Book of Romans - Unity in the Church | Christian Character, Pt. 2 (11/21/2021)

Good morning, everyone. Well, I have to say a sad announcement.

I have to announce to the world that it's now confirmed we are not Church of Christ. Because they know how to sing acapella really well.

We sound a little bit Baptistic, but still praise, isn't it? That's exactly right.

And some of us guys were talking before church about which one of us would like to sing a special or maybe have a men's choir.

And we looked around, and pretty much I'm really not sure

Ron could find any volunteers at all. And certainly none to listen to us, right?

No volunteers for that. But my son Matthew told me this week he feels like the

Lord is dealing with him to start doing some music at church. And so I'll make it public that way.

Now he has to do it, right? But now he's going to have to work up some stuff for a few weeks.

So it won't be immediate, but soon. And that'll be awesome on it. So we do have some good singers in the church.

We really do. And so we get a little bit of music going along with it.

It'll be some instruments, I should say. It'll be really nice. Dave, you got everything squared away back there pretty much?

Huh. It's getting higher. Well, the only one that'll work to make theirs higher, that one only makes it higher here, is the one over to your far right where it says phones, headphones.

And it's up almost all the way, unfortunately. So I can just talk louder.

How's that? Everything OK for me to start, you think?

Yeah. Yeah. OK, we could. Let's see. I guess we could eventually try the other mic if this one's not working well.

But this thing usually does. OK, well, I'm going to get started. I'll let Dave worry with the sound.

Sounds OK now. What'd you do, turn up the phones a hair more so you had a little bit more juice left? That's good.

Yeah. OK, so we're in Roman chapter 12. And we've made our way to, well,

I think last week, we were down and started around verse 9. And let me just kind of review what we covered on that just a little bit, starting with about verse 9.

And then today, we'll start out with verse 12, all right? So verse 9 through 11 -ish talked about number one.

Well, let me give you the whole idea. This little section, I mean, the whole chapter to me is talking about church unity. But this little section brought us to a seventh whole idea, like a big idea.

The seventh idea to me is to have Christian character. So this is talking about Christian character.

And obviously, that would help churches have unity in their local churches if people walked in a high level of Christian character.

So the ones that we talked about from verse 9 through 11, chapter 12 of Romans was, number one, letting love be genuine.

Not fake, but genuine. Number two, abhorring evil influences in our lives.

It's interesting, because the King James reads abhor that which is evil. But if you look at it in the Greek, it's more like abhor evil influences, which is a little bit even a little more detailed than what the

Lord is telling us. What can be any kind of influence in our home that's a bad influence.

Avoid that. Abhor it, it says. Hate it. Number three was cleaving to that which is good.

And in the Greek, that word means that which is good or that which benefits. So we abhor that which has an evil influence.

And we love that which benefits our families. And the fourth thing is having affection toward each other as a family.

And we had all kinds of interesting Greek breakdowns on those words. But it's kind of like the love that a child has for a mother and a mother has for a child, that kind of love.

And then another way it says it is brotherly love. But I like the first example better, because in some families, brothers and sisters don't seem to love each other.

In our family, they do, because we forced it. We didn't let them. They couldn't fight. Number two, they couldn't call each other stupid.

If anything negative they ever said to each other, they got to whoop it. Yeah, Matt said he bears witness.

And that doesn't matter what age they were. They got to go to dad's study and sit there for like 20 minutes.

And then I show up and give them a whipping. And so guess what? Now they're all grown and they love each other now. They like to do stuff together, because Charlotte and I felt led of the

Lord to incorporate that into our child -rearing in the home. I would highly recommend it if you want your kids to love each other when they grow up.

If they're already grown and they don't, I don't know what to help you with at that point, other than lots of prayer.

But that's interesting where it talks about affection to each other in the church. We should love each other like a mom loves a child or a child loves the mom.

That's a whole level. It's just a great example the Lord gives. In the very

Greek words, it has that meaning embedded in the meanings of those Greek words. Not so much in the English, but in the

Greek it does. So we talked about that last time. And then to esteem each other with the highest degree of esteem that exists.

And then a little bit of inference in the Greek words there deal with the idea of leading one another, like being leaders, leading people to be more like Christ, be an example for people.

And then it says preferring one another. And as far as how we lead one another towards being more like Christ, there were three ways.

Number one, not being slothful in business. Number two, being fervent in spirit.

Number three, being the bondservant of the Lord. And that's a beautiful picture there because it's in the

Old Testament, it talks about servants who were set free, but they came to their master and said, I'm just gonna work for you because I love you.

I'm not leaving. Even though you set me free, I'm not leaving. I'm gonna stay here. That's how we serve the

Lord. We are bondservants, which means we serve him because we wanna serve him. And we know that's because the

Holy Spirit put that desire in our hearts. We didn't have it, did we? We did not have that desire to serve the

Lord, but the Holy Spirit put it in us. And ever since we were regenerated, we've had that. And so that's a beautiful picture of that.

So that leads us now to where we are today. So let's pick it up at Romans 12, verse 12.

And it continues to talk about Christian character. So it says rejoicing in hope.

Now, let's just stop there, okay? You've heard me talk about hope many times because the

English meaning has changed through the years, hasn't it? Like today, I guess my favorite example of the modern meaning of hope is,

I hope the Cowboys win this afternoon, but they probably won't. You know, that's like hope has a negative meaning in English today.

