Valuable Lessons Learned From 15 Years Of Ministry (part 2)

Well, last week we looked at just a few lessons that I've learned. I don't claim to be an expert, but just what the Lord has taught me over the years in ministry. We looked at no matter what happens, God is to be praised, number one.

Closely related, number two, we looked at God grants comfort by the way of himself. He is the comforter. And then number three, we looked at feelings can get you into a lot of trouble. And so tonight, I want to start off with this bit of a lesson that I've learned, and that is a godly wife is essential for effective ministry.

Whether you're a lay person or whether you are full-time, a godly wife is essential for effective ministry. I don't know what I would do without Kim. I have a little foretaste of what it would be like without her.

Just living at home for a couple weeks on my own, eating out a lot, eating out with friends a lot, but just to have a spouse who wants to serve the Lord. If you'll turn to Proverbs chapter 31, let's spend a little time in Proverbs 31 and talk about a woman of excellence, a praiseworthy woman.

And if you are married, if you're a man, you can be thankful that your wife is like this. If she's not like this, you can pray that she might be. You can lead her into this. If you're a woman, this is good for you to look at again and measure yourself against.

If you're single, this is the kind of woman you want to look for. Matter of fact, that's exactly what this passage is all about. This is Lemuel learning from his mother. And if you look at verses 1 and 2, Proverbs 31, the words of King Lemuel, the oracle which his mother taught him.

And she teaches him four key things. The first one is, Lemuel, be sexually pure, verse 3. Do not give your strength to women or your ways to that which destroys King. Lesson 2, Lemuel from his mother, don't get drunk, verse 4.

It is not for kings, oh Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine or for rulers to desire strong drink. Then positively, he says in verse 8, well, she says to him and then he writes it, stick up for the needy.

Stand up for the rights of the needy, verse 8. Don't just be sexually pure and just stay away from alcohol, but positively stick up for the needy. Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunate.

And here is a mother teaching her son how to be a good king, how to be a good man. And the fourth thing she teaches him is, pick the right kind of wife. That is very, very important. In my particular case, when I got married, I wasn't a Christian and the Lord was very gracious to me by giving me a wife like Kim.

I don't know where I would be without her. It is true that pastors and elders and leaders in the church can go no farther than what their wife will allow them. That is to say, if you have a wife that needs all your attention and all your care and you have to take care of her, it is hard to minister to other people.

And so here, Lemuel is told, pick the right kind of wife. And I love it, if you look down in verse 10, it says, talking about the rare commodity of a good wife, an excellent wife who can find for her worth is far above jewels.

They are rare, but they are not extinct. When you find a wife like this, you want to grab a hold. You want to say, this is a treasure. I met a guy in California and he is going off on trips on the weekends and he has a $20 ,000 metal detector and he is trying to find gold.

And he's shown me some of his little pieces of gold that he has. He's now a prospector and he's in a prospector's club. And when he finds that big nugget, and to him a big nugget was about that big, and you know, I was impressed, I guess, and said, ooh, and ah, and look at it.

But when you find the right kind of wife, it is like finding gold. In the old days in Jerusalem, you were married for a while and then the men would come up to the husband and say, did you find? Did you find?

In other words, is she an excellent wife? He who finds a wife finds a good thing, Proverbs chapter 18 says. And you say, well, you know what? This verse and these verses in Proverbs 31 haunt me because I'm a lady and I could never live up to these.

Can anyone ever live up to this? Ruth did. Ruth 3 .11, and now my daughter, do not fear, I will do for you whatever you ask. For all my people in the city know that you are a woman of excellence. Ruth was.

And so what do you look for in picking the right kind of wife? What do you pray for if you've already got a wife? Number one, and these all start with F. We'll go into Southern Baptist mode tonight, and I'm teaching at a Southern Baptist school.

The first one is, fears the Lord. You want to find a wife who fears the Lord. Look at verse 30, we'll just jump around a little bit. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Yahweh, she shall be praised.

A charm in Hebrew is a bodily form. It's what the woman looks like. It's her body. Beauty is vain. These things trick us. You have Madison Avenue trying to promote what a godly, what a good woman is like.

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain. But if you want to have some kind of decoration or some ornament that would talk about a great woman, it would be that she fears God. She lives in light of God. She has an audience of one.

