Romans 10:1-4

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Chapter 10, verses 1 -4. Last week, we went over...
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we went through the end of 9 and through the very beginning, through 1 -4 and 10, because there's no chapter breaks, and it gives great context to what
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Paul is talking about at the end of chapter 9. But I also felt that verses 1 -4 needed another week, because there is a lot there that has to do with a plethora of things.
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Now, this is not topical, so you don't have to worry about that. That's not something that we do. But there is a large portion of application.
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So you have to bear with me there. Starting in verse 1, it says,
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Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
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For being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.
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For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
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Now, we established in chapter 9, Paul is establishing, or not establishing, but rather revisiting an idea he put forth in chapter 3 and 4.
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The elect are the elect because of the sovereignty of God, not because of the dent of birth, or because of who they are, or where they're from, but because of God who calls.
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That it doesn't matter whether you're a Jew, or whether you're a Gentile, that what matters is whether or not
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God decides to save you, whether He decided to save you from before the foundation of the world.
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And Paul is a perfect example of this, which is why we're going to talk about Paul specifically a lot today.
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In verse 1, he says, Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.
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This is reminiscent of what Paul said at the beginning of chapter 9.
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And we talked about that a little bit, Paul's grief for his brethren, for his kin. I want you to consider for a minute
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Paul and the love that he has for his own people. Now, while I stated before, a couple sermons ago, that we can identify with Paul on a certain level, the grief that he has for his people.
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We have loved ones. We have loved ones that we know aren't saved, that we wish would be saved, and it grieves us in our hearts that they have rejected the gospel outright or refuse to hear it at all.
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We do not wish that they move into perdition. However, it will happen to some.
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It will happen to many, rather. The reason we can only identify with Paul on a specific level, on a certain level, is this.
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You don't have to flip there with me if you don't want to, but if you want to, it's Acts chapter nine, verses 23 and 25.
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When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him. But their plot became known to Saul.
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They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him. But his disciples took him by night and led him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.
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You move to Acts 23. We heard
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Acts 22 before in the reading of the scriptures and what happened to Paul then.
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In Acts 23, it says, when it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed
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Paul. There was more than 40 who made this conspiracy.
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So these men, 40 men came together, 40 Jews came together and said, we're gonna kill
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Paul and none of us are gonna eat or drink until we do it. We know that Paul's ministry was 30 years, so how long did that last?
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But they plotted to kill him. This is only two instances in the book of Acts where they plotted to kill him.
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So that was Acts nine, 23 through 25, and Acts 23, 12 and 13.
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So you can see why we can only understand on a certain level the grief that Paul has for his people.
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We have the same grief for our kin, but Paul's love that he extends to his kin is far beyond anything that we have ever had to deal with.
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Now, this doesn't include all people in this age. There are people in other parts of the world that do have to worry about it.
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But as far as I know, as far as I can tell, not a single person in this room or a single person that lives in America necessarily has to worry about their family members trying to kill them because they're elect.
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Now, I could be wrong, anecdotally, but by and large, the church in America does not have to worry about slaughter yet.
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This is easy for us to care for those who care for us. It's very easy.
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It's hard to share the gospel with them, but it's easy to love them. How difficult must it be, how massive must
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Paul's grief and his love be for even those who want him dead?
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Everywhere Paul went, the Jews in the synagogues hated him.
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And yet, at the beginning of chapter nine, he said that he has great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart.
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It says, for I could wish that I myself were a cursed anathema and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
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Can you imagine having that for someone, a family member whose aim is to kill you, and yet you would wish that you were anathema so that they might be saved, willing to give up your own salvation for them.
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If only we could have that kind of compassion for those that we love, much less for those who hate us.
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Pray that those who persecute us and are as we once were in need of the gospel, that we might be able to become
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Paul himself as he admits in Acts 22, which we just read, a great persecutor of the church.
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Until that day on the road to Damascus, when Christ appears to him and calls him, calling
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Saul of Tarsus, a Roman citizen and Pharisee to become
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Paul. In verse two, he says, for I bear witness, for I bear them witness that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
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Paul knows his people, he knows himself, that the Jews know the word of God. They know it inside and out.