But if you go back to 1611, when the King James was translated, hope was a positive word.

And in the Greek, it's a positive word. So we have to kind of think of it differently today.

Hope is probably not the best modern translation for us today. Rejoicing in hope, because it doesn't mean that in our minds unless we think about it, because you've heard me say it so many times, you probably do think about it.

But the actual Bible meaning of hope is a joyful expectation of a certain future event.

See how it's totally different? So Satan does change languages over time. That's to add confusion. And this is why

I believe that the Lord in his wisdom gave us the Bible in Hebrew, which almost became a dead language.

It said that, you know, it's, I don't know if it was shortly after World War II or at some point,

I don't know the time period. So I'm just guessing. I used to know, but I've forgotten so much.

But there was a point where there were only three Hebrew scholars left in the world that could reconstruct the language because Hebrew was a dead language.

The main world language is Greek, even among the Jews back in Jesus's day, not

Hebrew. And after that, it even got used less and less. And finally it almost died away and then they brought it back.

So that's interesting. But the interesting thing about it being almost a dead language, it stopped changing.

So Hebrew didn't change. So as God wrote it, it's still clear. It's in cement.

Greek is the same way. It's not a language really, at least the Bible Greek is not used much anywhere in the world.

It's certainly not like it used to be the world trade language is not anymore. So it sort of stopped changing as well.

So it's like the Lord cemented his word in those two languages. And then when we translate it to English in 1611, between now and then

English changes. So some of these words are opposite of what they used to mean. So you kind of have to know that.

The only reason we use the King James is because it is the most accurate English Bible.

And I know some scholars disagree with that, but I think they're wrong. And my opinion is they're wrong.

And the reason is because all of the modern translations come from the wrong Greek manuscripts.

It's totally ridiculous. The logic is fallacious on how they built it. In fact, it was done by two unsaved people who happened to be

Roman Catholic. And I'm not saying all Roman Catholics are not saved. I believe many are saved, but the two who came up with that Greek document were not saved in my opinion, after reading letters that they wrote to one another.

And I spent two years of my life studying manuscript evidence. Trust me. I mean, if you don't wanna do the study, if you wanna do the study, go do it and be honest with it.

But if you don't, just pick up a King James Bible and stick with it. Now I understand that English can have some problems like this word hope, rejoicing in hope.

Well, if hope means to me that it probably won't happen, how could I rejoice in that? So obviously the word meant something different when this was in the

Greek. So remember that the Greek word and the old English word used to mean a joyful expectation of a certain future event, not something you think won't happen, but something you think will happen.

Isn't that interesting how it just totally flip -flopped. So one of our Christian characters should be, that we possess, should be that we rejoice in the hope of what happens at the rapture, or even what happens at a point of our death, if we die before the rapture.

What happens then? That is our great hope. But you see, even me saying it, don't you think it does not, to me,

I don't like the way it sounds. I don't like to say, well, I hope, I hope I go to heaven. Does that sound right?

You know, for us, we know we have eternal security, Dave. Go ahead. Yeah, yes.

And so we should totally retranslate that. And like, I like what you said, Dave.

He said, great expectation. We rejoice in a great expectation.

That's, put it in your Bible. That's good. You're a good translator. So think of it that way.

Part of our Christian character, because look at all the things happening around us in America, even. And we live in the greatest country in the world still, don't we?

Yeah, but look how bad it is. It's a cesspool. Well, you go back to last

Sunday when I preached on being diligent in business. That was supposed to be one of our characteristics.

We have not done that. So Christians are basically poor. You don't have hardly any billionaire on the billionaire list of Forbes 400 who are born again people.

They're probably a few. But the vast majority of the people with the money are Satan's people. In the

Old Testament times of the history of this world, which is most of the history, at least 4 ,000 years of the history of this world, the wealthiest people in the world were people like Job and Abraham and Solomon and David.

They were God's people. And we let that go because preachers don't get it.

That's what I think. Preachers didn't get it for the last two, three, four, 500 years. They have felt that you have to be poor to be spiritual.

Listen, being poor doesn't make you spiritual and being rich doesn't make you spiritual. That's not anywhere in the

Bible. It has anything to do with that. Your walk with the Lord is what controls that. And so we have allowed the world to take over all of our institutions.

I'm just amazed at that. There are some TV series that are actually pretty good.

But when you look at the philosophies that are embedded subtly, Charlotte and I will watch some of them because we're adults and we know it's fiction when they put that junk in there, that they're false philosophy.

But when we think about the young people in this country watching these and how they don't know that it's fake news, it's lies, it is frightening.

And we are going down fast. We're in a flame. And I don't know if we got a parachute or not.

I'm talking about America, not us. So when you look at the condition and the world we live in, now

I know we live in our Christian homes and our Christian business. A lot of us work at Tradeway or Exos Aerospace.

They're both like surrounded by mostly Christian. All the leaders are Christian, let's put it that way.

And in Tradeway, all the people are, you know, everybody's a Christian. And we are protected.

And then our homes were that way, and that's wonderful. But man, when we stick our periscope up and we look around, it's frightening.

Go to Europe, you go to Europe right now, it is mad. It is totally socialist.

And friend that I met in Switzerland told me, well, actually it's communist.

