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Welcome, everyone, to our final class in this course, which has been on the subject of Israel, the church, and the promises of God. And I hope that it has been an encouraging and useful class over the last eight weeks.
We have covered many different subjects, and Brother Mike's not in here right now, but I do want to say I was very, very encouraged, especially by last week's message where he talked about the temple and worked all that out.
I thought that was very helpful. And hopefully reading along with the book has been helpful for you all as well. Well, tonight we are going to finish the course with the lesson entitled Living the Christ-Centered Life.
Because all of God's promises find their fulfillment in Christ, the Christian life must find its identity, direction, purpose, and hope in the person of Jesus Christ. If you remember on Sunday, I mentioned the Heidelberg Catechism, which begins, what is our only comfort in life and death?
That I am not my own, but belong body and soul to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is our only hope. Our only comfort is Him. And so tonight we are going to talk about how to apply the truths that we have learned in this class and hopefully carry them on forward as we continue to walk in Christ together.
But before we do that, I would like for us to have a word of prayer. So let's bow our heads and go to the Lord. Our Father and our God, we thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight and to open your word together and to be reminded of the wonderful truths therein.
And I pray, Lord, that you would keep me from error and that as your word is taught, Lord, that it would edify your people, that your spirit would fill the teaching of the word, that he would apply the truths to the hearts of everyone here and to those who will hear it online.
And I pray, Lord, that the believers would be edified by your truth. And Lord, if there are those who happen to be unbelievers who have not yet bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might hear the wondrous truth of the gospel and be saved.
Lord, most of all, we pray again that you would be glorified as we seek to minister your word. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. If everything we have studied for the last eight weeks is true, what difference does it actually make in our life?
What difference does all of this make? We have talked about Jesus Christ being the fulfillment of all of God's promises. We have talked about how the Abrahamic promise ultimately finds its fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ.
These are theological truths that can be debated and are debated by different theologians of different times and for different purposes. But if what we have said is true, if what we have concluded from this class is true, that Jesus Christ is in fact the fulfillment of all the promises of God, what difference does it make?
Well, a thought for the evening is this. Right theology should produce right living. As simple as it is. Right theology should produce right living. Now we know that it doesn't always. There are men who would proclaim right theology but live like the devil.
There are men who write theological textbooks and preach theological conferences that are later exposed to not have been living for Christ and that is a sad but very real reality that we have to face.
But right theology, meaning right thinking about God, right thinking about the scripture, right thinking about the truth, it should produce in us right living. The word that we usually associate with right theology is the word orthodoxy.
The word orthodoxy, the word doxa, is the root where we get the word glory. We sing the doxology at the end of our sermons, that's the proclamation of the glory of God. Orthodoxy refers to a right theology or right understanding of God, a right understanding of who God is specifically in regard to that which is aligned with his glory, the truth.
In the word orthos, we think of like an orthodontist. What does an orthodontist do? An orthodontist straightens teeth, right? So an idea of orthodoxy is straight or right theology and orthodoxy should produce orthopraxy.
That simply means the straight living or right living, the living out to practice or that's where the word would come from. So orthodoxy should produce orthopraxy or again as we've said, right theology should produce right living.
And chapter 11 of our book actually begins with this idea. It transitions from all the concepts that we have learned in the first 10 chapters into this 11th chapter which identifies the realities that shape our identity, our relationships, our work, our suffering, our eternal hope and this is what it says.
The comprehensive truth that all of scripture points to Christ and all of God's promises find their yes in him, 2 Corinthians 1 .20, creates profound implications for how we believers understand and live our faith.
This Christocentric perspective should permeate every aspect of life, transforming how we think, act and relate to God and to others. Having established across 10 chapters that we inherit all of Israel's covenant blessings through union with Christ, we now explore how this theological reality should revolutionize our daily experience.
The promises we studied are not merely academic concepts but living realities that should shape our identity, relationships, work, suffering and eternal hope. The reality again is it's not just dry, bare theological principles but it's how those theological principles come alive in our daily walking out of our faith.
God makes promises, Christ fulfills those promises, we receive those promises through union with him, therefore we live in light of the promises of God. Let me say that again, God makes promises, Christ fulfills those promises, we receive those promises through union with Christ, therefore we live in light of the promises of God that we have in Jesus Christ.
So tonight I've given a handout and for those of you who are taking this class online I want to make a quick note, none of the classes that we have done for this class are on the new website. I just found that out today and I do want to apologize.
We had a total new website reworking this past week, we have a brand new website and it's working really well but because this class is new it's not yet on the site. But this week one of my goals is to get all of the videos on the site, they're already on our YouTube page, people can go watch them on YouTube and they have been, but to get to them on the site, it will be on the site this week and this handout will be available for download for those of you who are taking this class online.