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We talked a couple of minutes about, or at least it was mentioned last week or the week before about what phylacteries are.
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What those were were little boxes that they wore around their necks and they had bits of scripture rolled up in them. They took it very seriously.
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They memorized it. How many of us memorize scripture as a common practice?
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It's not a common practice. The catechism isn't even common practice anymore. But they had zeal, great zeal.
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This is why they wanted Paul dead, just as he stood in approval as they stoned
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Stephen. But because their zeal was misplaced, ultimately what they did, both the
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Pharisees and Sadducees, is they replaced God's word with their own traditions.
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Their traditions became more important than the word of God. And this is called out several times by Christ in scripture.
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We've got a litany of references here that we're gonna go through because we need to.
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Mark seven, eight through 10. Actually it's eight through 13, but I'm gonna start in verse one.
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So one through 13, sorry about that. Now, when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
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For the Pharisees and all the Jews did not eat unless they washed their hands properly, holding to the tradition of their elders.
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And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.
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And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.
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And the Pharisees and scribes asked him, speaking of Jesus, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?
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And he said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is, well, did
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Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
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In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.
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And he said to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition.
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For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
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But you say, if a man tells his father or mother, whatever you would have gained from me is corban, that is given to God.
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Then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do.
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In Luke 11, 37 and 41, the 37 through 41, while Jesus was speaking, a
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Pharisee asked him to dine with him. So he went in and reclined at the table.
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The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner.
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The Lord said to him, now you Pharisee, cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.
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You fools, did not he who made the outside make the inside also?
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But give as alms those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you.
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One more, Matthew 15. And he called the people to him and said to them, hear and understand, it is not what goes in the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth defiles a person.
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Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?
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And he said, every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be rooted up.
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Let them alone, they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.
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But Peter said to him, explain the parable to us. And he said, are you also without understanding?
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Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?
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But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart. And this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
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These are what defiles a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.
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At every turn, Christ has to point out to the Pharisees, to the Sadducees, and often to his own apostles, the hypocrisy of his people.
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That in their want for their own glory, for their own righteousness, they made up these traditions like the washing of hands before you eat.
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Now, it's a good practice to wash your hands before you eat. I'm not saying it's not. But it was a law to them.
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It went very quickly from probably need to wash the dirt off your hands before you eat to if you don't, you're breaking the law.
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That's a sin. I'm gonna be honest with you.
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How many people in here think that it's a sin not to wash your hands? I hope not.
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We just read that it's not. They were that ridiculous.
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And they still hold to these. This is the Talmud, the spoken
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Torah. Now, many of them have probably faded into history, but they still follow these.
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They still follow the law, but not the sacrificial system. It goes hand in hand with the following of the law.
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Where's their zeal? But because of their lack of understanding, they had externalized the law, which they should have internalized.
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That's the purpose of the law is to point us to Christ, to show us that we can't, that we lack the capacity to fulfill the law and to point us to the one who can.
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This is why Jesus points out in the Sermon on the Mount, the internalization of what the
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Jews thought were external laws. Don't commit adultery. Christ says that that's a crime of the mind.
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To lust after someone is to commit adultery. To hate someone is to commit murder.
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What comes out of the person is what defiles the person. Sin doesn't start out there and you kind of wander into it like it's bad air.
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It starts in here. But just like the
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Jews, Paul is a Pharisee. He knows the word inside and out.
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And he admits in Philippians 3, verses four through eight, you don't have to turn there. He says, although I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh, also, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh,
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I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a
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Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, meaning
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I know more of it than you do, as a lawyer, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, lameness.
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Their zeal was great. There is no argument there, none.
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This is why, for instance, we really don't know what the name of God originally was because they stopped writing it.
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We surmise the vowels that give us the word Yahweh, but we really don't know what it was because they refused to speak it, first of all, because they didn't want to break the commandment.
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And eventually, they stopped writing the whole thing all together. And even when it was translated, it was translated as the
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Lord. So whenever you see in your Bible where it says the Lord in all capitals, that's where that word used to be.
