Well, good morning. Good to be with you. I wish I didn't have to be with you, actually, but I am. And I'm glad to be here. Sentinella is a church that we have loved for years and years. In fact, our history together would go back earlier than 1989, when the association was founded. And the Sentinella is one of the founding members, and we were one of the founding members, and Trinity was too. But new brother Larry Vincent, new brother Larry Smith, then at the same time for a little while, and of course Chris Beamer, all of them dear friends and love them very much, love you guys very much. And it's gonna be Sovereign Grace Baptist Church month it looks like for a while. I'm here this week, Pastor Ken will be here next week, and I want you to try to guess what his profession was before he was a pastor, okay. a little job for you there. I think you'll be able to figure it out. And then Pastor Mike will be here the week after that. He's actually preaching at Sovereign Grace this week. So all these things are happening. And I thank you for your prayers during the time that our sanctuary was being remodeled. That turned out to be the longest six to eight weeks that we've ever endured, because that's how long it was supposed to take. And then the city came in. But I'm not going to blame the city. I really am not. Because they were kind to us in the long run. It was just a long run. They were kind to us. Our facility is a little older, just like yours. And so there's a lot of things they could have made us do that they didn't make us do. And for that, we're very, very grateful. And what they did make us do ended up being a blessing, too, because it looks a lot better. So with all that being said and done, six to eight weeks turned into more than six months. But we're there now. And when you come to the quarterly gathering, the first Sunday in November, you'll get a chance to see it and enjoy it with us. So without being said and done, let's look to the Lord in prayer. And then we'll look to the Word of God. Father, we look to you now and we just ask you for your strength and blessing at this particular hour. The Word of God is mighty, it's quick, it's powerful, more than any two-edged sword, Father. And we pray that's exactly what would happen here today. I pray the Word of God would pierce each heart in a good way. Pierce each heart and show us, Father, show us our sin, show us our Savior. And that's what you do, Lord, and that's your graciousness to us. And so, Lord, we look to you today. As the Word of God is preached, I pray the Holy Spirit would move amongst us. I pray that we would learn. I pray that we would grow. Some things we've heard before, many things we've heard before, Father, but that's okay because it is the old, old story. It is what you use to teach us. And if we listen, if we attend, if we do what we need to do, Father, then certainly you will speak to us through your word. So we pray that you would. If there'd be anyone here today that doesn't know Christ as Savior, I pray that you would work in their hearts, even though this particular message is geared primarily to Christians, just like the passage is, Lord still, you can use your word to work great things in the hearts of people. And so Lord, would you do that? And may Jesus Christ receive for himself all the glory, all the honor, in his name we pray, amen. Amen. Turn, please, to Romans 12. Christian and Cynthia are not going to be too surprised by that. When I go someplace, I like to preach what I've been preaching recently, because it's fresh on my mind, fresh on my heart. And what I've done here is I've basically taken about four sermons, turned them into one. And so this may run into the business meeting that follows. Well, I've done some editing too, I promise you, I have. And really, I think it's a message that can be very, very helpful to you at this particular time. And as I preach it, what I hope that you will do, seriously, I know there's a business meeting coming and all of that, but I hope as you listen to the word, what you will do is not thinking about anyone else. Don't think about any other people. Just think about yourself and ask, Lord, what would you have me to do? What would you teach me? and how can I grow in you through this particular message. So that's my prayer that you would do that. And it's called proper thinking toward our fellow members. That's just the title I gave. It's kind of an overall title. And I'm going to be dealing with a few verses here in Romans chapter 12. And the headings are going to be just three headings here. First one will be the quickest. That's a proper, we need to think rightly about ourselves. And you'll see that from the text. And then we need to think rightly about our fellow members in the body of Christ. And then the last point, and probably the longest point, will be how to live in the household of faith. And so those are what we're dealing with this morning from the passage. So Romans chapter 12, those very familiar verses we start out with in chapter verse 1, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship, or some translations say your reasonable service. Both would be acceptable. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you, by testing, may discern what is the will of God, which is good, acceptable, and perfect. And of course, that's not three different wills of God. You know, that's the word of God being described, the will of God being described. It's good. It's acceptable. It's perfect. And there's the first things that we can apply to ourselves right there. We would want the will of God. And one of the things we can see in verses one and two, which really are not where I'm going to dwell, but we need to see the greatest need for this hour is a renewed mind. You know, the renewed mind. That's what we need to have. Because we live in a culture that is immersed in everything that's wrong and tries to infiltrate our minds. We live as pilgrims in a world that's in opposition to the things of God. And that's not anything new. That is nothing. That's the way it's been for Christians. Well, go back into the Old Testament days, and even in the time of Christ, this is the way it has been for Christians. But today, there's so many voices that we hear that used to be more difficult to hear, but we're bombarded with them. Voices every day trying to mold and shape us into an image that is usually diametrically opposed to Christianity. Now all of us have lived our lives, at least in part, in the world. We know what it's like to think like a lost person. We've been trained to think like a lost person. But now we're in Christ. Some of you for many, many years, amen. Many years, and that's a blessing. Now we know him. Now we're fundamentally different than what we used to be. We must have renewed minds. We must not only be Christians, we must think like Christians. We must immerse ourselves in scripture and learn to see life from God's point of view. And then the second part of this, the second part of this is we do need to think rightly about ourselves. We need to think rightly, but we need to think rightly about ourselves. That's verse number three. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Now, if I stumble over words a little bit, I usually use the New King James Version, but I brought an ESV with me, because that's what I thought you used. Well, they're pretty much the same, I can tell you that, because I always use both when I'm in my study, along with the Greek studies. But this particular verse is not easy to translate. In fact, paraphrases will kind of do it. They'll get the idea. But different paraphrases, I don't think, do a good job. Our New King James, our ESV, even the New American Standard do a very good job, I think, translating this. But you don't really see what's behind it. OK. Now, you look in your Bible, you see think three times, right? There's think, think, think. Three times it's there. But if you notice, the first one is Not to think more highly. Not to think more highly. That actually is one word in the Greek. Not to think more highly. Because this word think comes to us in three participles, if you know parts of speech and such like that. And this is huperphoneme. Huperphoneme, kind of where we get hyper from, you know. Huperphoneme is the idea of being over and above and way too much. And that's why your translation says, more highly. Think more highly. It's over and above. But the other two times are just phoneme, which is the simple participle to think. So what we see here is a play on words. And Paul is emphasizing something here. And you can see what he's emphasizing is humility. He's emphasizing that we think about ourselves a lot, but we need to be very, very cautious because we're not always the best judge of what we think about ourselves. You know, pride is an ugly destroyer. Pride and the loss leads directly to hell. Pride in the Christian leads to chastisement of God because God knows how to humble us. So let us humble ourselves before God. Let us be humble so that we are not humbled by him. You know, when he humbles us, it'll be painful as can be. But we should be glad and we should be thankful when that does happen. because it's something that's within all of us. We should be glad and we should be really, when he humbles us, as painful as it is, it's the very best thing for us. He cares enough about us to do that. And that's a sign of a Christian. That's a sign that we really do know him. We could go to Hebrews 12 and talk about the chastisement of the Lord there. I'm not going to do that because that's a little out of where we are. But there is no place for pride, especially if we'll ever keep our eyes on Jesus, because he's the great example. And you'll not be tempted. If you look at one another, and if you judge yourself by others, Very easy to feel a little bit better here, a little bit better there. Maybe not quite so much to this one, but you know, I'm thinking of Bunyan's illustration in Pilgrim's Progress. Let me just give it to you real fast. Because Bunyan was a genius, a genius when it come to illustrations and biblical truth. Christian struggled so much, you know, on the way to the path. And up ahead he saw faithful. And he wanted to catch up to Faithful. He wanted to be with Faithful. He wanted some good Christian fellowship along the way. And so he's picking up the pace, and he yells to Faithful, hey, hold up, hold up. I want to catch up to you. And Faithful says, I can't. The Avenger of Blood is behind me. Now, I know what the Avenger of Blood is in the Bible. I don't know why Faithful thought the Avenger of Blood was behind him. But nonetheless, that's what he says. And so I cannot slow up. And so Christian breaks out into a run. And he runs to Faithful. And then he runs past Faithful. And he kind of smiles. Because look what I've done. And the next thing I know, he stumbles and falls. And then Faithful comes and picks him up. And you can see the illustration. I hope you can see it. This is just what can happen. Faithful was ahead of him, but he kind of thought he passed him in the Christian life. Well, when we think that, we're in danger. So let us be very, very cautious. We need to think rightly about ourselves. And then a second point. First two points are the quickest. Thinking rightly of our fellow members in the body of Christ. Thinking rightly about our fellow members in the body of Christ. Look at verses four and five. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Now from there he goes on to talk about motivational gifts, the gifts that are given by the spirit for the body of Christ to build us up. I'm not going to deal with spiritual gifts. I don't think that would be my place to do that in another church. I did it in our own church. So we're gonna skip verses six, seven, and eight. But just realize this, that Christ gifts his church in the way that he desires to gift his church, to build one another up to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And again, I'm not surprised that Paul used this whole idea of being humble. I'm not surprised he used this whole idea of being humble before he talks about spiritual gifts. Because if you know anything about Corinth, Their biggest problem was their pride in what they thought was their spiritual gift. So thinking rightly about our fellow members, and the Book of Romans wasn't written to one megachurch. The Book of Romans was written to a number of churches that were there in Rome. Rome was a huge city. It was the center of the world at that particular time, and a huge city. And there were a number of house churches that Paul is addressing here. And it tells us that in chapter 16 as you read it, and all the greetings that are taking place. So when Paul is talking about one body in Christ, is he talking about the universal church? Or is he talking about the local church? Well, I think context would tell us he's talking about the local church in this particular case. Because how are we going to manifest the gifts that God gives us except in the very place that we are, in the church that God has put us in? And so the following exhortations will flesh themselves out best and practically in a local church. But there certainly are applications for the universal church, too. I think of a man like R.C. Sproul. that we wouldn't agree 100% with, but we'd probably agree 99% with, right? And what a godly man and what a great teacher. And there's others that we could name too, but I just thought I'd throw that one out there for you. He was just used by God so greatly. And I'll throw Spurgeon out there too, who being dead still speaks as you read his various sermons and his various writings. Go ahead and turn to 1 Corinthians 12. First Corinthians 12, because there's some practical things here based off of this idea of many members, one body, many members. And this was already written by Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. And 1 Corinthians, even though it comes second in your Bible to Romans, actually was written before the Book of Romans. And Paul likes to do that. You can cross-reference his epistles. And you can see a lot of the same themes being said over and over again, sometimes in a short, pithy way, and sometimes in a longer way, like this particular one. This helps us just talk about unity and diversity in the body. 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse number 12. We talk about unity and diversity in one body. For just as the body is one and has many members, that's something we can all understand, and all the members of the body function, body through many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one spirit. Many members making up one body. And the context is whether Jews or Gentiles or slaves or free. And these diverse peoples were to come together into one body. Slave. How would you like to be a slave? Well, in Rome, there were a lot of slaves. And we're blessed to live in a land of opportunity. We have more choices than a Roman slave could ever dream of. But in good times or bad times, prosperity or adversity, whether slave or free, he is the same Lord Jesus Christ. And we're all baptized into one body. the body of Christ. There's one Holy Spirit that brings about regeneration. And now Paul deals with two errors. After that introduction about the body, he deals with two very important errors. And this actually is just expanding upon what we saw in Romans 12, one body, many members. First of all, we see the error of inferiority. The error of inferiority. We see this in verses 15 through 20. Let me just read those for you. Verse 15, if the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I'm not an eye, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members of the body, each one of them as he chose. If we all were a single member, where would be the body? As is there are many parts, yet one body. No one part of the body of Christ ought to feel inferior. And they certainly should never be made to feel inferior. The sovereign God distributes gifts and places us where he will to his glory. But with that being said and done, the gifts will differ and the functions will differ. But no Christian is more important to God than any other Christian, And no child of God is more loved by God than any other Christian. And Christ shed his blood equally for all of us that are in Christ. And he loves us in Christ. And if he loves us in Christ, and you