Dead Man Walking

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Hello, hello, is it working? Hello, Apologia.

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How are you guys? I am just as surprised as you are. The good news is

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God will be glorified because that's what God is up to and he will be glorified.

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So the question will be, will it be in my humiliation or will he be gracious to let me articulate my thoughts well?

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So let's pray. Lord, we thank you for today. We thank you that you are God, you are king.

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There is no one like you, Lord. We thank you that you have clearly laid out the path of life for us,

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Lord. You call us to walk in that path. Lord, we wanna heed your warning today that we have the propensity in our fallen nature to fall to self -deception.

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So open up our hearts and open up our minds that we would chase after you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

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Proverbs 16, 25, there is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way of truth.

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This is the word of God. Today, this is a heavy moment for me.

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It's a big moment coming. I was encouraged though, I read this post, see if I can find it by Michael Foster this week.

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It says, healthy churches are like swimming pools. They have both a shallow and deep end.

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Those who already know how to swim can dive into the deep end. Those who don't can wade in deeper and deeper and eventually learn to swim.

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And all deep end church will scare away those who are just learning to swim. And all shallow end church will keep people from becoming strong swimmers and keep away those who are already able to do some laps.

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Stagnant churches, whether stagnant in quantity or quality, are usually of a single depth.

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So today, it's my privilege to bring the shallow end of apologia to you today and to make sure we are balanced in both our depth and our shallowness.

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So for those of you like me who sometimes need to go a little slower, a little simpler, may we be blessed by today's sermon.

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So there is a way that seems right to a man but its end is the way of death.

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You know, as we go through Proverbs, we're giving, it's like that picture that is even laid out in Proverbs of a father telling his son this advice and saying, hey, before you go, a mother speaking to her son and teaching them the ways.

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Hey, before you go, you know, I think of a dad and his kids are becoming adults and he's wanting to give them all that advice.

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I'm like, hey, before you go, know this. Look out for that. Hey, this is what you should do and this is the way to live and be ready, be warned.

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And we have this where it's like, hey, before you go, I know I've taught you all this, but hey, I need you to be aware of something.

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So there is this way, it's out there, it's a reality. There is this way that seems so right.

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It's gonna look good, it's gonna be right in your mind. You'll look at it and it'll seem right but it's actually the way of death.

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Whoa. So it's not just, it'll be obvious. It's not like, oh, go over this rickety old bridge that you can tell like, oh,

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I wouldn't go near that. You're gonna look at this path, you're gonna look at this way, you're gonna see a way to live your life, you're gonna see the invitation to go this way and you'll look at it and it'll seem so right.

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It'll appear like, oh, there's something good about this. But the warning is, that is the way of death.

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And so today we wanna look at that and realize that there's something in our fallen nature, something that happened at the curse, that we have this ability, this propensity to be self -deceived.

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And that should give us pause, it should give us warning that, oh man, am

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I being self -deceived? Am I unaware how stupid I'm being?

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I'm going along, I think this is the right path but am I actually on the path to destruction?

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And that's good, as we go into the new year, we look at our lives, we evaluate where we've been, where we're going and like, okay, am

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I on the right path? This is interesting to look at because all through Proverbs, like we read in Psalm 1 as well and we see it throughout the

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Bible is, God has given his law. We live in a time and an age where it's not hidden from man.

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God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ. He's revealed himself in his written word, in his law.

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He's even says he reveals himself in nature that we can see in that none of us are without excuse, the

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Bible tells us. That when we look at what's before us, it's not a mystery, it's not guessing, we don't have to wonder what is the way to go.

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God has made his law, his ways, the way of righteousness, clear.

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In Proverbs, we read where the woman wisdom is in the standing in the street corner and she's raising her voice loud saying, go this way and live.

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Yet somehow, as clear as God has made it, he sent his son,

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Jesus, lived the perfect life for us. He was in the flesh, he's revealed his word to us.

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We look at nature, we see, yet somehow, someway, us people can still be self -deceived.

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That's a little frightening. We have this picture of the good way, the bad way.

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We see that all through our culture and in the story of humanity, we're real familiar with that, right? We see that in our stories.

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There's like, which path will you take? Star Wars, right? The light or the dark path?

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Which way will you choose? And there's this certain seduction to the dark path, but we choose the light. I'm reminded of Matthew 7.

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We see in 13 through 14, Jesus is talking. He says, enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction.

