The Most Important Theological Lessons (part 2)

When I was younger, I longed for the time when someone who was older and wiser would come alongside and say, let me tell you some truths that you need to know, some personal truths, some kind of insight that you might have gleaned from the road of hard knocks, the school of hard knocks.

And so while we're waiting for our First Corinthians series to begin, I thought it would be beneficial to the church if I encapsulated some truths that the

Lord has taught me in the last twenty years of being a Christian and sixteen years in ministry that I would like to impart to you, things that I wish

I would have known earlier, that I would have known better, theological truths and lessons that I've learned in the last twenty years.

We looked at three last week, let me just quickly give those to you in a review. My purpose really is so that you'll know these truths, you'll know the word of God better, and that you can be encouraged.

Some of you may know all these truths, and you might know them better than I do, but I think they will warm your heart. I loved it when my old pastor,

MacArthur, would preach a sermon series, and he would say, and by the way, I just have some things in my heart that I want to make sure you all know, so let me just give you a sermon from my heart.

We'll get to verse -by -verse exposition soon enough with First Corinthians. By the way, I want you to begin to read through First Corinthians, because it is going to be one of those thrill rides at Six Flags.

I mean, it is a hold on, you know, you walk over and there's that little measuring thing there. You have to be 52 inches or taller to ride this ride.

You want to make sure you're at least 52 inches in spiritual stature before you get onto that ride called

First Corinthians, because once we start, there's no getting off. And so just a couple more messages, a couple more, maybe a few more, as we're gearing up for the

First Corinthians series. Lessons that I have learned that I think you ought to learn. The coming from the

Bible, that you might get to know God better, you might understand Him better, you might get your thoughts off of your own problems more.

I hope when you come here and you say, I left this morning after the service and I didn't think about all my problems.

I think that's a very good and healthy thing, because we're here not to be focused on our problems, we're here to say we're going to give

God his due worth. Worship means to give something worth. There's a weightiness to God.

Back in the Haight -Ashbury days, people would talk about, in California, they'd talk about a topic and they'd say, that's a very weighty subject.

What was the other word that they would talk about and use? That's very heavy. And the

Old Testament word for glory, kavod, means the heaviness and weight of God.

Just with a dense pewter -like weight where you say, these issues are so great,

I've got to pay attention. There's nothing like this in the world. When everything else, pop music, pop culture, professional sports, everything else is kind of like,

Fluff, give me the weight. And by the way, when you have your problems in life, which you certainly will in this fallen world, you are going to need help spiritually.

When you have to bury people, when you have emergencies in your family, Fluff will not do.

Will it? That's probably why many of you are here today, because you need to be fed, your souls need to be encouraged, because when you have to bury people, you need the weight and transcendence of a holy

God who's in control of everything, don't you? Number one, first truth that I learned in review, is that God is utterly sovereign over everything in the universe, including who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.

God is sovereign over everything. We looked last week at Psalm 115, we looked at a variety of different verses,

I'd encourage you to turn your Bibles to James chapter 1. It's one thing to say Jesus is the

King of Kings, He rules, He reigns, He makes kings on earth, His slaves, but when we start talking about who goes to heaven, this free will idea pops into our mind, and we sometimes forget that our wills are enslaved to sin, we forget that it's okay not to have a free will and be a real human.

Can you have no free will and still be more than a robot? The answer is,

I hope so, because the place where you're going if you're a Christian, it's called heaven, and you will have no free will in heaven.

How about that? You will not be able to sin. Are you less of a person? Are you more robotic because you say,

I have a holy nature and I can only make choices based out of that holy nature? We sometimes say, because we like to talk about this philosophy, that somehow there's this two poles.

We would disagree that God is one power and Satan is the symmetrical opposite power.

We know that's not true. Satan is a created being and he is not omnipotent, he's not omniscient, and he does whatever

God commands him to do. We also believe in somehow God's sovereign, and with the same sovereignty, if it's a ten on a scale of one to ten, that there's almost eight, nine, ten scale of free will on this side.

When friends, we have to remember that God is sovereign over our wills, and we're very glad for that because no one will come to the

Father unless God, what, draws him. We are corrupt, we're fallen, we're influenced by all kinds of things.

I don't even know if I said it last week or not. Now with this radio show every day, I talk all the time, I don't know who I say things to.

I know my will is influenced because I cannot watch a Frito commercial without wanting

Fritos. Advertisement influences me, let alone indwelling sin and Adam's fall and Satan's world system and God himself.

