The following presentation is brought to you by Faith Presbyterian Church Reformed. Delivering today's message will be Dr. Richard Bacon. Please be seated if you will and turn to Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10 through 13. And I realize that we have done a number of things here in Ephesians chapter 6, the first three or four verses of this passage. Lord willing, we're very soon going to begin looking in detail at the various implements of armor that God has given us. Picking up at verse 14, stand there for having your loins girt about with truth. But I would before we begin that I would like to discuss one more while of the devil with you, because. Many Christians today. Worry about things. About which they can do nothing. Well, how do I know I can't do anything? Well, there are two ways that the devil, by means of worry, can sideline you, can paralyze you in God's service. And the first is to make you think that there's nothing you can do. And the other is to think that by worrying, you can do something. And I'm going to put it to you that the answer to worry is not to sit on the sidelines, to sit on our hands, to rest on our oars, but rather the right response to worry when the devil brings worry into our hearts, into our minds, into our imaginations. The right response is for us to seek proper guidance from God. And so part of what we need to discuss this morning is how to find good guidance from God. Does that make sense? How many of you, if you had a roadmap for the future, could just take one day at a time. Okay, so what it comes down to is when we're afraid of the future, or when we fear the future, or when we're worried about the future, it's because we don't have a roadmap. Does that stand to reason? If what you just told me was true, and I had a lot of nots, that you would be able to take one day at a time if you had a roadmap, then the only reason that we can't take one day at a time is that we don't have a roadmap for the future. We think that we lack guidance for the future. Well, we'll get there eventually. We've been discussing the wiles of the devil with respect to the Christian soldier and with respect to the battle of life. And I put it to you that, indeed, everything we do is a battle. You may have noticed that in my pastoral prayer this morning, spoke about the fact that God teaches our fingers to fight, not just against physical enemies, but against spiritual enemies as well. Enemies both within and without. How many of you have ever heard someone say, or perhaps you've said it yourself, you make me angry? Yeah, most of us have heard somebody else say that at least, right? It's interesting, no one ever says, you make me worry. I may be worried about you, but what makes you angry? Well, I know what makes you angry. I don't know the particular thing that makes you angry, but I know the circumstances that are necessary to make you angry. You know, I always just swallow my anger. I'm not talking about how you react to your anger. I'm talking about that make you angry. If you swallow your anger, that's a reaction to your anger, isn't it? Okay, what is it that makes you angry? I put it to you. In fact, when I say that, more often than not, what I mean is I insist that what makes you angry is having some demand It's out of your control to fulfill. And the person who is not fulfilling that demand is the person that we claim, what were the words again? Make us angry. That's simply not true. It's worry about the future, it's worry about how things are going to come about the way we think they should come about without us being in charge. Another way the devil uses discouragement is exactly that. He gives us worry and anxiety. Now, Jesus gave us some specific commands as to what to do about worry and anxiety. Did you know that? Now, when we get to those commands, you're going to say, well, I've seen that there forever. But now I'm going to put it in context for you, that the context is not that of refusing to plan or refusing to think about the future. The context is one of fearing the future. And that's what all worry and anger comes down to. If we're angry, it's because we fear the future. Anger is a fear response. That what I'm demanding won't happen. Worry is a fear response. Anxiety or, as the Lord calls it, carefulness. There is one type of person who is especially given to defeat in this area, and we call him a perfectionist. Now, the fact that we have a name for a perfectionist. Now, don't suddenly say, well, I may have a lot of faults, but at least I'm not a perfectionist. Well, God calls us to live perfect lives, doesn't he? The difference between what God calls us to do and the perfectionist is this. The perfectionist is constantly fussing and fuming about things not getting done on his time schedule. By the time we finish this morning, if we have time to finish this morning, I think I'm going to be able to show you how Paul deals with the fact that sometimes Things are even out of the control of an apostle. Now, how does an apostle respond to the time schedule not fitting his preconceived idea of what it should be? I'll give you a hint. He didn't go to Asia. When the Holy Spirit forbade him to go to Asia, prevented him from going to Asia, was it his intention to go to Asia? Was it his purpose to go to Asia? Was it his plan to go to Asia? What happened when the Holy Spirit wouldn't let him go to Asia? He went somewhere else. He just continued with the plan and did a sharp right turn. But he continued with the plan, didn't he? He continued preaching the gospel everywhere he went. Another is the fear of the future. And also I want to speak about that a little bit because fear of the future does show up as anxiety, as worry. Well, what do you mean by fear of the future? You mean like when I'm 80 years old, Social Security won't be there? Well, I hope you've outgrown that one