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So that might give us a clue. It's easy, it's wide. It's like, if you do nothing else, you're gonna go that way.

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And those who enter by it are many, for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life.

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And those who find it are few. So we have this understanding, God's common grace to all man.

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As we understand there's something about the paths that we choose. There's something about that story that we understand that any human saved or unsaved or deemed are still under God's wrath, we understand that there's this path that we can take.

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I'm reminded of that poem by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken.

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both.

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And be one traveler long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth.

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Then took the other as just as fair and having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted wear.

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Though as far that the passing there had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay and leaves no step had trodden black.

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Oh, I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads on to way,

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I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh.

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Some more ages and ages hence, two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by.

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And that has made all the difference. So we have this Robert Frost approach to the story where you philosophize and you look and he's come to this conclusion and his idea is, okay, the path that's less trodden.

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And we do see some reflection in that, right? Even with what we see with Matthew where we can understand that.

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But you don't just get there by hoping and having these life lessons because ultimately in eternity was that the right path.

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The story of the path is well written in the Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.

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Here's from the beginning of the book. This is the author speaking.

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Now I saw upon a time when he, that's Christian, was walking in the fields, that he was, as he was wont, reading in his book and greatly distressed in his mind.

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And as he read, he burst out as he had done before, crying, what shall I do to be saved?

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I saw also that he looked this way and that way as if he would run, yet he stood still because as I perceived, he could not tell which way to go.

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I looked then and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him and asked, wherefore dost thou cry?

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He answered, sir, I perceive by the book in my hand that I am contemned to die.

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And after that to come to judgment. And I find that I'm not willing to do the first nor able to do the second.

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Then said Evangelist, why not willing to die? Since this life is attended with so many evils.

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The man answered, because I fear that this burden is upon my back, will sink me lower, lower than the grave.

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And I shall fall into Tophet. And sir, if I be not fit to go to prison, I am not fit,

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I am sure, to go to judgment. And from thence to execution. And the thoughts of these things make me cry.

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Then said Evangelist, if this be thy condition, why thou standest still? He answered, because I know not whither to go.

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Then he gave him a parchment roll and there was written within, flee from the wrath to come.

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The man therefore read it and looking upon Evangelist very carefully said, whither must

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I fly? Then said Evangelist, pointing with his finger over a very wide field, do you see yonder wicket gate?

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The man said, no. Then said the other, do you see yonder shining light? He said,

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I think I do. Then said Evangelist, keep that light in your eye and go up directly thereto.

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So that shall see the gate at which when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do.

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So I saw in my dream that the man began to run. So we know in our culture, in our hearts, in the story throughout humanity, we have this picture of the road.

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And what do we do? How do we choose a path? Which way can we go? How do we determine?

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We might be like in Frost's poem where you consider and you think deeply and you look, okay, this is the way

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I can go. Or maybe you're like Christian in Paul Bunyan's story and you feel overwhelmed with the reality of how can

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I know? I'm condemned. And how can we know? There seems to be a problem.

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There seems to be an issue with us as humans where we are bound by this issue of self -deception.

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Again, we look, God is gracious and God is wonderful and holy and huge and great.

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One of the cool things about being in a building like this is you have that vaulted ceiling. It can kind of remind us of the bigness of where we belong, that we're part of something bigger than ourselves and God has laid out his law.

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God has told us the way to go. Yet how can I sit there and hear that and then in one breath say, be careful.

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The way that you think is right is actually the road to destruction. I have this issue in my heart, in my fallen state of self -deception.

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We see that throughout scripture. Proverbs 16 two says, all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes.

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How many ways? All the ways, right? As we do in icon. How many ways is that?

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All of them. How do they seem to the man? Pure. So we have this ability in ourselves where we can look at anything we wanna do and it's like, yeah, that seems like a good idea but the

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Lord weighs the spirit. So it tells us that God's perception of how to know if something's right or wrong might be different than our own.

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We're familiar with this passage, Jeremiah 17 nine. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

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I think some translations say wicked, don't they? Desperately sick. So above how many things is the heart deceitful?

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All, right? The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

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Who can understand it? If that wasn't good enough news, we see in those days in Judges 21, 25, if you read through the

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Old Testament, you know that they had some problems following God's law, his own covenant people.

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In those days, there was no king of Israel, no law. And everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

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And that didn't lead to this utopia, right? Hey, let everyone alone. Just let them do what they wanna do.