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That's the zeal that they had. They didn't want to break that law, so they just forgot the word altogether. But for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own law, they did not submit to God's righteousness.
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Saul of Tarsus had exemplified himself among the Jews and was in his mind, by his lack of understanding, he in his heart and in his mind persecuted the church of Christ for God.
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All of the Christians that he hunted down and brought back to Jerusalem and put them before a tribunal, he did that for God because he saw them as blasphemers.
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You're saying that a dead man, a man that we crucified who claimed to be
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God, we rightly crucified him, and you're saying that he's the
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Messiah. He didn't do it out of a hatred for God.
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He did it out of a zeal for God that was misplaced. But Paul has, as I said before, a unique understanding of the fervency of his kin for God.
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He understands why they persecute him because previously he was a persecutor.
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He understands exactly why. He knows from the scriptures, firstly, why
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God is saying that he's being persecuted, and he also knows from his own life experience how could he not.
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Similarly, in our own lives, we see Christians, younger
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Christians, doing things that we did, and we understand why.
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Now, this is much greater expressed at the very beginning of conversion when we have this fervency for the word that we've never had before.
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We're on fire for the word, and we just wanna walk around, and we wanna shake people, and we're gonna say, look at it, read it.
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And if they do, we say, how do you not see it? How do you not understand? The words are right there on the page.
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Read them in order, and it will make sense. These things become more and more clear as we age in our faith, and we're given more and more understanding by the
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Holy Spirit. We understand that they either have no understanding to begin with, so they're unsaved, and we need to give them the gospel, or we understand that they haven't been given the same understanding that we have yet.
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They're just not there yet. This is what, as Calvinists, we like to say of our minions.
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They're just not there yet, but Lord will, and they will be one day.
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The good thing is is that it's the gospel that saves, not the doctrines of grace. But those questions that I stated before, how do you not understand?
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Why don't you wanna read it? Like, how do you not get this? It's as plain as day. Creation screams that God exists, right?
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Christianity is different from any other religion. Every other religion says you're gonna have a hard time, but you can.
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Christianity says you can't. Not possible, but he did, right?
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We don't understand in the beginning why. Why do you not see it? You grew up in the church, why do you not see it?
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But even those questions show a lack of understanding. The fact that we asked those questions showed that we ourselves lacked understanding.
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Moving a bit further. Turn with me, if you would, to 2
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Timothy. Now, some of us have covered this already. We spoke about it a little bit yesterday, but this is a really good example, and I really wanted to include it here.
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Now, the context of 2 Timothy is that this is the last letter that Paul writes.
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Paul is imprisoned, he's in chains, and he is about to be executed.
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We don't know exactly how long between when Paul writes the letter and his execution, but Paul knows that it's coming.
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He knows that it's close. But this is the last epistle that he writes.
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It is to Timothy, his disciple, his son in the faith, as Paul calls him. Timothy is young in age, but not in faith.
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That needs to be understood for Timothy's sake. Timothy is young. He's a young man. We don't know exactly,
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I don't know exactly how old, but I'm gonna surmise somewhere between 25 and 30.
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Because Paul admonishes him for how old he is in the faith.
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It is specifically about Timothy and ministry. That doesn't change.
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And it is specifically what he's talking about here are people in the church.
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I cannot express that enough. This is about the church. 2
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Timothy 3, verses one through nine. This is, but understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty.
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For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self -control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.
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Avoid such people, for among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions.
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Always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Janus and Jambres opposed
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Moses, so these men opposed the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith.
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But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men."
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Speaking of Janus and Jambres. A lot of people think when they read this, suddenly
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Paul has flip -flopped what he's talking about. And that this is about the world, and how the world will be.
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Make no mistake, it will be like this. But Paul didn't suddenly change the subject of the discussion.
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He's talking about the church before this section, and he's talking about the church right after this section. This is how people in the visible church will be.
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And through here, not in this specific section, he's telling Timothy to watch out for this, because it's coming.