And I'm not always one to use handouts, I'm the type that it just depends on if the mood catches me right, but I felt like tonight's class really would go well with a handout and sometimes people don't like to fill in the blanks, sometimes people feel like this is like VBS for adults, like it might be a little bit of a, you know, a little bit somewhat juvenile, but I think sometimes it can be helpful and it doesn't hurt us to do it every once in a while.
So I gave one to everyone in the class and those of you who are doing the class online you'll get, you'll be able to download it very, very soon. So let's look first at our first blank and the blank, if you want to fill it in, is that Christ is not part of our life, Christ is our life.
Christ is not part of our life, Christ is our life. If you have your Bibles you can open them with me to Colossians chapter 3 and go to verse 1. Go to Colossians chapter 3 and verse 1. Let's see, Philippians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, okay, General Electric Power Company, right, it's Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, right, and you're trying to find the little books there in the middle of the New Testament.
Okay, so Colossians chapter 3 beginning at verse 1 the Apostle Paul writes this, if then you have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on things that are above not on things that are on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God, when Christ who is your life appears then you also will appear with him in glory, alright, so right away the Apostle Paul begins this section with this statement, if you have been raised with Christ, so who is he speaking to?
He's speaking to believers, when he talks about being raised with Christ he is talking about our spiritual regeneration, he says if you have been raised with Christ, doesn't Paul say that in the book of Romans, we were buried with him and we have been raised with him and that is what's pictured in our baptism, buried with him in baptism, raised to walk in the newness of life, that is, that's regeneration, that's the new birth and that's the new life that we have in Christ, he's not talking about a future resurrection, if you have been raised with Christ, no, he's talking about a past resurrection, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the father, seek the things that are above, set your mind on things that are above not on things that are on the earth, now this does not mean, and we're going to actually see this later, this does not mean that we don't have earthly things that we have to attend to, this doesn't mean that we become hermits or monks and we run to the monasteries or to the deserts and alleviate ourselves of all human responsibility and basically live away from all human relationships, no, it doesn't mean that, but what he's saying is in this life, the thing that should drive our life and the thing that should be the focus of our life, our very life should be lived in Jesus Christ and the focal point is actually in verse 4, he says when Christ who is your life appears, think about just the construction of what he's saying, the construction of that sentence, he doesn't say when Christ who is first in your life appears or when Christ who is most important in your life appears or when Christ who is your savior appears, no, he says when Christ who is your life, so again going back to our heading for this section, Christ is not part of our life, Christ is our life, the apostle Paul says I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, but it's not I who live, but Christ who lives within me and the life I now live, I live by faith in the son of God who gave himself for me, my life has now become centered on and is lived in the Lord Jesus Christ, I have died and I live in Christ, Christ is our life, we have a tendency to compartmentalize, especially men, especially men, not only men, but especially men have the tendency to compartmentalize life to where you have your church life and you have your family life and you have your work life and you have your financial life and you have your entertainment life and you have your political life and you have your other relationships and that's a different part of your life and then of course you have your hobbies and for some guys hobbies are the most important part of their life, they spend all their time on their hobbies and things like that, but those are all different compartments and I understand that, my wife and I have actually had this conversation about my ability and I do have an ability to absolutely divide the points in my life where I'm not thinking about anything in any other compartment when I'm in one compartment, so like when I'm working on my sermon, I'm not thinking about anything else, I'm working on that compartment, or when I'm with her and the kids, I'm trying not to think about anything else, I'm thinking about them, so there's some, that's good, there's some of that because you don't want to have like a person who's always divided, you want to be able to have some attention, but the problem is if you think of it like this, if you think of it like a grid, right, and you've got sort of, you know, home and work and you've got church and you've got relationships and you've got hobbies and let's say you've got sports, you know, you've got all these different aspects of life, what happens when we become a Christian is sometimes we just add another compartment and that's where Jesus goes, Jesus just becomes another compartment of life and we deal with the Jesus stuff when we're, maybe when we're at church or maybe when we're having our evening devotions at home, but Jesus isn't in our life all the time, we compartmentalize him out to that part that is the Jesus part and I've used this example before, I say Jesus becomes almost like an adornment of life rather than life, he becomes an accessory of life rather than life or, you know, if we think about like a Christmas tree, he becomes an ornament on our already full tree rather than him being our life and the focal point of this section is that when Paul speaks of Christ, he says, Christ, who is your life?
I just, honestly, for me, reading that, it just continually overwhelms me with what that means, that my whole life, everything should be lived in light of who Christ is and should be lived for Christ and Christ should not be a compartment but rather should be that which is overall, my marriage belongs to Christ, my money belongs to Christ, my career belongs to Christ, my body belongs to Christ, my suffering belongs to Christ, my future belongs to Christ.