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Let them go how they wanna go. Let's just, you know, let you live your life, all be fine. Well, that's not how that usually ends.

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What happens is destruction. What happens is they sacrifice their own kids to demon gods.

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They put their own sons and daughters in prostitution. They raise up false idols and they end up getting the judgment of God because in their own heart, in their own mind, when they cast off the law of God, it ends in total destruction.

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It ends in the way of death. We're reminded in the New Testament, Galatians 6, 3, 4, if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

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So not just our Old Testament counterpart, but the New Testament church as well. We have this ability to deceive ourselves.

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John, 1 John 1, 8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

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Proverbs 14, 12 is just the same as 16, 25. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

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So we're reminded of that twice there in Proverbs. And this, of course, sobering passage,

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Matthew 7, 22 through 23. On that day, many will say to me,

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Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name?

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And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

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Where there is self -deception, there is self -destruction. God has given us a path of life and we choose in our own way the path of death.

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We can see very obvious examples, real world examples of self -deception in the world all around us.

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An issue that we talk about a lot here is the issue of the murdering of the most innocent in abortion.

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Think about the story that they tell, right? Usually in the scenario when they're talking against abortion, it's like there's this young girl, she was raped, incest, or she didn't plan on getting pregnant, and here it is.

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She had her whole life ahead of her. She had her whole future, and now that future is ruined.

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It's unfair to her. It may even cause death. Pregnancies can be dangerous.

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And so there's that way that seems, right, it seems so right. We need to rescue her from this situation.

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It's so unfair. It's so unjust. What seems right is let's just quickly, quietly, let's just end this pregnancy.

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You'll go on with your life. Let's forget it, put it behind us, and we'll go forward and it'll be good.

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What seems so right in so many eyes in our world actually literally leads to death, right, to the murder of that child.

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And here we see the perversion of the fallen mind that says this seems so right. If I could just go this way, it'll all be okay.

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It'll all be taken care of, and it leads to death. We see the transgender movement, especially with the young people, which just has the mark of demonic grossness all over it, right?

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We have this poor kid is confused. They don't know. They feel like it was so unfair that they were in this body that they shouldn't be in.

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They were male, but they want to be female, and so they're confused, and it just seems so right.

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If we could just help them along the way, if we could just maybe don't let them go into puberty, if we can give them these chemicals, or if we can chop off parts of their body, if we can just affirm them, like, hey, let's start dressing them the other sex, the other gender, like, that would be the compassionate thing.

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That would be the good thing. If we could just do that, it just seems so right. That's what we should do, and it leads to death.

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It leads sometimes actual death with suicide, but it leads to the death of so much future, and not to mention the judgment of God for these sins, right?

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They're leading to destruction. We have the picture of chasing after that which feels good, hedonism, where you just cast off restraint, like,

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I don't need the law anymore. I don't need that. I'm gonna be free. I'm gonna live for myself. I'm gonna do what makes me happy.

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This is all about me, and then you lead to destruction. Feminism says cast off the patriarchy, right?

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We don't need that. Let's tear down society. Men, who needs them, right?

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And then we lead our culture that we see leads to death. I think of this.

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It's interesting, right? These people, we see a big movement. We've seen in our own family this movement of deconstructing, right?

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Where you're raised in the church. You've been exposed to the word of God, and they're like,

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I don't like that anymore. I can't trust the New Testament, and then what do they do? They turn to occult practices.

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They turn to finding truth through drugs, mind -altering drugs.

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They turn to all these things of their own spirit, looking within. The New Testament wasn't reliable, but the mushrooms they took are reliable, it turns out, that you reject all this, and you're gonna be like,

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I'm gonna cast off restraint. I'm gonna throw that aside. I'm gonna go my way, and then we have influencers that are encouraging all these mind -altering drugs, and you're gonna go, and it's just gonna make everything open, and you're gonna find freedom.

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You're gonna find true life, true meaning. You're gonna find out what the true meaning of the universe is. You're gonna talk to aliens and demons and your inner something or other and angels, and we're pursuing all these things in our culture.

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This heightened rejection of the word of God, but then a heightened desire for even crazier spirituality compared to how they talk about the

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Bible in religion. What about men leaving their wives to go be true to their selves, right?

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I need to, it seems so right. We're not happy. We had a good run.

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We're just, we're not there anymore. I've fallen in love with somebody else. Hey, the heart wants what the heart wants.