Is God sovereign over our fallen wills? And the answer is yes, he is. And if you take a look at James chapter one, we see that in verse 17 and 18, it's one thing to say

God's sovereign over what color your skin is and who your parents are and in what country you now live, but it's quite another thing to say it's

God's will that chooses who goes to heaven. And the sooner you can wrap your arms around that and just submit to it, the better off you'll be.

Of course, our pride buckles, of course, what we've been taught in the past fights against it.

But read with me in James chapter one, verse 17 and 18, every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation are shifting shadow.

Mark this well, congregation, in the exercise of his will, he brought us forth by the word of truth so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among his creatures.

Is it not true that it's God's will as the primary mover? You believe this, no matter if your theology is like mine or not.

When you pray, you pray what? You pray how? God, I want you to do so many things in a person's life that even though you don't damage their free will and you just kind of help them decide for themselves and take the first step that they become a

Christian, nobody prays that way. How do you pray? If you have a loved one who needs salvation, salvation,

God, save them. You're saying, God, will you please be willing to make them willing in the day of salvation?

You save them, God, you interrupt them, you shake them, you rattle them, you make them born again.

And that's how we pray. It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but according to Paul in Romans 9, but on God who has mercy.

Friends, if you grab that truth, you'll begin to not be as anxious for your loved one's salvation.

You'll be more thankful that God chose you, won't you? Out of all the people that are in the universe, you say,

God chose me. He knew what I would do and it was His will that made me alive.

Number two, the second truth in review, if you need the full explanation, you can get last week's message.

I keep calling them tapes for some reason, last week's reel to reel, little dots on wax paper.

The second theological issue is there are no shortcuts for holy living. We know it to be true viscerally, but we need to be reminded that there are no shortcuts for holy living.

We just can't get some kind of zap or we get some kind of, you know, we're slain in the spirit somehow and everything gets better.

The Spirit of God, the person, the Spirit of God, God Himself, the

Spirit, uses the Word of God to change us. Now, look down with me in the same chapter, while we're here, we might as well look at it.

We didn't look at it last week. James 1 .22. James 1 .22. You will see, even with this verse, that there's no end around.

There's no getting around, studying and reading. God could have saved us and then just inputted into our brain everything we needed to know.

He could have saved us and made us have no sin at all. We would have just lived holy lives with energy and enthusiasm.

But He has saved us. We still have a sin hangover. We have the new nature in Christ Jesus, but still a sin hangover.

And God has told us, I want you to make sure you don't just lay back and let God, but that you study. Of course, dependent on the

Spirit of God. Of course, dependent on His grace. But you can see James here with this sermon.

We think James was a sermon. And he pushes and he prods. Talked to one person today in my discipleship class at 8 .30

and we said, well, how long have you been in the church and what made you come? And this particular person said, I kept coming to BBC because it made me uncomfortable here.

Wow. So the new seeker thing, it's kind of like when Ananias and Sapphira get killed, people were not too seeker friendly regarding that.

Hey, stay away from that church. You might get killed if you go. Stay away from this church because if we preach the

Word of God, it may make you uncomfortable. Which is a good thing because then when we repent, there's a comfort that comes after.

And so here you look at this and you go, it almost makes me uncomfortable. James 1 .22. It's like a football player with his arm out, stiff arm.

Prove yourselves doers of the Word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

You can hear the Word of God, but you've got to hear it in such a way where you say, Spirit of God, help me obey it.

I want to learn it and I want to do it. Hearing must lead to obedience.

And James is basically saying this, yeah, you study a lot, big deal. Study so that you do.

That's what he's after. Prove yourselves doers of the Word. If you take a look at the passage, sometimes the

NIV does a good job. Here it does a horrible job. And it says, do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves.

Do what it says. The difference between be doers and do what it says is what?

What's the difference between have a lifestyle of doing the Word or this particular day, do these things?

The original Greek is as a lifestyle, as a characteristic, as a habit, be a doer of the

Word of God, not individual deeds, habitual occupation.

Listen to what Johnstone said. It sets before us as real Christian persons who make doing the

Word of God the main business of their lives, a business affecting, penetrating, pervading all other business and all other pleasure so that just as when you speak of an ordinary trade or profession, you say that a man is a teacher, a manufacturer, the like, so speaking of character, those who know a

Christian intimately should always be able to say of him, he is a doer of the Word of God.

And it takes work. When you read this book, it's not like anything else. If you read a technical manual and you want to fix the lawnmower, it does not reach its proverbial arms out and say, you better fix this tonight by 10 o 'clock.

If you take a cookbook and you say, I'm just going to read the cookbook and I'd like to have some chocolate chip cookies, I've been going without sugar and only eating sugar every 30 days, so today is the day for sugar.