You don't have to look there, but Proverbs 1 talks about the fear of Lord as a beginning of knowledge. And now with the other bookend, we've got Proverbs 31 verse 30, the woman who fears the Lord. She reveres Him unto obedience.

Number two, she just shouldn't be fearing the Lord. She should be faithful. She should be faithful. And there are several key areas where she could be faithful. The first is to her husband. Verse 11, the heart of her husband, trust in her and he will have no lack of gain.

As one man said, she is a helpmate, not a hurtmate. She is a woman who wants to be faithful to many, but one is her husband, a confident, a counselor. She's faithful physically. She's faithful with the credit card.

She's faithful with the household goods. Verse 12, she does him good and not evil all the days of her life. When you look at this kind of wife, she is an asset. She is not a liability. Because of her, good comes to the husband.

Because of her, good comes to the husband. Verse 23, so much so the husband's famous. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. When men want to talk shop and they want to talk business and they want to talk politics, they'd go to the gate.

And that's where everyone would say, you know, my wife's pretty good, but old Eliezer's wife, she is great. Yotzik's wife is wonderful. Her husband is known in the gates. I tell people all the time, I'm married.

I've married Elizabeth Elliot, the new Elizabeth Elliot. I just hope I don't have to become martyred for Kim to be famous. And I mean that because once the kids are out of the house, I'm sure in terms of speaking and writing books and other things, she just has that dynamic personality and good theology to go with it.

It's one thing to have good theology. It's another thing to have a dynamic personality. But if you put the two together, in her faithfulness to me, well, this woman's also should be faithful to her kids.

I read a little study in a book called The Marriage Ring, listen to this quote, of the 120 clergymen who were telling their experience of salvation, 100 assigned as the means of their conversion, a Christian mother.

If you ask these pastors, 120 of them, how'd you get saved? 100 said, my mother reminds me of second Timothy one, I'm mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother, Lois, and your mother, Eunice, Timothy, and I am sure that is in you as well.

Woman needs to fear the Lord. She needs to be faithful to her husband, to her kids, and to her realm of work. Where might be the realm of a woman's work? This almost got me fired from this church seven years ago, when I'm going to say now what I said back then, you'd think I was going to tell somebody that Jesus wasn't God.

But if I tell someone, if a woman who's married to a husband has a realm of work, where would that realm of work be? I didn't write the Bible. It's just clear. You want to start a fight with somebody, read first Timothy 5 .14, therefore, I want younger women's, younger widows to get married, to bear children and to keep house and give the enemy no occasion for reproach.

Titus chapter two, I want older women to encourage younger women to love their husbands, love their children, be sensible, pure workers at home. Certainly they can have a sphere of influence outside the home.

We'll see that in a moment, but that is their realm. And lastly, faithful to the needy. Do you see verse 20 of Proverbs 31? She extends her hand to the poor and she stretches out her hands to the needy.

She opens her palms literally, reminds me of a lady named Dorcas, who was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity, which she continually did. Acts 39. I guess if your name's Dorcas, you better be a good servant.

Have something going for you. One man said the sluice, which love opens to pour a stream upon the needy, sweetens all the store. And that's exactly what this woman does. And the payoff is great. It's not climbing the corporate ladder.

It's not a raise or a career. Look at her payoff. Verse 28, her children rise up and bless her, her husband also. And he praises her saying, many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all. Man, if you've got a good wife like that, when's the last time you said that to your wife?

Matter of fact, this was taught by Lemuel's mother in a poetry. When's the last time you wrote your wife some poetry or sang for her? Well, we might want to do that, but just tell her you're the best of the best.

Proverbs 11 says a gracious woman attains honor, not just from the Lord, but her family. Fears the Lord, faithful, number three, financially prudent. Financially prudent. She's just not a homebody. She's just not one who never goes out of the house.

She has her priorities, but it extends beyond the house. Look at verse 14. She is like merchant ships. Doesn't say she buys enough at the mall to fill a merchant ship, now does it? Somebody in the congregation just went, oh, this, this, this woman is enterprising.

This woman brings her food from afar. Doesn't take you long in a third world country like in India to realize how hardworking these ladies are in the eastern countries and carrying food on their head, busily working to secure family food and contribute.

Verse 15, she rises also while it's night and gives food to her household and portions to her maidens. She considers a field and buys it. From her earnings, she plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength, that's her clothing, and makes her arms strong.