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I'm gonna pursue this, and so you, this seems so right.

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It feels so right. How could this be wrong? We got our ethos in all our movies today, right? The follow your heart idea.

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I'm gonna cast this off. I'm gonna go this way. This feels so right, and then, of course, it leads to so much destruction, broken homes, broken families, kids confused, and then the repeating of divorce and cheating and all that kind of stuff.

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You know, as you're going out evangelizing as our church does, street evangelism, those of you who do that, you see just the self -deception on display of believing these lies, and it just seems so obvious, right?

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When you're in Christ, you look, but you can see in the eyes of the deception that has gone ahold of the heart and these people who are lost without Christ, without hope in the world, and they are so deceived that they would believe what to you seems so ridiculous, but they've dived in and are following this path.

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You know, what about those of us maybe in the church who we know that what Christ has done, yet we kind of want to add, if I could just get my life in order, it'll all go well.

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If I could just get my life in order, I'll be more disciplined, I'll eat right, I'll wake up early,

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I'll follow this regimen, and those things can be good, or I'll get all my theology right,

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I'll get it all squared away, and we end up pursuing this thing where we're now, if I get all this together, that's what will make my life good.

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That's where life is, is I just, I gotta get it together, and then we fall short and we end up not relying on the work of Christ.

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We're not even resting in the grace and what Christ has done. We have this issue before us, this problem of self -deception.

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I'm gonna read this passage from John Piper here that shows the problem that's before us.

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He's talking about preaching, but it applies to just the way we live and the problem that lies before us as Christians.

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Preaching is the heralding of the good news by a messenger sent by God, the good news that God reigns.

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That he reigns to reveal his glory, that his glory is revealed most fully in the glad submission to his creation, that there is, therefore, no final conflict between God's zeal to be glorified and our longing to be satisfied, and that someday the earth will be filled with the glory of the

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Lord, echoing and reverberating in the white -hot worship of the ransomed church gathered in from every people and tongue and tribe and nation.

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That is very John Piper -y. The goal of preaching is the glory of God reflected in the glad submission of his creation.

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But there are two massive obstacles to the attainment of this goal, the righteousness of God and the pride of man.

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The righteousness of God is his unwavering zeal for the exaltation of his glory.

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The pride of a man is his unwavering zeal for the exaltation of his glory. What in God is righteousness, in man is sin.

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This is the very point of Genesis 3. Sin came into the world through a temptation, and the essence of that temptation was, you will be like God.

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The effort to imitate God at this point is the essence of our corruption. In our proud love affair with ourselves, we pour contempt, whether we know it or not, on the worth of God's glory.

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As our pride pours contempt upon God's glory, his righteousness obliges him to pour wrath upon our pride.

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So God's not gonna share his glory with us. God has given us his law. God has shown us the way.

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And from the very beginning, like he said in Genesis, we see God said this way, as Pastor Jeff always say, this but not this, right?

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You can have all of this I've given to you, but not this. His law was established.

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He made it clear, it wasn't a mystery. We find out, unfortunately, in Genesis 3 .6,

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so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

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So God's law, the tempter comes along. We know which is the way of life, and then something, we see that same word there, right?

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She sees, and it seems good. For when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

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We have that same thing before us, where here's God's standard, God's fulfillment, bring you joy, bring you happiness, bring you peace, it's the way of life, but then we start putting

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God on trial. Instead of trusting his word, instead of believing him, we make these decisions and say, oh, but that seems so right.

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We see that sin carried on in Cain and Abel, where God had a righteous standard of what sacrifice he accepted and which one he rejected.

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It doesn't give us all the details, but something's clear is he accepted one sacrifice, he rejected the other.

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Abel's sacrifice he accepted, Cain's sacrifice he rejected, and then

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Cain, God speaks to Cain in the midst of his sin, where instead of turning to God and doing what was right, he becomes jealous, he's filled with hatred and ends up murdering his brother.

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And God speaks to Cain and says, if you do well, will you not be accepted? Think about that.

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God's speaking the very words to Cain, if you do well, will you not be accepted?

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There is this path of life, and if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.

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Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it, which leads us to corruption.

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And of course, on our own, we can't rule over sin, can we?

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It's the message of the gospel. Here we look at some of the bad news, is that we are, we can be so deceived.

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God has given us everything, his graciousness, he's poured it out, he's chosen a people for his own.

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All the glory, all the goodness of God, he chose us in him.