Today's day 60. 30 days, no sugar. I'm thinking about chocolate chip chips all the way. I mean, it's just in my mind.

But if you take a chocolate chip cookie cookbook, it doesn't beckon you and command you and force you to say, you've got to make chocolate chip cookies today or else.

Why am I doing that? It's just a nice new thing. But the

Word of God does that with a Nathan like finger to David. You must obey.

That's exactly what James is saying. I hate high pressure salespeople, but this is high pressure in a holy.

One writer said, we have forgotten that a leather bound Bible needs some shoe leather to go with. What's the option?

Look at James 1 .22. If we're going to just hear the word, we're going to audit it. We just show up at the lectures or the sermons and we never walk out with a desire to obey.

We delude. Look at the text. We delude or deceive ourselves. We don't just come to church and say,

God, we're sure lucky today I showed up. I get an attaboy for just showing up.

Thomas Mattin said, if you have that idea, you are like beasts in Noah's Ark. You go in unclean and you come out unclean.

He went on to say, Uriah carried letters to Joab and he thought the contents were for his honor and performance in the army, but it was a message of his own destruction.

We hear many sermons and think to come and urge this to God, but out of those sermons will God condemn us?

Makes you want to be motivated. Hard work is part and partial for the

Christian life. Of course, energized by the spirit, of course, by grace alone, but Philippians chapter two is clear.

It is God's will through our work. Number three, God does not love me more when

I obey. God, if you're a Christian, does not love you more when you obey. We looked at John 17 in detail last week.

God loves us as much as he loves his son and he treats us as sons and we don't look to God as some judge.

G .I. Packer said, if you can understand the adoption of God and how he adopts sons and daughters, you understand

Christianity. Number four, new information now, new material, number four, the fourth theological lesson

I think I'd love my congregation to learn, the sooner the better, is that anxiousness is a sin and it is a signal of my prayerlessness.

Anxiousness is a sin and is a signal of my prayerlessness. Please turn with me to Philippians chapter four.

Turn to Philippians chapter four. We have that old slogan probably on your wall maybe or on your grandma's wall, prayer changes things.

Well, prayer does not change the ordained plan of God and his decree. We do pray to God and he seems to work, that's true, but I would like to say at least for this morning's sermon, prayer changes your attitude.

Prayer does change things, it changes you. Philippians chapter four verse four, where is

Paul when he writes this prison epistle? You guys, I tell you,

I go out of town for the summer and you're still studying, that's good. Philippians chapter four verse four, the reason why

I say that is because whenever you open up the book of the Bible, you should ask yourself the question, who wrote it? Why did he write it?

Where was he when he wrote it? Is there a purpose for this? And of course we know Paul is going to be talking about ministry, he's in jail, who the

Lord is, unity in the midst of ministry and suffering. He says in Philippians 4 .4, rejoice in the

Lord always, again I will say rejoice. I don't have time to get into it, but doesn't it strike you that rejoice is a command there?

You know somebody is sullen and down and sour and sorrowful and do you know it is a command to rejoice?

Rejoice in the Lord, not in your circumstances, not in your trouble, not in your physical issues, but rejoice in the

Lord always. There's goodness and kindness, Jesus Christ dying for us and being raised from the dead.

And again I will say rejoice in prison, I will say it. Then he says in verse 5, let your gentle spirit be known to all men, the

Lord is near. Let your yielding, kind, forbearing, willingness to yield spirit be known to all men, the

Lord is near. And then he says what? Be anxious for nothing. If you're anxious for something and God says for you to be anxious for nothing, the best thing to do is to call that what?

Sin. First thing we have to do is say anxiousness is sin. I can tell when

I start feeling frustrated, I'm easy to snap at something, I start beginning to feel afraid,

I start having all this kind of feeling of just the world is kind of caving in, everything is getting kind of darker around me,

I back up and I think, I know I haven't been praying like I ought to have been praying because I wouldn't feel this way.

Take a look at the passage, you want to know the resolution for this kind of restlessness, this anxiousness, but in everything, by prayer, supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.

Pray to him, speak to him. This beautiful promise then comes in verse 7.

I'm so glad this verse is in there, I hope you underline it in your Bible. Here's the promise for the anxious who pray, with supplication and thanksgiving, and the peace of God.

This isn't God's at war with you, the sinner. This is the tranquil feeling, if you will, that you experience.

The peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts like a fort, like a garrison, like an armed detail, it'll guard you, it'll guard your hearts, guard your minds and keep them away from agitation, away from anxiousness.

Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

We've fallen. And when you're anxious, that should be your immediate thought to say, I can't do this on my own,

I will continue to be anxious on my own, Lord, I'm going to rejoice in you and I'm going to pray to you and you're going to have to help me,

I can't do this on my own. You see,

Dixon said, when we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do. When we rely on education, we get what education can do.

When we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do and so on. Nor am I disposed to undervalue any of these things in their proper place.

But when we rely on prayer, we get what God can do. I can manage my life pretty well, can't you?

I can do things pretty well and I know how to do it and I'm old enough, I'm 49, I figured out life to some degree and I can kind of get things done and when

I start being self -sufficient and self -dependent, then comes the anxiousness which should make me back up and say,

Mike, by the way, if you ever see somebody, if you drive by me and I'm in the car and I'm talking to myself, that's a very good thing.

Mike, I say this to myself lots of times, I hope you don't say it to me but I say this to myself, Mike, you're sinful, you're stupid, you're self -sufficient and Mike, your shoulders aren't big enough to carry the weight of Bethlehem Bible Church and your own life and marriage and work and everything else and when you start to try to carry all that on your shoulders,

Mike, there's going to be a pressure such that you'll finally say to yourself, I need help. Oh yeah, help, that's the idea.

You know, we go back to that whole thing where you think, well, let's mask our anxiousness. I don't want to mask anxiousness,

I want you to tell you it is your friend to point you back to prayer and dependency on the

Lord. You take your finger, hot stove, ouch, God, I hate you for giving me nerves in my fingers.

Anxiousness, pride, self -dependency, lack of prayer, no Bible study.

Friends, you don't just climb up a tree to fall, you want to fall out of a tree?

You just, you have to climb up it. You just don't fall out of a tree, you have to take steps. So if you're falling out of the tree and you're anxious, you have taken steps to get up.

Fix that in the tape, by the way, Bernard. You were all listening so intently, I had you right where I needed it.

Luther said, spending three days in secret, three hours daily in secret prayer, Bradford studying on his knees, and other instances of men in our time are talked about rather than imitated.

If stress in your life, it should promote you to pray. Number five, similarly, the fifth lesson that I've learned is that feelings should be the caboose in my life, never the engine.

Feelings serve as a barometer to my actions and thoughts, not the driver.

Please turn to Proverbs 29, verse 18. I guess this could still be the same point, the last point, but I want to flesh it out a little bit more.

Proverbs 29, 18. Friends, I'm not against feelings. I love emotions. Our Lord had emotions.

We are not anti -emotions. What we are is emotions that stem from a heart that still is not glorified, running the show.

If your emotions could run the show, why did God reveal himself through dreams, visions, prophets,

Moses, Jesus, Elijah, and the apostles? You can't trust your emotions.

Neither can I. The way we talk in our culture, we don't say anymore, well, what do you think about that?

Tell me, how do you consider this? When you want to talk to somebody else, how do you talk? How do you feel about that?

That's just how we talk. I'm not against feelings, but I am against running your life because of your emotions.

Well, you know, I just don't feel married anymore. I just don't feel like a member anymore. I just don't feel like I'm wanted anymore.

I just don't feel... And the spiral and the circle of just me, myself, and I has to stop and it stops with revelation.

And if you take a look at this revelation, you will see the inside of God. I wish I would have learned this earlier.

Proverbs 29, 18, happy is he who keeps the law. Happy is he who keeps the law.

Not if you feel good, you keep the law, but when you keep the law, God grants you the feelings of happiness, blessedness.

When Cain sinned, the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen?

Genesis 4, 7, if you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?

When you disobey, it should have a feeling. The feelings should be your anti -reward.

When you obey, your feelings should be your reward. And when Cain disobeyed, he had a countenance that was fallen.

If you would have obeyed Cain, your countenance would have gone up. I don't know about you, but if you have a three o 'clock in the morning ministry and you wake up at 2 .30

and you think, I don't really feel like going, bam, put on the snooze alarm. You can't do that.

You say, I have to go. And then you go there at 3 o 'clock and you feed the poor and you do this or that and you go evangelize outside down at the

Worcester Commons. And when you're driving home, you're exhausted, what do you say to yourself about your feelings? Well, I say to myself,

I feel good. I'm just glad I did it. God rewarded me with the right feelings. So what

I'm trying to say, friends, if you feel badly, then back up just like with anxiousness and say, what have

I been doing climbing up this tree? So I've fallen out feeling badly. Three men went up on top of the wall, feeling faith and fact.

Feeling had an awful fall and faith was taken back. Faith was so close to feeling that when he stumbled, faith stumbled and fell too.

But fact remained and held faith up and that helped feeling too. Luther's maybe is easier.

Feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving. My warrant is the word of God.