because when you turn 80, Social Security is not going to be there. Alright, now you can't say I've never told you anything true. Social Security will not be there by the time you folks are 80. Well, they may still be sending out checks, but they won't be worth anything. I'm going to turn this fan off, not because I'm not hot, but because it's blowing across the microphone from time to time. And I've seen the waveform, and it's bothersome coming out of the speakers. And so, until we get some new windsocks, I've got some on order. I'll just leave that off. And then the third thing that I want to do is, and this arises, I think, from the others. Oh, we were talking about when, what future. When you're 80, yes, don't even worry about that. Some people fear five minutes from now. Is that right? Now listen, I spent 25 years of my life in personal sales. Do you know what personal sales means? Hello, stranger. I've got something in my bag here that I think will help you. Let me tell you something. The longest walk you'll ever take is between the car that you showed up in and the front door of your client's place of business. Well, your prospect's place of business. That's the longest walk you'll ever take because fear can paralyze you at that point. Fear of the distant future, Fear of what's going to happen two minutes from now. And I'm going to tell you how to overcome that fear. How many of you would like to... Well, let me ask you this. How many of you are in a business or you do work where you talk to new people on a day-by-day basis? How would you like for that to be easy for you? Okay, here's what you need to do. Do what I say, whether you feel like it or not. and it will eventually become easy for you. It's never going to be easy the first time. The trouble of it is, if we don't do it, every time is the first time. Right? If you're sitting in the car and you say, man, I just can't get up the guts to go in there and talk to that guy because, well, because I'm not here for the sale, I'm not here for the business, I'm not here to help him, I'm here to gain his approval. And if you're there to gain the other guy's approval, Yeah, be afraid. Because the approval of man will desert you that fast. So, now that you know the secret, next time you sit in the car, realize, hey, I'm not here for the guy's approval. I'm here to show him what I have in my bag. And if he needs some, I think I can do a good job for him. And if he doesn't need any, that's fine. That just means I need to go down to the next guy. And you know what? When you get to the next guy, you're not going to be there for his approval either. And as long as you're calling on people for their approval, let me tell you this, and this is my experience, and like I said, I was not in sales for a couple of days. Did you ever meet somebody who's going to try sales? How often do they make it? Never. Nobody ever tries sales and succeeds. You have to be committed to bringing a product to people that you don't know yet before you're going to succeed. Now, why am I saying all that? Because fear of failure is rampant among salespeople. Am I wrong about that? How many of you have known a salesperson in your life? Maybe you've known two. Do you know the phenomenon I'm talking about? It's amazing, isn't it? We can walk up to a total stranger and ask him about something that neither one of us cares about, but we can't walk up to somebody that we can be helpful to and show them what we have to help them. Isn't that a strange state of affairs? Now, do you think that comes from God? How many of you think, that's what God put in my heart. God put in my heart to sit in that car instead of going and knocking on the door. Okay, God didn't put it there. We're all agreed on that? Anybody disagree? Okay, we're all agreed on that. Now, at some point or other, you told God, I have an idea, I have a dream, and this dream involves going up and knocking on people's doors, it involves walking up to a business place and knocking on that door, it involves talking to somebody at Lowe's or at The hardware store it involves talking to somebody somewhere, and that's part of my dream That's how I'm going to accomplish my dream how many of you at some point that was part of your dream Never It was at some point. It was part of your dream, so you didn't put the idea there that you can't do it We're eliminating some folks aren't we God didn't put it there God didn't give you the spirit of failure did he? He didn't give you the spirit of fear did he? When you told God what your dream was, you didn't put it there. Doesn't that make it a while of the devil? That means that spirit of fear that keeps you sitting in the car instead of going out and, and I don't, there's one person sitting here, I think most of you know this, I'm not spilling the beans or telling tales out of school, that is starting a window washing business. Is it okay if I say that? starting a window washing business. How many phone calls have you had so far of people saying, hey, do you have a window washing business and would you mind coming over and telling me about it? Has anybody done that yet? No, nobody called. No one's ever called me and asked me about a window washing business, so I figured they probably never called you that way either. You had to go call on them, didn't you? Yeah. And I'm not making fun of you for that. I think that's heroic. And I'm not using that word with a small H. I'm using that with a capital letter H. I think it's heroic that he goes out and does that, because here's the thing. He's doing it, oh sure, to keep his wife home, and to homeschool his children when they're born, and to make himself independent of the man. All those are good things, but I also have talked to him, and I know that what his ultimate goal is the goal that ought to be, and that is to see the glory of the knowledge of the glory of God cover