But let's take out our handouts. And by the way, I'm not sure I was late getting in because I was talking to someone, but the leadership team has designated the final Wednesday of every month to be an entire teaching time of question and answer. And so start thinking about, and this is not about sports or anything else, it's about counseling. Okay, I mean we're limiting what we're doing. But next week and the last Wednesday of every month, it's going to be, do you remember one time we did a little Q&A on counseling issues and so many of you had more questions that we decided we're going to do that as the last class of every month. So next week, The whole teaching time will be Q&A. If there aren't any Q&A, we're going to dismiss early. You know, if you don't have any questions. I'm just teasing. I'm sure that there'll be questions. But that, you can plan on that. Like if you have, wondering where to start with some issue, like where would be the first place you'd go in the Bible if someone is abused, or if someone's husband is going to divorce them, how would you counsel them? and those kind of issues, or questions about even the text or lessons that we've done. So remember that as the last one for each time. Also, in your handouts, many of you said, I didn't finish two weeks ago. How many of you told me that? OK. Yeah. Come on. Be bold. OK. The fill in the blanks are underlined in here. And we're covering it tonight. But so that those of you that like completion, You can go back to your old fill in the blank and the blanks, the answers are underlined in the headers there. So you can find those there. But let's begin. Tonight I'm finishing last week's platform exposure to temptation uh... to sin and what i'm using this for is explain to you how you can counsel and disciple people using this understanding where they are how far they've gotten in their overcoming sin by faith or their giving in to sin by habit and that's that's the two uh... directions that we go uh... but Tonight, our theme verse for the month is the reminder that temptations are always stalking us. And I disciple a young college student. And I've been meeting with them for a long time, and they came to me and they said, I've come to the point that I can't remember the last time I looked at pornography on the computer. I said, that's a real blessing. But they said, I have this sense of like, I need to watch out because I might slide back in. And I went right into tonight's, I said, yes, because temptations are always stalking you. Remember what it says, let everyone take heed lest you fall. When you think you've made it, take heed lest you fall, because temptations are always stalking us. So what I thought we'd do is, recite our verse together. So if you have learned it in the New King James, you can just close your eyes, and if you hadn't, you can read it here or say it in your version, but let's repeat it together. No temptation has overtaken you, except such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. Now, the spiritual law of sowing and reaping tells us that every time we yield to temptation, we reap a result of that. And every time we yield to the spirit, we also will reap a result of that. And then we began looking at the consequences in daily life. So let's take our sheets. And what I'm going to do is, starting on that consequences in daily life on your sheets, remind you. And this is a little bit what we ended with last week. Consequences abound in our life. Driving over the speed limit can get us a ticket. Driving under the influence can get us losing our license. Not paying your rent can make you be evicted. Not showing up for work can get you fired. And as all of us who have... Relatives in the military know that if you get your drill sergeant upset at you, it can be painful. And so what happens is sensible, as I wrote here, people who are law-abiding and moral, and I'm saying they're unsaved, but they kind of learned the ropes, as it were, they learned that it causes less trouble for themselves in their life, and they're better off as long as they live in this kind of moderate way. And compared to the person who is irresponsible or promiscuous and gets some STD or who abuses alcohol and drugs and can't get a job, neither type of individual. And that's what I was just talking to someone and they told me that they deal with this businessman. They said that they're actually nicer than a lot of people they know in church. There are those kind of people. They're so moral, but that doesn't get you to heaven. But what the Lord does is in this present life, their life is better off. if they see this balance of avoiding, you know, overdoing the evil and kind of lightly staying, they've learned that balance. And if they follow it as best as they can, even if their motives are self-serving, it helps them. Now, this is what the Lord says. Look at 1 Corinthians 4, 5. It's printed out for you. The Lord says, judge nothing before the appointed time. The reason I think Paul wrote this is that sometimes we look at some unsaved people and they almost have a