Not else is worth believing. So we as Christians need to learn this lesson.

If you don't feel married, act like you are. Do the things that contribute to being married.

I love this illustration. You've heard it before. There was a woman, she hated her husband and she said this, before I divorce him,

I want to hurt him bad. Okay, he said, here's the plan.

Ready? Go home, act as if you really love your husband. Tell him how much he means to you.

Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate and generous as possible.

Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him. Make him believe you really love him. And after you've convinced him of your undying love and that you cannot live without him, then drop the bomb.

Tell him you're getting a divorce. That will really hurt him. And with revenge in her eyes, she said, beautiful.

Will he ever be surprised? She did everything with enthusiasm.

She acted as if she was married. She showed love, kindness, listening, giving, reinforcing, sharing.

Called her back into the office. Are you ready now for the divorce? Divorce? Never, I discovered

I really love him. Your actions will change your feelings.

You have bad feelings in your life and you have anger, you have depression, you have anxiousness.

Oh, of course, there are some things that maybe are related to your thyroid and make sure you get a checkup.

But nine times out of 10, I'm telling you what you do. Did I say something funny?

What you do determines how you feel. Happy is he who keeps the law.

Thankfully, God has not made us a spiritual lepers, not feeling anything. Number six.

Number six, I think we have some kind of Irish jig over there. My feelings,

I wanna smash that phone, but I'm not gonna do it, see? Not gonna be run by my feelings.

Everybody makes a mistake. I could never forget how some people would fall asleep during sermons. You know, if you try, it's kind of hard.

You have the Bible open, you're taking notes, and I always used to think, ah, people that fall asleep at sermons, they're weak and everything else.

I had to sit one time in the front row of Grace Community Church for this baptism, and I'd been working a couple different jobs and eight shifts in seven days, and I sat there in the front, and here's

John MacArthur right in front of me, and I'm doing the head bob in front of John MacArthur. Number six.

The sixth lesson I've learned I want you to learn is that the gospel relates every day to Christians.

To use Bridges' words, you ought to preach the gospel to yourself as a Christian every single day.

Turn to Romans chapter six. There are a thousand churches out there, and every week it's how -to sermons.

How to be a better husband, how to be a better wife, how to be a better worker, how to manage your money, how to be liked at work, how to get promoted, how to have good kids, how to have a nice neighborhood, how to have a wonderful house, how to have all these things, and friends, they forget the most important thing.

The gospel is for Christians. Romans chapter six.

The problem is, this is difficult. Romans six is not one of those chapters that people just go to in the middle of the night when they need some encouragement, because it takes work, but it is the most crucial chapter in all the

Bible when it comes to holy living for a Christian. If you have to live a holy life before God, and you'd like to say no to sin more often, and yes to the righteousness of God, you need to know

Romans six. Back to number two, there's no shortcuts, you just need to know it. And if it's that important, then we ought to do our best to study, to find out what's in here, so we can say no to self and love our wives, no to self and love our husbands, no to our own desires and say,

I serve the body. Whatever, however it relates, this is the issue. There's a million how -to sermons out there.

I'd probably respect churches like that a lot more if they'd ever do a sermon like this, how to teach a leopard to change his own spots.

I'd probably admire that one, but you can't do it. You can't just give some kind of moralistic information to people without anchoring it into the cross.

You can't do it. Why does Paul go through all this in Romans to help us with Romans with holy living and if it's just lay back and let

God or whatever it might be. I have a question for you as a congregation. Chapter one, are there any imperatives in Romans?

Any commands, do this? No. Chapter two, any commands in Romans two, do something?

No. Romans chapter three, any commands? No. I'm kind of seeing a pattern here.

Romans four, any commands? No. Romans five, any commands?

No. Romans six, any commands? Yes. Here we come to the first command in all of Romans.

The gospel according to Paul basically, which starts with something to do much later.

We've got to think rightly. Let's just take a look at this quickly. Romans six, one. What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase or might increase? What's the answer? God forbid, may it never be.

Even though you're justified by faith alone through the work of another, even though you can't sin yourself out of the kingdom of God, you don't keep on sinning.

Friends, you don't understand substitutionary atonement and justification by faith alone unless you ask the question, well, then

I can just live whatever way I want, right? If all my future sins are taken care of too. That's a good question that shows that you understand the greatness of Christ's substitutionary death and how

God counts us righteous because of Christ's work. But Paul makes sure we don't say, well, you know what?

I'm gonna have free reign to sin. We won't do that. Verse two, may it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

And he says, verse 11, which opens up all of Romans six. If you wanna understand Romans six, it's verse 11.

Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. That is the issue for Christian sanctification.

When's the last time you just sat down at the park and you just kind of thought about being dead to sin and alive to God?

And you just kind of molded over and thought, I wonder what the ramifications of me being dead to sin would be and alive to Christ?

Friends, that's where it starts. Dead and alive. Let me just show you those words and I want you to show you how important it is to think about death and think about being alive in Christ Jesus.

Everywhere you go, this chapter talks about thinking, which is sometimes difficult.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, what is the hardest task in the world? To think. Sinclair Ferguson, the

Christian scholar said, how we think is one of the great determining factors in how we live. How you think.

I think the person was too ashamed to admit who they were so they're under the anonymous heading.

Anonymous said, the probable reason some people get lost in thought is because it is unfamiliar territory to them.

You are to use your mind and think. Paul uses four different words for think.

Let me just quickly show you these four different words. Verse three of Romans six. Everything in this chapter says, think.

This lost Christian art of thinking in this doing and kind of emoting world.

Romans six three, or do you not know that all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into his death?

Paul says, don't be agnostic. That's the word there. Don't be an agnostic. Don't have a lack of knowledge.

Don't be ignorant to that. Verse six. He uses a different word for knowing our thinking.

Knowing this experientially, we've come to recognize and ascertain and we're aware of this, that our old self was crucified with him.

Our body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Verse nine.

Did we just read verse nine? No, verse nine is a different word for thinking. Our knowing, verse nine of Romans six.

Knowing that, understanding intuitively, knowing that Christ hath been raised from the dead is never to die again.

And then in verse 11, the final and fourth word for think is even so consider, reckon, count it.

Get your mental calculator out and take it into account. Let your mind dwell on these things. Paul says, you've got to think.

You say, I want to be a better husband. You better think, is what he says. Now also, when he comes to thinking, he asks a lot of questions.

When I speak, I speak about 180 words a minute. You listen to 400 words a minute. If I don't ask questions, you start thinking about other things.

When you ask questions, it makes the mind say, I better ponder this. I better think about it. And look at all the questions

Paul asks in Romans six. Six one, what should we say? There's the first question.

What should we say then? He asked another question. Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? Verse two, he asked the third question.

How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Verse three, he asked the fourth question. Or do you not know that all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into his death?

Verse 15, there's a fifth question. What then? The sixth question in the same verse.

Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Look at the end of verse 16.

What's the last punctuation mark in verse 16? A question. Verse 21 too, there's another question.

Everywhere you go, Paul is saying, you need to think. If you want a holy life, you need to know these things.

Why is it that when we want to make decisions, we so often just run into the decision, running headlong, kind of pell -mell, just kind of, we just got to quick make a decision and make it happen.

Paul says, you need to think. John Stott, listen, said, the major secret of holy living is in the, it is knowing that our former self was crucified.

It is knowing that baptism into Christ Jesus is a baptism into his death. And what are you supposed to think about?

You're supposed to think that you are dead to your old self. When's the last time you did that? You got up and said, do you know what?

I'm dead to my old life. I don't have to live like I used to live as a Christian. You ever do that? That's what Paul wants you to do. I think too often we look back at our old life and we go, oh, those were the good old days, high school and college.

And when I was a kid, those were the good old days. Maybe you were a Christian in those days, so you can say that. But if those are pagan days, you have to go back and say,

I'm sure glad I don't have to live like that anymore. Look at verse three of Romans six.

Romans six, with revelation given by God, you can't feel this, you can't know this, you can't get this out of the stars.

You can't get this down at the beach. God had to tell you this. And here's what he wants you to know about your Christian life. Or do you not know that all of us have been baptized, placed into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into his death?

Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the

Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. You need to know what happened to you at Calvary.

You say, I wasn't there. Thankfully, Paul says, I'll tell you what happened. You died with Jesus. Who could figure that out on their own?

Nobody could. By the way, every baptism in the Bible isn't wet, and this one isn't wet either.

As Moses was baptized into Moses, the people of Israel identified with the leader, you were identified with Jesus Christ at Calvary.

You joined him in his death. Mark this, when

Jesus went to the cross, he took you with him, if you're a Christian. It's the most important thing

I might say all day today. When Jesus went to the cross, he took you with him.

Verse four, therefore we have been buried with him through baptism unto death.

When you are buried, you're put out of this living world for good, aren't you? It's over.

This kind of act of crucified, buried, dead. Law has what kind of authority over a dead person?

Do you go down to the morgue and say, by the way, I've been paying your bills, sir, and we've got some collection agencies here, and they just keep calling, you never call back, and you owe us, you're forced to pay.