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But throughout 2 Timothy, Paul is telling Timothy that people in the visible church will become like this, that he will have to deal with small controversies and large controversies and quarrels about words and quarrels about this and quarrels about that, and things that get out of hand and false teachers.
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And what Timothy needs to do for that is to remain steadfast in the gospel.
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He doesn't say go out and protest. He doesn't say have online debates.
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He doesn't say throw yourself at the pyre of whatever secondary controversy you possibly can to gain followers.
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He says remain steadfast in the gospel. How many do we have in the church today?
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How many forge ahead on different crusades that must be done for the betterment of the church and lose sight of what matters?
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They lose sight of the gospel. How many people can you think of off the top of your head?
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Their only online presence is their secondary or tertiary problem. They don't share the gospel.
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You see, it's all about this or it's all about that. But very rarely do they bring up the gospel. They have done the same exact thing that the
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Israelites did. Why do you think that when you come here, very often you hear the gospel?
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You're saints. Do you need to hear the gospel because you're unsaved?
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Now, in part, that's why when someone exegetes scripture, generally in a sermon, a gospel presentation is in there somewhere.
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It may be fleshed out across the entire thing, but that's why, because you do worry that some people, if they attend, if there are guests that come, that they're not.
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The only way that they will be is if they hear the gospel, right? People are saved by the hearing of the word.
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That's why it's there. But it's not the only reason that it's there. The other reason is that it's there is because every single saint needs to hear it as often as they possibly can, because we live in the flesh.
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Now, as saints, we don't need to be saved again. We just got done with chapter eight.
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We're done with that. You have assurance in a sovereign God. You do not have to worry about losing your salvation and trying to gain it again.
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That is not a thing you have to worry about as a saint. You're locked in. He's not letting you go because he promised to finish it.
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But of course, we need to hear it as often as we possibly can, because if we don't, where do we go?
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We tend to stray. We're sheep. The Holy Spirit is constantly, every day, as a representative of Christ on earth until his return, pushing you back over to where you ought to be.
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You tend to lean over to the left. You're moving with the flock, with the church, and you say, well, I like that grass over there a little bit more.
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Nope, get back. Move over there. That's what conviction is.
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That's the shepherd's group. You know, it has a hook to pull you back and a pointy end to poke you with.
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When you feel that heavy conviction, that's the poke. When someone says something in a sermon or something you hear, that's the hook.
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It's uncomfortable, but it's not nearly as bad as correction.
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Christ is where any zeal that you have, Christ is where it belongs.
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Not chasing some secondary or tertiary issue or some conspiracy or some kind of other thing down a rabbit hole that will lead nowhere.
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They all lead nowhere. They're the doctrines of grace.
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As Calvinists, we hold those in very high esteem, very obviously, without the gospel where they lead.
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Make no mistake, many of the issues that we see members addressing in the church, many of these issues are real issues that need to be talked about.
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They are. I'm not belittling any kind of issues. Maybe some of them, but not all of them.
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The church has real, serious problems. Our culture has real, serious problems.
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Let me ask you this. These issues that we ought to talk about inside the church and outside of the church, in the world, are they not a symptom of sin?
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Just pick one at random. Is it not a symptom of sin? If they are symptoms of sin, so let's say giving a lot of money to a particular church group and that church group goes out to do evangelism and they evangelize people with a false gospel.
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That's a real problem. I mean, like a real, actual problem that the church faces, especially in the
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South. But what is it, them doing that?
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It is a symptom of sin. The world has one problem, and that is sin.
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And if everyone ultimately has a sin problem, what is the cure for their ailment? Christ.
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The gospel. There are many things that the church pursues that are righteous pursuits.
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But as I said before, many, many, many, many people pursue them as idols. They set them before the gospel.
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They set it before anything else. They have this great and wonderful zeal that we love to watch online.
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Look at this guy, he's going after this dude. But there's no gospel there.
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We see this argument of why this and why that and why you shouldn't do this or why you should do that, but many of them don't give a gospel presentation.
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You know, you have to act like Christ is a part of that law presentation that you're already giving. We have a tendency as human beings, as people who live in the flesh, that our spirits are purified.