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This should blow our minds away, that in spite of that, we then reject that.

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But we're not, as believers, without hope, right? Because Christ did conquer sin, Christ did make a way for us.

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And the believer is not without hope. You know, we don't have to be like the

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Frost poem where we just hope we can figure it out. We don't just have to have an existence where we look and say, this seems like the right way, but who really knows?

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We are not left without a clear path. And we don't have to be like Christian in the

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Pilgrim's Progress. Now, at some point, we all need to be that, right? We need to feel the weight of our sin and our sin, and understand the bad news.

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But the good news is, we have a way forward, and we can run forward to Christ. God has done something new in us.

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God has fixed the problem of our sin, of our self -deception. God has walked that path on our behalf and invites us to walk with him.

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We are made new in Christ is the good news. Second Corinthians 5 .17,

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therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.

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Galatians 6 tells us we are new creations, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

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We are new creatures. The curse no longer has the power over us.

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And here's what's really cool. Romans 12 .2, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

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That by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

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So as believers, of course, we wanna be aware our condition before Christ.

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We couldn't figure it out on our own. We were guilty of rejecting the way of life.

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We were accountable to that. We were under God's wrath and his judgment, but he's made a way.

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He's opened our eyes. He's invited us in. He gave us life when we were dead, but we are still aware that we are in a fallen nature.

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We are still being sanctified. And so we need to know that we still have this propensity to be self -deceived.

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But I know when I was growing up, I grew up in the church, and so I always wanted to know what was the will of God for my life?

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And that was a big burden. And maybe as we go into the new year, you might be reflecting on, okay, what should

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I do? Should I marry this person? Should I do this job? Should we move? Should we go here? Should we do this?

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And you can carry this burden, and then you see something like Proverbs 16, 25, and it's like, it seems right, but its way is death.

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And so you can maybe be filled with anxiety about like, well, I don't know, which way can I go? Am I gonna ruin

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God's will for my life? Am I gonna be stuck? Am I gonna make the wrong choice, and then it's all over for me?

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But we can rest assured and be happy, and we don't have to live in that anxiety that God has redeemed us, and he has given us the ability to think and to discern, to know through his word what is his will for our life.

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And so that gives us this hope. 1 Corinthians 2, 16, for who has understood the mind of the

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Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. That's cool, right?

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We have the mind of Christ. Ephesians 4, 22 through 24, to put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

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Philippians 2, 5, have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus. So we see

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God is renewing us. God is doing a cool work. We can walk forward and be filled with hope knowing that God is in control of our lives.

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One of the good things about understanding God's sovereignty more and more over the last several years as we've been here is just the bigness of God and how much he has in control.

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And looking at this and like, wow, in Christ he really is working out for my good.

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How cool is that? Romans 8, 1 through 2, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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And we see in five, for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit.

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For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. Galatians 5, 16, but I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

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For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.

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For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you wanna do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

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So again, there's this contrast. We have the reality of who we are apart from Christ.

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We also have that reality of our fallen nature of being sanctified, that we have this ability, this propensity, this problem of self -deception.

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But then over here, we have the goodness of God and the renewing of our minds and we are new creations.

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And so we have this mind that we can discern and be able to discern where we should go in life. And we don't need to live in anxiety.

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And we see that we serve a sovereign God who there's no molecule, right? That he isn't aware of and that he isn't in control of at all times.

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And so as Christians, we can rest in him knowing God's got this, I can trust in him.

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And of course, we can take that to extremes where we don't wanna be in anxiety. We don't wanna be an anxious

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Christian because that shows we're not trusting the Lord. It's disobedience, it's sin. But then at the same time, we don't just like, oh,

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God will take care of it, right? We are making decisions. We are moving forward in our lives. And we are trusting

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God to rule over our lives and walk in that way of peace. It's not just become

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Christian, right? And then the rest, we are walking this life out. We have to walk the

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Christian life out. We're gonna be faced with decisions and things and problems and issues in our life.

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And we want to be able to be the kind of people who can discern and follow after God. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the

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Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.

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The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his step. It's Proverbs 16, 9.

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Ultimately, God has saved us from the ultimate self -deception.

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He's revealed himself. He's called us to salvation. We heard the call of the gospel, like Christian in the

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Pilgrim's Progress. If you're here and you've heard the call of the gospel and you've turned to him, the path is open before you to life.