better life than saved people sometimes. You ever notice that? The saved people are scraping along, some of them, and they have all the struggles, and they move from job to job, and they struggle with their health, and then it looks like this unsaved person is just having no problems. But the Lord says he'll bring to light what's hidden in darkness. He will expose the motives of their hearts, and each one will receive in the end from the Lord. And the consequences of life are inexorable and unavoidable, and they don't usually bring immediate consequences. So what we have to explain to people as we counsel them is, and this happens to me all the time, I'll talk to couples, and one or the other of them is dead set that they don't want to get you know, back together. And the other one will say, they are living in sin and the Lord's not doing anything. And I am trying to obey the Lord and everything's going wrong for me. And this right here is what I tell them. It's just because God's judgment are usually long delayed. See, the Lord doesn't instantly ramp up the consequence into the life. And so we have to tell them that they should realize that there will be negative consequences for the believer. And you can read the rest, which I read last week, but now turn to Galatians 5 in your Bible, and I'm going to show you In Galatians 5, and something, if you haven't yet marked it, this is one of those neat things to have marked in your Bible. Starting in verse 19, you'll see there are 17 listed sins. You can count them. And if you go through them, you'll notice, if you circle them, eight of them have to do with interpersonal relationships. What you see is sin shows up very frequently in how we get along with people. And that's what the Lord is talking about here, because most people, most believers would say that adultery and fornication and uncleanness and lewdness are really bad, and so is idolatry, verse 20, and sorcery. But they still hate people. They still have contentions. They still get jealous. They still excuse outbursts of wrath. They still almost condone selfish ambition. They side with those who are having dissensions and heresies. They are guilty of envy, but murder is wrong, and drunkenness is wrong, and revelry is wrong. Do you see what's going on there? They're almost the excused comfortable sins that we say, yeah, they have a problem with their temper. They have a problem with always wanting the best or whatever. They're envious. But what's amazing is that the Lord says, that there are negative consequences for believers who persist in sins that God has said grieve and quench the Holy Spirit. So what are they? These are some of your fill-in-the-blanks that some of you want to know, and these are the negative consequences that believers can face. One is you can have a lost opportunity for service if we're not alert to God's leading. You know, we should be very careful. Some people have got this idea that God is going to do his will no matter what I do. And there is a sense in which God has a will that is what we call his will of decree and it's going to happen, but within His allowance for us, we have choices we can make. That's why the Lord says some of the things you choose are going to make your life burn up. Everything you've done is going to be, and you're going to suffer loss. That's a choice. That's not God's will. Others are going to be rewarded. That's a choice. God didn't force that to happen. And so there are opportunities for service. If we are not in step, in tune, in sync with the Spirit, we will miss. For example, have you ever felt in your heart you're talking to someone either on the phone, you see him in person, or you bump into him, and as you're talking to him, you feel this sense, I should say something, I should say something, I should say something, I should say something, but we don't, we don't, we don't. We have missed what would be a prompting of the Spirit to serve the Lord, and that was an opportunity for service. We felt we should have, maybe confronted them about their sin, or we felt we should have encouraged them, or maybe shared the gospel if they're lost, or else told them how the Lord is at work in our life, and we don't, and we've missed an opportunity for service. That's a negative consequence that we can face. Here's another one. Every time we excuse our Galatians 5 works of the flesh, and we are, in verse 20, have hatred towards someone that hurt us, even though we don't call it hatred, we call it righteous indignation, or we're contentious. That means we argue our point. Did you know that James says that the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, then gentle, then easily entreated? Do you know what a mark of a spirit-filled person is? They can hold something very close in an uncontentious way. Jesus, when he answered his enemies, they marveled the way he spoke to them. I mean, they just couldn't believe that he could be so Well, it says, he spoke like no one ever spoke before. You see, we can, oh, every time I put my Bible on there, it moves the thing. If we give