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We're indwelt with the Holy Spirit. We continue to live in the flesh until the day that we die.
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So we still have a fleshly tendency to lean away from Christ in his work and toward other things, towards conspiracies or doctrinal differences or other things that quickly become controversies, taking our zeal from where it should be, pointed at Christ and putting it on other things.
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We spoke yesterday at the men's group about two people particularly that are mentioned earlier in 2
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Timothy, Hymenaeus and Philetus. These two people taught antinomianism, which is heresy.
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It is heresy, period, but they didn't start out that way. They were led there by rumor, by the idea that Christ's resurrection was the second coming or the foretold second coming.
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And they were led to antinomianism. Well, if Christ's come back already, then there's no more sin.
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We can teach that there's no more sin. That's what they taught.
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It may sound ridiculous to us, but you have to think, they're living not very long after Christ's resurrection.
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When many people saw many saints rise from the dead in Jerusalem, right, that's what it says in scripture, that there were many people who rose and walked around Jerusalem.
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It's not hard to see how without understanding, someone would lean that way. We have people who lean that way now, who teach that there is sinlessness in this life.
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It's called holiness doctrine and then about three or four different churches in this city teach it, that you can achieve sinlessness in this life.
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It was a form of antinomianism, but that's what it is. But they were brought to that conclusion by small controversy.
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The trick of the enemy, who doesn't get talked about a whole lot in Reformed churches, but the trick of the enemy is work inside the church.
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The church, remember it says, even to lead astray the elect. The trick of the enemy within the church is not to try to cause us to lose our salvation.
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Trust me, he knows more about God and how God works than you ever will. That is not his aim.
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He cannot cause someone who is saved to lose their salvation and he knows that. But he can rather cause us to be consumed with anything that we could possibly be distracted with.
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So that we don't go tell other elect people. The first and foremost thing that we are commanded to do as saints is the
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Great Commission, to share the gospel. The world, the enemy will do absolutely everything that it can to keep you from doing that.
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Even to use things that are of great concern, but we have to remember as saints in hearing the gospel that there is no substitute for it.
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Let me give you an example. In Luke chapter 10 verses 38 through 42.
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Take a sip if you need to. 38 through 42 says, now as they were traveling along, he entered a village and a woman named
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Martha welcomed him into her home and she had a sister called Mary.
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We're familiar with these two, Mary and Martha. Who was also seated at the
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Lord's feet, Mary, listening to his word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations and she came up to him and said,
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Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the preparations alone? Then tell her to help me.
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But the Lord answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary.
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For Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her.
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This is a very specific example of one person being consumed with tradition and with things that we are commanded to do as Christians to be hospitable, to love our neighbors in that manner.
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But Martha was so consumed with doing all of these other things that she didn't even think to just sit down and listen to God himself.
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I want to express that very clearly, right? Jesus, the son of God, God, the son in human flesh.
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She was so consumed with making preparations for food that she was bothered that her sister decided to sit down and listen to God in the flesh teach her.
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That is some serious misplaced zeal. I'm not saying that the things that Martha was doing weren't good things, they were, but they weren't the most important thing.
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For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. This is verse four, we're almost done. If we keep our focus on Christ as good servants should, everything else will follow.
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Those things that we want to see changed, if in fact they are sinful things, if God wills them to change, they will change.
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If the people doing them become convicted of them. I can go outside, not right now, because there's a thunderstorm, but I can go outside next weekend when
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I don't have anything scheduled, and I can scream until I'm blue in the face about any kind of issue that anyone wants to bring up, fill in the blank, doesn't matter.
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Does not matter. Things that we perceive, things that we see in the world, things that we see in the church, things that I perceive are evils in the church or in the world.
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This first one is phrased a little odd because we do record these, and if I say this in some manner, the
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YouTubes will take it down, but you'll get what I mean when I say it. Things like the killing of younglings.
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Everybody get what I say when I say that? Wicked policy, wicked civil policy.
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Wicked teaching in the churches. Laws that open the door to the normalization of sin.