the earth the way the waters cover the sea. When I received his prayer request week by week, you know what they always say? That the knowledge of the glory of the Lord would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Is that your burning desire? I'll tell you something, when that's your burning desire, you won't sit in the car in the parking lot. The devil puts that thought in your heart, that fear in your heart, in order to paralyze you. Because if you stay in the car, let me tell you how many successes there are from people who drove up to the parking lot and sat in the car. Okay, that's the whole list. You've heard them all now. That's right, there aren't any. You have to get out of the car. Perfection should not be a burden. The perfectionist asks the question, what if he says no? Well, then he's telling you to go to his neighbor. Here's what, when I was still in the service, and this has been some number of years ago, I mean, maybe not World War II brown boot days, but a long time ago. After I became a Christian, I said, you know, we need to tell some other folks about this. This is good stuff. We need to let as many people know about this as we can. And so here's what we did. This is back in the days of squad bays. Now, you probably can't do it anymore. You probably have to have a knock on a door nowadays. The barracks have become dormitories, haven't they? But back in those days, we had what they called squad bay barracks, and that means that you basically all undressed in front of each other in the same squad bay, right? You all know what I'm talking about? A big open bay like this, and maybe there would be cubicle dividers, maybe not. It depended upon where you were stationed. Most of the buildings that I lived in were built in World War II. Some of the newer ones were built during the Korean War. But it was a long time, I told you it was a long time ago. And here's what we'd do. We'd walk into a squad bay, pretty much unannounced, and just ask the first person that we saw, Are you the person who was asking about a Bible study or was that somebody else here in this building? Now, I never picked out the right guy the first time. But here's what they would say. No, you need that Holy Joe up on the next floor. That guy does nothing but spot religion to us day and night. Thank you very much. What was his name again? Now, I didn't know a lot, but I could do that. I mean, this is before I even knew about a bridge illustration. I could do that. I could say, hey, are you that spiritual guy? No, but I know exactly who you're talking about. That's great. Let's go get a Bible study started. The perfectionist wants a yes answer every time, doesn't he? You're not going to get that. Go ahead and just throw that out the window. Get rid of that idea you're not going to get yes every time. In fact, if you just keep track, you'll know how many no's it takes to come to a yes. Right? And then you just play the averages. You know, frequently in scripture we're warned about the cares of this world. In fact, in Mark 4, 19, let me show you something. In Mark chapter 4, This is the parable of the sower and the seed. You know that story? And we learn that the sower sows the word, and they that are by the wayside where the word is sown, when they have heard, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. Now, that's the only mention of Satan in the passage, but do you suppose these other things have no satanic activity involved with them? Do you think, oh, well, if I can't just feel it out before they hear it, I guess I'm sunk and the devil goes home with his tail between his legs. I don't think so. I think the rest of these things that choke out the word, that dry up the word, are just as much from the devil. Now look at this. They have no root in themselves, that is to say, some of them that fall among the rocky ground, they have no root in themselves, so when affliction or persecution comes along, They're immediately offended. They dry up and blow away. Ever know anybody like that? You never ever know anybody. Hey, as soon as the going gets tough, he gets going all right, but he gets going backwards. You ever know that guy? You ever meet that guy? Don't be that guy. That's devilish. That is from the devil. That persecution is not designed to hurt you. The persecution is designed simply to get you to quit. As soon as you quit, the persecution will stop. And that's why the persecution is there, to get you to stop. It's from the devil. But now look at the next one. Verse 18, they that are sown among thorns are such as hear the word, now look at this, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. Now notice he doesn't say riches. He says the deceitfulness of riches. It's the deceitfulness that starves your heart. And these things do afflict God's people. How many of you have nothing to worry about but one thing? Just one thing happening in your life right now. You don't have a family to take care of. You don't have a church to become part of. You don't have anything to do with the kingdom of God. You're not building a business. You only have one thing to take care of you to take care of. How many of you are in that situation? Nobody, nobody is in that situation. Now, the question is not, do you have plenty of cares around you going on around you constantly? The question is, are you going to let it choke out the word? The afflictions are there, so also are those weeds, the weeds in your life, the other things, right? It doesn't say it doesn't say the lust of bad things entering in the lust of wicked things entering in. It's just the lust of what? Other things. Let me interpret that for you. It means not keeping the main thing, the main thing. Letting other things become the main thing. Remember Martha? If we have time this morning, I'm going to come back to Martha a few times, but turn with me to Luke chapter 