colenso had been a tireless missionary
bishop serving the Zulu people and Northeastern South Africa
with laudable passion, but his emerging liberalism, that means
denying the scriptures, liberal means denying the scriptures,
when you talk about theological liberalism, his emerging liberalism
sent shockwaves through evangelical Anglican leaders. Evangelical
means Bible-believing, historically, and liberal is the opposite.
Liberal means don't believe the Bible as written. So Moses didn't
write the Pentateuch, and it didn't happen as it said. You
know, it ain't necessarily so, that idea. In 1853, Bishop Robert
Gray of Cape Town, defending the historic faith, removed Colenso
from his post. Colenso fought the order and
was reinstated by a London court of law. The resulting conflict
shook the Anglican Church to its foundations. One man on the
side of evangelical truth was Samuel Stone, the curate at Windsor
in the shadow of Windsor Castle. In 1866, he wrote 12 hymns based
on the 12 articles of the Apostles' Creed. The church's one foundation
was based on the ninth article of the Creed, which says, I believe
in the holy Catholic, which just means universal, not Roman, just
universal, church, the communion of saints. the next year. And
that's a testimony to the universal church, not the local church.
That's the local expression of members of the universal church
in an assembly committed together. That's a local church. Baptists
like to emphasize that. But there is the universal church.
And I'm glad that this song was written about that. The next
year, Anglican bishops from around the world assembled for a theological
enclave that became known as the First Lambeth Conference.
The tone of the proceedings was set by Stone's Hymn, the church's
one foundation, which had been set to music by Samuel Wesley,
the grandson of Charles. Wesley became the processional
for that conference and has been one of the church's best-loved
hymns ever since. Not all the verses, however, are sung today.
Here's a stanza you may never have sung, but which helps us
understand the passion of Samuel Stone as he wrote in defense
of the integrity of Christ's holy church. It says, "...though
with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed, by schisms
rent asunder, by heresies distressed, yet saints their watch are keeping,
their cry goes up, how long and soon the night of weeping shall
be the morn of song?" a new song. That's a great encouragement
to me, given that today's Anglican Church, the Episcopal Church,
is in a horrible shambles. There's a horrible tendency away,
if you see Episcopal or Anglican, tendency away from believing
in the Scriptures. There are still some evangelical
Episcopal or Anglican pastors and believers, but it's by far
not the mainstream, and it's a troubled denomination for sure. But that's the nature of, in
my view, the nature of denominationalism. The sentiment of the church as
one foundation is not to us a particularly Anglican sentiment. It is a Christian,
back to the historic Christian faith sentiment. I wanted to share another thing
with you while we're experiencing a little bit of technical stuff
and I will share the word in just a moment. There we go. Yeah, our internet works fine. Trying to find the article where
it talks about Chinese oppression of the Christians. Oh, we're back on. Hey, wait
long enough and it'll happen. What? We're live, yes. I'm sorry, no, it's not right
now. I'll have it later. No. Oh, I can't find it now. See,
these news articles come up and then they disappear. I do encourage you to pray for
the underground church in China, for all those who are prisoners
of conscience whose organs are being harvested by the communist
dictatorship of China. And I am in the United States
of America and can freely say that, even if I'm not correct,
even if my news report's not accurate, I can still freely
say it. Now, that's the way our current
mainstream media works, is a lot of not accurate things they can
just freely say, and everybody's bled the soil red on foreign
wars to make sure that that's possible. But see, communism,
which is the ultimate goal of socialism, goes to totalitarian
dictatorship. There's always a Stalin, there's
always a Mao, there's always a Xi Jinping, there's always
a Pol Pot. It never goes to what the socialists
claim, which is the real dream of communism and everyone experiencing
equal benefits, because it's a broken world with broken people.
You'll never get that utopian dream that Satan keeps dangling
in front of young generations who are dissatisfied with the
troubles of angsty, hormonal teenage life. It's hard to grow
up and there's no solution for it. But certainly the solution
is not totalitarian communism. First hour, we had a good time
talking about my trouble and my response to my trouble. Those
are two different issues. And I'm trying to make this very
explicit to you. The problem that you're facing
is very different from the way you deal with the problem. But
if you deal with your problem sinfully, you make your problem
worse. You increase the magnitude of
the trouble to become morally compromised. When someone opposes
you, when someone hurts you, when someone attacks you, for
example, when a lie in China results in a global pandemic,
For example, and the US economy is hamstrung because we're trying
to protect the baby boomers and the people older than them, the
generations that will be most hurt by this virus. When this happens, that's the
trouble. It just is what it is. Your response
to it can either be sinful, arrogant, rebellious, hateful, bitter,
these things, or it can be responsive to God and you can think the
truths of God's Word. And this is very hard for us
because in arrogance we think we are the answer. without thinking
about it at all. We just feel like we've got this
handled. We will solve it. We can deal. Our feelings will
be the appropriate response. But it's not true. You need a
little bit of the benefit of doubt about your own goodness
in dealing with problems. Not Jesus' goodness, but your
own goodness. We, because of having the Spirit
in us, do not become just exponents of God's word. We don't just
happen to just start speaking the truth and whatever occurs
to us isn't necessarily so. And so learning to deal in this
life with the inner temptation to sin from our flesh and the
outside pressure of trouble is really a huge part of our sanctification. And as we grow in the Lord, as
we grow in the word, as we respond to hardships in this life, Without
arrogance, without pride, without rebellion, with submission to
God, we grow. In the book of James, in chapter
1, which we've heard a marvelous exposition of the book of James.
I challenge you to go back and check the archives in our website
and watch those videos or check out those MP3s of Jack Hayes
teaching through James. He's doing a phenomenal job.