in to our contention or to our outbursts of anger, we have a greater propensity to make the same bad choice the next time we're tempted after having yielded to our particular sin. We can tell people as we disciple and counsel them, don't habituate sin, you'll lose opportunities for service. Don't keep on that sin because every time you do it, it's easier to do it again. What it reminds me of is, It's like when we resist sin, we're building up like a little guardrail in our life. When we allow the Holy Spirit to cause us, the grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness, there's a guardrail. But every time we give in to sin, we flatten that guardrail, and it's easier to go back in the ditch again. And that's what this is talking about. So this college student that I was meeting with this week, I said, you know what? Don't think that guardrail is permanent. You can't remember the last time? Tomorrow, you'll slip right back if you're not careful to not make the same bad choice. Now, a third consequence is we run the risk of an early death. Now, in my Bible, I always write down these verses, but I want to show them to you so you can mark them. First of all, look at 1 Corinthians, back up from Galatians, two books. Look at 1 Corinthians 11. And this is the early death verses. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 30, for this reason, many are weak and sick among you and many sleep. God judges believers. with three levels of chastisement. Weakness, we covered this about four weeks ago, but if you haven't marked it, it's verse 30 of 1 Corinthians 11. Weakness, sickness, and some sleep. Look at the next one is in James chapter five and verse 20. James five, let me get there with you. James chapter five, not verse 20. Let me back up. Verse 13 is where it starts and it goes through 20. Is any among you suffering? Let him praise. Any cheerful? Let him sing. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and they'll anoint him. And the prayer of faith, verse 15, will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, He will be forgiven. Now look at verse 16. You know, I hear this verse used, but you have to look at where verse 16 is. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another. that you may be healed. The context of this is someone who is sick because of their sin, and they have to confess. This is chastisement stuff going on here. This is someone like 1 Corinthians 11 that is weak and sick because of sin, but if they confess their sin, they're prayed over, then the Lord will heal them. And then to see more of that, look at verse 19. You see, It's talking about the erring ones within the church, and they're headed toward death. Now you say, well, that one's not clear. Well, now go to 1 John 5. And that's why you always have to look at whether or not something, there's a constant stream of this through the Scriptures. And in 1 John 5, look at verse 16. after those great prayer verses in 14 and 15, in 1 John 5, 16, almost the same wording as James 5, 20. If anyone sees a brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask and he will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death. I don't say you should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin leading to death. And we know whoever is born of God does not sin, but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one doesn't touch him. And on and on it goes. What it's talking about is there is a risk for a believer of early death. And God's Word says if you partake with unconfessed, unrepentant sins, God will judge you. and bring weakness and sickness into your life and may ultimately take you home to heaven in an untimely death. So that is part of this negative consequences that we as believers can face. Now what are some of the positive consequences? in Matthew chapter six, and these again are great to have marked in our Bibles because you want to also reinforce. Remember, we're supposed to bring up those we disciple in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Nurture is positive, admonition is negative. Now, you say, what's the balance? Well, Paul said this, the balance in the church should be reprove, rebuke, exhort. Reprove and rebuke are not always thought of as positive. Exhorting is. So sometimes in counseling, we are more hitting on the negatives, but we must never leave out, if we have a good reprove, rebuke, exhort ratio, at least a third should be this. Verse 19, and I love this, of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6. What the Lord is saying is one of the positive consequences for obedience is this. And you can read, like negative consequences, the effect of the positive consequences, and this is in your notes, the positive consequence engine at work in our lives usually doesn't show up immediately. They're long term. And this can be frustrating, especially to our generation that want everything instantaneously. And someone that thinks if they obey the Lord, they should get rewarded today, kind of like if the dog goes out, he gets a treat. God doesn't work that