It's just, they've replaced the guns and the boots stepping on your neck. They replaced that with the banks and the government because they own everything and you own nothing.

That's what he told me. So it's dire. So if we can't have this joyful, how did you say it again?

Joyful expectation. But you said great expectation of what the things that are to come when

Jesus comes back for us, then we're doomed because our mind is gonna be unhealthy because it's gonna be totally negative.

So we have to be thinking about that. Now you look at what Jesus said, the premier thought in his mind that got him to the cross, because when he was in the

Garden of Gethsemane, did he want to go to the cross? No, he did not. He prayed, I don't wanna go

Lord. So is there any way to not do this and still have your will be done? And he said, but if not,

I'll go. Nevertheless, I will be done, right? And the Lord, obviously the answer was no, there is no other way.

So what is it later in the scripture when it talks about what was going on inside of the Lord's mind?

It says, because of the rejoicing of the future of us being together with him in heaven, save for all eternity and with him for all eternity, that's why he did it.

That's what led him to be able to go through it, was he just thought about that. He kept thinking about that the whole time they were whipping him.

He kept thinking about that when they were dislocating his jaw and when they were putting thorns on his head and when they were dislocating, they didn't break any bones because the prophecy said they couldn't, they would have, but God didn't allow it in his sovereignty, but they beat him practically to death.

The whole time he's thinking about us, he can see us. He sees you, I'm talking about not us, but you individually.

He could see you and it was worth it. If you were the only one, it would have been worth it. He would have gone through it.

Can you even imagine that kind of love? And then he dies on the cross. All of that because of the future he had with us.

That's why he did it. So yes, so that is an example for us to live that way too.

I mean, we don't have it nearly as badly as he went through yet in America. It could get that bad.

The Bible says it will get that bad. We don't know when, but it will be where they will beat you and throw you in jail and kill you for just being a

Christian someday. We don't know when, but someday. And when that happens, you need to understand what the word hope means.

Great expectation, joyful expectation of all of eternity. We can't even comprehend what that's like where time is not the enemy.

Where time doesn't, like you've got time to do everything you wanna do forever because time is not your enemy.

Imagine what that would be like. So part of our character has to be no matter what bad stuff we're going through at any given moment, we can rejoice because of this great expectation.

And then the next one in verse 12b is patient in tribulation.

Now, first of all, let's look at the word tribulation. And in the Greek language, it's thepsis.

Let's see, I'm kind of need glasses up here. Phlepsis, that's a funny word, isn't it?

But it means pressure. It means like think of the potter putting pressure on the clay to mold it into what he wants it to be.

That's what this word tribulation means. It's pressure that's put on us and God allows it to be put on us to mold us into who we're supposed to be.

So we are patient when it comes to that pressure. And it can be like people say, well, about the time

I try to do something, life happens. You've heard that, right? Life happens. Well, that's the pressure. Life happening is the pressure.

It can be physical ailments. It can be mental ailments. It can be political things pressures put on us.

It can be all kinds of pressure. And so what it says is we're supposed to be patient when that's happening.

Now, patient in the Greek is very interesting because it's comprised of two little Greek words like so many of them are, but it literally mean,

I've got three words here, but in the Greek it's two, but in English it means to stay under, to stay under.

So it comes to mean to remain or to bear up under, to have fortitude and perseverance when you're under pressure.

So that's what being patient and it translated into the word patient in English, but in Greek it paints this word picture of bearing up under this burden and you just keep holding it.

You don't let it fall. You don't like to fall, it would do destruction.

So you keep holding it up and you keep holding it up and you keep holding it up and you keep holding it up until the

Lord relieves you of it. And that's patience. Isn't that interesting? So it's a little bit different word picture than the

English word. It's a better word. And then continuing instant in prayer.

This continuing instant, that's an old English phrase we don't even use anymore.

So why don't we look at the Greek? In the Greek, it means to be consistently diligent.

All right? So continuing instant in prayer means to be consistently diligent in prayer.

That's kind of cool, isn't it? And then verse 13 gives us another one, distributing to the necessity of the saints.

That's a wonderful characteristic, isn't it? So as we have extra and that's what wealth creation is all about and wealth doesn't have to mean how we picture it.

Doesn't mean you got as much money as Donald Trump, but it means that you have a little extra. You made enough to live off of that month and there's extra that month.

That's wealth. And some of that should go towards the necessity of other saints that don't have extra.

All right? If you get an opportunity this week, talk, well, it won't be this week because of the holidays.

Brother Paul Davis is out of town to be spending time with family here in Thanksgiving.

But when he gets back, maybe week after next, if you get an opportunity to talk to him about some of our teachers and what some of the needs are there and see if you might could meet some of those needs.

It would be really, I'm thinking of one person in particular, but I'm not gonna name the name, but I just think, you know, if you could throw anything over towards that and then the next month, when you think about it again and then the next month for the same person.

So you'll figure out who it is if you talk to him. But you guys online,

I'm not at liberty to give the name of the teacher, but if you wanna send a little extra to help this particular teacher,

I'm sure, I'm confident you can find a way to go out to the website and give. And I don't know how would they earmark it.

I guess just earmark it for the school and maybe send Ben or Dave Huber back there a text or an email and say, hey, that's for the teacher.

Make sure Brother Davis knows. We'll figure out a way to get it to him. All right, so anyway, Lord just put that on my heart, but that's what this is talking about.