She's not lazy. She has a good attitude. She wants to work hard. Recently, I got an email from someone and they said they've been listening to my sermons online and they said they really like forceful biblical preaching.

I thought, oh, great. And so they have a little link there of their blog and so I went to the blog and then I read on the blog just kind of like the review of the person and what they like to do and everything else and the person said something to the effect that, you know, I like powerful preaching and keeping up on my soap operas.

And I just thought, you know, I felt like I was some kind of old computer, you know, that does not compute, you know, it just doesn't work. When I was in college in 1980, I was taking a computer science class, EM 113 I think it was called, and I had to make all those cards and I had to get all those cards punched for my computer program and then run it through the program, the card feeder, and then you would pray that the program would actually work and you would get your lunar module landed on the moon or whatever you had to do.

Sometimes if it didn't work, it wouldn't compute, and I'm just thinking, keeping up with the soap operas, I mean, that is just antithetical, that's opposite. Who has time for that? She senses, verse 18, that her gain is good.

Her lamp does not go out at night. She, as one man says, burns the midnight oil. She stretches out her hands to the distaff, and her hands grasp the spindle, the little thing that holds wood, the distaff, she grabs that, she stretches out and holds it.

Verse 21, skip down, she's not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet, the best she plans. She makes coverings for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple.

She makes it all. She's a hard worker. Verse 24, she makes linen garments and sells them and supplies belts to the tradesmen. I mean, she is known for productivity. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

And then number four, fears the Lord, faithful, financially prudent, and number four, this is the kind of wife that you need for ministry, this is the kind of wife you need for lay ministry, paid ministry, fills her speech with wisdom and kindness.

A woman that has proper speech, because speech is connected to the heart, obviously. Find a woman, if you're not married, who has speech filled with wisdom and kindness. Verse 25, her strength are certain, it's her clothing, but verse 26 it says, she opens her mouth in gossip and tailbearing slander.

Is that what yours says? She opens her mouth in wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She's wise. No idle talk and slander, but prudent talk. Talk of sense. I'll never forget the time when I was in Mount Hermon, I heard Chuck Swindoll talk about slander.

Just running your mouth gets you into trouble. He used the illustration of a tombstone in an English country churchyard of a lady named Arabella Young. Beneath this stone, a lump of clay, lies Arabella Young, who on the 24th of May began to hold her tongue.

When this lady talks, it's wisdom. Proverbs 15 says, the lips of the wise spread knowledge. A soothing tongue is a tree of life. So what I've learned in ministry is, I praise the Lord for my wife who is there, who ministers behind the scenes, who is anything but a high maintenance wife, because then all my direction and attention would have to go towards her.

You know, there's only one thing worse than a high maintenance wife, a high maintenance wife who thinks she's low maintenance. That's a problem. Kim and I are together for a reason, and that is so we can serve the Lord better.

If we could serve the Lord better at being single, then why would the Lord have us get married? I've learned in ministry when it comes to marriage and thinking about wives and all that stuff, that if you build your marriage on marriage itself, it's going to crash in.

Marriage isn't big enough to support the weight of two sinners wed together. But the Christian ministry focused on the cross of Christ is big enough. Kim and I can't really stay mad at each other very long.

Why? Because there's nothing I do to make her mad. No, just kidding. Let's see if you're listening. Because we want to use our lives to serve. And what do we want to do on Sunday morning? Well, we still don't see eye to eye.

We're not reconciled. We haven't asked for forgiveness. We haven't, you know, done the right biblical things and sought reconciliation and restitution and try to make things right and forsake the sin and affirm each other or whatever you want to do, because it's time to minister.

It's time for the church. There's something bigger than the marriage of Mike and Kim Avendroth. It's the church. Bishop Taylor said, if you marry for, if you are for pleasure, marry. If you prize rosy health, marry.

A good wife is heaven's last best gift to a man. His angel of mercy, minister of graces innumerable, his gem of many virtues, his box of jewels, her voice, his sweetest music, her smiles, his brightest day, her kiss, the guardian of innocence, her arms, the pale of his safety, the balm of his health, the balsam of his life, her industry, his surest wealth, her economy, his safest steward, her lips, his faithful counselors and her prayers, the ablest advocates of heaven's blessings on his head.