I'm so thankful for him being a deacon in our church, being
just part of the work here. And if you're part of our church,
you know Jack, and you know what an encouragement he is. Every
conversation with Jack goes back to the Bible. He's always going
to bring it back. And he can talk about other things,
and he's glad to, but he's always going to season the conversation. with the Word of the Lord Jesus,
and I'm so thankful for that. It's such an incredible witness
in my life, and I miss them, and I pray for them, and I know
it's mutual. But the Apostle, or James, not
the Apostle, but the Elder. Apostle James was killed by Herod
Agrippa, but James the Elder says, My brethren, when you encounter
various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces
endurance. He just said that the trouble
is what it is. He just said that this trouble
is trouble. But he said my response to it
needs to take into account God's word on the topic, not my feelings
about the trouble, but God's word about the topic of trouble. And it says your response is
to be joy. Consider it all what? Joy, when
what? When you encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and
let endurance have its perfect or mature result, so that you
may be perfect or mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
You want to grow spiritually through the hardship. That's
what the Bible consistently teaches, that God puts us through our
paces. He hasn't given you the Holy
Spirit so that you can be this trust fund kid that doesn't do
any work for the organization, for the company. Your dad, who
owns the company, has begotten you, not by adoption. People
do not understand the biblical doctrine of adoption. They say,
well, Israel's a natural-born child, but we're adopted as Gentiles.
That is not the biblical doctrine in the New Testament of adoption.
The biblical doctrine of adoption is based on Roman adoption, and
it begins with the fact that you have been born again into
the family of God. The royal family of God is your
new birth, and you are a naturally born child into God's household. That is the new birth when you
first trusted in Christ. Adoption is an image Paul uses
in Romans and Galatians to express inheritance. The child born in
the Roman household does not necessarily inherit the family
business and all the holdings. But you, born again in Christ,
do stand in Christ to inherit all things as the successful
adult child would in a Roman household. That's the doctrine
of adoption in the New Testament. And it is your birthright to
trust in God through the hardship. It's my birthright to look at
the pain and look at the suffering and look at the trouble. And
then before I give vent to my sinfulness and my sinful emotional
responses of anger, bitterness, dissatisfaction, all those self-pity,
all those things, I am charged by God, because He's given me
the Holy Spirit and His Word, to think. I'm supposed to think
about what this means, about what it's for, about what God
has said on the topic. James 1, just read it. Read it
in the King James. Read it in the New King James.
Read it in the NIV. It's going to tell you the same
basic message and it is that when you suffer, God is doing
something with it. It has a purpose and we need
to trust Him about it. And that's the opposite move
to what we tend to do with our trouble. But if any of you lacks wisdom,
Let him ask of God who gives to all generously and without
reproach, and it will be given to him. So not only are we to
think and consider it all joy, my brethren, in James 1-2, we're
to pray in James 1-5 for specifically wisdom. but not with doubting,
verse six. But he must ask in faith without
any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the
sea driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not
to expect he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded
man, unstable in all his ways. but the brother of humble circumstances,
the glory in his high position. And the rich man is to glory
in his humiliation, because like flower and grass, he will pass
away." This is saying whatever your circumstance, it is what
it is, you are to take God's word in with you as you respond
to your circumstance. That's the mindset of the Christian
who's walking by faith, not by sight. walking by faith, not
by feeling all that hurts. So I'm going to be a pile of
jello. I'm going to be just act like
an unbeliever, which is what an immature believer will listen. An immature believer will do. Pastor Dave, where in the world
would you get out of the New Testament scriptures that we
who have the Holy Spirit and can't lose him, we who are born
again to this new life you just mentioned, where would you get
the idea that we as immature believers would act and think
and respond like unbelievers? How could you ever say such a
thing? 1 Corinthians 3, right after
developing the concept of the Corinthians as carnal, or spiritual,
and that the spiritual man appraises all things, and he is receiving
the Word of God that Paul has been given as inspiration. In
1 Corinthians 3, I, brethren, could not speak to you as to
spiritual men, but as to men of sarks, of flesh, as to infants
in Christ. I gave you milk to drink and
not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed,
even now you're not yet able. You're babies and you cannot
eat the steak that Paul wants to serve up. For you are still
carnal, that is characterized by the flesh, your sinful nature.
For since there is jealousy and strife, these are sins that unbelievers
live in. Among you, are you not carnal
and are you not walking like, and here's where he says it,
men, like mere men. You are walking, acting, behaving
like unbelievers with your sinful default setting, even though
you are infants in Christ. Let's don't build our categories
from our experience. Well, I had an emotional experience
at church, so I must be, you know, really set apart and now
I'm not going to be like an unbeliever. If you're a spiritual baby, the
slightest attack, the slightest challenge, the slightest weight
that you're asked to bear to serve the Lord and to count it
all joy, you will struggle, you will struggle with not being
angry and responding in sin, sinfully to your trouble. We're
talking today about painful external factors and our response to them. The painful external factors
of the looming financial collapse, Coming health problems, people
troubles that you may face, these are always going to be a problem,
but they will become worse as people are put under greater
pressure. Sometimes you get too much attention,
sometimes not enough, and then there are these destructive internal
responses that you might have. This is where you sin as a starting
point when you receive a little bit of challenge, a little bit
of pain, a little bit of oppression from these external causes of
stress, these stressors. So you could be a worry ward
if that's your hang up. You worry about the future, you
borrow trouble, and then you borrow trouble. And then once
you've processed that, you borrow some trouble some more. We said
that's the hamster wheel. You're just spinning your wheels
and doing nothing. You can be a compulsive, proud person. You can compulsively insist on
having your version of you that you don't want anyone to tell
you the truth about that breaks your little fantasy that you've
made about yourself. You know, it's like when you
look in the mirror and you just get exactly the right angle and
you think of yourself as that snapshot. You don't think of
yourself as a three-dimensional you that everyone else sees and
deals with. And so we think more highly of
ourselves than we ought to think. And we want to tell ourselves
this story. And so we fight for our sense of personal dignity
when we're challenged by these various hardships. And we start
thinking of, well, if God loves me, then I shouldn't have to
deal with this. Or it's me, after all, and I shouldn't be challenged
this way. Or whatever the hardship that
you're facing, and arrogance kicks in, and you're off to the
races. And then you have also. We get
dominated by disappointment. I'm calling it dominant disappointment
with the past or present. Do y'all know what dominant means?