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Sin in the church, the mass exodus of people from the church. Vast amounts of pragmatism decrypting because all the people leaving the church.
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Pick an issue, doesn't matter. If the gospel is not preeminent above those things when
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I go out there and turn blue in the face, then all I'm doing is protesting, and that is not what
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I'm called to do. We as the church as saints are called to evangelize, first and foremost, period.
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Not to protest. Now, we do have the civil ability to do so, and when we have the opportunity to express to our government that we dislike something, we ought to do that, but not in the same manner that the rest of the unsaved world does.
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You don't get to do that because you have a greater command, and that command is to share the gospel, so while you're out there with those people, you had better be saying, you know why we're here doing this?
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No, why, why? Well, I'm doing it because I don't like their policy. Well, I'm out here to share the gospel with you to explain to you why it's a sin, the policy in the first place.
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Have you heard the gospel before? No, let me share it. How do we make sure that the zeal that we have, the fire that we have for God, for his word, how do we make sure that it is kept within the bounds that it ought to be?
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How? Well, obviously we live Christ -centered lives, gospel -centered lives.
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We read the word every day. We memorize scripture so that it's there, ready when we need it for ourselves or for others, but we're given a very specific example in 2
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Timothy. It's chapter three, verses 10 through 17.
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The second half of what we just read. Paul says to Timothy, you, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch and Iconium and Lystra, which persecutions
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I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me.
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Indeed, all who desire to live godly lives in Christ, Jesus, will be persecuted.
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It's one of the only promises you're given, obviously other than the promise of salvation.
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That is promised, that promise is kept. In this world, you're given a couple that are realized in this world.
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One of them is that you will be persecuted as the same. Whether it's soft or whether it's hard, you will see it.
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While evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
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All scripture is breathed out by God and it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.
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Paul says, the only thing that you need to be equipped for every good work is scripture.
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That's it. Now, that doesn't mean that you don't need to learn how to survive. The Bible doesn't teach us how to fish or how to grow grain.
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There are other things that you have to know just to stay alive, but to do godly work, to become a godly man, especially if you want to become a teacher.
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Scripture is first and foremost the thing you go to, to keep your zeal within the bounds of what scripture says you ought.
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The other thing that Paul gives, other than scriptural confines, is something that is severely lacking today, and that is biblical church discipleship.
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The first main focus ought to be Christ and you ought to tarry in his work, especially if you're a new convert.
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If you're new to the faith, the first thing you need to do is put down your picket sign and sit down and read the
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Bible. You have no business evangelizing anyone.
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You don't know enough, and that is hard to hear, and I understand that, but it is the truth.
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The second thing is that we are to lean on godly men in local churches, men that know us, live with us, that we talk to on a daily basis or a weekly basis, men whose lives we can watch.
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I love Bodie Fockham to death. He's a wonderful teacher. So is Paul Washer.
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You will rarely find more eloquent speakers.
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With Paul Washer, you will rarely find someone who is so passionate and on fire when he preaches, but I don't know them.
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That is something that I had to learn very, very early on in my discipleship.
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It was pointed out to me, because I said to the person who was discipling me, well, you know, so -and -so says this.
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He goes, oh, you talked to him about that on Tuesday? I was like, well, no, he just said it in a video.
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Oh, okay, are y 'all meeting for coffee later? I felt about this big.
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Because I can't watch
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Paul Washer in his life. I can't watch this person or that person in their life.
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Even if I actually had a speaking relationship with those men, I still don't know them well enough that they would disciple me.
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The first thing out of both of their mouths was, what are you doing in a local church? That would be the first thing out of their mouth.
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But we don't go to missionaries and say, go, evangelize, we're sending, well, in good, right, biblical churches, we don't go to missionaries, crown them missionaries, lay hands on them, and send them out, and say, don't worry about the doctrinal stuff, we'll teach that to you later.
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Don't, get on the plane. No. Now, does that happen in the invisible church?
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All the time. These are called mission strips, where we send 15 and 16 -year -olds to faraway lands where they go on vacation.