Well, number five, things that I've learned. Number five. Well, you know what? Yeah, let's do that one instead. Number five, success for the Christian must be determined by God's standards. What must I mean by that?

Success for the Christian must be determined by God's standards. I don't know how many times it happens when I meet people and I tell them I'm a pastor, I'm a preacher of God's word, they respond and here's their response almost every single time.

Hi, my name's Mike Avendroth. Oh yeah, what do you do for a living? Well, I'm a pastor. I'm a Bible preacher. Oh, and then they ask me this question. It is inevitable and I hate it and I have made a vow to God not to ever ask this of someone else because it is irrelevant.

It is stupid. It means nothing. It does signify nothing. And I say I'm a pastor, I'm a Bible preaching preacher. Yeah, that's right. A Bible teaching preacher. And they say what? What do they say? How big is your church?

You know what I began to do? I've begun with a very straight face. I just said it a couple days ago. There's a guy across the street and he said, oh yeah, he's my brother-in-law and he told me you're a minister.

How big is your church? I just looked at him right in the eyes and I said, about 5 ,000 people attend. Just like that. He's like, wow. And you could already see his view of me was increasing. Like, wow, this is a hot shot guy, I better listen.

About three weeks ago I was in California at Mount Hermon and there's all these people together and pastors and theologians and the guy said, well, how big is your church? And of course in California, you know, churches are mega churches and, oh, you're a pastor?

How big is your church? And I said, well, if you count the morning service and the evening service, 25 ,000 people on a Sunday. He looked at me and he thought, man, I'm going to get your autograph, you know, you'll autograph my Bible.

Don't ask pastors how big their churches are. Benny Hinn has 20 million. And he's a lying heretic dog, according to the Bible. Bob Rathbun is a pastor in Lowell, Massachusetts, been blind since I think he was five years old and he's been ministering there for 35 years and he has 70 people, 60.

It doesn't matter how many people are there. Well, you know how many people in the youth group? Well, you know, 500, wow, you must be doing great. It matters not at all. If you turn to 1 Corinthians chapter four, may I suggest that our job is faithfulness, not popularity.

I'll never forget the day that John MacArthur said, pastors, you want to be either popular or you want to be faithful, choose one. Choose one and choose it right now because it's hard to be both. Now, certainly the Lord has blessed John and he is popular and he's faithful.

But when I look at Christ's ministry, after all the ministry, how many people were following Christ? At the end of Acts, how many people were Christians? Success for the Christian must be determined by God and God requires faithfulness as a steward.

And you notice that Paul says that in 1 Corinthians. Let a man regard us in this manner as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, not owners. God owns it. We are simply stewards, Paul says.

In this case, moreover, since he's talking about stewardship, it is required of stewards that one be found what? Trustworthy, are faithful. That's the key. Trustworthy, that's what stewards should be, is trustworthy, are faithful.

It doesn't matter how many people attend the church. And so may I suggest that when you evangelize, your goal should not be, well, you know, I've led 15 people to the Lord and I'm pretty good at that.

I could have put it in this morning's message and probably should have. But God measures the success of an evangelist, of someone like you who preaches the gospel by faithfulness to the message preached, by faithfulness to want to preach to everyone who will listen, not how many converts you have.

Can you convert anyone? There's no converts for us. We don't convert people. And so that's why when we have a class like Grace Evangelism, that they will reinforce this fact. When you go out to evangelize and you come back to the church and you have like your little debriefing meeting, the answer, the question will never be, how many people did you win?

How many people did you bring to the Lord? How many decisions did you have? It will always be, tell us about what happened tonight as you were telling people about the excellencies of Christ Jesus. It is God's job to do the work.

Questions about that? Don't ask pastors how many people are at their church. Let's see. Along those lines, I had something else. All right, here's one. I've got a bunch. I'm just going to skip all around.

You know what? I didn't even set my watch tonight, so I have no idea. How long have I been preaching? Five minutes? All right. Perfect. I don't know. I guess I preached what? 15 minutes? 20? 20. All right.

We'll put it at 20 after. There you go. Somebody said to me this morning, the only bad thing about this flip is the clock used to be back there and there's no clock back there. Don't know what to tell you.

All right. Here's one of the lessons I've learned that I think will be very helpful to you in your evangelism, since that is a theme today and tonight. I've learned that sinners cannot stop sinning on their own.