Dominant means it rules. It rules. Think of a little kid
who is told, your birthday party is this Friday. Your birthday
party is this Friday. We've invited your five best
friends and they're gonna come spend the night at the house.
What an awesome idea. Thursday afternoon, we detect
the first radon sensor goes off we have the guy
come out and they say this house has to be evacuated and you need
extensive radon mitigation nobody can live in this house no one
can spend a night another night in this house i don't know if
that happened with radon but let's just say that it happened
or your septic tank backs up and nobody wants to stay there
so now the party has been at least postponed, possibly canceled. The little kid who's expecting
his five friends and the best day of his life as he sees it
has just been told, no, you're not going to have that. That
is what it is. It's an external thing and it's a disappointment.
Can you see how hard it would be for a kid that's been building
this up in his mind as this great hope, how hard it is for him
not to be dominated by that disappointment? The more you have fixated on
something, the more you have made it this thing you're looking
forward to, the more its cancellation will dominate you in terms of
your disappointment, and you have to snap out of that petty
little view that, oh, this Friday was my life. It's not. It's just
a day. It's an event. It was just six hours of fun.
six hours of fun and then a lot of getting in trouble because
y'all wouldn't go to sleep in the tent and then Somebody had to call their
mom and go home and all the stuff that really happens on an evening
like that now Here's what happens. Here's what happens we zoom out
We we have to train the children do this we zoom out We look at
the big picture of eternity and our life in Christ and we start
with the big thing first you have Jesus Do you even know what
that means? You're worried about having some
friends come over. You have fellowship with God and start looking at
this in terms of the biblical perspective and what God is doing.
And He's working with you in this and He wants you to trust
Him. And this is a test and all the rationale for God is in control
and He loves you. And James 1, we're counting this
joy even though we're going to suffer a little bit. Can you
see how zooming out and adopting that perspective and working
that will defeat dominant disappointment about the present situation or
the past that has led up to the present? So either I'm going
to just dither in constant Eeyore, dominant disappointment, or I'm
going to worry, worry, worry about what the future might hold,
or I'm going to rest my present In Christ, my past is I've been
crucified with Christ, and I've been buried with Christ, I've
been raised with Christ, and I'm seated presently in glory
at the right hand of the Father in Christ. There's no room for
dominant disappointment in that hopeful reality and that eternal
truth. And then I'm also going to look
at my future and say, I'm actually going to be physically resurrected
and physically rule with the Jesus Christ and his physical
kingdom that is coming. And you start, and see, if you
don't have this truth in your heart, if you don't believe in
this, if you haven't learned this and trusted in God on his
revelation, you don't have access to this perspective. You can't
grab the future that he's promised and hang on to it and say, even
though this hurts now, this is what's coming, and I can trust
him. You don't have any skill. And so that's the baby that's
like, well, I don't know what to do. And that's the problem. Christians, if you're a new believer,
If you're a new believer, the language is birth and growth. And that's awesome. And there's
nothing more delightful than a newborn baby, you understand,
in the flesh. There's nothing more exciting
for a family than a newborn baby. But the horror is the baby that's
nine years old and still nursing. Right? Still nursing and not
really growing. Just surviving. We have to grow
up. That's our goal. And it's not
like physical growth where if you just, well actually it kind
of is like physical growth if you eat. and you use what you've
eaten, and you do a little exercise, you grow strong. And if you eat
and you sit around working your thumbs, you don't grow strong,
you grow weak. You grow, but you grow up weak,
and your body's weak, and your bones are weak, and your muscles
are weak. Right? You grow by eating and using,
and eating and using, and that's what needs to happen. And so
if you have this truth of God's coming kingdom and your role
in it as the church with Jesus Christ, if you know your destiny,
then you're strengthened for the present disappointment and
the worry that you might otherwise entertain about the future. And
you're not going to roll around in all of these mental attitude
sins and you're not going to fantasize and evade your problem
and make it your life's pursuit just to avoid the pain of whatever
you're facing. I believe our culture is facing
an epidemic already, a pandemic in Western rich civilization. We're facing a pandemic of children
that are growing up running from boredom, running from the hard
reality of life. They're spending all their time
and energy, any pursuit, anything to avoid the boredom of learning
to do your work and appreciate the privilege of doing it. Learning
the joy of hard work and the reward that it itself is. Our children are learning to
go after this thing until they're bored of it and then switch to
this thing until they're bored of it and switch to this thing. And
it's all play and it's all waste, it's all silly. Paul says, when
I was a child, I played with childish things. When I grew
up, I put away the childish things, he says, in 1 Corinthians 13. And this is true. I mean, kids have always had
their little play and diversion. But we have to let them learn,
rather than evading the truth that life is work, and that's
where our joy is in serving God and His provision of strength
and capability and giftedness and skill through His word to
do the work that He wants us to do. That's where the joy is.
That's where the real fun is. The little goo-gahs and the toys
and all the little screen stuff is a counterfeit It's a fake
that doesn't really satisfy. There is real joy in the industry,
in the labor God wants us to do. Now, these words may fall
on deaf ears, but they aren't wrong just because we don't have
an appetite for the word. That's the question. Do you have
that appetite? Can you grow by taking in God's
word? The solution to your problems
is not sin and pretending that you haven't sinned and evading
the problem, pretending that it's not there. This is not the
solution. By the way, the way God does problem solving by challenging
you with a problem and then you have to respond to it, it doesn't
take the problem away for you to respond correctly. A lot of
people think Christian problem solving is, if I apply the doctrine
correctly, then the problem is no longer a problem, it goes
away. Well, no, that's not how it works. The pain is still there,
the problem's still there, I just grew, I'm just bigger and able
to handle it better. It's still just the same thing
it was, but before, to me it was overwhelming, and as God
becomes overwhelming to me, and I grab hold of him by faith,
I am expanded to where that problem becomes manageable. Oh, it still
hurts, and it's still really bad, but I've got my eternal
life in perspective, and I'm able to handle, I'm able to manage
this, whatever the problem is. Well, I wanted to go with you
to the ultimate problem solving. not sin, we need to do all these
things, and we're not capable of doing any of these things,
as we said first hour. We can't break our fixation on
the fear of future troubles. If I tell you, stop worrying,
all you can do for me is basically feel guilty that you're worrying.