We will extract this money from you. Does that happen? Maybe some of the collection agency people would like that.

Sin has no claim over someone who is dead, just like a collection agency person has no authority to harass a corpse.

Sin no longer has dominion. I hate to say this, but it's for your own good, and I had to learn the lesson, so I might as well tell you.

Christians, you don't sin because you have to. Christians, you sin because you want to. That's what

Paul's saying. Look at verse six. Sin's powerless over the Christian now. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

For he who has died, remember you died with Jesus at Calvary, is freed from sin.

You don't keep going on living like you used to because the old man is dead. We sin, but we don't sin because we have to, we sin because we want to.

Now doesn't that shame you? It shames me. Before the fall, able to sin.

After the fall, not able not to sin. In heaven, not able to sin. And on the earth, able not to sin.

That's Romans six. Look at verse seven again. He who died is freed from no legal right, no legal mastery over us anymore.

Sin is dead. Griffith Thomas said, a dead man is discharged from sin and emancipated from it.

If you don't get this now, you just have to keep rereading this. Here's an illustration that might help you.

Augustine was without Christ and he picked up based on a children's song,

Romans 13 and 14. He picked up a Bible and opened it up and it said, put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust.

Everything changed. He used to be a profligate. He used to be with all kinds of prostitutes. And he was walking and a former prostitute saw him and said, he saw the person said,

Augustine, let me just get this straight. I'm all fired up because I've got about 20 more points to go.

Aren't you glad your salvation and sanctification do not depend on the oratory of a pastor? That should help you in your evangelism.

As he walked along, a former companion saw him and began calling, Augustine, Augustine, it is I. He looked at this woman, this prostitute that he had formerly been with and he shuddered and he ran away the other way, shouting, it is not

I, it is not I. You think it's this person.

That person is dead. I don't do what the dead person does anymore. So what does Paul say in verse 11?

Think about you used to be dead. I have a homework assignment for you. Go to the lake this week and sit there and think about how you're dead to your sin.

That's what Paul says. First imperative in Romans 611, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

When Jesus died, we died. When Jesus rose, we rose. And we need to add that up with our calculator with all the exponentials and factorials and just think that.

Lloyd -Jones says, consider and keep constantly before you this truth about yourself. Can a married woman,

John Stott said, live as though she were still single? Well, yes, I suppose she could.

It is not impossible. But let her remember who she is. Let her husband, let her feel her wedding ring, the symbol of her new life of union with her husband, and she will want to live accordingly.

Alive to God. It's one of the most important things you'll ever learn. Lastly for today, number seven, let me give you the three most important things you need to remember when you evangelize.

Probably have to do a little bit more of this next week. The seventh most important thing

I've learned in no particular order is that when you evangelize, you need to remember these three things and it will help you forever in your evangelism.

Number one, you need to remember man's total inability to respond to God. Total inability to respond to the gospel. Total depravity.

You are evangelizing the walking dead. Now I'll tell you why in just a second, that's important.

Number two, you need to remember that the number one goal for you in evangelism is not the salvation of the person you're preaching to, it rather is

God's glory. Your number one goal is not that person gets saved. Your number one goal is the glory of God.

And the third thing you need to remember is this. Evidences for the Christian faith are for Christians.

Evidences don't do anything to a person who's not a Christian. You can talk about carbon, strata, rocks, evolution, arks, dinosaurs, anything you want.

Those are good for you and they'll make your faith increase, won't they? Think, well, how'd they get all those dinosaurs on the ark and all those things that's good for a

Christian? You need to remember that people are depraved, you preach for God's glory and that you are wasting your time if you're giving evidence after evidence after evidence that don't demand a verdict.

Because if you turn to Ephesians 2, you will see that man is depraved. And if man is depraved and you can't argue them in, twist them in, evidence them in, talk about all the prophecies of Scripture that are true, talk about all the different manuscript evidence that are there, talk about rock strata, you're gonna have to give them the only thing that God uses to save them and that is what?

The Word of God. That's the only thing you can do. I remember going to Gold's Gym in Hollywood and I met this guy and he said, well,

I'd probably believe the Bible if I could just get through this verse and get through this issue. Go home, do all the study, take care of everything.

I come back and show it to him and he'd say, well, that's very interesting, but now the more I think about it, what about this?

I do all my homework, go research it all, how many square feet in the ark based on such and such in here and dinosaurs, they start off really little, they get really big, blah, blah, blah.

And I show it to him, he goes, yeah, that's interesting. And now I have something else, over and over and over.

If I would say to myself, this person is spiritually dead. Hmm, how does

God make people spiritually alive? The Holy Spirit always works through His Word. I should probably talk to them about sin and the

Savior. If you want to answer questions about the ark, fine, but I hope you do it just to be kind and pacify them so you get to the issue.