Jesus doesn't get another category, Jesus defines all the categories and again, this is just what it means when we say Christ is not part of our life, Christ is our life. When Christ, who is your life, appears, the apostle says, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Again, when he says, who is your life, that's actually not the focal point of the sentence. The focal point of the sentence is when Christ appears, you will appear with him but he adds that clause when Christ, by the way, who is your life, appears, you will appear in glory with him and it's just this wonderful reminder.
It's sort of like next week I'll be in Arkansas and I'm preaching and one of the messages I'm preaching is on the value of scripture and I'm using one half of a verse, I'm preaching one half of a verse for the whole sermon and it's from Hebrews chapter 3 verse 7 and Hebrews 3 verse 7, it says, as the Holy Spirit said and it goes on to quote an Old Testament passage and my goal is to say, why did the writer of Hebrews say the Holy Spirit said this?
Because the word of God is the words of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit said this and it was actually David writing because it's quoting David from the psalms, Hebrews 3 is quoting a Davidic psalm but it says the Holy Spirit said this.
Why does that matter? That little sentence changes everything because it reminds us that this is the word of God, not just the words of David. Do we call it the Davidic psalms? Yes. Do we call it the Pauline epistles?
Yes. But at the end of the day, this is God's word. In the same way, Paul is here talking about when Christ appears, we'll be like him but Christ who is your life, the one you've been waiting for, the one who is coming, the one who is going to come and you're going to live with him forever when that appears, when he.
Appears, your life.
That's the part of this that just overwhelms when you think about Christ who is your life. He's not part of your life. He is your life. All right. So that's the first of several of the things we're going to look at tonight.
So again, number one, Christ is not part of our life. Christ is our life. He's not just first. He is our life. Now, the second thing I want us to look at is living from your identity, not for your identity, living from your identity, not for your identity.
All right. This is not a trick question, I promise. But I want to ask and feel free to raise your hand and answer if you would like. How does a person come into a right relationship with God? How does a person come into a right relationship with God?
It's OK. I know everybody's nervous because you think you're going to say the right thing and I'm going to tell you you're wrong. I promise it's not hard and I'm not trying to trick you. So how does someone come into a right relationship with God?
Come on, Cindy, I know you want to say something. I keep looking at you. I won't make you talk, but I didn't figure out. OK, thank you. Yeah, that was all I was looking for. Yes, we are. We always say sola fide, right?
Justification by faith, right? We come to a right relationship with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Right. We were at enmity with God. We were at war with God. But we have been brought into a right relationship with God through faith in his son, Jesus Christ. And of course, I believe faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin.
So we certainly agree with that. When that occurs, this is our identity that we now experience. The Bible says we we are a royal priesthood. First Peter chapter two, verse nine. We are Abraham's offspring.
Galatians chapter three, verse twenty nine. We are God's temple. First Corinthians six, nineteen. We are citizens of heaven. Philippians chapter three, verse twenty. We are a light to the nations. Matthew chapter five, verse fourteen.
These are all the things that we are. We are sons of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Adopted into the family of God. Adopted sons. All of these things are the realities of who we are. Therefore, we live from that identity, not for that identity.
Meaning our life is not trying to achieve that which we already have in Christ. So many people and Mike and I were talking about this in our elders meeting today. We're talking about Eastern Orthodoxy.
So many people are living towards something that they want to achieve. They believe that they have to get there. No, we are there. Remember, we just read in Colossians, Christ, who is your life? He is already your life.
He is already the one that you're in. You are already adopted. You are already justified. You are already in one sense sanctified. We would call that definite sanctification versus progressive sanctification.
We've been set apart. We have been declared his. He is ours and we are his. And that is what we live from, not what we live for in the sense that we're not trying to achieve it, but rather we're living from it.
We're not trying to become something that we already are in Christ, but we are living in light of what we are in Christ. This produces a very important distinction. Christian obedience flows from identity.
Identity does not flow from obedience, meaning or doesn't create obedience. Wait, let me start again. I think I just confused myself. Obedience flows from identity. Identity doesn't come from. It's not that we obey and then we become.
It's we we we have been made this thing and now we obey. Obedience is the result of not the cause of our relationship and our receiving of the promises of God. Galatians 329 says, if you are Christ's and if you are a person who has trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are his.
If you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. So we live in light of our identity. We live in light of who we are. And so this becomes the driving point for all of our life and all of our behavior.
Who are you? You are Christ's. You are his. And. This is one of those times where, again, it seems to me that we get this backwards so often and getting it backwards is the danger of working for that identity, working for who we are in Christ rather than understanding who we are in Christ and working as a result of that.
The I know you've heard this before, but I think it's important to always remind Paul wasn't unaware that people would get salvation out of order. And often in his letters, he would clarify with, I would say, with great specificity exactly how the order of salvation goes, not necessarily things like, you know, that he would order repentance and faith and adoption and those things, what we would call the order, salute us, things like that.