know how much he loves the Christ. If he loves us in Christ, how could he love us more? That's the thing to understand. That's the thing to realize. You don't have to perform for God to love you. He already loves you, and the reason that you serve him is out of your love for him. That's a very important principle to understand. One body, many parts. No one part can be the whole body, or there wouldn't be a body. And there's the error of superiority. So that was the error of inferiority. We look around, we see others that excel us. The error of superiority, we find in verse 21. The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor. And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together." Isn't that amazing? God put us in a body. So not only would he care for us, we'd have others to care for us too. That's a wonderful thing. The weaker parts though, the weaker parts of the body. You know, in our church it's always been this way. We have some interesting people, you know, a few interesting folks. And don't ever despise the weaker parts of Christ's body. And that exhortation is also in Romans 14. But all within the body of Christ are worthy of our love and our respect. Now, I have a problem. It's a real problem. And it strikes me from time to time. I've always had problems with my feet, all of my life. It's just been one of those things. I had operations on them when I was a teenager. And I praise God for his goodness to me, because the diagnosis was I was supposed to be in a wheelchair when I was 30, and I'm certainly not in a wheelchair. I think you can see that. But I'm not going to be out there running a race either. That's just the way it is. You know, it's such a good day when my feet don't hurt. And I have a number of those. But sometimes they do. And I'm sure you can relate to this in some way, just using an illustration. What about that little toe? That little toe of yours? Think about this. You're walking in the middle of the night, and all of a sudden, you bang that little toe against a table. You've done it, haven't you, I bet. Or banging against something. And that thing hurts. And it hurts bad. It's just a little toe. But it's all you can think about because it hurts so bad. You have the whole body hurting because of this little toe. Don't despise. Don't despise the less than lovely parts of the body. Let me ask you this question. In the body of Christ, how would you like to be a colon in the body of Christ? Let me ask you this. How would you like to live without a colon? Yeah, okay. So now we're starting to see what Paul is really getting at here. Or suppose that one was the eye. I've got a, I can say this because she's not ever going to hear this. I've got a granddaughter that's 15 years old. And since she was young, everybody would tell, what beautiful eyes she has. And they comment on her eyes. And it actually embarrasses her because they comment on it so much. But she's got these blue eyes, these light blue eyes that just, well, they're striking, you know. OK. Oh, she has such beautiful eyes. Well, eyes are vital. But what if the entire body was one giant eyeball? Wouldn't he be alive? Wouldn't he be living? In fact, it would be grotesque. So this is what Paul's getting at. If you noticed it as we read it, this is exactly what he's saying. And the less honorable parts. We bestow greater honor. And it even says the word modesty in here. And it's true, that's exactly what Paul's getting at. Human dignity demands that we clothe our bodies. And the healthy body works in unity with all of its members doing its part. The honorable, the necessary, and the less honorable. Less honorable in the eyes of men, I should say. But in the end, it all works together for good. Now let's go back to Romans 12. That should help us understand a little bit of the dynamics of a church, and how it all works together, and all should be honored, and all should be loved, and all should be cared for. And so like I said, we're not going to deal with the spiritual gifts themselves. So that would be the next what's coming up here. However, let me just remind us where we're at. And this is the part that's going to take a little longer here. We've talked about thinking rightly about ourselves. We've talked about thinking rightly about our fellow members. Now we're going to see how to live in the household of faith. Now, I haven't finished Roman chapter 12 myself in our church. Last week I dealt with the verses I'm going to start talking about now, verses 9 through 13, how to live in the household of faith. But verses 14 through 21 tell us how to live in an unbelieving world. So you can read that later. And there's some really great advice, Holy Spirit advice, that Paul's giving here, telling us how to live in the household of faith, which is the church of God, and how to live in the midst of an unbelieving world, verses 14 through 21. And if you looked at all 13 verses here, I'm tempted to read them, but I think I'll wait. If you look at all 13 verses here, one commentator, and I thought he really nailed it with this one. Because I was thinking as I read this, wow, it sounds like the Proverbs, man. It sounds like the book of Proverbs. And it does. But he said something that really got my attention. He says, this is like Paul's putting out 21 tweets. Tweets are, right? Surely some of you do tweets. Some of us waste our time on tweets. Well, this isn't wasting time at all. 21 tweets. They have short, pithy sayings. And there's 21 of them here in verses 9 through 21. But anyway, we'll only have time to deal with 9 through 13 here. And so it's also in the style of Proverbs, and that's not surprising because Paul is the doctor of the church, Old Testament scholar, always using the Old Testament in some way to come to truth here and to bring truth to the churches, and doctor of theology in the New Testament too, the Apostle Paul. And so here's what he has to say. Let's just read 9 through 13 together. And you can hear this little tweet-like saying. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints, and seek to show hospitality. He's in a mouthful. I don't even have time to flesh all that out. I'm not sure we'll get to verse 12 or 13. I do look at the clock while I'm preaching, just because I sit where you've sat, so I understand. So we want to take in as much as we can, but there's no sense in overloading ourselves with more than we can bear at one time. So the first thing we see in verse 9, is genuine love. Genuine love. In fact, we could say this, let love be genuine, could be the overarching theme of all of these verses that take us down to chapter 13. Let love be genuine. And that's love toward the family of God, in verses nine through 13, and love towards those who are made in God's image, verses 14 through 21. Love that is genuine. Love without hypocrisy. Love that is more than words. Love that is true commitment. Not what the world calls love. Most of the world does not understand genuine love. And if there's anything that can be learned from listening to secular music, and that's fine to do on your free time, but if there's anything to be learned from Secular music, if you listen to love songs, they don't understand. They don't get it. There probably are some that do, but most of the time, the ones I hear, they don't get it. And I say, that's not what the Bible says. That's not the way to think about it. Most of the world does not understand genuine love. Even many Christians don't understand it. And Hollywood surely doesn't understand it, for sure. Now, Paul goes into great detail in 1 Corinthians 13. We're not going to turn there. But Paul goes into great detail. to explain what love really is, and what commitment really is, and the example of God's love toward us through Jesus Christ, which is love in its greatest form. And now we build off of that with what comes next. A poor what is evil, cling to that as good. A poor evil, cling to what is good. The Greek word for a poor is to despise. Or you could say, to hate with intensity. Well, abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. As far as what is evil, Paul talks about the snare of the devil in 1st and 2nd Timothy. He also warns about the wiles of the devil. You know, when I was a kid, I used to do this, and it never, ever worked. I would get myself a box, and then I'd put a stick on it with a string, and, you know, just wait for a bird to go in there, and then I could pull the string and catch the bird. Never got one, you know, never got one. Not like that, you know. Because birds are a little smarter than that, you know. You gotta bait the trap, right? You gotta bait it with something that a person really wants. Satan baits his traps. He knows how to do it. He knows what's pleasing. He knows what we love. He knows what our flesh longs for. And the devil will make evil look fun or cool or some other tempting thing. Satan knows how to bait his traps, but it's not harmless. It's a trap. It's not harmless. Just like the fish, you go fishing. I used to do that as a kid. My grandparents lived off a lake, just had to walk back 40 acres to get to a lake. And you bait the hook, and you catch the fish. And sometimes, oftentimes, the fish will take the worm and the hook all together. And they don't get away when that happens. You know, the bait looks attractive, but in the end, it's tragic. I deal with a lot of homeless people. There's a lot of homeless people in Ontario, and we live right by two huge parks. That's where the church is. And it's nice in so many ways because, you know, wide open spaces, and that's nice. When you come there, you're always there at night, probably, so maybe you can't see that. But it's nice in that way. But a lot of homeless people in those parks. And I talked to a lot of them. And it's almost always the same story. If they tell the truth. Because they often don't tell the truth. But you get down to telling the truth. And they took the bait. Their lives were ruined. Their families would disown them. They really are homeless now. And like I say, it's a trap. Very difficult trap to get out of, by the way. Very difficult. Just like the fish swallow the hook, Satan's been baiting people for millennia. And if we were in our right mind, that wouldn't happen, right? If we were in our right mind, that wouldn't happen. But sin is so alluring. And peer pressure is so alluring. And temptation can be so strong. Don't be his victim. Satan is cruel. Satan has no mercy. And the bait looks attractive. And everybody says, it'll never happen to me. That'll never happen to me. Until it happens. So learn the lesson. Learn it early. And avoid the heartache. James says it, Peter says it, Paul says it. We got a young man in our church named James Peter. He's a cute little guy, I'll tell you. And I was preaching this last week. And I said, James, Peter says it. No, I meant James says it and Peter says it. He perked up, though. Saw his eyes. Little four-year-old kid, pretty