way. The big payoff for followers of Christ is almost majorly in the next life rather than here. And see, that's why Jesus says there, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. And much of the positive consequences are also internal. Positive consequences of knowing God include the wonderful inner qualities of wholeness. Now, you all know the Jewish expression, when Jewish people say hello to each other, what do they say? Shalom. or the word peace actually comes from a verb, a three Hebrew letter verb, S-H-L-N-M, shalom, which means to be made complete. And what the Bible says is that we who are saved have wholeness that unsaved people don't even know about. St. Augustine, 5th century, said this, we are restless until we rest in you. See, that's the wholeness that salvation brings and also fulfillment. You know, people are always looking for fulfillment. You know what the greatest fulfillment is? Knowing you're doing exactly what God designed you to do. There's something about going through life and knowing that, in fact, Proverbs, let me show you Proverbs chapter 4, and I hope I can find, I should have it marked. Let me find it, Proverbs chapter 4. Yep, here we go, verse 18. Proverbs 4.18, but the path of the just is like the shining sun that shines ever brighter to the perfect day. the way of the wicked is like darkness, and they don't even know what makes them stumble. See the contrast of the two ways? And you see how the Lord wants to give us wholeness, he wants to give us this awareness of what he's doing, and he wants to give us contentment. And the positive consequence of contentment, by the way, every time my Bible touches this it won't go, Contentment is learned. Paul said, I have learned to be content. Contentment is not a spiritual gift. It's a learned art. And it's one of the byproducts of learning to obey the Lord. Well, let's go on to the high cost of sin. And let me see. That's not in your notes, but here we go. The downward steps. Let me see if that's in your notes. Here we go. Yes, it is. Let's go to the high cost of sin so that we get through this, because last week I only got through this. The downward steps of ungodly choices. I showed you these last week. We're exposed to temptation. We trifle with sin. Psalm 66, 18 says, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord won't hear me. Then we surrender to sin. Then we start, it becomes a habit. And we know it. It's just like there's no guardrail. We just slip into that rut every time. This is where I said last week and ended that I believe most believers can get to this level, but this is where God doesn't let us go, the abandonment of God. This is where I believe between four and five is where weakness, sickness, and untimely death happens because God won't let us persistently live like an unbeliever. And then You know, it says in 2 Timothy 2, some people can actually become tools in the devil's hands used by Satan. And finally, hell sampled on earth is the ultimate. So we already covered that last week. But let's go to the next one. And in your notes, this is new for you. The upward steps of godly choices. Choice number one, deciding you want to obey God. And you know Daniel 1.8 says, Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. And this is actually where I start, especially when I'm discipling those that are trying to get out of habituated sin. I says, it starts in an instant. This is what we were talking about last week, that God's results are instantaneous. You can make a decision right now that you want to obey God. Then, the only way to overcome sin is by faith. And you know what it says in Hebrews 11, and you might not, so let's turn there. Hebrews 11, verses 25 to 27. And what amazes me as I read this is the power that God displayed in the Old Testament. This is in the life of Moses, and it says in 1125, talking about Moses, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Moses was in the court of Pharaoh. He had all the privileges. He could do anything he wanted to do. But he knew, watch what the next verse says, esteeming the reproach of Christ. Now that should get your attention. Moses. is equated with being aware of Christ. It doesn't say he knew who he was, but the reproach of Christ is equated by the writer of Hebrews with obeying God. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to the reward. You see the faith? You overcome sin by faith because you know God has a promise that you haven't yet realized that is yet ahead. But look at verse 27. It says, by faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who's invisible. It's a choice to say, God, I believe that you can deliver me from this. I believe that you are making a way of escape, like our memory verse says. I believe there's an exit there. By faith, I'm going to take it. Now, you've heard many times my story that I've told about this, but I'll always remember this verse, Hebrews 11, 27. I was on a missions team. I was traveling, delivering Bibles. I think I talked about that Sunday morning. We used to travel 6,000 miles at a time. We delivered