But he would tell us something like this. For by grace, are you saved through faith? And that's not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.
So you have three important words there. You have the word by, through and for. For by grace, are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.
And that's the order. And these three words, honestly, this is how so many people get so confused about salvation. Is they put the good works under the by, you're saved by your works or saved through your works.
No, you're not saved by your works. You're not saved through your works. You're saved for good works. You're saved by grace through faith, not of anything that you do, not of your works, lest anyone should boast.
No one can take their works to God at the end of their life and hand them to him and say, here's the reason why I deserve to be saved. No, that would be an act of boasting and that would be foolish. But we are saved for something.
We are saved for obedience. Christ doesn't save us to live a disobedient life. He doesn't save us to go out and continue to live like the world and the devil and to continue to indulge the flesh. No, he saves us for good works, but not by good works.
And this, I think, is an important distinction when we talk about our identity and who we are in Christ. And we're going to move on to the next one, but I just hope that makes sense. So we live from your identity, not for your identity.
Number three, the promises, meaning the promises of God, become resources for Christian living, resources for Christian living. In 2 Corinthians 1 .20, which was the verse that we use to begin this class, it says that all the promises of God have their yes and amen in Christ.
Okay, that isn't merely telling us a way to interpret Old Testament prophecy. I want you to hear this because this might be the most important thing I say tonight. 2 Corinthians 1 .20 is not just telling us, here's how you interpret the promises of the Old Testament.
They're fulfilled in Christ. That's true, and that is certainly something we've talked about in this class over the last seven weeks. But what 2 Corinthians 1 .20 is telling us is, where do we look when we want to find the promises of God?
We look at Jesus Christ. It's not just, okay, God fulfilled his promises to Israel and God fulfilled his promises to Abraham. No, he fulfills his promises to you in Jesus as well. That's the key. Where do we look when we're thinking of the promises of God?
We look to Jesus Christ. He is the resource for Christian living. Think of it like this. When I am in need, what does the Bible say? It says in Philippians 4 .19, and my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in who?
In Christ Jesus, right? Who do I go to when I am in need? I go to the Lord Jesus Christ. When I fail, and I fail every day, some days a little bit more gloriously than others, not bragging, but I've had some bad failures.
Where do I go when I fail? Do I not go to Hebrews 4 .15 that tells me, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.
Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We go to the one who loves us and gave himself for us. We don't run away from Christ when we fail.
We run to Christ. Now, we may run away from Christ in the instance of our failure, but when the conviction comes and we recognize what we have done, where should we go? Like the prodigal son. Where did the prodigal son finally realize he should be going?
Go to the father, right? We go, and how do we go to the father? Through the son, right? We go to Christ. So, when I am in need, I go to Christ. When I fail, I go to Christ. When I am spiritually malnourished, where do I go?
I go to Christ. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. The manna of the Old Testament was never the destination. The manna was pointing to Christ. And the manna which fulfilled the people's bellies daily during the time of the Exodus was pointing to Christ who fills us spiritually and gives us spiritual satisfaction because the manna was the shadow that was pointing to the substance, which is Christ.
So, when I am in need, I go to Christ. When I fail, I go to Christ. When I am hungry, spiritually, I go to Christ. And when I suffer, where do I go? I go to Christ. 2 Corinthians 12, 9 says, My grace is sufficient for you.
Matthew 11, 28, Come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden. This is Matthew, I'm sorry, Matthew 11, 28. Come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. By the way, and I don't want to spend a ton of time on this, but we talked a lot in this class about how Christ fulfills the promises of the Old Testament, and that's all this class has been about, right?
Like all the promises of God are fulfilled in Him. You know what? One great promise that's often missed by a lot of people is that Christ fulfills this for us, that Christ actually is our rest. He is our Sabbath.
In the book of Hebrews, in chapter 4, when it's talking about a Sabbath day, it's actually talking about a state of being. It's not talking a specific day. It's talking about the rest that we enter into.
He talks about those who don't enter into the rest, right? It's not talking about a day, it's talking about a state of being. And what is that state of being? It's the state of being at rest in Christ.
And He says, Come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you Sabbath. I will give you rest. Not just one day from your labors, and we can debate about Lord's Day issues and Sabbath issues and whether or not we should go to the McDonald's on Sunday afternoon.
We can have that conversation another time. But even those who would hold to, like let's say our Reformed Baptist brethren and Presbyterian brethren who might hold to Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, and I've had debates on that and had that conversation.
Even they recognize, though, that the ultimate eschatological fulfillment is in Jesus Christ. Not in a day, but in a person. He is our rest. So when I, you know, we sing the song, When I feel my faith will fail, Christ will hold me fast.
We're going to sing that this Sunday. That's, He will hold me fast. That means He will hold on to me. He will hold me fast. The word fast doesn't mean quick like we think of running fast. It means to be fastened, like to be held on to.