The only thing you'll be able to do with me when I tell you
stop it, stop that worrying, is basically unless you mix your
faith with God's Word, unless you think God's thoughts and
you trust Him, you're going to still be worrying. You're just
going to feel bad about it. And you should. You should feel guilty
in a sense. You're wrong if you're worrying when you have Christ.
That's an appropriate response. if we're fixated on present disappointment. I can say, stop that being disappointed.
Stop that feeling sorry for yourself. It's good advice. You shouldn't
stop it. But unless you're equipped with
God's word to think it through, I'm just giving you something
your conscience should be or possibly is already doing for
you. You need to avoid the sins that follow on with a fixation
on worry in the future or disappointment in the present. You need to avoid
those sins. Stop being bitter. Well, yeah. But how did you get here is the
question. You do need to stop it, and you
need to confess it. But there is a process that I suggest can
be very helpful to reignite your thinking. When a jet engine goes
out, I've been really enjoying the story of the Cold War. As
told by Bill Whittle in the podcast, I heartily recommend to everyone
that I know, especially my Marxist loved ones that think that the
best thing for us is a stronger government, you should check
out what we saw, The Cold War by Bill Whittle. It's ingenious.
It's so great as a summary of the last, well, the second half
of the 20th century. And in it, he talks about various
experiences people had. And he did one earlier on NASA
and the Apollo 11 mission and getting to the moon, which we
actually did. And the Earth is round and all
that. And he talks in one place about the idea of a jet pilot
whose jet flames out. and having to restart it, having
to restart a jet engine while you're flying and what's involved
with that. And it's basically you have to
get air back through it to reignite it. And so there's a whole procedure
you go through to reignite. And it's a thought process. Imagine
you're in this jet airplane, which is designed only for flight.
It's not designed to glide. It's designed to fly with stability
with the jet engine running. And so if it goes out, what do
you do? Well, you have to start thinking
through procedures. And if you've learned them well
enough, then you can kind of feel your way through it because
it's so much who you are. But it's a thought process. And
Americans are not good these days at thinking. I hear reports
of people that do surveys and tests of Ivy League graduates
of higher learning and with their bachelor's degrees and the ability
to critically think is not there. There's just a lot of repetition
of the group. Think of what's said. And we're not critical
thinkers today. And we need to learn to be critical
thinkers, not just parrots that repeat things, but thinking things
through. Why do you believe what you believe?
Why do you think this way? And that's hard to do because
we want to feel. We want to feel excitement or
rage or whatever. These are delightful things that
we feel alive when we feel. So we want to feel our way along
and the whole racism industry is built on this. It really is.
It is the idea that someone makes a living by telling you those
people of that skin color hate you because of your skin color.
So now you feel a deep-seated sense of rejection by everybody
from that skin color. So now you, in feeling that rejection,
that has caused angst, that's caused bitterness, that's caused
anger, that's caused a sense of righteous indignation that
they hate you for your skin color. And so now because you feel hated
and oppressed because someone told you you were, without you
ever talking to someone of that skin color about it, Now you
hate them before the fact. I hate you for hating me. And
it's a retaliation for a sin that hasn't necessarily been
committed. But imagine the power of telling someone they hate
you. They want to kill you. If you're told that, and that's
formative for who you are, then it's true whether it's true or
not. It's the environment you have been raised in. And I'm
not saying black and white. I'm saying any group. Where you
have this opposition because of difference, and arrogance
says we're right because it's us. You're going to have this
stupidity that develops, which is the sense of immediate rejection. I want to challenge you. If you'll
treat people as individuals, if you'll treat a person, a man
as a man, a woman as a woman, if you'll treat people as humans
made in God's image, and not lump them into categories that
someone told you, oh, this is the way to think about that category,
but think about individuals. you will be doing God's work
toward other people. But this is just one of these
problems that people have. They feel this pain. And so they
react sinfully to the pain instead of thinking what God thinks about
that other person. Hey, what if they do hate you
for your skin color? I've been hated for my skin color
plenty, and I know that one's justifiable because of privilege,
I'm told. But it's not sin is sin. If you're
individually sinning, I don't care who your mom and dad are,
I don't care where you're from or your genetics or anything. If
you're sinful on your choices, that's on you. And that's not
white talk or black talk. That's just reason. That's just
the scriptures. You are responsible for your
choices. You're an image bearer of God's
image, and that's awesome. So what do you do with this problem?
What do you do with this problem of someone hating you for your
skin color? Well, you can either feel that
rejection and respond with emotional, if you will, sin of responsive
hatred, of bitterness, of malice, of all that It is understandable
that you would respond that way, or you can think God's thoughts,
and you can see God's image in that other person, though tainted
by sin, and you can say, this is what that person needs, because
God says, they need eternal life that only comes through Jesus
Christ. They need the love of God that is expressed only through
Jesus Christ. They need him, and I can either
share him, or I can pray for them to receive him, but I can
be invested for that person that hates me. just like Jesus was
for all those people that hated him, who endured such hostility
at the hands of sinners against himself. And I can keep entrusting
myself to God the Father who judges righteously. And that's
the way you think through what otherwise would be just this
emotional ball of sinfulness. And that's what we're talking
about. You don't want to react to your circumstance with just
whatever occurs to you emotionally. You want to think through, on
the basis of God's Word, a principle, a thought that is undeniably
your responsibility, and then trust in Him with that principle,
and then watch Him fill you back, backfill you, not the filling
of the Spirit, but the work of the Spirit in you, to have the
kinds of feelings that go with knowing you got it right, you're
doing what God wants you to do, He has hold of you, so you have
that confidence, all that comes with Christian passion, or Christian,
I should say, affections. You deal with each matter in
its place biblically. And I want you to turn, please,
to Matthew 6. When you're sinful, you don't say, I'm not sinful.