Distributing to the necessity of the saints. Wow, that's a great character trait.

And then given to hospitality, I find this one humorous because when you look at the word given to hospitality in the

Greek, it means to pursue, to be hospitable, to pursue that. So it's like the

Lord says that is if he thinks it's hard for us to do that. Well, the older we get, the harder it is because I don't know about you, but I kind of like to get on my couch and just relax.

I'm tired more. Anybody else like that? Young people don't have a clue what that means.

Yeah, Matt raises his hand. Yeah, you are getting older, Matt, every day. You and Ben are kind of born old, actually.

So it takes extra energy, but we're supposed to pursue hospitality.

And you all know that when we do get together, it's fun and you feel younger. So think about it.

It's a benefit for those of us who are not younger, but for Ben, I mean, Matt makes you feel younger.

Feel like high school again. So, all right. So those are some great character traits that are listed there in that passage.

Notice I'm throwing my notes down there on top of my computer. It's gonna get hot, too hot. So let's go to the next verse,

Romans 12, 14. Still continuing on these character traits.

We'll talk more about the whole idea of character traits in a minute, but we're still listing them.

Verse 14, bless them that persecute you. Bless and curse not. Now, for some of us who got saved later in life, the curse not part is difficult.

We have to push back our first thoughts sometimes. And even the words that pop in, we have to say,

Lord, give me the mind of Jesus. That's not me anymore. And hopefully we can think all that before we say anything.

You ever been there and done that? So, man, that's why it's a blessing to get saved at a young age, like some of our congregation did in here.

But Jesus says, bless them that persecute you. Now, if you go, interesting, because some of us,

I don't remember who it was, but several of us were talking about this passage, like in Matthew, but also there's a parallel passage in Luke chapter six, verses 20 through 36, kind of in the middle of the

Beatitudes where Jesus goes into some of these things. I mean, you're real familiar with some of them, like love your enemies.

So we were talking about that one. Love your enemies? What does that mean? I mean, I can tell you some things it doesn't mean, like don't love

Hitler and his soldiers when they're coming to destroy your family. You know, that doesn't mean that.

So what does it mean would be a great, what we call a coffee question, right? What does it mean to love your enemies and who is the enemy that he's talking about?

Are you supposed to love Satan? Doesn't mean that. So what does it mean, love your enemies? Well, I have some thoughts on it.

I'm not really prepared to be dogmatic about it because you would literally have to search most of the entire

Bible to make sure that my thought on it is correct or not correct. And I haven't had time to do that much of a search.

I have searched some on this and I'll tell you what I think in a minute, but at this point, it's just an opinion and a thought that's not even proven.

But I'll tell you what I think in a minute. But first of all, we do know that in this passage in Luke six, it says, you know, to love your enemies.

Now, all this has to be in the context that it's found in though, because it's not just a blanket statement or else it would include

Hitler and it doesn't. All right. Then it says, turn the other cheek.

You've heard that, right? If someone strike you, turn the other cheek. That's in this passage. I love this part.

In the same passage, it says, give and it shall be given unto you. Now there's a promise from Jesus that if you do have a little extra one month and you give it to help another saint that needs it, there will come a day when you need it.

And some other human being doesn't even have to be a saint. Everybody serves God, right? He's sovereign. It could be anybody, we'll help you financially.

Isn't that cool to know? That's a promise from the scripture. And then the one that says, bless them that curse you.

Wow. Have you ever, I mean, if you got saved a little bit later in life, like I did, I'm sure you've experienced this.

You ever had a time when you said, man, it's hard being a Christian. I would love right this. If God could let me be unsaved for 15 minutes and then re -save me,

I would like to not turn the other cheek right this minute. I guess one of the funniest examples of that, and some of you have heard me tell it, but Charlotte and I had some really close couple friends.

They moved away and been gone forever now. But the young man, they had just joined our church and we took them through some training on how to witness, some witnessing training and stuff like that.

And this young man had been very athletic in high school and a good football player, been kind of a bad boy, got in a lot of fights.

He didn't mind getting in fights and stuff like that. And then he had gotten saved and he ended up joining our church, the first few years of our church.

And then he went through this training. And so the founding pastor of our church used to take several of us men to Mardi Gras to witness, which

I don't know if I would take young men to do that at that place. But God used it for good.

We had some amazing experiences of witnessing to all kinds of people from all over the world in that time period.

Well, this young man, there was a church that would put us up, let us sleep there. And then they'd feed us breakfast and they were one block away from Bourbon Street.

The church was one block away. So we would eat this wonderful home -cooked breakfast. It's up on the roof in the nice air in Louisiana.

We'd eat this breakfast. And our pastor had us all wear suits and ties to go out on the street witnessing. That's just what he thought it gave us authority.

I now know you don't need that kind of authority. You need the Holy Ghost. But anyway, we did it. So you can picture us men, young men.

I mean, we were not that much older than Matt and with suits and ties on. And we were vibrant.

You know, we're not tired like we are now. We were vibrant. We were ready to go. We'd go out there and we hit that street.

And we turned right out of the door of that church. We were not even on Bourbon Street yet. And we turned right.

Now this is during Mardi Gras. We turned right and we take 10 steps.

And right next to the church is a motorcycle bar with Harleys parked all out here.

And a lot of them had chains wrapped around the motorcycles. These were tough guys in there. And to the left, across from this door was a phone booth.