This is the John 10, which I'm preaching this week, where He says the believer is in His hand, and He is in the Father's hand, and no one can snatch them out of His hand. Why? Because He is holding us fast.
Our rest is in Him. And so He is the resource for the promises of God. Here's a useful summary. The Christian life is not merely believing that God made promises. It's learning to run to Christ because Christ is the fulfillment of those promises.
It's not just realizing God made promises. Where are those promises fulfilled? In Jesus Christ. Again, what is the title of the book? All the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ. Not just all the promises of God to Abraham, not just all the promises of God to Moses, not just all the promises of God to David, but all the promises of God find their fulfillment in Him.
If we are in need, if we feel our faith will fail, Christ is where we run to. It's not easy, folks. I hope that I don't sound like I'm making this trite. I'm not saying that when things are hard, it's not sometimes difficult to rest in Christ.
The world is constantly trying to pull us out of that rest, trying to pull us out of His hand, trying to cause us to not find our comfort in Him. I know that. So please don't take anything I'm saying tonight as trite or simplistic.
It's not. To me, it's the greatest truth in the world. It's just hard to apply. Because it's easy to say, hey, when I'm suffering, I should go to Christ for my comfort. But then I start suffering, and it's like I'm paralyzed.
Either I forget where to go, or I don't want to go. I want to find comfort somewhere else. But the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ. This is the heart of the class, right? This is the heart of what we've been learning.
So the Christian life is not merely believing that God made promises. It's learning to run to Christ because Christ is the fulfillment of those promises. All right, number four. We're going to look at what Christ does, the transforming work of Christ.
We're going to look at three areas that Christ actually transformed. These are in the book, but we're going to look at them a little bit more closely. First, we think of Christ's work. Christ transforms the home.
Christ transforms the home. If you have your Bibles, you can open them with me to Ephesians 5. And we're going to look at 5 .21 -6 .4. So a long section, but I just want to show you what we have here as an outline of the Christian home.
And it begins with a call to submission. It's calling believers to submit to one another. So in Ephesians 5 .21, it says, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Then in verse 22, a new paragraph begins.
It says, Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, His body and is Himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
And husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her by having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she may be holy and without blemish.
In the same way, husbands, you should love your wives. Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we're members of His body.
Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. The two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Overall, what we're seeing here is we're seeing the pattern of the family and the one thing that we need to recognize that is the red thread that is linking all of these verses together is the idea of Christ.
What does it say to the believers? And the first verse we looked at, verse 21, which is actually part of the preceding context, but he says, Submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ. When we come together as a church, we ought to count one another more important than ourselves.
Isn't that what we're told? That we are actually to consider one another to be more important than ourselves. James even talks about it. If we come into the church and we see the best seats and we think the best seats should be reserved for us and we force other people into the lower seats, what are we doing?
We're actually putting ourselves in a place of importance, but rather we should set ourselves in a lower position than someone else. We should be humble. We should be people who put others first. And last night, I was actually asked this question on my show.
Somebody asked a question about narcissism. Somebody says, Does the Bible ever address narcissism? And I said, well, narcissism is a modern psychological term that certainly is not in the Bible. It's based on an ancient Greek mythology on the narcissist, the character, but the idea is a more modern psychological idea.
I said, but certainly the Bible addresses issues of pride and self-love, and that's what narcissism ultimately is. It means to be a lover of oneself. And what does the Bible tell us? Not to be lovers of ourselves, right?
That's the dangerous false teachers are the ones who love themselves, who do what they do for ungodly gain, right? And we as Christians are supposed to be submitting to one another because of what? Because of Christ.
Out of reverence to Christ. That's why we do what we do. Not because of each other. Because there are times where as Christians we may rub shoulders and bristle against one another, and sometimes Christians have rough exteriors and we can rub each other the wrong way.
And, I mean, boy, we've been in this a long time, haven't we? Have we ever had anybody rub you the wrong way? I'm going to ask. Well, I'm just saying all of us have, right? We've all had people offend us.
We've all had people hurt us. There's a big thing right now that talks about church hurt. People who go to churches and they feel like they've been injured by the church, hurt by the church, right? And I get it.
I get that that sometimes does happen. There are legitimate cases where people have had churches who mistreated them, even exercised undue authority over them, things like that, and it's been bad. But our goal when coming together should be counting each other as more important than ourselves, putting each other first, loving one another, and even when we don't agree on everything, at least be able to love one another and let love cover a multitude of sins, you know?
I think sometimes we feel like we have to have everything be to our satisfaction. No, we submit to one another out of reverence to the Lord. And then the wives are called to submit to their husbands. Why?