cool. Anyway, as we come to this, there are six imperatives, six imperatives, six commands in verses nine through 13. But really there's a lot more that look like commands for sure. The other seven are actually participles. So there's six imperatives and seven participles which technically function like commands. whether it's stylistic or whatever, they basically are commands, too, in function. And so this is what we're talking about. We're talking about exhortations and reminders of our Christian duty. And remember, a poor what is evil cling to what is good. John Murray, the commentator, makes the point that if you want to know what cling to what is good means, the marriage illustration is probably the best illustration you could have. Like clinging together, the two becoming one. A great example of holding fast to what is good. In the Greek, being bonded together like glue. Cling to your wife, two shall be one flesh. And the best way to avoid the evil is to cling to what is good. Hate the evil, not the person. hate the evil, and cling to what is good and right and true. And then verse 10. Okay, verse 10, let me just read it here. Not my regular Bible, so I've got to find it. Verse 10. Okay. Love one another with brotherly affection. That's the first part. You know, I liked the New King James Version better there. Love one another with brotherly love. I think that's actually a better way to put it. There's been too much distance and too much of a difference made between Agape and Philadelphia. Philadelphia certainly does mean brotherly love. And agape means love. But really, they're part of the same family. You know, they mean almost virtually the same thing. And they usually won't hear that. Usually they'll talk about agape being the greatest love and Philadelphia a lesser love. And I just don't think that bears up under scrutiny and especially under modern scholarship that studies these kinds of things. But that being aside, what we really have is love as brethren here. family, like a family is supposed to have. And that's very understandable. And then you want to have a contest on who's greatest in the church? You want to have that kind of a contest? Read the rest of it. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Outdo one another in showing honor. Another way to put it, as Paul does in Philippians chapter 2, let each esteem others better than himself. And that's what we need in this particular day and in Paul's day too. Verse 11. Three exhortations go together. In verse 11, as that commentator said these short little tweets, do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. It's far too easy to get complacent. We fall into routines. Those routines become ruts and lead to laziness, coasting through the Christian life. Not falling away, but falling asleep. Easy to do. And burning out, even. Burnout is real. We work and we work and we work, but if we do not watch out for our souls, we'll become overwhelmed and burn out. I was talking, and I can say this because you don't know who I'm talking about, you really don't, but I know two cases of burnout, one that's just happened and one that happened about a year ago. and ran into both of those cases this week, or last week, actually. And the point is, we need to be so careful. We need to watch our attitudes. We need to watch our heart. And we must avoid burnout and keep up our zeal for the Lord. And you can have telltale signs that burnout's coming. I'm going to give you some that you can actually tell for yourself if you're in danger of burning out. You do the work. But you lose the joy of doing the work. That's a true sign of burnout, you know. And then you do the work and you look around and you say, I'm doing so much. And nobody seems to notice. And nobody even helps. I've been there before thinking like that, you know. And it's a terrible way to think. It's not what we should be doing, you know. I mean, just something practical, very, very practical here. You know, you come into church on Sunday, and it's all together, right? Magically, some genies or something came and cleaned it all up and fixed it for you. Isn't that wonderful? Well, it doesn't happen that way, it really doesn't. A piece of paper lying on the ground in your parking lot. You just walk by it. Someone else will pick it up, right? Those are such little things. They're little things, but they mean something in a family. And so may God help us to do our part, even if nobody notices, and even if it doesn't seem like anybody cares. Beware of these thoughts, they're dangerous. And there was a pastor I knew many years ago, and I knew he was in trouble when he said this to me, because we were talking, probably on a Saturday would be my guess, because of what happened, and he was talking about how far behind he was, and lamenting that his lecture wasn't finished yet. Oh, that struck me, I've never forgot that. My lecture isn't finished yet. And I thought, I didn't say it, I thought, I think he means his sermon. I think he means the sermon. Sermon's not a lecture, you know. Sermon is taking the word of God and speaking the word of God to the people of God and to the lost, to the people of God and to the lost, so the Holy Spirit will use it to touch hearts and lives. Well, I didn't say that, but I could tell. He was weary. He was going to have to go into a study and finish his lecture, and it was becoming a drudgery. Oh, you know, there are aspects of the Lord's work that I love, talking about