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Now, they do some good there, they build houses and do things like that, and it's a wonderful experience to them.
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But why on earth do you think that a 15 -year -old has any business sharing the gospel with adults, period?
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They are not old enough, even if they are saved.
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We don't look at young men who want to get married and tell them, well, go ahead and get married and move in together, and then we'll teach you how to be a godly husband.
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No. No. You need to learn how to be a godly husband before you get married.
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Now, did that happen for a lot of us? Nope. We got married before we were saved.
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I did, and I will straight up admit to it. My wife married an absolute arrogant, stupid, self -centered moron.
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I had no idea how to be a husband, much less a godly one. But by grace, he has continued, since my justification, to teach me how to be one.
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I ain't there yet. That ain't gonna happen. I'm never gonna be the greatest husband ever. It's just not gonna happen. I understand that, and I've come to terms with that, but I will credit him with every good thing that I do.
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But no, we don't say those things. We don't send people unprepared to do things, because those who are young in the faith are vulnerable to all sorts of different deceit.
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They just are. They don't know enough. Please, continually keep in your minds and your hearts, preeminently
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Christ and his work. That is what saves you.
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That is the only thing that saves you. Keep your life
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Christ gospel -centered. And everything else, you're gonna say,
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I wanna be a husband, I wanna be a this, I wanna be a that, I wanna be a godly man in the church, I wanna be a deacon, I wanna be an elder.
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It doesn't matter what it is. If you make Christ the absolute focus of your life and become the best servant you can, everything else will fall into place.
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Because I guarantee you, you cannot be a godly husband, you cannot be a godly elder, you can't even be a man unless you are first a good servant.
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Now, a lot of country boys are gonna disagree with that, but I promise you that you are wrong.
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Your bravado is the exact opposite of how a man ought to be. How do
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I know? Because God said so. Do you see bravado in Paul? Do you see any bravado in Paul?
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No. Even when he's bragging, it's not bravado.
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Paul is one of the most humble human beings you will ever read about, because Paul knows himself, and he knows
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Christ. We've come to the end.
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We'll continue with chapter 10 next week, but I wanna leave you with this. There's a quote from Matthew Mead.
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You'd like to know the name of the book later, I'll give it to you. Matthew Mead said this, "'There is a scripturalist zeal "'that is not butted and bound by the word, "'but by some base and low end.
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"'Such was Saul's zeal.'" Speaking of King Saul.
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When God bids him destroy Amalek, and spare neither man nor beast. When contrary to God's command, he spares the best of the sheep and the oxen, under pretense of zeal for God's sacrifice.
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God said destroy everything, and Saul decided upon himself, well, for zeal for God, I'm gonna keep the best stuff out of here so I can sacrifice it.
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Another time, when he had no such command, he slew the Gibeonites, in zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.
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Again, disobedient man. "'Many a man's zeal is greater than and there, "'when and where he hath the least warrant from God.
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"'The true spirit of zeal is bound by the scripture, "'for it is for God and for concerns of his glory.
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"'God hath no glory from that zeal "'that hath no scriptural warrant.'"
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Heavenly Father, we thank you again for bringing us together on this Lord's Day, for the giving of your word, and the work of the
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Holy Spirit in our hearts and our minds. Father, we ask that you forgive us of our sins, both individually and as a congregation.
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We pray, we pray that the unending work of the
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Holy Spirit in our lives convict us of our error, our sin, and consistently set us back on the right path.
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Father, we ask that we would never forget Christ and his preeminence, and that any misstep along the way, we would instantly be reminded of the gospel,
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Christ's work and salvation for us. And Father, we pray for those who have great zeal for you, but have stepped off the path, and are pursuing things that they ought not pursue in the manner that they are pursuing.
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Father, as sinful human beings, we know for sure that we are wrong about so many things.
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We also know that we lean so heavily on your son.
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Father, we ask that you would give us this week, if it is your will to do so, ample opportunity to truly be zealous for you, to share the gospel of your son
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Jesus with those who we love, with those who we hate, with those who hate us.
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Father, please keep imprinted on our minds that the only cure for the world is