You say, I committed personal sin, and you confess it to God,
and you have to do self-assessment. When you have believed Satan's
lies, like God doesn't want to protect me, like I'm going to
have to sin in order to feed my family, like I'm going to
have to disobey God in order to obey God, all these are sins
of lie. All these are lies. And you get
into personal sin a lot of times by justifying it through a lie. We tell ourselves a story we
want to believe, Because really, we just want to serve our sin
nature because it's how we feel. And so I'm really parsing the
distinction between the default feelings we often have, which
are sin patterns. Your emotions aren't sinful,
don't misunderstand. Your emotional patterns of sin are sinful. So
I'm just saying you're a whole person. You've got your thoughts.
You've got your feelings. You've got your inclinations. You've
got your conscience. There's a lot going on in you. And there's
nobody, no one's ever drawn a picture of it, by the way. No one has
successfully diagrammed the soul. I know people have said they
have, but they haven't. There's no lobes of the soul. That doesn't
exist. There's lobes of your brain.
For example, just for one example, a beloved example, but a bad
one. Now, here's what I'm trying to show you. Inside you, there
is the way you feel. You might not like what I'm saying.
You have a feeling about it. It's true. It's how you are.
Don't pretend like it's not true. You're not the machine that you
might have been told you are. But the feeling is just your
response. It's just the sense that you
have that is touching on your affections. Doesn't mean what
is. It's not the fact. It's just the way you feel about
what you're receiving. What you need to do is put that
aside and say that is what it is. Now let's talk about what
is true. Not my truth. That's just emotionalism. The
truth. What does God say? What does
He want? And that's how we deal with lies. One of the great lies
is how you feel is what matters most. It's not true. How you
feel will have a heavy impact on what you choose if you're
not careful. But usually, if you're making
your decisions on the basis of just how you are emotionally
kind of feeling in the moment, you're probably going to make
bad decisions. And that's probably why your life is a mess. If it
is, it's probably a lot of emotional decisions you've made. And now
you're in this mess and you feel just horrible. So now what decision
are you going to make? Something bad, probably. It's
time to put that method aside and start thinking. And that's
the whole point of today. To deal with lies, we tell the
truth. That's a thought. That's a proposition. That's a principle.
And Americans should be able to do this. We've learned math.
We've all been through Algebra 2. Some of us, it was a bloody
affair, but you did get through and you learned. If you just
memorized the quadratic equation, that's probably Algebra 1. But
if you just memorize the equation and you figure out where the
stuff is, you'll get it right. You've learned that there are
principles that are so, and it isn't so if I feel like it, it
just is so. And that's what math is, or math is just logic. And
so I'm not telling you that you're going to reason your way through
your problem. I'm telling you that you're going to reason your
way according to God's word as you trust him with what he said
through your problem. And God will support you with
the necessary responses in your affections if you'll start with
what he said. I like to say that the Bible
you have in your hand, if you've got one, is not a blister pack
of pills that if I just take a pill, you know, just open the
Bible, pop me a pill, take it, now I feel better. If it was
about how you felt, that's what it would be. You know, these
are not rolling papers for hippie lettuce for you to... for you
to feel something or have some sort of religious Rocky Mountain
High experience. That's not what this is. The Bible is a set of
propositions written in poems and stories and history, historic
stories, and genealogy tables and mustering charts for the
military. And all that you have in the scriptures, that's what
the Bible is, and it calls you and me to think. So to deal with
lies, we tell the truth. And in Matthew 6, you have what
a wonderful truth. Hey, Joel, will you tell me what
the ticker says on this recording? Time-wise, about where we're
at? I'm looking at the clock, but... 40 minutes. I have reserved a little bit
of time for us to walk through Matthew chapter six. And some
of you have done this with me probably more than once. And
in that case, you're probably ready to teach this. So just
evaluate, just use this time to evaluate. See if I get it
right. See if you don't get refined a little bit on your approach
to the Sermon on the Mount and how it applies to the church
age believer. Jesus historically is talking to Israel, telling
remnant of Israel, his disciples it says, What is the platform
for the kingdom? What does the righteousness of
God look like as expressed in the law? That's Matthew 5, largely.
Matthew 6 applies that in several ways. And in this case, we've
just had the prayer, and now we're going to talk about fasting
and trusting in God. and how you work out and live
out your righteousness before men. And so, Matthew 6, verse
16, see if you can trace the themes as we consider the truth
that puts the lie to this claim, I've got to sin in order to do
God's will. I've got to disobey God in order
to obey God. I have to worry about the future,
even though God told me not to, because there's problems in my
life. You don't, you have to not worry, and here's what we
do. Whenever you fast, that's to deny yourself food. Do not
put on a gloomy face, as the hypocrites do, for they neglect
their appearance, so they'll be noticed by men when they're
fasting. Truly, I say to you, they have
their reward in full. The theme that's being developed
is reward for service to God, and who is watching, who is giving
you the reward, what is your reward? That theme is developed
here, and it processes through the next 17 verses. 18 verses. So the theme is the reward
for what you're doing as unto the Lord. And how do you get
the reward? The reward for the person that
fasts, that noise is making it through the microphone. Yeah.
The person with the reward is able to see where His reward
comes from in v. 16. You have to understand that.
Truly, when you do something to impress other people and they
are impressed by you, that's the reward. Self-promotion, is
what he's talking about, is the reward and you're done. That's
your reward for that work. But you, when you fast, anoint
your head and wash your face. That means do it in secret. The
fast person who is going about, oh I haven't had a shower in
weeks because I'm fasting, is impressive in his fasting. And everyone's impressed and
so no. No, you don't want to do it so that people are impressed
by you. Now, we're going to practice
our righteousness before men to encourage them. We're going
to do it to represent Jesus Christ. That's another concept elsewhere. It's not a contradiction. But
here, you don't want to do it so that people see it because
you're not trying to impress people with your holiness. And this resonates with believers
and unbelievers alike. Unbelievers that are fed up with
Christian self-righteousness, take note, Jesus doesn't like
it either. He's not a religious instructor.