As unto the Lord, because you're submitted to Christ, therefore you're submitted to the husband, and the husband is to love his wife. Why? Because Christ loved the church, and it's a picture of Christ in the church, and children are to obey their parents, as to the Lord, because as you are obeying your parents, that's the authority God has set over you, and that's the responsibility you have to keep that commandment, and in all of these things, Christ is at the very center of it all.
That's really the point I'm making. I don't have time to go through every verse and talk about every particular way that this would work out, but Christ transforms the home when He becomes the center of the home.
When we discipline our children with the Word of God, not using the Word of God as a bludgeon or a hammer, but saying, the reason why we do this or don't do this is because God has given us a command in His Word.
So we're going to, as a family, follow after Christ. This is what God has called us to do. And my wife knows that sometimes I am not perfect. Calm down. I know it's hard to believe. And even in my imperfections, she's called to submit to me and respect me.
And even in her imperfections, I'm called to love her and to treat her, as Peter says, as the weaker vessel, to live with her in an understanding way. And I love it. We've had this conversation 50 ,000 times.
It doesn't tell us how to do that. It just says live with her in an understanding way, which means sometimes we've got to figure it out. There's a funny picture online of a book this big. In the top it says, How to Understand Women.
I'm sorry. I just thought it was funny. Because it's hard sometimes as a man to understand what your wife's thinking. And I know for wives, women, it's hard to understand what the man is thinking sometimes because we do have different brains.
God created us differently. But we're called because of Christ to live a certain way. And this is what we say. Christ transforms the home. When Christ gets a hold of the whole home, then the home is transformed.
Now, it's hard sometimes when you have a home where there's only one believing person. But what is that person called to do? Hey, I'm still supposed to love her as Christ loved the church, even if she doesn't love Christ.
She's still supposed to respect her husband, even if he doesn't love Christ. She's supposed to live in that way of respect for him, even if he doesn't love Christ. That's harder. But that's still... What does 1 Corinthians 7 say?
That is a sanctifying... Well, let me try again. A sanctifying influence on the home. Because what does it say? It says the believing spouse sanctifies the unbelieving husband or the wife. And you say, does that mean they're saved?
No. A believing spouse doesn't save the unbelieving spouse, but they bring a sanctifying presence into the home. They bring Christ into the home. They're living out the promises of God in Christ in the home.
I remember years ago I did a podcast about a lady who prayed for her husband for 50 years, and he got baptized when he was 80-something years old. I don't remember, he was like 85. And they had to carry his little frail body into the baptistry.
And he says, my wife has prayed for me all these years. What a blessing to think that that sanctifying influence of the wife, that Christ-centered life living in that home. And I know it doesn't always happen.
It's not an absolute promise, but that's what we're called to do. And the Christ-centered home, Christ transforms the home. All right, if I don't hurry up, we're not gonna get through all this, so let's get through the other ones.
Christ transforms the home. Christ also transforms our work. Now, in some people's vocabulary, work is a four-letter word, because some people don't like to work. The Bible talks about the danger of being a sluggard.
And I remember years ago, Jennifer was explaining to J .J. what a sluggard was. And he said, oh, Mama, I don't want to be a sluggard. I said, well, that's good. You don't want to be a sluggard. You want to be one who works.
And we are told in Scripture, in Colossians chapter 3, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
Whatever you do, work as unto the Lord. Now, I already put Christ. I erased. I'll put him over here. What's the Christ-centered home? We said Christ is the center of the home. Christ also is the center of our work.
He's the center of our work. We make a distinction often between the sacred and the secular. And we can discuss that because there are ways we could maybe flesh that out some. But I think the bad thing is I think sometimes people think that only people who have jobs in the sacred realm, like ministry jobs or missionary jobs, they're the only ones who are working as to the Lord.
But no, the reality is is that everyone and every job who is a Christian who carries Christ into that job with them, everyone who has the Holy Spirit in them and they're going into that job is making that a Christian job because the Christian is bringing that work or bringing that presence to that work with them.
If Christ is Lord, ordinary work becomes work that is rendered to Christ. This is why, and I know I've told this before, but when I used to have my... I had a screen printing shop at our house and I had a sign that it said it wasn't this verse, but it was the verse that says whatever you do, whether you're eating or drinking, do everything to the glory of God.
And I used to say to the kids because it was a little family business and we'd screen print t-shirts. And when we'd go out to do it, I'd say we're going to screen print to the glory of God. There's an attribution that often goes to Luther.
Luther said a Christian shoemaker does not do his duty by putting little crosses on shoes. He does his duty by making good shoes. That's his duty. If you are a Christian shoemaker, your duty is to make good shoes because you're doing it to the glory of God.
And the same is for any job that is being done by a Christian. In fact, the word vocation, this is interesting. I actually learned this in my study getting ready for this because I never thought about it before.
What's the root of vocation? It's the same root as the word vocal. It means calling. It means calling. The word vocal means to call. The vocation is a calling. Now, we're not saying all is the same. There's certain calling, like you call to be an elder or a pastor or something like that.