10. I rather suspect that most of us would think that Martha was a pretty good gal, and what does Mary think she's doing just sitting around? What a layabout that Mary was. Now, Martha was a go-getter. We like Martha. Right? Martha's busy. Jesus is going to turn all this upside down on us. Listen to what he said. Now, verse 38. Now it came to pass as they went that he entered into a certain village and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving and came to him and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she helped me. And Jesus answered and said unto her Martha Martha thou art careful and troubled about many things. The word that we have translated here is troubled. We would think of it this way today distracted. You're just constantly flitting from one thing to another. You're running from one end of the house to the other. You've constantly got something going on, but you forgot that the reason you invited me to your house was to listen to me. She didn't keep the main thing, the main thing. Suddenly, she was cumbered about with good things. Of course, isn't serving the Lord good things? Isn't fixing dinner for the crowd, isn't that a good thing? Yes, they're all good things, but Jesus chided her for it. He said, you've left off making the main thing the main thing, and you've let all these other things enter in. Look how he finishes, but one thing is needful. And Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. In other words, that's where Martha should have been too. Martha, after inviting Jesus to her house, it's not just to have him over for lunch. The reason to invite Jesus into your house is to listen to what he has to say, to hear his counsel. Does that make sense? So, yeah, Martha was a good person in the respect that she was busy, she was doing good things, but she wasn't doing the main thing. And we need to chide ourselves when we let other things. Become the main thing. In fact, I put it to you that she scarcely knew what she was doing. Her mind was preoccupied. And the devil can fill our minds, can fill our hearts, can fill our imaginations with many legitimate things, but they become burdensome and they crowd out spiritual matters. Now, this perfectionist, this type of person that we're talking about, gives great attention to the minutia of life, the small things. He knows where he left every marble he's ever held in his life. But, he doesn't see himself in the right way of casting all his cares upon the Lord. Rather, he sees, if I don't take care of this, It's not going to happen. I'm the one who has to do this. And if I don't do it, it just isn't going to get done. And so I have to be about doing what? Everything. And I have to do it how? Perfectly. And if I don't do it perfectly, I need to get out the whip and start banging myself on the back. Oh, I may not do it physically, but emotionally, mentally, do we not whip ourselves? Well, welcome to the world of free justification. God said, confess that and it's forgiven. Are you supposed to be perfect? Yes, but don't think for a moment that God casts you off for being imperfect. You were imperfect when he found you. You're going to die imperfect. When in between there, were you thinking you were going to get perfect? The perfectionist is simply... We don't say perfectionist anymore. You know what we say nowadays? I don't like this term, but this is the term that you're used to hearing. Control freak. That's the perfectionist. So, the parable of the sower. The devil does take the seed away, but I put it also to you that he chokes the word. And here's another warning from Christ. Turn to Luke chapter 21. You still have Luke open? Look at verse 34 through 36. Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. And some of us are already congratulating ourselves. Boy, I don't do that. I'm not a drunk anymore. I'm not a surfeiter anymore. Surfer, maybe, but not a surfeiter anymore. I don't overdo. I don't overindulge anymore. And maybe some of you are thinking, well, I never did those things. But wait a minute. Stay with me. Let's look at the rest of what Jesus has to say in verse 34. With surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life. so that that day comes upon you, for as a snare it shall come upon all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth." Now, who do you think sets snares for your soul? Do you think that's God doing that? How many of you think God sets snares for your soul? Do you set snares for your own soul? Who do you think does that? Yeah, it's got to be the devil, doesn't it? Now, Jesus has given us some good wisdom here. He says, don't be taken up with these things. Now, he doesn't say don't do anything. He says it's the cares of the other things. It's the burdens of feeling like it has to be perfect. Well, how do we meet that challenge? If you are a perfectionist, let me give you a couple of hints. First of all, recognize that the devil wants to paralyze you. He wants to have you thinking that nothing you do can ever be good enough to please God. Well, if nothing you can do can ever please God, how much are you going to do to please God? Some of us, some of us fathers are learning this lesson. Hopefully we're all learning this lesson, some younger, some older, but we're learning this lesson. And that is this, that we don't leave our children with the idea that they can never please us. What happens if we leave our children with the idea they can't please us? They'll quit trying. Now, if you have the idea that you can't please God, what's going to happen? Once saved, always saved. It's okay. I'm justified. God's as pleased with me as He has to be. I'll just go on living the life I was living before. Does that sound familiar? That's number one, recognize that this is from the devil. Secondly, remember, recognize then remember, that there is sufficient time in every day to do 100% of