tens of thousands of Bibles, and we worked as a team. Always we were risking going to jail. We were all college kids. And when we would get done with a trip, we'd go to a safe city in the West, not in Eastern Europe. We'd go to a safe city, and wealthy Christians had donated these palatial homes. And all these teams would gather there. One place we went in Vienna had It was the size of Downton Abbey. It had 50 bedrooms in it. And the whole team spread out through the thing. And I remember jumping out. I was the driver, and I'd been driving sometimes 12, 18 hours a day. And I was so tired that I threw my backpack on my cot. I picked a library because they had all these 17th century books, and I was all excited about it. Threw my backpack in there, ran off to the shower when I came back. one of the team members was sitting on my cot. I said, hi. And they said, well, I'm staying in this room tonight. I said, oh, OK, well, I'll get my backpack. They said, no, I'm staying with you. I says, no, you're not. And I always remember, it was the strangest thing. I reached in and got my cot, and I pulled it out from under her. And she fell down into the library, and I pulled it out. And what I said was, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes." And I pulled my cot out, like that, into the living room. And she came up to the door, and I always remember this moment, glaring at me, and she took that big, thick, as only in a castle, oak door, and just, boom, slammed it shut. Did you know, as a college kid, For about a very minuscule second, I thought, what would it have been like to have been on the other side of that door? But do you know what the Lord says? Look at verse 27 again. By faith, we overcome sin in the moment the Lord gives us grace by faith to say no to sin. It doesn't mean that that grace covers you for the rest of your life. You have to keep buying faith, overcoming sin. It isn't like you get one, it's not like an immunization to sin. It's overcoming moment by moment, situation by situation, by faith. Now, keep going to Romans 6, 18, and these should be highlighted in your Bibles because we've covered them so many times in the previous lessons, but look at verse 18 of Romans 6. Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Now, look at this. The third choice, when we're exposed to sin, we make a mental choice. We want to obey God. Then we say, Lord, I trust you for the grace to say no to sin right now. What we want to do is we want it to become a habit. And this is how Paul puts it. Look at verse 18. Having been set free from sin, you became slaves. You know, some people, they say they're slaves to their job, they're slaves to their whatever. We can become slaves to righteousness. We have become enslaved by surrendering to the Lord. Second Corinthians 2.14 says, thanks be unto God who always leads us in triumph. And the Lord, if we will surrender to follow him, he will go before us and lead us into triumph. You say, so how hard is it to fall from there down all these steps down there? See, we never arrive. It's always God that is, by His grace, as we believe, as we surrender, keeping us, but you can tumble down these stairs. We're not strapped on to any of them, but we can become. In fact, I think the college kid I was meeting with this week, I think he's right here. but he's so aware of what he used to be. And so what I encourage him to do is start memorizing Romans 6. In fact, just for a second, look, you're in Romans 6. Look at verse 11 of Romans 6. And if you haven't circled this yet, this is the turning point of the book of Romans. Verse 11 says, likewise you also, and what's the next word in your Bible? Reckon. What you can't see in your Bible is that is the very first imperative in the whole book of Romans. You have six chapters of doctrine, and then God makes a command. And you know what a command is? It's a response is requested. God says, do you want to do something based on all that Christ has done for you, all that the Spirit has done, all that the work of justification has done? Then this is what you're supposed to do. Verse 11, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive in Christ Jesus our Lord to God. It's a choice, and that choice is all this habit of surrendering. Okay, number four, look at Colossians 3 and verse 2. Colossians 3, here's another choice. And did you know this is, I love this because I regularly look at this list. And you know where this list comes from. One of the last missionaries in China was John Stamm, John and Betty Stamm, 1949. They were from Wheaton, by Chicago. They went to China as newlyweds with their infant child. They went to China in 1949 and started working there in church planning, and they were captured by Mao Zedong's army, the People's Liberation Army, and they were imprisoned, and finally they were executed. They had their heads chopped off, but before they were, they wrapped their baby up, put him in the drawer of the house that they were imprisoned in. put the baby in the drawer and shut it and prayed the Lord to take care and put a little