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If you're here and you've been telling yourself you've got it figured out, or maybe you're here just out of courtesy to your family and you're in church and you're hearing the gospel and you think, no,

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I'm gonna work this out. Turn from that foolishness knowing that it can look great.

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You think you can have it all figured out, but it really is the way of death. And so we want to chase after that way of death.

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We want to be confident in what the Lord has called us to do. But we still have this issue of self -deception, right?

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That still is a reality. Even as redeemed people, we still have the issue of self -deception.

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And what do we do about that? I think first, as we saw here, the warning in Proverbs is just be aware, right?

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Just take a moment and be like, okay, as I'm going through life, if things are before me, as I'm trying to discern

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God's will, or I'm trying to understand theology better, I'm trying to see where I fall on these different issues.

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You know, what do I see is right? What do I see is wrong? What's, you know, what does all that look like?

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As we're seeing all of these things on social media of philosophies and theologies, and it can seem so right.

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We can get caught up in whatever the latest flavor is and whatever the latest controversy, whatever the latest fight is, we can see all that things, and we immediately start taking sides, not on the word of God, or at least we tell ourselves that is, but knowing that, okay,

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I have a certain amount of my life, I have to not trust myself, right?

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I have to know that I have that in me. I'm still being sanctified. So my brain is not, as we talk about our teenagers, it's not fully developed, right?

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And so our full knowledge of everything that God's up to, we'll never know that. So as we're discerning his will in our life, and we're going through life, we have to at least be self -aware or Christ -aware or spirit -aware that we look and say, okay, as I'm looking at things,

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I have to have that in the equation. As we're deciding what to do, what to think, what to believe, what to look at in the word of God and how to decipher that, we at least need to be aware of that.

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We also wanna follow the full counsel of God. Sometimes it's fun to go down the route of what do

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I believe about this covenant and this view and Presbyterian and reformed and this and that and the other thing, dispensational and post -mill, all of these things is you're like, if you're like me, you came, it's like fire hose, right?

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All of a sudden, there's all these things that you're contending with. And for those maybe of us who didn't grow up in that, and that's not even common language, it's like, what,

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Jesus isn't coming back? There's no rapture. You know, we have to like deal with all this stuff and we're walking through all that. And so it can be overwhelming, but what we don't wanna do is just pull back.

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We wanna press in. So we wanna, one, be aware that as we're looking at things, we can be self -deceived. Two, we don't wanna do it in isolation.

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God's called us the body of the church, that we're not, as Christians, our calling isn't just to live on social media debating with other

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Christians. I didn't know if you knew that, but really, the first primary place that we grow as the body is physically as a body together in the local church.

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That's his design, sitting under shepherds and under shepherds that called by the

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Lord in this time, in this place. If you are here, there is something that the Lord is wanting to do in your life through the body of believers.

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That's the reality of his church. That if you find yourself being isolated and pulling back or you're just, you're not sure, and so you're gonna go figure it out all by yourself, that would be a red flag that maybe you're heading to self -deception.

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Get in with brothers and sisters in the Lord. Listen to your elders, ask the questions, figure it out with one another.

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Be in the word, of course. We're told to examine ourselves. 2

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Corinthians 3, 13, 5, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Look at ourselves.

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How does my life, James tells us that the word of God, it's like a mirror, right? We look in it, like, okay, this isn't lining up, but then what it tells us, the whole thing about self -deception in James is we'll walk away and totally forget.

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I'll forget that I'm bald. Like, oh man, I'll just think I have the awesome hair, and then it turns out

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I'm not. We can be deceived. But of course, on the other side is rest in God's sovereignty.

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Trust him, trust that he is working in you, that it's not, oh dear

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Lord, am I gonna get this wrong? Do I have to, you have to know it all. Like, again, be in the body of believers.

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Be with solid, solid believers. Because really, we live in a time right now, a season,

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I guess I could say, where we're seeing a lot of this infighting, especially in the reformed world, where we're seeing this animosity.

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Like I said, I didn't grow up in the reformed world. I mean, I always loved God's sovereignty. Maybe I just didn't have the words to articulate it quite properly, but I never had a problem.

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Like, yeah, okay, God, choose me. God chooses, and then when I look back, like, wow, God did all that. I might go forward and think like, okay,

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I've gotta make choices and do things, which seemed to make sense to me, and then I look back and like, oh wow, God did it all.

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And so I just kinda, that was not a problem for me. But I didn't have a full understanding of it all. And growing up in church, my church

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I grew up in celebrated how many years? 35 years, 30 something, 38, 35, 35 years of ministry.