You're gonna die one day and stand before God and then what? That's the issue. Ephesians chapter two helps us because it just says people are dead.

People are dead. What do you do to dead people? Dead in trespasses and sins.

They walk according to this world. They're controlled by Satan. When you evangelize, you say this,

I need to make sure I give them the gospel. Faith comes by hearing a message about Christ. You also say to yourself, yeah, but I'd really like them saved.

If you really like them saved and your emotions get ahold of you, here's what you do. Well, I know he's living with his girlfriend, but I won't really tell him he has to repent or anything because I kind of like these little tick marks in the front of my

Bible where how many people I've led to the Lord. And you probably say, no, if I say that's a sin, how could you?

That's, you know, God's gonna judge you for that. And so I'll just kind of skirt the issues a little bit.

Or maybe you've got a child and you say, well, yeah, but if I talk about the Lordship of Jesus Christ to my children who are 14 and 15 and kind of in rebellion, 18, they'll run from it.

Friends, you say this, I'm here to preach the gospel so God is pleased.

Yes, if God's pleased, then it doesn't matter who else will be pleased. They may stone me like they did

Stephen, but I'm here to preach for God. Got an audience of one. And I'm gonna preach for the glory of God and God's glory is minimized when we cut corners, theologically, isn't it?

When we minimize sin and we minimize the fall and we minimize Christ's death and resurrection, when we minimize those things,

God's glory is not elevated. So when you evangelize, I dare you. I encourage you.

I appeal to you. Say to yourself, I'm here to preach the word of God. And if God is happy,

I'm happy. I don't have to run around through all this other stuff. I always thought when I first got saved, why is everybody else just kind of out preaching and I'm here studying.

You know how every brand new Christian, here's what they do. They used to get Walter Martin's cult book, Kingdom of the Cults, and they get a commentary on revelation and they get evidences that demand a verdict.

And it's like that's the triad of the new Christian. Okay, if you wanna learn about cults, fine.

I'll tell you everything you need about cults. They're all people who think you're justified by works alone.

Galatians 2 and Paul says they need the real gospel. Okay, so that one's out. We don't need that one. What are the other ones?

I don't even know. What's the other one? Over here. I just was thinking about another book. Evidence that demands a verdict.

You can stack up the British Museum full of evidence to an unbeliever and they're gonna say this,

I like my sin more than I like your evidence. Have a good day. That whole deal of, well, you know,

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Why would you say that? Is that glorifying to the Lord? God loves his creatures.

Yes, he loves his creatures. He loves his, particularly his church. And so he loves me so much. I'm gonna tell you the truth.

So I'm gonna preach for the glory of God and I'm gonna preach the word. By the way, when we do evangelistic outreach,

I hope you come home from the Worcester Common not saying this, well, I led 15 people to the

Lord today. It was a good day. I hope you say this.

I was scared to death. I didn't wanna go. I thought that guy was really gonna hit Jim, but I wanted to tell people about who

Christ was. And my only message was Billy Graham's message and I applaud him for this.

The Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says, and as I drive home, A, I feel good about it.

And B, I didn't have to save anybody. Friends, by the way, I have a little plan. And if somebody says, hey,

I'm a brand new Christian, I try to talk them out of it. Because if they're really a Christian, they can't be talked out of it.

You need to tell them, listen, you're gonna sign up to follow Christ Jesus. It's gonna cost you everything. Might cost you your money, your life, everything.

You sure you're willing to pay the cost? People say, well, you know what? I want forgiveness more than anything else.

Let's see if I can give you anything else. Nope, out of time. Come up with your own list.

I wonder what you'd come up with. Lessons to teach your kids and your family. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for the day where we can exalt your name.

Thank you for the word of truth. And Lord, Romans six is so full of information. I just pray you'd help us to live, not like we used to, but now we'd live in a way that we can live in a way that would honor your son.

That's the issue. And I pray that you'd help us to remember the cross every day, to remember Calvary.

I pray that you'd help us not to live our lives run by our feelings, but we would be men and women known for honoring you.

When I think about you as a king, wouldn't matter if our feelings were good or bad. When it comes to worshiping you, we ought to just do it.

And when you tell us to do something, we ought to do it, irrespective of how we might feel. You are the king. You are the

Lord. And I pray for a church that you'd help us, even with our evangelism and holy living, that because of this series and through your word, that you would change us into a church that we never thought we could become.

We want to be pure. We want to be cleansed because we're your bride. So help us to do that very thing. In Jesus' name, amen.