note on the baby. And the believers came into that house after they had executed, the communists had executed John and Betty. And they said, we know there's a baby in here somewhere. And they opened all the drawers and there's this little baby who survived and lives now in Chicago. But this list was found in John Stam's Bible in the front. You can see in your notes, look at the bottom under upward steps. Do you see the little footnote? John Stam, the triumph of John and Betty Stam, Moody Press, page 22 and 23. If you ever want to read an interesting story, it's right there in your notes. But this is what John Stam taught, different words. His words are, I think he's from the 20s, and they didn't make sense to me, so I just made them a little different. But the same concept, this is what he taught the Chinese, who were opium addicts, who were all kinds of stuff. He told them that if they want to obey God, they can overcome opium. If they overcome opium by faith, God will give them the strength. They can have the habit of surrendering to God instead of opium. They can set their mind on things above, as Colossians 3 says. And now Colossians 3, 2. Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. And in verse 1, the same thing. Seek those things which are above. Both of those are Both of those verses, those action words of seek and set, are choices because they're in the imperative mode. So you can make the choice to set your mind on things above. Isaiah 33, you can make the choice of seeing the king in his beauty. You can look, that's a great verse. You can make a choice, as Paul said, be followers of me. And, as Ephesians 2, 6 through 10 says, you can, choose to live out the joys of being seated in heavenly places. So, in your notes, that quick list. Now, let's move on so we can have time to pray about this at the end. Hebrews 4 talks about how we can make a choice in our lifelong struggle. And let me read to you, identifying the flesh in our lives, this is back to your printed notes, is a lifelong task. Our flesh will do anything to avoid being put to death. We do not readily recognize the flesh in ourselves apart from obedience to Jesus and our ongoing feeding in the word. Now look at Hebrews chapter four, the text there, because I want to show you one of the signs of lack of spiritual growth that we covered a few weeks back is this idea of verse 12. The word of God, Hebrews 4.12, is living and powerful, it's sharper than any two-edged sword, and it pierces to divide between the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow and the thoughts and intents. And it's a discerner, at the end of verse 12, of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and there's nothing hidden from his sight before him, before whom we have to give an account. It's the Word of God that points out the flesh that needs mortifying. As we read the Word of God, The Spirit of God, as it says here, pierces us, and we see that we are going to have to, at the end of verse 13, give an account. Now, I had a great discussion with someone recently, and they said, are accountability groups in the Bible? And I said, no, accountability groups aren't in the Bible. An accountability group of everybody sitting around and telling what sins they're sinning isn't in the Bible, but there is, Hebrews 4.13, a group of people that are around you that say, look at the end of verse 13, do you think what you're doing in your life is gonna be pleasing to the one before whom you're gonna have to give an account? That's a true accountability group. not me wanting to know everything, every time you go in the gutter and what sin you're doing, and it's kind of like this sharing fest of who can top the other, of how bad they are. That's not, that kind of a group isn't in the Bible. That's derived from James 5, where it says, confess your faults to one another, but that's in the context of chastisement and getting delivered from sin, that you need to be healed because God is chastening you. The idea of everybody in the gutter telling about how bad they're doing is in the Bible, but this kind of accountability group is. Hebrews 4.13, where it says, Do you think that what you're doing in your life is going to please, in the eyes of him, that you're going to have to give an account to him? Do you think that's pleasing to him? That's more biblical, and there are several references to that, but that's why, and if you go under the verse that's in your notes, that's why Paul described the Christian life as, and there's a Greek word there, agonizomai. Agonizomai means a very great struggle. In fact, that's the word that we get agony from, from that Greek word. And Paul said, life is a struggle against the flesh. And my choice every day is either to feed it or mortify it, either to resist it or allow the Spirit of God through the sword of the Spirit to kill it. Now, its mortification is kind of like Roundup. You spray it on, but it isn't like you spray it once and it's good forever. The seeds come back in the wind, and you've got dandelions the next year. You can kill