He's the life. He's the source of life, and
we all need Him because we're all sinful and broken. But you,
when you fast, anoint your head, wash your face." That means do
your hygiene. So that your fasting, in verse 18, will not be noticed
by men, but by your Father who's in secret. And your Father who
sees what's done in secret will reward you. So where do you get
your reward for doing something for the Lord? You either get
it from men and whatever they can give you, or you get it from
God. You can't have both. So pick one. Let your dad pay
you or let man pay you. Pick one. Let's pick the Lord.
He's better at it. Our God, our Father, is a really,
really good dad and He's standing by with the real bank account.
So stop picking up pennies. Stop looking for self-promotion.
That's the point. V. 19, Do not store up for yourself
treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves
break in and steal. What? Doesn't Pastor Dave teach
that we're supposed to be capitalists, which is basically the protection
of private property? That's what I teach. I think
capitalism is basically the consequence, for good or ill, of protecting
private property. And where'd I get that idea of
the protection of private property? I got it from the Mosaic Law. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt
not covet. There's no theft, there's no
communist Marxist revolution permitted by scripture. So confiscatory
taxation, let's call it what it is. It's confiscatory taxation.
It's immoral. It's unrighteous. The idea of
redistributive change is unrighteous. It is unbiblical. It is the claim
that there is no God. And it's interesting, the people
that do it will often say they're doing it for Jesus. But he says, your father is going
to reward you, so don't store up for yourselves treasures on
earth. What this means is not that it's wrong to have private
property. It's not a Marxist passage. It has nothing to do
with that. It's saying you need to think about what you treasure. It's your thoughts that he's
after, and it'll bear out as you read. Do not store up for
yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy,
where thieves break in and steal, but rather," verse 20, "...store
up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor
rust destroys, and where neither thieves do not break in or steal."
Does God believe in property? Yes. Is He telling you, think
it through about where you have your property stored? That's
the whole thing he's saying, and he's not saying, if you really
serve me, you'll get in. So you work your way up to being
righteous or something in some ridiculous satanic lie about
this passage. He's not talking to people that
need to earn righteousness. He's talking to people who have
been declared righteous who need to walk as disciples of Jesus.
And so think about where your property is. That's the point.
So you don't want your storage to be on earth. That was a waste
of those resources. Use freely your resources to
transfer them to heaven by using them for God's purposes. That's
the point that he's making. store up for yourselves treasures
in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves
do not break in or steal." Humans can reward you or God can reward
you. You can have your storage in
your treasure house on earth or you can have your treasure
house in heaven. You pick one. That's the idea. That idea is
why they have Billy Graham's people with a fully functional
state-of-the-art medical hospital in Central Park in New York.
It's a ministry called Samaritan's Purse. It exists because Christians
have read this and said, I want to store up my treasures in heaven,
so we're doing this work together. The Samaritan's Purse means that
the good Samaritan had resources and he used them for God's interests.
That's the point. Verse 21, where your treasure
is. This is the point. This is the
big point of the message. Where your treasure is, there
your heart will be also. This is the truth that combats
our lie, where we're worried about the future because of financial
troubles. I'm not going to be able to feed
my family. I'm going to have to do something extraordinary.
Don't store up treasure where moth and rust can destroy, but
store it up in heaven, for where your treasure is, that's where
your attention goes." And now he's going to connect your heart
to your eyes, because the heart is the inner you, and what you're
looking at determines what goes on in your heart. The eye is
the lamp of the body, so then if your eye is clear, your whole
body will be full of light. Now he's saying, The heart needs
to be attentive to its treasure. So put your treasure where your
heart should be. Colossians 3.1, keep seeking the things above
where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father. So
you need to put your treasure and value the things of God and
have your attention there. And if you're looking therefore
at the light, then the windows are flooded with light. So you
are enlightened, illuminated. But if your eye is bad, that
means it's looking at the wrong thing, or it's not receiving
light. In other words, your whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light that is in you is darkness, if the window
that is supposed to provide light for the inner person is darkness,
how great is the darkness? See how it started with, I just
wanna feed my family, so I'm gonna mass wealth to take care
of people and myself and really get whatever I want. And it went
to, no, no, no, no, no, you make sure your treasure is eternal,
parlay that treasure to eternal treasure, or pick the treasure
that rots and dissolves. And then he says, because where
you're looking determines what's going on inside. So if you're
looking at earth, at what men think about you, then you're
not looking at heaven, at the things of God and what your father
thinks. And so you're just darkness. You're just darkness. But if
your treasure's in heaven, then it's illuminated. You see what
he's doing. And then he says, No one can serve two masters,
for either he will hate the one and love the other, he'll be
devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and
earthly perishable treasure. If God is
your treasure, if you value what really matters, then you recognize
your infinite wealth, and you reckon it, and you think of it,
and you consider it, and sometimes you're weak and you don't think
that way, but You do believe that and you come back to that
thought and you come back to that thought and you keep about
your father's business because you believe that he is the real
treasure. Delight yourself in the Lord
and he'll give you the desires of your heart. If you delight
yourself in the Lord, what are the desires of your heart? Him. And so were taken right out of this
worldly thought process where I'm gonna send an earthly consideration
as a petty little person stuck in this little ball, you know,
circling around the sun. I'm gonna be real petty about
life and think that all there is is whether I get lunch today.
and whether I enjoyed it or something. And we're going to forget the
riches we have in Christ. And that's the whole point that
Jesus is doing. He's taking you from an earthly,
petty, small, little hobbiton perspective, and He's expanding
your whole world to, hey, you're on a mission that involves the
destiny of the entire human race. And so you were really petty
and worried about whether you're gonna get your pipe today, Bilbo
Baggins, and then all of a sudden, no, you're gonna go be part of
the freedom of the land from the great dragon Smaug. For this
reason, I say to you, do not be worried about your life. So
Jesus just commanded not to worry, and I take that as a command
from my Savior, so that if I disobey God, I consider that to be personal
sin. That's my understanding of one
key definition for personal sin, is if God says not to do it,
and I do it. Or if God says to not do it,
and I, God says to do it, and I don't do it. Sin of omission.