myself personally. There's aspects of, I mean, I wouldn't have done this for 45 years if I didn't love it, right? And I've spent two-thirds of my life, you know, at Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, you know, doing that. Well, I love being there, you know, and, but I'll tell you this, I don't love everything about it. There's parts of it that are hard. There's parts of it that are gut-wrenching. And I don't love that, but you do that. But most of it is joy. Most of it is happiness. It's great to be able to sit in your study and look at the Word of God and say, what does the Word of God say? And how can I bring the Word of God out to the people so that they can understand it and be profited by it? How can I be profited in my own soul by it first? Paul's admonition is important, as he gives it here, as he gives these three hard-hitting little words and ends with, serve the Lord. Paul's admonition is important for every one of us. Don't be slothful. Do what you can as best as you can. Be fervent in your spirit. Do what you can for the Lord. And sometimes it takes patience and waiting on the Lord. That's okay. It's His work. You know, if you work for the praise of man and you get that praise, you have a reward. Is that the reward you want? You work for the praise of men, and you get that praise, you've had your reward. But if you work for the praise of men, you're probably going to be disappointed, because many will just take it for granted, and then you'll feel underappreciated, and you'll lose your fervency. We have to do what we do for the Lord. Be zealous. Be fervent in spirit. It doesn't have to be dynamic, doesn't have to be impressive, but it has to be for him. Serve the Lord. And then verse number 12. Verse number 12. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Prayer is one of the hardest things about the Christian life. I know you pray. If you're Christian, you do pray. You know, every Christian prays. But I don't think any Christian prays as much as they realize they should to show our dependence upon God. Be constant in prayer. Prayer is difficult. Prayer is hard. Prayer, you go off by yourself to a quiet place, and 1,000 thoughts can fill your mind and distract you. And that's everybody, unless you're the most disciplined person I know. That's everybody. We just have to focus laser sharp on what we're doing as we come before the Lord. You know, it's one thing to pray in public. It's a whole other thing to pray in private. It's a little easier to pray in public, I think. than it is to pray in private. But we need to be men and women of prayer. And as I focus on verse number 12, and I think I'm going to end with verse number 12, because there's some things I can say about it, and I don't want to start something else that's going to take us too long. So this will be where we'll end today, verse 12. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Patient in tribulation. There's a difficult one. The Greek word is thalipsis. Tribulation means heavy pressure, even to the point of pain. Our Christian community focuses on the great tribulation that's going to come. I believe we're in the tribulation right now, and have been for the last 2,000 years. I mean, what can I say? This is a world of trouble, a world of trial, a world of difficulty, and such like that. Be patient in tribulation. A couple of years ago, they thought that I was having a heart attack. And so it was on a Sunday morning, probably maybe it was three years ago, I don't know, I don't remember. But I'm getting ready for church and I wasn't feeling good. And I got duties that I do before church and I've always done it this way because I can pray while I'm opening up the doors and making sure everything's on and I live right there so it's easy for me to do. And I like that solitude of being able to do that But I didn't feel good and I came back in the house and then I felt worse. I started getting ready for church and I broke out in sweat and I was in pain, terrible pain, you know. And I told Becky, I said, I got to go to the hospital. I think I'm having a heart attack. Poor Becky. And sure enough, I went to the hospital. Pastor Ken was so gracious. I just called him real fast, told him what was happening. He stepped right in to preach that day. And off I went to the emergency room. And they saw me as I checked in. And they thought I was having a heart attack, too. And I said, OK. And they didn't even let me sit back down. They took me into another room and took my blood. And then they put me on a gurney and wheeled me back. And I could see the doctors outside. It was an emergency room, but it was all glass. So I'm laying there now in the bed and seeing the doctor and some nurses. They're talking to each other and making plans. And I thought, well. Take me right into the operation right now. Getting ready to go. And Becky was with me. And we were talking about it. We prayed. And all of a sudden, they all left. They were gone. Didn't know what was going on. And my nurse came in and said, you didn't have a heart attack. But we don't know what's wrong with you. We're going to try to figure that out. And they did. And believe it or not, it just ended up being a kidney stone. You wouldn't think kidney stone would hurt so bad, but it did. It was painful, absolutely painful. And so they put me in a room, and they said, after they did some tests, they found out what it was. And they said, OK, we'll take it out tomorrow. We'll have