God's will. Now, is that a freeing concept? How much of God's will can you get done today? All of it. There is enough time. God has given you enough time every single day for you to do all His will for that day. Concern yourself about tomorrow, Jesus said, when tomorrow gets here. Right now, today, there is sufficient time for you to do 100% of what He wants. If you think there's not time for you to do 100% of His will, you're probably doing a lot of things that aren't His will. That's the other thing that we're talking about here. There is time to do all God's holy will. So recognize, remember, and third, realize the need for some self-discipline. The fact that there's time to do God's will doesn't mean you're going to do God's will unless you get up off your hands and do it. The time to do God's will is there. God gives you 168 hours every week. There is time to do God's will without you going about like Martha, cumbered with everything, worrying about making other things into the main thing. There is time for you to do everything, but it's going to require some self-discipline on your part. What do you mean by self-discipline? Remember that guy in the book of Proverbs, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. And poverty comes upon him like an armed man, like a soldier ready for battle. You need to get up off your hands. You need to quit turning in your bed like a hinge. You need to stand up and do God's will. And if you stand up and do God's will, there is time to do all of it. You know, in Second Timothy, Paul wrote to Timothy from prison. Did you know that the Second Timothy is a prison epistle? We designate certain of Paul's epistles as prison epistles, not because they're about prison, but because that's where he wrote them from. Second Timothy is one of them. Turn, if you will, to the book of Second Timothy. It's remarkable. I'm going to come back to verse 7 a little bit later. I'm not there yet. I may not have time to get there this morning. But look at verse 11, where unto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles, for the which cause, because I am all those things, I also suffer these things, that is to say, he suffers being a prisoner, because of the gospel. Now here's what he says, nevertheless, I'm not ashamed because for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I committed unto him against that day. There's the secret to a relaxed attitude, a right attitude, a right notion toward getting all of God's will done. you have to be persuaded that you've committed it to God, have you? Is there that twinge of conscience in the back of your mind saying, you know, this and this and this, yes, you have, but this over here, no, you haven't. Well, here's the part of your life that Jesus Christ claims control over. All of it. Every last moment, every last thought Every last deed belongs to him. There is, let me say it the other way, there is no part of your life over which Christ does not say, that's mine. Now, when you've committed all of your life to Jesus Christ, you can say like Paul did, yeah, I'm in prison. That just means I have to write this letter from prison. I'm still going to write letters. I'm still going to minister to Timothy. I'm still going to write to the Philippians. I'm still going to do all the things that God has called me to do. We just may have to put it off a couple of years. Now it seems he wants me to slow down for a minute because he put me in prison. In other words, Paul kept his life under control, even when it seemed not to be under control, under his control. Consider Martha by way of contrast. Contrast Martha to Paul. What would Martha have been like in prison? Not that Martha. The Martha in the Bible. What would Martha have been like in prison? Do you think she could have sat still for a couple of minutes? She'd have just been bouncing off the walls eventually, wouldn't she? Martha had to get a right perspective. A perspective like Paul had. Martha's tasks were all important tasks. I'm not going to say that there were some of them that were important and some of them were unimportant. They were all important tasks, but they weren't all the main thing. We need to keep the main thing, the main thing. Let's see if we've got time to get to the second thing, and that is self-discipline. Self-discipline is impossible if you fear the future. Self-discipline. is impossible if you fear the future. Worry about the future arises from the devil using your imagination against you. You imagine bad things happening to you, and so you become fearful about the future. Thus, in Matthew chapter 6, Some of you are familiar with this passage. Some of you are more familiar with the way it's been misused than the way it ought to be used. In Matthew chapter 6, I'm going to start at verse 24. No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Now, you all know how that's been abused, right? That means you can't be a good Christian if you have any money. Have you all heard it interpreted that way? Or I should say misinterpreted that way? But that's not what he's saying. He's saying that if you serve money as though it were a god, you can't serve God. In other words, when money becomes an idol to you, you're now a false worshipper. You're an idolater. You can't serve God and serve mammon. Therefore, I say unto you... Now, listen to his advice. This is how you're going to keep from mammon becoming a god to you. Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on, is not the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them, are you not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature? How many of you can think about it and get taller? You can't think about putting elevator heels on your shoes. Okay, now I'm worried about being taller. Did that work? Am I taller? No, well, so worrying doesn't fix it, does it? And that's what Jesus is talking about here. When He says, taking thought for the morrow, He's not saying, don't plan anything. He's saying, don't be anxious, don't be worried. Don't be in one of those worry warts that are constantly fearful about, oh no, what if I run out of money? Well, where'd you get the money you've got? Did God give you that money? How many of you have something God didn't give you? Well, if you got something God didn't give you, where'd you get it? OK, now, if we've all agreed that everything you have, God gave to you, if you lose it, where are you going to go for more? Back to God. That's what he's saying. He's not saying don't make plans. He's saying don't be so anxious about tomorrow that you think God can't replace the stuff you lose. In fact, at one point in one of the parables, he said the fault with the wicked steward was that he was concerned about losing it more than he was concerned about multiplying it. He said you should have taken it down to the bank at least and gotten usury on it. We have here a specific command then, take no thought for the morrow. The command is don't make plans. The command is don't be anxious, not to worry, because worry is not only a waste of time and energy. How is it a waste of time and energy? Every moment you spend worrying is wasted time. It didn't do you a bit of good. It's also disobedience. If you're worrying, if you're afraid of the future, and again, I'm talking about five minutes from now, or five days from now, or five years from now, or five decades from now. If you're worried about the future, you're being disobedient to God. Jesus Christ in the flesh said, quit it. Take no thought for tomorrow of what you're going to put on. He's not saying don't make any plans. He's not saying if you have to be at church tomorrow, don't worry about ironing your shirt today. What he's saying is, don't worry about tomorrow because you can't change tomorrow by worrying about it. So we have that specific command. If you live in dread of the future, you will make unwise decisions in the present. or you'll make no decisions at all. And that's just paralysis. Thus we get down to verse 30. Here in 624 and 625 we've looked at. Drop down to verse 30. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you? What does he call a worrier? O ye of little faith. You worriers, you that are afraid of the future, those of you who are sitting on your hands, you're paralyzed because you're afraid of what's going to happen tomorrow. Here's what Jesus calls you. Little faith. Now, that's not a compliment. He's not saying, well, your faith is little, but at least you've got some. He's saying your faith is little and it should be great. And in verse 32, look at what he says. After all these things, Do the Gentiles seek? Now, how many of you think he's paying a compliment to people to say they're like Gentiles? Now, I know we are Gentiles. I mean, that's to say we come from Gentile backgrounds. We're the nations around the Jews. But, understand he's not paying a compliment. When he says Gentiles, he's talking about you are worrying about the same things that unbelievers worry about. If you're acting like you don't have a loving father who's going to take care of you, do you see why it's little faith? If you act like someone who doesn't believe in God, why should we call you? Well, little faith at least, or maybe no faith at all. So, it's a waste of time and energy, it's disobedient, But it also means that we have to be forgetful of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Paul could voice the faith of 2 Timothy 1.12 because he had already voiced the faith of 2 Timothy 1.7. Turn back to 2 Timothy with me just for a moment. Look what he says. Verse 7, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Now, may I suggest to you that a sound mind includes, among other things, self-discipline, self-control, orderliness. And all of these are for the reason that Timothy can be a good soldier. Thou therefore, my son, chapter 2, thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also." We all know 2 Timothy 2, 2, right? Look at the next verse. Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. This is what soldiers do. We have to have self-control, self-discipline, orderliness in our lives if we're going to be good soldiers in times of hardness, in times of affliction, in times of difficulty. What kind of difficulty are you talking about? Let's make it simple. While you're sitting in the parking lot in that hot car because you go knock on a door, you'd rather swelter and sweat in a hot car than go offer somebody something that you thought was a pretty good deal when you put it in your bag. Third and finally, With this, I will try to close. This is really the longest part. This is almost another sermon. Maybe it will be someday. But the third thing I want to talk to you about is the fact that Christians worry when they misunderstand the biblical doctrine of guidance. Guidance. G-U-I-D-A-N-C-E. Does God guide his people? The short answer is yes. The long answer is probably not the way you think. Hopefully it's the way you think, but there are people, in fact, there are many more people who will listen to this sermon on the internet and by CD than are sitting here. So I have to say it in those broad terms. You see, when people get serious about living for Christ, and I think we all ought to be serious about living for Christ, Seriously, Lord save us from the half in, half out. The person with one foot in heaven and the other foot in hell. We don't need people like that. God doesn't need people like that, but the devil loves loading the church up with people like that. But what happens when people do get serious about living for Christ, about following Christ, they can become quite distraught over not being able to discern what they typically refer to as the perfect will of God. In fact, there have been whole books, I