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We've seen a lot of people come through, and we had this kinda like, I don't know if I'd call it a running joke, but a running like red flag.

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Someone would come to the church. Their life was a mess. They came in, we poured out our lives to them.

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We loved on them, money, time, prayer, cry with them as they go through, and God does an awesome work in their lives, right?

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It's so cool. God saved them. God was faithful to save them, and it's so cool they start growing.

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And then of course, as the Holy Spirit does, they start getting a hunger for the word of God, and they start getting a hunger.

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I wanna hear more preaching. Like, Sunday's just not enough, so they discover Bodie Bauckham and James White and Jeff Durbin, right?

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And they're like, wow, there's even, there's so much, and they're learning about all this stuff, and they're getting excited.

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And then something happens, right? We call it cage stage. You start getting this knowledge, and then it would inevitably be like, they would just be awful.

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Not everyone, but you would have that temptation as someone growing in the faith, and you're starting to learn more and more, turn around and just like, and you did this wrong, and you think this, you know, and it's like, all of a sudden, it's like, gooey.

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Like, what happened? Oh, they became reformed. Oh, yes, and then we didn't have, say no more, which is sad, but, and I don't know, maybe that was just our defensiveness or whatever, but that seemed to be like, we all knew.

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In fact, you know, we obviously are reformed now and grew up not reformed, but you know, there was a time when we had the conversation like, hey, you know, dad,

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I love you, but we're starting to see these things differently, and they and their grace and love and mercy and patience with their middle child.

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So, okay, Matthew, all right, well, you know, we want what God has for you, and maybe we don't see all these things the same way, but you know, we love you, and then the joke was,

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I remember my mom saying, please just don't become reformed. That's sad, and again, it may be more on our end,

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I don't know, but there was that reality where, and it blew my mind because as the more that I dived in, and our first week at Apologia, it was like a

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Philippian sermon. I'm like, oh, this is cool, all right, yeah, practical life application, and then it was like, oh, and we're doing tulip next week, and so it was sit back, ready for the fire hose, and so we're like, okay, but I actually, at that point,

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I was very, I was trying not to become cage -staged, because I was really excited to eat it all up, but as I looked at understanding total depravity especially, it always seemed like be such a disconnect for those of us who understand at that level, or who have embraced understanding that there is nothing good in me, and everything

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I have is by the grace of God, and by his doing, not my own. It's not because I'm smart enough, or good -looking enough, or whatever,

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God did this by his grace, that he's growing something in me that I couldn't do on my own, and wow, my salvation, everything from the beginning to the end to the middle,

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God sustains and holds together for his glory, and my good, wow, what an incredible story, and when you get a hold of that, you understand why the

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Reformed view is like, whoa, this is amazing, praise be to God, but then those same guys, in their online interactions, as the great apostle

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James talks about, brothers, this should not be. Your mouth is praising the

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Lord, you're saying, I wanna lead this life that pleases God, I'm gonna stand on the word of God, I love the word of God, it's the most precious thing to me, but then you ignore these glaring discrepancies against how we're supposed to love one another and treat one another.

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No respect for your elders, no kindness in our speech, no graciousness, you are not here and saved because of any good thing you did, right?

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I'm not here because of anything good I did. We're here because of the grace of God, and in that, we should be the first people to love and show grace and patience with one another.

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If you're finding that you are on the path to prove everybody wrong about everything that they believe, now, there is a place, and we here at Apologia and our elders do a great job of this, defending the truth, defending the faith, but if you, on the sidelines, find that you're just mad at everybody, the people that you loved, you hate now,

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I know in my own heart, it is hard, like when you see the unbeliever acting like the unbeliever, you're like, what's wrong with you, idiot?

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But who am I, right? And so I don't know. You may have it all right, it may seem right, you're standing for truth, you're arguing the covenants and that babies should be baptized and that Bitcoin is good, you're doing all those things, but is there the possibility that if you look at the fruit of how you carry those things out, you might, maybe, there might be a little self -deception on how right you are.

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Again, thanks be to God for his glory that ultimately he put us on that path of life and we're not in the same place where we just have to figure it out, we have the path of righteousness, but as we walk forward in the

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Christian life, as we go into the new year, the good news is we don't have to be anxious about the new year.