If any of you older people know what a phone booth is. All right. And there was one of these

Harley guys from the bar. He'd walked out and he was on the phone in there in that phone booth. And the young man, and he, like I told you, he was tough kid from his youth.

And we walk out and he happens to be right there. And he reaches in and he takes a track, gospel track.

And he lays it up on the edge of that telephone and taps that guy on the shoulder and goes like that and turns around. And he didn't see it, but this guy walks out and just decked him.

Well, he didn't deck him because, but he hit him in the face with his fist. But our friend was pretty stout, dude.

It didn't knock him down or anything. It just, I don't even know if it hurt him that bad, to be honest, but I do know this.

We just kept, we put our arm around him and just kept walking. And the dude went back in the bar. We keep walking.

Then he went, now I know I'm safe. That was

Scott, by the way, Sharon. That was Scott Matika. Is who that young man was.

And boy, he wanted to deck that guy so bad because the guy that hit him was only about this tall.

And, you know, that would not have been a good fight, but it ended up good. Of course, if all the other guys came out of the bar and I know me and the other guys would not have helped him, we'd have left.

He'd have been stuck with like six of them. So, gosh, that was funny. So you can kind of see here that, you know, you sometimes wonder, can

I live this way? Can I really bless those that persecute me? Can I bless people when they're cursing me, you know?

And yet it says that, and Jesus talks about all these things in the Beatitudes. But you know, what's interesting about it when you talk about love your enemies, you talk about turn the other cheek, all these things.

If you go all the way down to Luke 6 36, right at the end of it, and this is what I mean about, you have to look at the context of everything.

First, you got to ask, who's he even talking to? Is that like church? Is that part of the church age?

Or is he still talking Old Testament? Or is he talking millennials stuff? You know, like laws that are actually going to be laws in the millennium, which many great scholars, like how many of you ever heard

J. Vernon McGee on the radio? Well, he's not on the radio because he's in heaven now.

In fact, you probably can still find him somewhere on some Christian stations. But I guarantee you, if you go out there to a good used bookstore, you get his complete

Bible commentaries on the whole Bible, because he used to teach through the Bible on the radio. There, man, this dude had a

PhD, but he talked like this, so people didn't know it, but he was brilliant. And it's great comment.

I'm talking about extremely scholarly commentaries, but on these Luke chapter six passage, he says,

I don't think this stuff even applies today in the church age. He said, if you think turning the other cheek and all this stuff works in the business world today, you're wrong, you'd go out of business in a flash.

He says, it's kingdom literature. Now, I don't totally agree with that.

I do see his point because I think the primary interpretation is that it's kingdom literature for the future.

It is not what we live in under the gospel, but is there a secondary application?

Like, do you think that maybe since the apostle Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write church age material in Roman chapter 12, verse 14, where Paul says under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, bless them which persecute you, bless them and curse not.

Doesn't that sound a little bit like when Jesus said, bless them that persecute you and bless them when they curse at you.

I mean, same information, and that's material for the church age. So there's a secondary application of all of it and a primary application, if it's repeated in the epistles, it's for us now, so we can't get around it.

We can't get around it and say, well, that's, you know, that's gonna be that way in the kingdom right now. Like, you turn the other cheek right now, you could just totally get clobbered, right?

No, this, listen, these are character traits of Jesus Christ is what these are.

And when Jesus preaches this beautiful sermon, he's got 5 ,000 people up there that he's already fed, giving them food and water because that's what they needed.

Now they're obligated to listen and he teaches them these things. He's saying, here's how God is. These are the characteristics of God, me, of God.

And if you're gonna be God -like, then you're gonna need to be this way. And when you look in the

Luke passage, it literally says in there that if you live this way all the way down at the end toward verse 36, it says, be merciful as your father also is merciful.

So when you look at these exhortations to love your enemy, the context of it is not that you're supposed to love

Hitler, it's that you're supposed to be merciful to people that just messed up.

That is hard for us though. You know, Matt and I had an example of it yesterday happened where this dude, don't you get irritated when certain people think they're the person that's the rule keeper and they tell you, hey, get in line or whatever.

Like, who says you're the person that can tell me to get in line? You know what I mean?

Have you ever had that happen? And you know what makes you the rule, the policeman or the sheriff? And Matt and I had that happen yesterday.

But in my first thought was absolutely not to be merciful to this person.

My thought was, I said, Matt, if I see him later, I'm gonna call him the sheriff and just see if he knows why

I said it, you know. That was not Christlike, was it? I shouldn't call him the sheriff. I should say, thank you, sir,

I was out of line. I will humble myself before thee. So none of this is our first nature.

But it's all Christian character. Wow, even the parts that Jay Vernon said was kingdom literature.

And it is kingdom literature, but it's Christ. It's the king. Like, what does kingdom mean? The domain of the king, right?

All right, so let's keep looking at it. Bless them that persecute you, bless and curse not. And then it says, rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep.

Now, the first verse 14 is probably speaking of the highest empathy that exists.

Your concern for other people is God -like when it is so great that if they strike you, you turn the other cheek and you bless them.

You say, God bless you, why'd you do that? But God bless you. I mean, when you get to that level, and I think all of us are at that level when we're spirit -filled and we're not at it when we're not, and that's just how we are.