Unbelievers cannot stop sinning on their own. Let me give you a scenario. It's a real life scenario. You meet a homosexual. You meet an adulterer. You meet a fornicator. And they come up to you and ask you this question.

They know you're the God man, the God woman. You talk about Jesus. You're the Jesus person. They say this. Listen carefully. Do I have to stop my homosexuality before God will save me? Do I have to stop my sinning so that God would be able to save me?

And you say, what would you say? See, sometimes what we do is we think to ourselves, we need to tell people to stop sinning. Would that be a true statement? Repent. Stop it. Whether it's fornication, adultery, embezzlement, idolatry, covetousness.

If you meet a sinner, an unbeliever, and they're sinning, is it okay to say stop it? Turn. Run. Flee. Would that be good to say? I thought you just told me that you can't, if someone says I have to stop to be a Christian, you said you wouldn't tell them that.

How do those two go together? I think what we have to be careful to think through is that sinners can't stop their own sin because they need a savior. They're enslaved. Romans 6 says they're enslaved to sin.

So when you meet an unbeliever, what do you tell them? If they ask, must I stop in order to believe? You say no, and then what do you say? Okay, excellent. Anybody else? Well, that was an easy one. It took me a long time to learn that ministry.

What you want to do is you want to tell people you must repent. You must believe. And that is God's ordained way of preaching the gospel. We talk about what God has done and who he is, his attributes, Christ's sacrificial death, his resurrection, and then we tell them, in light of that, here's your response.

Repent, believe, trust, follow, forsake, whatever the biblical response is, and there are many. But if they ever say to you, I am so enslaved to sin, I just can't seem to stop, that's when you can really come in with grace.

I remember meeting a guy and he said, I have tried everything. He said, I have asked Jesus into my heart a dozen times. I have walked to the front of the church a dozen times. I cannot stop my sinning.

And what did I tell him? I said, you know what? That's good news. That's good news that you would recognize that because the gospel is perfect for those who know they're not righteous. It's perfect for those who know they've fallen short.

Jesus even came and he preached to these unrighteous people. And I said, instead of then praying a prayer after me, why don't we just call out to God and ask God who's got your salvation in his hand. He would be able to bestow it, in other words.

Why don't you ask God, the God who saves, to save you and say, God, I can't stop sinning. I know it is sin. I realize it's a transgression against your holy law. And I'm sick of myself and I can't stand it anymore.

And I know I'm going to go to hell if I die. And I want to honor you by doing the right thing. Please save me from myself and my sins. That's what we tell people. But if you go around telling people to stop sinning, somehow giving the impression that they can stop on their own, then there's a problem.

If you stand on the street corner and tell people all the time, repent and stop sinning and you're going to hell in a handbasket, that's just part of the story. We need to make sure we tell people who God is and what he's done.

And in light of that, here's the response. Repent and believe. Questions about that? All right. Yes. Sure. Okay. Well, that's a good question. If I knew more about the person, it probably would make it a little easier.

Let me say some general statements, and then if you want to ask a clarifying question, you can, Sister, okay? One of the things I think troubles local churches is their view of sanctification. As a matter of fact, let's just add this as the next thing, because I have it here somewhere.

And that is one of the lessons I have learned that would be important for tonight, is what number are we on? Eight. Number eight. Indicative imperative preaching is important for both salvation and sanctification.

I'll explain what I mean. Indicative and imperative preaching are essential for salvation and sanctification. Let's work through this. If somebody asks you a question, by the way, and you don't know the answer, just throw out a couple big words and then talk.

No, that's not what I'm trying to do. Let's talk about salvation first. Let's talk about indicative and imperative. What's an indicative? When I have men come to my discipleship, one of the first things I tell them is I tell them, you know what, you should probably go to one of those colleges, the junior colleges around your house, or where you get one of those flyers sent to your house, some kind of night classes, and go take an English refresher class.

Because it's easier to understand the Bible when you know grammar, because God uses words and clauses and phrases and diction and all that. And so indicative is a what? It's a truth. It's a statement of fact.

Imperative is a what? It's a command. When you preach the gospel, you must, if you want to have fidelity to the gospel, preach both indicative and imperative. What would be a statement of indicative fact when you're preaching the gospel to an unbeliever?