an operation tomorrow. We'll take it out. And you'll be better. And they're giving me pain medication and all that stuff like that. And, you know, what can happen, patient in tribulation, that's where I'm going with this, you know. So I'm laying in the hospital bed and the pain medication is wearing off. So I called the nurse. She was such a sweet nurse. She's a wonderful girl, you know. And I said, I'm in terrible pain. I need the pain medication. She said, no, you can't. You can't have it. You can't have it for another two hours. Patient in tribulation. I'm kidding. I didn't feel very patient. I said, oh, please. Isn't there something that you can do? She said, no, I can't. I'm sorry. And I said, I don't think I'm going to make it two hours. She said, well, I can bring you some Tylenol. I said, yeah, OK, do that. That's something that we can do. So she did. And I can tell you, she really felt sorry for me. She really did. And I thanked her, and I was so glad. You know what? I won't go into detail, but I didn't have to have an operation. That problem took care of itself, which was great. And I called her and told her, it's all done. We're fine now. And she was happy. And she said, I'll bring you some pain medication in an hour. I said, you don't need to. Not unless I call for you. It's done. I'm not hurting anymore. And I didn't take any more. Patient tribulation, it's hard. It's one of the hardest things that God has us to do. But it can be done by his grace. What you're going through, even here at Sentinella, you can go through it by His grace. Be patient in the midst of trouble. Be patient in the midst of tribulation. Wait on the Lord. Look to Him. Trust in Him. And then the last point, because I went backwards on this one, is rejoice in hope. Rejoice in hope. You know, there's three, faith, hope, and love. There's three, right? Faith, hope, and love. And I kind of think maybe, at least to me, hope is the one that gets the least publicity. At least to me, it does. Faith, we talk about faith all the time. And love, we talk about love all the time. Well, hope, yeah, we talk about hope. But the Bible says faith, hope, and love, these three. And hope is a wonderful thing to have. The second coming of the Lord is called the blessed hope, and rightfully so. And we rejoice in the hope of our salvation. Let me just read you a couple scriptures here. We rejoice in the hope of our salvation, 1 Thessalonians 5.8, but let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. That's 1 Thessalonians, but doesn't it sound a lot like Ephesians 5? It does, the Christian in armor, and the armor that we have. We of the day, let's be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. And then we rejoice in the hope of our justification. Galatians 5 5 says for we through the spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith Now this one comes in a context the hope of righteousness by faith Paul's fighting against the Judaizers whose hope is in their law-keeping and You know the justifications by faith alone And the entire process we call salvation is actually not finalized until we're with the Lord. Salvation comes to us in three tenses. I'm sure you know that. We have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. And God sees us today, right now, through the sacrifice of sin by Christ, as perfect in his sight. But the reality is, you know, that you're still battling with sin, I'm still battling with sin, you know. And sometimes losing. But God sees us as perfect because of Christ. And so we battle, and we battle, and we battle. But one day the battle's gonna be over, the victory's gonna be won, and we'll enter the eternal state where there never can enter sin or anything that defiles anymore. And we rejoice when we think of that day because we hope for it. We hope for it. But one day faith will be sight. One day hope will not be needed and we'll continue with Christ in love for him and in love for one another for the rest of eternity. I can't imagine what that's going to be like. I really can't. but I hope for it, and you can hope for it too. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for your matchless love, a love like we've never known. Father, we thank you that you love us in Christ, your only son, your beloved son, and we're in him, so we are loved in him. How we thank you for that. Lord, there's so many things that we could say and we could go on with, but I pray, Lord, that you would burn maybe one or two of these things into the heart of each person here today, Father. Would you burn it into them, burn it into their heart, burn it into their memory? Cause us to be encouraged by your word. May Jesus Christ be praised. I pray for this church, strengthen them, encourage them, lead them forward by your grace. And Lord, I thank you for your love. Thank you for your mercy. We thank you for Jesus Christ, the Lord. Help us to be patient in tribulation, for we shall have tribulation. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. We thank you, Father, for the great overcomer. We thank you for the captain of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. We look to him and we trust him. And Father, may he be praised. In his name we pray, amen. Amen. A benediction. Right, Joel? OK. A benediction. The Bible says, therefore be imitators of God, dear children. Walk in love as Christ also loved us and has given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God. Amen. Amen. May the Lord bless you.