So you can't get to that level in the flesh. Would you, anybody agree with that? You're not gonna get there. Your first thought's gonna be, well, who are you,

Mr. Sheriff, to say that to me, right? Well, maybe you're better than I am, I don't know. But when we're walking in the spirit, we can do this.

We literally, in fact, we will. We will bless them that treat us despitefully because it's

Christ in us, the hope of glory, right? So that leads to where I'm headed here in a minute, but you see this.

So the highest form of empathy is when we get to a level where we love our enemies. Now, I have a theory.

I told you I'd give you my theory. It's not checked out. And I know Brian out there listening, he's going, oh boy, there's something good.

Now we got a coffee question we can all research. And I'll be getting an email, and I love getting them when you guys send me an email with a thought or something to study about.

So I have often felt that perhaps the best interpretation of what this means is if you think of it in your circle of life, all right, which doesn't include

Hitler, right? But I mean, your circle of life, which is, a lot of it has to do with church people.

And even in our work, they don't all go here, obviously, but we're brothers and sisters in Christ.

And we're in the church at large, the invisible church, the real true church. We're all members of it together.

And yet, wouldn't you agree that in that group, there are people who will treat you miserably sometimes, who claim to be a

Christian, and they flat hurt you. They're mean.

I've been treated more harshly by people who claim to be Christian than by non -Christians so far in my life.

And Christians have hurt me more than non -Christians because I hang out with Christians more.

Would you agree with that? So to me, that may be part of the context of what Jesus is talking about, like when your fellow, well, in case he's speaking to a bunch of Jews, in your community, when people, they're supposed to be your brothers and sisters, treat you badly, then love them.

Don't treat them badly in return. I think that might be the primary interpretation of it, but I'm not willing to say

I know that for a fact because when I think of Jesus Christ at the cross and the

Roman soldier is nailing nails through his feet and he's saying, Lord, forgive them. They don't know what they do.

I'm thinking that's on a completely different level. That's not his

Jewish brother that's nailing the nail. That is a lost Gentile who probably got saved, by the way.

There's a lot of neat songs about that one, that man. Okay, so there we are.

It's just an extremely high level of compassion and empathy.

Verse 14, mostly empathy, caring about the other person more than caring what they just did to you.

Does that make sense? Verse 15 is beautiful. Rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that are weeping.

That is such a ministry verse. When you have people in your congregation in particular, but this goes beyond that as well, who are just going through a horrible time in their life for whatever reason.

Verse 14 would cause us to have empathy with them, but verse 15 would cause us to have warmth and compassion and literally want to, if they're suffering, we wanna suffer with them as if that would take some of the pain away from them.

You can't literally do it, but you can definitely let them know, we're crying with you today.

Our heart hurts today, maybe not on the level that yours does, but it hurts and we're hurting with you.

That is such a Christian characteristic. And so when someone is honored, they go through something cool, like you've got your picture in the paper, sharing and rightfully so, for all the hard work with the election board and all this stuff that you and Raymond do.

And we should rejoin like, wow, that's cool. We should rejoice with you when you're honored and with each other.

So that's what verse 15 is talking about, really important Christian character. And then look at verse 16, be of the same mind one toward another.

This word mind is literally can be translated like your brain in some

Greek usages, but literally it's phroneo is the Greek word. It means be of the same sentiment, be of the same opinion.

Isn't that interesting? Be of the same opinion, really? About politics, about everything in life.

How can we do that? Well, because the more we walk with the Lord and the more we're in the word, the more our viewpoints will come closer together.

And if you use the proper 10 rules, the proper Bible interpretation, and you stop cheating in your arguments to just try to win, but you really care about the truth more, your beliefs will come closer and closer together over time.

And so this is very important, be of the same opinion, the same sentiment, have the same interests could be another translation of this

Greek word. So be of the same mind one toward another.

It's talking about unity in the church and the whole chapter's kind of talking about it, but this is the ultimate verse on that issue is be totally in such unity that you almost think the same way.

And then they start calling you of what? A cult, right? So now you're a cult group, but you know what

Jesus calls you? As strong Christians, because the only thing

I've ever seen, and I could be wrong on this too, but I have studied the Bible for 40 years, but that doesn't mean I've seen it all.

I mean, you just keep learning every day, don't you? And things will pop up that you've read 10 times and you never saw it.

But the only thing I can remember where it says you can grieve the Holy Spirit is in the context of disunity among the brethren.

Look it up, see if I'm right. It's in the context of disunity among the brethren that grieves the

Holy Spirit. So he loves us to be like -minded of the same mind one toward another. Now, if you look at the actual, the rest of this verse, it kind of narrows that down instead of a general principle, which there are many places in the epistles of Paul though, where it talks about unity generally.

And that's where you'll see this thing, it will grieve the Holy Spirit if we don't have unity. So this is talking about unity, but it gets more specific, because look what it says.

Be of the same mind one toward another, mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.

Be not wise in your own conceits. Now, when you put that all together, it's not just talking about general unity.

This is talking about, okay, two people walk in through that back door, 10 minutes before the service starts.

One of them has a nice gold watch and he's driving a

Mercedes Benz and he's got a glamorous wife with him and he owns six companies and he could really help us build a gym for our school and he sits right there, okay?

And then another person comes in and it doesn't smell very good and his clothes are tattered and he needs some food and some stuff and he sits over here.