So this would be a sin of commission if you worry when he says not
to. Do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat
or what you'll drink, nor for your body as to what you'll put
on, as not the life more than food and the body more than clothing."
That's in this pile of filthy lucre. That's in this pile of
earthly wealth. And notice that he said you can't
serve God and wealth. It's one or the other. Pick one.
Now he's attacking us on our one final justification, the
one thing that we're still clinging to on the worship of wealth,
and it is I have to eat, I have to provide the basic needs. I'm
not talking about getting a sailboat. I'm not talking about having
a second house or a third house or whatever Bernie Sanders has.
I'm talking about just a retreat camp or whatever as a good communist.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about just feeding
my family. I just have to provide for my
family. And you do and if you don't you're worse than an unbeliever
says Paul But Jesus is saying this is not a justification for
disregarding your father and his wealth It's not a justification
for being off mission in other words Look at the birds of the
air. They don't sow or reap or gather
into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not
worth much more than they? And who of you, by being worried,
can add a single hour to his life?" You see, that's the hamster
wheel I'm talking about. Worry about the future, Jesus
says, is just a waste of time. It's like a hamster on a wheel.
He's really not producing anything except noise pollution. And who of you, by being worried,
can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried
about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They
do not toil, nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that not even
Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But
if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today,
tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more clothe
you, you of little faith? See, He's calling out the attention. Are you looking at the world?
Are you looking at God? He's calling out. Are you looking
at earthly treasure or God's treasure? Are you looking at
the way man judges you or the way God judges you? Are you looking
at... What did He just say? what God provides you as your
provider versus what you can provide yourself. And so it's
very theological, it's very oriented on the things of God, and it
really helps us think through what we're doing with our resources.
Now, careful. It doesn't say that we're foolish.
It doesn't say we don't plan. It doesn't say anything about
not being good stewards of God's earthly resources. In fact, that's
the whole point. Be a good steward of it and parlay it into eternal
wealth as you're using your resources for God's work. That's what he's
going to say. Seek first the kingdom and his righteousness.
The whole context is how you use your resources. Now, I'm
not trying to tell you that you need to give to the church. I'm
trying to tell you don't waste your life by doing what amounts
to earthly pursuit without seeing the eternal consequence of the
mission God has given us. I have a question in terms of
the use of resources. Is it bad to have resources?
Don't store up treasures on earth. Is that what he's saying? Is
it bad to have resources? Should you sell everything, go
around naked? Is that what he's talking about? It isn't. Do not worry then, verse 31,
saying, what will we eat, what will we drink, what will we wear
for clothing? For the Gentiles, all the people,
eagerly seek all these things, for your heavenly Father knows
that you need all these things. See, it's a Jewish context. He's
talking to the remnant of Israel here about the coming kingdom.
Your Father in heaven knows you need these things, but seek first
His kingdom, and His righteousness and all these things will be
added to you. God is now saying, I am in charge of your provision. I'm in charge of your needed
earthly resources. This isn't your goal. I got this.
You be about my business and you keep your eyes on the treasure
that I want to give you that's eternal. So it's a totally different
way of thinking about our lives. And so we have to repent. We
have to change our thinking when we fall into this hang-up of
worry about the future. We also need to let God be God
and stop worrying about our own dignity. You're in Christ. You
have the dignity of Christ. suffered for you naked on the
cross and ashamed and skinned alive for you. And so the dignity
of Christ is beyond compare and you're in Christ. So stop worrying
about getting your own credit, your own glory. You just claim
Christ. He's our life for us to live
as Christ to die as gain. And then you can't really fixate
on the present or the past because you've been told what the future
holds. The past has gotten you to this present where you're
told what the future holds. So you're supposed to lay hold
of that which is coming and get dithering about the past or looking
down. I'm on the cross. That's not how you get through
the suffering with any kind of endurance. Seek first the kingdom
and his righteousness and all these things will be added to
you. So do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will take care for
itself. Each day has enough trouble of his own sufficient unto the
day is the trouble there are the evil thereof says the King
James. Now here's the thing, you just
got told everything you need to do about every problem you'll
ever face. You take it one day at a time, you connect it to
God, you recognize he's in charge of your resources, he'll provide
what you need to be busy about what he's about. Commit yourself
to what he wants you to do. I mean, the whole package is
right there in Matthew 6, verses 16 through 34. And I am applying
what he's telling Israel about the coming kingdom that he's
offering them. Repent for the kingdoms in your grasp. I'm right
here. and they rejected the kingdom offer as a nation, but there
is still this coming kingdom, and it still has an application
to you all through what Paul talks about in Acts and elsewhere,
Colossians 1, we belong to this kingdom that is not here, it
is coming. We are the already recruited
administrative body of the church that is going to rule with Christ
in his coming future, not here now kingdom. And that's very
important, I think, to grasp. It's exactly what Jesus is dealing
with in Matthew. And this is how these things
definitely apply to you. It's an a fortiori argument to
me. If God says it to remnant Israel, then he's really saying
it to you because you are in Christ. And for greater reason,
a fortiori, for stronger reason, you can claim this for yourself,
not by way of covenant, but by way of the baptism of the Holy
Spirit union with Christ. All right, I got a question for
you. I was going to ask it and see if you got it and see if
we're tracking. When David, who was being set
up by God for the battle in the Valley of Elah, the battle with
Goliath, he was set up for it. We heard in 1 Samuel 16 he's
going to be the king. He was anointed over all his
brothers. He and his family know he's going to be king, and his
brothers apparently resent it. But that old crazy Samuel said
he's going to be the king because Yahweh through Samuel said he's
going to be the king. So we know it in 1 Samuel 16.