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We are on the path of life, God has got us in control, he is sovereign, we can make decisions,

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I can choose to move here or I can choose to move here, I can choose to marry this person or marry that person,

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I can choose to change jobs, I can talk to people, get wisdom, not be a fool, but you know what?

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Even when we make mistakes, God is still good and God is still glorified and he still works those things out somehow for his glory and my good.

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How awesome is that? I'm just reminded of the story of the servant who was forgiven much, right?

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He had a huge debt, I'm always reminded of this any time I'm tempted to yell at someone in traffic, you did what?

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When I'm looking at Instagram, you idiot. But the servant was forgiven so much.

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He couldn't in a thousand years pay his debt and the master graciously forgives him that debt and then he turns around and he squabbles and throws into prison and passes his judgment on his fellow servant because he owed him a debt.

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So owe no man a debt, right? Except for the debt of love and our debt's been paid in Christ and we really owe one another love and grace.

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Again, we stand for truth, we defend the truth, we do call out false teachers, all those things are necessary but as we're doing that, be careful, let's be aware.

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I think in our body, something that maybe we see similar to what

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I've talked about growing up is we see families come in here, maybe they were like burned out from the whole 2020 crazy, all the last few years.

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A lot of us are here because of just like, I need to go somewhere that honors the word of God that isn't scared to speak the truth, right?

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And so we're looking and that's not why we left our parents' church. But we're fine, we get in here and it's great and then you start getting into, okay, what do

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I believe about this and what do I believe about that? You bring your family, the elders, the deacons, the other members of this church surround you, they pour into your life, they bless you, you're suffering financially, they help you.

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We have all these things, Christian love is being poured out to us as the fellow body.

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People are kind with you, they're putting up with you, they're nodding their head as you tell the same story again and again and they're loving you and they're patient with you and we're all in this together as the family of God.

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And unfortunately, sometimes it then becomes diving into the nuances and you start coming to church with your checklist mentality.

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And well, did they get this right? Did they get this right? That song Matthew sang, that was so stupid.

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I don't know if that's the kind of worship I like. I don't know about the, and again, we can talk through all those things.

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Our elders are over us and they help us know and our worship needs to honor the

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Lord. But if you find yourself in the checklist mentality, because what happens is you will disregard all the actions of love of the church that we're to be, that people have poured out with you and you're so quick to just cast everybody off and then we see families that, it's okay to go to another church and if that's where God leads you, like go for it.

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If you can flourish somewhere, if you really come to the conclusion that I really, I'm seeing things this way and to honor the

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Lord, I think I need to be over here and it's not some cuckoo -ness then yeah,

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I know, bless you. Let the Lord keep you and guide you. But what happens, we'll see, if you get into that mentality, you have the danger, you're not going to church anymore.

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It's now home church. And there may be a season where you're figuring it out and that's not a condemnation, but if suddenly that's weeks, months, you're not accountable to anyone and you've like pulled your family out of a fellowship that's there by design to lift one another up and all you can do is check your checklist to make sure their nuanced view of this view or that version of the catechism lines up, 0 .799

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-2 said, and you know that father of the faith, he, you know, whatever.

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And if you find yourself buying into a lot of baloney online, if you're stuck and you're getting overwhelmed with conspiracies and that occupies your whole life or you're caught up in this little nuance thing, maybe this is probably to men, men chill out.

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Don't forget there is, we have teachers of the word. Today's was the simple version, but we have a depth of knowledge and wisdom from our elders and other deacons that have preached.

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But if you find that your Christian life is lacking love, grace towards one another, if you can't graciously talk to someone about why they just don't get how predestination works, that seems a little scary and you're just, you want to have part of your own salvation and like that's your first, you know, like you're checking everyone's motives and they're just trying to read the

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Bible English standard and they're just like, well, it seems like I have to make choices like fool.

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How could you think that? You know, if that's where you go all the time, it might be a sign that there might be some self -deception.

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If you're isolated, if you can't have grace towards one another and those who, you know, defend the faith, know your word, we're told to do that.

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But the appeal today is be aware that you can be self -deceived.

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Rest in God's grace and his sovereignty. Don't be a jerk. Let's pray.

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Lord, we thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you for your mercy. Lord, we thank you that you rescued us from the path of death to the path of life, not because of anything we've done, but because of your great goodness to us and your love for us.

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Pray that we would be gracious to others like you've been gracious to us. Lord, we don't need to live in fear and anxiety about the future because you hold that and you hold us securely in your hands.