There are certain things that God calls us to do ministerially that might be distinguished. But everything we do unto Christ or everything we do in our lives should be done unto Christ and be seen as this is what God has given me to do.
This is what God has called me to do. If God's called you to paint houses, you paint houses to the glory of God. And you demonstrate your love for Christ by doing well, by doing a good job. If you're an esthetician, is that?
Anesthesiologist. Anesthesiologist. No, I'm sorry. Anesthesiologist. You're putting people to sleep to the glory of God. And you're a Navy man. Well, not anymore. You're a contract worker. But you're a sailor to the glory of God.
You know, we just had just this week, I don't know how many of you saw it, but the Frazier family, Stephanie went out to see her son Nate graduate from boot camp. And I saw the picture come up that he had graduated.
And I remember when we went out to see my son Cody graduate from boot camp and to see him in his uniform and to see him proud of himself and holding himself a little taller and a little more assured of himself because he's been through this now many weeks of training for the military and now about to go to tech school and learn what he's going to be doing for the next several years of his life.
When we do these things, we're doing it to the glory of God. Today I interviewed a guy who wrote a book called Offensive Christianity, which is actually a really good book. And so I had him on the show.
And he was talking about how, the book is ultimately about how things that are, we should use strong speech and straight speech. And sometimes that's, people consider that offensive, but that's, you know, I've had that conversation many times about a lot of people, they can't handle straight and strong speech.
They don't want to hear it. Everything has to be couched in 15 layers of nuance. Nobody just wants to hear it like it is. But one of the things he talks about is he talks about in the book, Chase is his name.
He said, he talked about glory and he talked about the pursuit of glory. Our ultimate pursuit is the glory of God. Not the glory of Keith or the glory of Bill or the glory of any of us, right? That's not our goal, right?
But Gary, when you do your job, you want it to be done well. And you want it to be good. You don't want to come away with garbage. You want to come away with a glorious product, you want to have something to present to the Lord.
I did this in your honor. I talked about my sermons on the show. I said, you know what? I want my sermons to be good. Not so that people can leave and say, look how good of a preacher Keith is, but because this is my service to God.
This is my desire is to please my Lord and to edify His people. And if I just phoned it in and didn't care, that would not be glorifying to my Lord. And the same is true with everything we do. Again, going back to the text.
Whatever you do, work heartily, ask for the Lord. Why? Because He is our life. When Christ who is your life appears, you will appear with Him. Christ transforms our work. And finally, Christ transforms our mind.
In 2 Corinthians 10 -5, it tells us to take every thought captive to obey Christ. Now when I preach through 2 Corinthians, I did mention that actually this is referring to taking the thoughts of others captive.
It's talking about Paul going out and debating and opposing false teaching and taking the thoughts of men captive to Christ. But it's often applied, we'll think about taking our own thoughts captive. It's actually Paul talking about capturing the hearts and minds of men.
But either way, the point I wanted to make tonight is Christian discipleship includes thinking Christianly. Can I say that again in a weird way? Maybe that sounded corny. Do you think like a Christian?
Do you think like a Christian? Or do you think, like we talked about earlier, compartmentalized? And we talked about there were all these compartments and Jesus gets another compartment. But when we're thinking about our finances, we're not thinking Christianly.
When we're thinking about our work, we're not thinking Christianly. When we're thinking about our home and our marriage and our kids, we're not thinking Christianly. Christ gets His own compartment. No, Christ doesn't get a compartment.
Christ is all. And therefore, are we thinking Christianly, are we thinking with Christian minds when we're thinking about the world around us? Everything must come under Christ. Philosophy. You know what the word philosophy means?
It means the love of wisdom. Right? Sophia is the word wisdom. If you've ever met a woman named Sophia, it means wisdom. Philos means love. So philosophy is the love of wisdom. How many people in the world believe they love wisdom, that they're pursuing wisdom outside of Christ?
And what is that? It's the wisdom of the world, which is folly with God. Now that's not to say that no worldly philosopher ever got anything right. I mean, they do get some things right because of what I would call the common grace of God and natural revelation leads them to certain things that are correct.
But if we want to have a right philosophy, it has to be a Christian philosophy, not just a worldly philosophy. If we want to have right thinking in the area of politics, ooh, there's a big one, it has to be a Christian way of thinking about the world and about politics.
We think like Christians because Christ transforms the mind. When we think about sex, when we think about money, when we think about success, when we think about family, justice, how's that one? Think about how justice has been perverted in our world and how we understand what justice is.
Identity. We live in the arena of what's called identity politics, right? Where everything is based on people's identity and not just even their true identity. Sometimes it's identities that are created.