Nobody knows who David is. No one knows who this shepherd
boy working for Jesse, the eighth son of this man. No one knows
what's going on with David except that King Saul uses him to play
music because he's a really accomplished musician. Apparently he's very
conscientious about his work in the sheepfolds and he's very
artistic and creative. So David is this massively under-known,
under-reported potential of genius, of the power of God, the Holy
Spirit, of protective shepherding for God's people. And that's
what God has seen in a man after his own heart. That's what God
has cultivated in David. So when you get to 1 Samuel 17,
I believe David carries out the attitude of the Lord Jesus in
Matthew chapter 6 very consistently in the stories that we have in
early David's life. Even to the point where he will
not kill Saul, who's trying to kill him, in a fair fight, in
a fair military engagement, he won't do it because Saul is the
Lord's anointed. David is a man of integrity and valor and trust
in God and faith. And what does he say, what does
he say in summary to Goliath? Do you remember what David says
to Goliath on the battlefield? Most of the story of 1 Samuel
17, most of the exciting part is dialogue between David and
Goliath. There's no throwing of a spear
on Goliath's part. There's one shot, one kill. David throws the rock and kills
the giant. All right, but what is said is so vital when you
get to 1 Samuel 17. Do you know what David says in
summary? We're gonna study this in some detail on King David
Wednesdays in chapel. Do you know what David says?
You come at me with, let me paraphrase, with sword and shield or sword
and spear, but I come to you in the name of the living God
of Israel, and the battle is? The battle is the Lord's. The
battle's the Lord's. The battle is the Lord's. So
David holds his lightsaber straight up and down and begins to meditate,
and then he's struck down by Darth Vader, right? And he disappears,
and he becomes more powerful. No, that's not how the story
goes. That's just Eastern mysticism.
I hope these motorcycle guys are socially distancing. The story of David and Goliath
is not David says the battle is the Lord's and then he stands
there and waits and then God kills Goliath. That's not how
it works. David has resources. What does David have in his possession?
What are his resources? He's got a sling. How many stones?
Five? It takes one. I'm going to say
probably something like a 200 or 300 caliber rock. He's got
a 300 caliber cartridge in his sling that's three inches. Something
like a rock probably about the size of a baseball, I suspect.
There's differing views on this, but it's all in the archeology.
But something bigger than a 45 caliber sling, which we use today,
more like a 300 caliber sling. And some of you will appreciate
that. Caliber means hundredths of an inch. So three inch rock,
he's got, and it's a smooth stone. Maybe it's smaller, maybe it's
a 100 caliber. But the point is that David has
this in his possession and he has the skill to use it. And
he does. He employs it in faith in God. for the glory of God on the mission
of God to defeat the enemies of Israel to God's honor. And
David is acting in accordance with God's revealed will. David
is filled with the Holy Spirit and he uses his resources that
he has to advance God's interests and it isn't a sit around and
God couch potatoes you along and you you just Accidentally
happen to feed your family you use your resources to do what
God said He wants you to do, but you do it in faith you do
it for his agenda. That's why David is the great
king of Israel, because he trusts in God and he uses his resources
to advance God's interests. And so he is the greatest slinger
probably in the world in his day, given what he does with
Goliath there at Ephesdomim. And he does use his resources
to glorify God by way of skull fracture of the giant Philistine. And with that note of encouragement,
skull fracture of the giant Philistine, I challenge you, read the story,
don't watch the movie, read the story of 1 Samuel 16 and 17 and
see how God took his promise to make David king and then he
made him the Medal of Honor recipient that the whole country loved
because of one shot, one sling shot that he did in faith and
the power God gave him using the resources at his disposal.
Father, You have given us wonderful resources. We have enjoyed the
fat of the land in this nation, this many generations. We have enjoyed freedom, and
look what we've done with it. We've become fat like Jashar
and Israel and kicked. We've become We've been insensitive
to Your Word. We've disregarded You as a people.
And we have said, what business does God have in the teaching
of our children? What business does God have in
the protection of our most vulnerable children. Father, what business
does God have telling us how to live our lives? We've said
that as a people and in general and in the secularization of
this civilization. And Father, we did start with
a good project and we see horrible potentials before us. I ask that
you strengthen us not to fear, but to trust you, to fear you
and therefore not what man can do or the collapse of the economy
can do or any of the things that are looming before us. Rather,
Father, let us take each day as part of the resources you've
given us, not so that we treasure up and store up the day for ourselves
or the time that you've given us for we can't, not that we
waste it in pursuit of vanity, and mere pleasure to just escape
the troubles that we're facing. Father, that we would use the
resources, the time, the abilities, the strength, all the things
that you've given us to advance your agenda. Father, we want
to be on mission. We want to be useful to you. We want to
bring glory to you. And in so doing, know that we're
getting it right. Father, there are people in the
hearing of my voice that have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. It is because they don't have
the Spirit of God. It's because they don't know Jesus Christ
as Savior. We pray for them, Father. We come to you humbly,
fervently asking for their eternal life. Jesus paid for their sins
on the cross. Please help our loved ones consider
Christ. Please help them take the Son
of God born to die for their sins and trust Him. Help them
consider Christ and do what is necessary. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.
Father, thank You for sending Your Son because You loved us,
all of us. Please help our loved ones receive that offered love
gift, opening the present of Christmas by faith, believing
in Jesus as their Savior. Strengthen our church family,
Father, to share Christ. We rejoice with the new birth
of Kathy, We rejoice with the good news that you're working. Father, strengthen us to do your
work despite hardship. Draw us together in love. Let
our hearts be knit together despite whatever we may be facing. Father,
let us see the victories as we trust you and keep our eyes fixated
on your son. Father, by your spirit, we ask
for that strength in Christ's name, amen.
011 Responding to Life's Big Problems pt2
Series Stability in Uncertainty
| Sermon ID | 419201330506039 |
| Duration | 1:07:05 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Language | English |
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