suppose probably whole libraries full of books, written on this subject. Now, that being the case, do you suppose there might be a few folks out there buying those books? And if there are a few folks out there buying those books, do you think it's because they don't care what God wants them to do? No, it's because they want guidance into the perfect will of God, whatever they mean by that. Now let me tell you, I can tell you right now what the perfect will of God is for you. Would you love to hear it? Because it's the same for all of you. It's got 10 words, 10 commandments, and it begins with, thou shalt have no other gods before me. That is God's perfect will for you. When you're keeping those commandments, you are in the very center of God's will. That is God's individual moral will for you. His specific will, His ideal will, the very center of His will. How many of you have heard phrases like that? The very center of His will. Now, we don't want to be slopping out here around the outside of His will. you know, just inside the circumference. No, we want to be in the very center of God's will. Well, how many of you think the Bible even talks that way? How many of you have found that verse that talks about us being in the very center of God's will? Okay, that should be the first hint that maybe there is no such thing. The will of God is a place of freedom. That's why God refers to his law as the royal law of freedom. Here's what you're free to do. Keep God's commandments. But because everybody wants steps, right? Seven steps to a happy life, 10 steps to a productive life, 18 steps to make your business grow. Am I wrong? Isn't that what sells books? steps to decision making in the will of God. All the talk about perfect will simply means that a person wants to make the right decisions in his life, right? I mean, let's boil it down to what we really want. What we want is to make the right decisions, decisions that are pleasing to God. Now, if our decision is pleasing to God, how is that not the very center of his will? Am I missing something important? I'll say it again, if our decision is pleasing to God. Why is that not the very center of his will? So here's the key thing. We need to learn how to make decisions that are pleasing to God. So. Before you make any decisions. Before you go out there and decide to get married or stay single, before you decide to buy a car or sell a car, before you decide that you need a car, before you decide to take the bus or the train, before you decide to wear a white shirt or a blue shirt, before you decide what else you're going to do, here's what you have to do. You have to decide to read the Bible. Now, everything that pertains to life and godliness is here. All the other steps notwithstanding, we must begin with knowing the Bible. We must begin with knowing the Word of God. No, that's not a step. That permeates everything. We have to know the Word of God. We have to be able to follow God's commands, and the only way we can follow God's commands is if we know what His commands are. Now, how many of you think that I'm just shooting wild? I don't think this is crazy. I think this is liberating. This gets us off that perfectionist nonsense about the perfect will of God. The perfect will of God is to do what He says and to make decisions that please Him. That is the perfect will of God. All right, let's learn how to do that. Step number one, you have to have a godly purpose. We don't just go through life doing things, and then when we're all done saying, well, my purpose was to walk a crooked line. No, the purpose, a person must have a purpose in his mind, in his heart. God will give it to you. If you don't have one, ask for one. Call it a dream if you want to. God calls it a purpose. You call it whatever you want to. Get your one. and follow that and make all the decisions that you're going to make for the rest of your life in light of that purpose. So that's step number one. Get a purpose. You must have life goals and those life goals have to be based on God's revelation. Your life goal cannot be to become the best dance hall girl in town. That is not God's will for you. It must be in the context of God's revelation. Without life goals, without life purpose, without dreams, you cannot make right decisions. Because what are you deciding to do? Maybe you're deciding to get farther from your goal and you don't even know it because you don't know what your goal is. Before you start the race, figure out where the finish line is. Step two. Priorities. Purpose. You're going to see this all piece. Purpose, priorities. You set your priorities in terms of your purpose. What's first important, second important, third important? How do I know if I'm keeping the main thing the main thing, or if I've let some other thing become the main thing? How do I know? You have to set priorities in accordance with your purpose, in accordance with your dream. Does this further the dream? Or does this retard the dream? Does this bring me closer to my purpose? Does this push me toward my goal? Or is my goal farther away now because I've set a wrong priority? So what's the second step? Priorities. Purpose, priorities. Now that we've got priorities, we can make plans. How many of you have heard a phrase something like this? If you're not No, if you're failing to plan, then you're planning to fail, or something like that. Well, there's some truth to that, if I can figure out how to say it. There's some truth to that. If you don't have plans, every day you wake up to a new world. You have to devise plans that give you a strategy for obtaining your purpose and priorities. And fourth, and I've got it fourth not because it's fourth in importance or because it's fourth in order, but because I wanted you to get some good solid steps that you could chew on first, prayer. The whole thing has to be bathed in prayer. You