And then we go back and we get the nice couple and we put them right up here on the front row and leave the other dude back there.

We just violated this verse. You see? Now, do you see what it means in this verse?

Have the same mind one toward another? If we assume all three of the people

I just imagined were born again Christians and they're real, they're born again

Christians, then we should treat them the same. What they're wearing doesn't matter, what they drive doesn't matter, how much money they have or don't have does not matter.

We should be like -minded toward both groups of people. And if we have Christian character, we will be.

I mean, of all people, Jesus was that way, wasn't he? If anything, he favored the poor and those who are treated improperly by the rich, which happens a lot.

And so that's what that means. And then when it says, mind not high things, that means, look, don't be in love with the things of the world that some people have.

And you say, well, I wanna hang out with that person because they've got all this world, the stuff the world has, they have it.

I'm gonna hang out with them and somehow rub off on me. That's being high -minded. And Jesus says, don't even look at it that way.

The world is gonna burn up and be gone. Don't look at it that way. Look at the human being for who he or she is and be kind to them, watch for their needs and treat them just as a brother or sister in Christ.

Don't look at the outer elements. Really great teaching here. Be condescending to men of low estate.

That's probably the hardest part in the verse because we've experienced it here, even in the small church where you have people walk in.

Your first thought is, I wonder if they're really a Christian or if they just want some money.

And then your second thought is, yeah, they're gonna buy cigarettes and booze with it. And our church used to be a storefront church and it was on the main, right near the courthouse, right on the main avenue, of course, again, of Texas.

So every street person that came through from Dallas or Houston, stopped by, would come in our little church doors and we would hear the same stories.

And we had a Christian school back then, so I used to run it and I was there every day. So every day they'd come in, all during the

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, not so much on Sunday, but during the week they'd come in and you know what they would, nearly 100 % of them would say, could we have some money for diapers?

My wife's out in the car with the baby, we need some diapers. And you go out and look in the car, there's no baby in the car, they wanna buy booze with the money.

So what I would do is I would ask one of our folks that was at the church that day or at the school to go to the store and buy some diapers and bring it back and give it to them.

That's what we did. And boy, they did not like it. A lot of times their face would look really funny when you had it in those diapers.

So our first thought is that all of them are that way, but yet the scripture says there are angels unawares, aren't there?

So when people like that walk in and look like that, then we should condescend to men of low estate.

We should really try to look into their spiritual condition more and see what their needs are and see if they're really a brother or sister in Christ and see if we can help them in any way.

Be not wise in your own conceits. It's interesting in the

Greek, it's a lot simpler than that. It just says, don't think you're wise. Don't think yourself is wise.

The word yourself is the word translated into all those other words. Don't think you yourself that you're wise, that you're wiser than maybe this poor person that came in off the street and sat back there.

You think you're wiser than they are, you're better off, and you're not condescending to their estate.

You're higher than they are and don't be that way. That's what the Lord is saying here. So there's a lot of Christ -like information in those passages.

And you come back and you say, okay, how do we get to the place where we can live that way? Do we need to take like, you know,

I think back here, yeah, probably left it at the back, but you guys on the online version, you'll see a list.

I brought it, there it is. Believe it or not, I know this was exhilarating, but we actually named 12 things.

So there's like 12 things listed in these characteristics that we're supposed to have.

So are we just supposed to take this list? Here, you can see it right here. I mean, that's a big list. And we just keep this in the car and keep it at our computer and just memorize it and just try to be like that.

Is that what the Lord wants us to do? I don't think so. So turn with me, if you would, to Galatians chapter two, verse 19.

We'll end up with this verse today, and this will sum up. Now, I'm glad that last time at the end,

I kind of, this actually Ephesians five passage that we talked about right at the end of last Sunday is supposed to be at the end of this study, but I jumped ahead and covered it.

And basically, if you weren't here, what I said was if you take all of these 14 some odd list of character traits of a good

Christian, and it's taught in the context so many places that when we're around each other at church, this is how we should treat each other.

And like I said, last week, it hit me at one point, I was about to do a wedding for a young couple, that if you really wanna look at how a man and a wife should treat each other in their home, it's the same traits.

I mean, if these character traits are good for us to treat each other at church, they're even better for us to treat each other at home.

And so we talked about that last time, it's really how I was gonna end this study, but I'm gonna end it at this point with Galatians chapter two, look at verse 19.

For I through the law am dead to the law that I might live unto

God. Well, that tells us right there, we can't go by a list, right? Because our flesh is so weak.

If we try to gain character by trying to gain character, it doesn't work. The Mormons try to do it.

In many cases, Church of Christ, in some cases, the ones that feel like you're saved by works, or at least they act like they think that, and that you can lose your salvation, they try to even keep their salvation by making a list like this.

Okay, if we live by this list, God will take us to heaven. My problem is the book that that list came out of says if you don't keep, if you break one of them, you just broke them all.

So that's gonna be problematic trying to get to heaven that way. And Paul said, if you get circumcised, thinking that that's gonna save you, then

Christ availeth you nothing. That's a frightening verse for friends I have that are in Church of Christ that believe that, you gotta do works to stay saved.

I mean, that's a frightening verse because Paul said, if you think that, then you've fallen from grace and nothing about Jesus helps you at all and you're on your own now.