I said created, I was trying to say corrupted and created at the same time. I can't put it together. Created in corruption. You know, we have to call Jim, Jill because Jim believes he's a woman. No, that's a false identity.
But that's an un-Christian way of thinking. It's ungodly way of thinking. Culture and entertainment, all of these things, do we think about them Christianly? I used to have a friend, well, I still have a friend.
But I had a friend who did a show and he would look for Christian themes in movies. And I would go on his show sometimes and we would talk about Christian themes in movies because it's interesting. And I don't remember the exact number, but there was a study done one time and it basically said that of all the stories that have ever been told, there's only like five or six narratives.
It's the hero's journey, it's the lost love, it's the revenge. There's like these six stories that keep getting regurgitated in film or they keep getting regurgitated in books. And it's the same stories, just with a twist here and there.
There's a different ending or something. But they all start, I mean, how many TV shows do we know where it started with someone whose, their family member was injured or killed and they went on a revenge journey, right?
Or a vengeance journey or justice journey, right? Like that's, I mean, Mike, you know, we love Tombstone, right? Like Tombstone, justice is coming. That's on the title of the poster, right? Like this whole story though, these stories, these narratives, we see these, this is the story of redemption.
We see these narratives playing out, the ideas that come to us from God. These ideas that we see in scripture. And we look at things and we think of things Christianly. Again, I know that's a weird way of saying it.
But God renews our mind to where we begin not adding Christ to these things, but looking at everything through Christ. Because he who is our life is Jesus Christ. So here's a thought, I know we're out of time, but I just wanna say, there's no intellectually neutral territory.
It all belongs to Christ. My mind belongs to Christ. Nothing intellectually neutral. So when I'm worried, Christ is my provision. I have to remember that. When I'm struggling with lust, I have to remember I am Christ's temple.
When I am dealing with pride, I have to remember that my savior was humble and he calls me to be like him. When I'm in despair, I have to remember he has the victory. These are the things, this is thinking Christianly about life.
Taking every thought captive doesn't just mean stop thinking bad thoughts. It means to interpret the world according to Christ. Interpret the world according to Christ. Do you know what the definition of truth is?
Well, there's different definitions of truth. The correspondence theory of truth is that truth corresponds to what is real or actual. Truth corresponds to the facts, if you will. But the problem is who gets to determine what's real or actual?
I mean, the person who has a mental disorder might think that they really are James Bond or that they really are a alien from outer space, right? Well, they don't get to determine what's true, but it's true to them and their mind.
So even if you use the correspondence theory of truth, truth is what corresponds to what's real, you have to say from whose perspective. And the answer is it's from God's perspective. He determines what is true and what is real.
So when we have thoughts that are outside of his thinking, we're actually not even dealing with reality. This goes back to the whole, you know, Jill and Jim situation. Jim wants to be called Jill because he's not thinking in reality.
No matter how much he might be convinced that he is. Christ is our life and he is transforming our home, transforming our work and transforming our mind. He is the standard for truth. All right, that leads me to our conclusion.
The Bible is all about Christ. That's what this whole class has been about. And I mentioned it earlier, brother, you wanted to hear me say, I thought last week's lesson was awesome. The temple lesson was great.
Thank you again for your participation in teaching. And I think the last eight weeks have been encouraging to me. I know I got to listen to half of them, so that was good for me, but to be encouraged and edified in the word.
Just remember if you do want to earn a certificate in this class, we do have to have two things from you. One, you have to show me your notebook just to show that you took notes during class and you have to turn in a paper.
You have a month from the end of this class to finalize your paper. And the only reason why we give you a timeline is because oftentimes if you don't give someone a timeline, they let it go and let it go and let it go and never do it.
So we ask for your papers to be in in a month. So does anyone have any questions before I ask Brother Mike to pray for us? Did you enjoy the class?
Has it been useful? Well, praise God. Brother Mike, would you close? Father God, we thank you so much for your son's eight weeks that we know where those promises are and they're found in your son. And not only do we know where they are, we know what they are and what's already in your son as well.
Father, we thank you for his perfect sacrifice. We thank you, Father, that you resurrected him from the dead and we thank you, Father, that he now is seated at your right hand and that he sent forth the spirit to live and reside with us.
Now, Father, as we leave this place, I pray that you would lead us and guide us and bring us back together on the Lord's day to worship you as a body of believers in spirit and in truth, amen.
Last thing I thought about, this is Brother Mike was praying, so please forgive me. I know you guys are ready to go. Next week, we will have a dinner with a Q &A following with the elders. And then the week after that, we'll begin our class on the 1646 Confession.
So it won't be an academy class, it's just gonna be a study through the confession. But just remember next week to come hungry, we will have a meal. And the paper due for this class is a five to seven page paper from any topic in the textbook.
You can pick any topic you want, five to seven pages and send it to me via email so that I can grade it and get your certificate back to you. All right, God bless.