have to understand that you have to talk to God. You have to let him know what you're doing and why you're doing it. The entirety of your life needs to be prayerful attention to God's priorities, God's purposes. And the reason this is important is because as your purpose becomes God's purpose, I'll guarantee you success. God's gonna succeed. So what you want is for your purpose to be the same as God's purpose, right? If God's gonna succeed at His purpose, doesn't it make sense that your purpose should be the same as His? And the way you do that is by staying in touch with God. Continue to read the scriptures, continue to pray, and number five is perseverance. What happens when the going gets tough? Come on, you know this. What happens when the going gets tough? The tough get going. You don't quit at the first sign of difficulty, but you keep on working the plan albeit with a different timetable. Well, what if they throw me in jail? Then you can get caught up on your letter writing. But you keep on working the plan. You keep on making your priorities the way they need to be, making your plans the way they need to be. You simply have something new to take into account for your planning now. But that doesn't change your priorities. You just keep on keeping on. You keep on doing what you know God will bless. Don't become discouraged, in other words. That was last week. Don't become discouraged. And then sixth and finally, because I wanted them to be all Ps, by the time I got to number five, they were all Ps, so six is a P also. And if you think, well, that's a silly word for that, now you know why. Presentation. And here's what I mean by that. Talk about it. Discuss it. Receive counsel about it. Present it. Don't just go out and do things willy-nilly. Talk to other people. Does this make sense? In light of my... I've told you what my purpose is. I've told you what my goals are. I've told you what my priorities are. I've told you what my plan is. Now, does this make sense to you? If you can think of a better P word than presentation, you let me know what it is afterwards and I'll change my notes. But, kerthunk, that was the other shoe falling. When you're presenting it to people, be careful who you present it to because some people will steal that dream from you. Be careful who you tell about your dream. Be careful who you tell about your goal. Be careful who you tell about your purpose, because many people are professional dream stealers. People are lined up at the door to tell you that it's impossible. Now, who do you think sent them? Do you think God sent them? Did you call them on the phone? Then who do you suppose sent them? In making your presentation, In talking about your plan, in talking about your purposes, in talking about the things that you have in mind, don't let people steal your dream. Now, say, well, you know, I've been giving some serious thought to entering a steeplechase this weekend. I don't have a horse, but I'm thinking about buying a horse because steeplechase looks like a lot of fun. It's not stealing my dream to tell me, hey, winning a steeplechase and buying a horse has nothing whatsoever to do with growing Faith Presbyterian Church of Rowlett. It has nothing to do with anything you've ever said about your dream in the past. Give up the idea of. Now, that's not stealing a dream. Stealing a dream is just helping you to hang on to the dream. Counseling you against the steeplechase is helping you to hang on to the dream rather than letting it go. I'm going to show you one last thing, and I know you've heard this before. Some of you, I think, camp on this verse. Not that that's a bad thing. Turn to Psalm 1. I'm going to emphasize a word for you here. Look at verse 2. I've already talked to you about verse 1 when we talked about 1 Corinthians 6, right? Talked about 1 Corinthians 6. Why are you going to law? Why are you going before those heathen judges, those unbelievers? Why would you stand in the counsel of the ungodly? Now, verse 2 and 3 says, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law does he meditate from time to time when he can work it into a schedule. Okay, that's one of the modern versions. The authorized version says day and night, doesn't it? Day and night. He meditates there in day and night. Here's why. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. Well, what fruit is it talking about? His leaf also shall not wither. What leaf is it talking about? What is your fruit? What is your leaf? Look at this. And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. What is your leaf? It's whatsoever you doeth. What's your fruit? It's whatsoever you doeth. What is your dream? That's what's going to prosper. What is your purpose? That's what's going to prosper. Now, this is not the kind of perfect will of God where you suddenly have to have 95 steps. You have to distinguish between the good of God and the perfect of God, between the better of God and the best of God, between God's moral will and his individual will. Here's what you have to do. You have to stay on track with the law of God. That is God's moral will for you. And in that context, when God gives you a purpose, you work for that purpose, you make your priorities in light of that purpose, you make your plans in light of that purpose, you pray your prayers in light of that purpose, and as you present your purpose to others, you don't let them steal your dream. And here's what God says. If you meditate upon His law day and night as to how to bring these things to pass, whatsoever your dream is, shall prosper. Amen. Let's stand and call upon God. You have been listening to a sermon by Dr. Richard Bacon of Faith Presbyterian Church Reformed in Mesquite, Texas. For more information on FPCR Ministries, visit our website at www.fpcr.org or contact us by mail at 6702 Dalrock Road, Suite 126, PMB 214, Charlotte, Texas, 75089.