That is frightening, isn't it? Well, anyway, that's what Paul starts this out with. For I, through the law, am dead to the law.

What does that mean? Paul's saying I've already broken one of them. He said, in fact, when

God said, thou shalt not covet, as soon as I heard that, I began to covet everything everybody else had.

If he hadn't said it, I probably wouldn't, but I did. So he's already broken the law, so he's dead because of the law.

But then also what he means by verse 19 there in Galatians 2 is I have been crucified with Christ.

And because I am crucified, I am dead to the law. Does that make sense? That's the greatest meaning of it.

I am dead because I'm crucified with Christ. The law is for people living on this earth. It's not for people who are already dead and gone to heaven.

I'm already dead. Why? Because my old man has already been crucified. So I'm dead to the law that I might live unto

God. So there is apparently a way to live for God without keeping this list of rules, all right?

Or at least without seeking to keep it. That's a better way to say that. So let's see what he says. Look at verse 20.

For I am crucified with Christ. That's why I'm dead to the law. That's why I'm dead to any set of lists that any other people try to put on me.

There's a little group of a couple of women in Mahia that started a very legalistic, trying to be like Jews cult group.

I would call it a cult group in Mahia. And it's very sad because they don't understand grace at all.

They don't understand that Jesus is sufficient, that Jesus is everything, but he's also sufficient. You don't need to add stuff to him.

They don't get that. And they've been influenced by some people who claim to be Jews and maybe even claim to be

Jewish Christians. And it's very, very, very sad thing, but they certainly don't get this idea of being dead to the law.

But Paul said, I've already been crucified with Christ. So therefore I'm dead to the law. You can't put rules.

You can't tell me I have to worship on Saturday because that's the Sabbath. Because my day, my

Sabbath, which means rest, is every moment of every day, I rest in Jesus. I can, my

Sabbath can be any day of the week. We choose the Lord's day because that's the day he was resurrected, but you can't put that law on me.

So I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. So Paul is saying, but I'm real. I'm a real person.

I'm me. I'm not Jesus. I'm Paul. And I live, but it's interesting. I'm Paul. I'm not

Saul. See, Saul was the one who lived under the law. His name changed when he got saved. So I do live.

I'm me. I'm real. And I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

So the life that you see me living, because I've been crucified, buried, and risen again, and I walk in Christ and live in Christ, it's really him living through me on this earth and doing the work he would do if he were here physically.

And he's doing it with me and through me. It's a family business and I'm part of it. That's what he's saying. And that's what you really see in me.

Not the old Paul. So I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

It's not the old Paul. It's not Saul. It's Paul. It's the saved man that you see here today.

And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live, and that doesn't mean carnal in the sense.

It means that I live in this physical body. The life that I'm living in the physical world in this body right now,

I live by the faith of the son of God, not faith in the son of God. I live by Jesus's faith that the

Holy Spirit gave me and put it in my heart and soul so it's real. It's not just human belief that's here today and doubt tomorrow and here today and then doubt the next day.

This is the kind that can walk on water. This is Jesus's faith. Notice that in your

King James Bible, it says faith of, in every other modern translation, without exception, every other one it says in, it doesn't say of, but in the

Greek it's of. So they're mistranslated, they are errors and want you to miss this because they want you to be humanistic and think it's yours, but it's

Jesus's. And I can't preach on that enough so I do it every chance I get. But isn't it amazing how often we see this construct where it says faith of instead of in.

All right, so I now live by the flesh. I live, I mean, the life that I now live in this body,

I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness comes by a list of stuff you live by, such as the law, then

Christ is dead in vain. You can't make this more clear than that.

And of course, it's from the book of Galatians, which is the same book where he said, oh, foolish Galatians, I led you to Christ, I taught you good doctrine,

I left and went on a trip. And when I did, a false Judaistic preacher came in and taught you to be legalistic.

Now I come back, he said, you're so foolish. How could you so quickly change your mind and follow to a gospel that's not even the real gospel?

And boy, Paul rebuked him and straightened him out. And he said, have I wasted my time with you?

In other words, are you really saved? He sort of implied that and he really straightened him out.

So we need to understand that all of these beautiful characteristics that you can list here in Romans chapter 12, they are

Christ seen, I mean, Jesus is God seen. This is God we're looking at, and this is who we're supposed to be like.

But you can't be like it by memorizing the list and trying to fake it in the flesh. You have to literally walk in the spirit.

You have to literally reach up and grab his hand to walk on the water with him. You have to be holding onto his hand and exercising his faith in your life to be able to do any of these characteristics.

And I will tell you this, they're normally gonna be your second thought, not your first thought, unless you're walking in the spirit already, and then it'll be your first thought.

But you know what's wonderful about it? If it's your second thought, all of a sudden you just went from the flesh to the spirit.

You just switched over because you recognize, man, I'm just walking out here just like I'm just walking in the flesh.

I gotta, it's not gonna work with this person. And you say, Lord, let me think with the mind of Christ.

Let me have his mind right now. Think of this person as he would. And then all of a sudden now you're in this list without even remembering the list.

You just will absolutely live this. And that's the best way to live a Christian life. Let's stand and have prayer together.

And let us pray. Lord, thank you so much for your word. We ask you to bless it in our lives that we might be a blessing to you and to others.

And we ask you to go with us into our time of fellowship. Bless the meal we're about to have. In Jesus name, amen.