Jesus is Lord. Jesus died on the cross. Other indicative statements. Man is a sinner. Good statements of fact. Jesus is still in the tomb. No, no, we have to make sure we have the resurrection, just always key.

Never forget the resurrection. And then you give them also imperatives. And those imperatives, in light of the indicatives, would be what? Repent. A bunch that I've already named, right? Believe in all those.

In gospel preaching, you've got to have repentance, an imperative, and statements about God, the indicatives. I told you the story, I think, several times. I'm in Dublin walking through the streets of this huge area.

There's a guy standing on the box preaching out loud. Tons of tourists. It's like some kind of Sloan Street in London or Melrose in Los Angeles. Standing in a box preaching. You've got to repent, and you're going to go to hell, and all those things.

And I walked up to him, and he thought I was probably going to attack him. He had like a little bodyguard, too. I guess you're supposed to get big bodyguards, but he maybe knew Kung Fu or something. And he had a bodyguard.

And I walked up to him, and I didn't want to get right in his face. So I just kind of went up, and I said, it's important. No, what did I exactly say? I said, when I teach my men to preach, I also make sure they tell them who is Jesus, and then tell them the imperatives after that to believe and repent.

He didn't even look me in the eye. He just pivoted on his foot and began to say, Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners like you and was raised from the dead. I thought, right on. I'm the coward standing here looking to shop for fake Armani sunglasses, and you're really preaching, but that's how God uses me, just as a little...

Now, that's salvation, and we get it. But friends, what we don't get is sanctification is the exact same paradigm. It is indicative imperative. And you go to a thousand churches these days, especially the seeker-sensitive churches, and you'll get sermons on five ways to have financial freedom, six ways to be a better husband, and they are laced with which ones?

Indicatives or imperatives? They are laced with imperatives. And you'll see in Scripture, for instance, in Ephesians, generally chapters 1, 2, and 3 contain what? There's an exception, but what do 1, 2, and 3 contain, Ephesians?

Indicatives or imperatives? Indicatives! There's one, I think, in 2 .10 or 2 .11 that says, don't forget you're a Gentile. But you don't get the imperatives generally until chapters what? 4, 5, and 6.

Here's who you are in Christ. And why would that be important for a Christian to understand while he's going through difficult times in sanctification? Because at the cross, Jesus has finished the war.

We have now the ability to obey. We have the incentive to obey. We have the Spirit of God. We have Christ Jesus who has given us His righteousness. And Paul says, because of who you are, then now act out your position.

Make your practice like your position. And so when you think, I've got a sin in my life I've got to get rid of, what's one of the best things you can do? Strangely, and now the cross is back there, think about the cross.

Let's go to Romans chapter 6 for a minute. Romans chapter 6 and you'll see the same thing. The next time you want to deal with a sin in your life, let's say you're anxious a lot. Let's say you can't submit to your husband.

Let's say, you know, whatever the let's say is. And you struggle with your sin. One of the best things you can do is instead of racing to the imperatives, I must stop. I want you to race to the indicatives.

I want you to race to the statements of fact found in Romans chapter 6. And it's very interesting what Paul does when he talks about these indicatives. Chapter 6 it says, what should we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?

Absolutely, categorically, may it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? And then he asked the question, you think indicative imperative paradigm with me. Which one is this? Or do you not know that all of us who have been placed into or immersed into baptized into there's no water here.

It means to place into Christ. Jesus had been baptized into his death. Indicative or imperative. All right. Verse four. Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death. So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

Indicative or imperative? Indicative. Basically, at Calvary, God with mental calculation, with Hewlett Packard calculation like precision said, I'm going to count not just Jesus dead, but everybody who the father has given to the son, I'm counting them dead.

As far as I'm concerned, they're dead to their old life and alive to newness of life. Verse five. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

Verse six. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him. Indicative or imperative? In order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. Why? Verse seven.

I'm going to underline it. For he who has died is freed from sin. We are alive now. We're above ground. We're breathing. But when it comes to spiritual death, we've already been killed. We're dead and gone.

Verse eight. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Indicative or imperative? See, he hasn't even told them what to do yet, because he's trying to make them think.

And you see all these words, knowing, come up again, just like in chapter 12 that we saw this morning. Knowing that Christ, verse nine, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. Death no longer is master over him.