them, but they'll come back. So it's a lifelong struggle to do this. I only have two minutes. Okay. I'll read this, and then I want to end with us singing, so just follow along. In other words, he's saying the Christian life is a long, hard spiritual battle. In fact, if you're not struggling, you're probably not making a lot of good choices. The more good choices we make, the more our life becomes spiritually embattled because it's an agonizing thing to bring the flesh under the domination of the Holy Spirit. Now, I have a friend, Jim Berg is his name, and he likens the Christian life to being in a canoe. And he says, you can be in a canoe, or some of you like kayaks, and you can be in a river with a current, and you're just having a great time until you put your paddle in. And especially if the current is taking you away from where you want to go, as soon as you put your paddle in and pull the first time is the first time you can feel the strength of the current. And that is what the flesh is like. If this is what God wants for us, the river of our flesh is taking us this way. And all of a sudden, when we look at where the Lord wants us, if we try and resist the current and start paddling the way the Lord wants, that's this agonizomai, the denying or resisting the flesh, and that's what the lifelong struggle is. So, last point, making the choice each day to be living for Jesus. You knew I'd get here, right? I know of no clearer pathway of killing selfishness and encouraging consecration than adopting the same life purpose that Thomas Chisholm embraced in his poem, Living for Jesus. This poem expresses the marching orders of one who read these scriptures and said, Lord, how do I harness my life? How do I mortify my flesh? How do I make a lifelong choice, to go back to this, of of these things, of deciding I want to obey, and overcoming by faith, and seeking the habit of surrender. And what I see in Chisholm's poem that was put to music is, he goes through this. He says, I want to live for Jesus a life that's true. I want to strive to please him in all that I do. And I want to yield allegiance, glad-hearted and free. He just made it into a song. The next paragraph, each of us can affirm His flesh-crucifying, life-consecrating words. We can say them to the Lord because there is a positive consequence to what we express to Him. We can decide today that we want to sow to the Spirit, back where we started in Galatians 6, we can sow to the Spirit by denying and crucifying our flesh, and then we can make every day a day of living for Jesus. So I'd like to read these words with you, and then what I thought we'd do is we would sing the chorus. I understand there's some choir members in here. In fact, Mark told me some of you aren't in a choir, you're in this class." And so I said, well good, then we'll make them sing tonight. Okay, so let's read the first stanza. And then we'll sing the chorus, and then you can close. You have about five to seven minutes that you can discuss anything you need to before you go, but let's read that line here. I think I even printed it out, this one, but it's in your notes. Together, living for Jesus a life that is true, striving to please him in all that I do, yielding allegiance, glad-hearted and free, This is the pathway of blessing for me. Now on the chorus, you should know it by now because I think we have, if I counted John Althoff's count, I think we've sung this 50 times in the last four years. Almost once a month I get to it. But this chorus is actually a prayer that we can make. It's the prayer of surrender that is just like here, deciding you want and seeking the habit of surrender. If you want to understand that idea, think of this chorus. So let's see if we can, if you know the words well enough, use your papers, but if you know the words well enough, close your eyes, and that'll help you think of it as a prayer. Sing those words as a prayer to the Lord. Let's try that together. ♪ O Jesus Lord and Savior ♪ ♪ I give myself to Thee ♪ ♪ For Thou in Thine atonement ♪ ♪ Didst give Thyself for me ♪ I own no other master. My heart shall be thy throne. My life I give henceforth to live, O Christ, for thee alone. And Lord, as we talk a bit before we go, as we encourage one another, your word says we're to exhort one another. I pray that we would make it a habit of surrendering consciously, willfully, and if needs be, even audibly to you every day. I can't count how many times when I get in the car and start driving to work, that I actually say, you know this already, but Jesus, Lord, Savior, I just wanna again tell you, I give myself to you. Help us to get in the habit of taking those steps toward you by conscious choices of yielding and surrendering and of enslaving ourself by your grace to your righteousness. Help us to encourage one another to that end, and those that we get the privilege of discipling and counseling in your way. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Spend the rest of the time in your groups, and then those of you that have to go get your kids, don't forget to get them.