Are You Content With Your Lot In Life? (part 2) - [1 Corinthians 7:17-24]

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Are You Content With Your Lot In Life? (part 3) - [1 Corinthians 7:17-24]

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Why don't you open your Bibles please to 1 Corinthians chapter 7 as we work through the book of 1 Corinthians, an exciting book.
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I call Mark the Indiana Jones of the Gospels and maybe 1 Corinthians could be the
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Indiana Jones of the Epistles. It is one exciting book and today we'll continue our series in 1
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Corinthians chapter 7 on contentment. I can ask you the question as I look around, are you a content person or are you the type of person who doesn't have much contentment and you grumble a lot and complain.
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You wish you could have newer, you wish you could have bigger, you wish you could have better.
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I know if you're really a Christian that your deepest desire is to be content underneath the good and sovereign hand of God and so my question this morning is, how do you increase your contentment?
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Do you just take a long walk and say, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can? You say,
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I must, I must. One of the ways God has devised growth in a
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Christian is through the preaching and the reading of the Word of God. So you say,
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I have a problem in my life and my problem is, well I don't know if God loves me. Then you study the atonement, well yes,
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God loves me. If He gave His Son for me, wouldn't He give me everything else?
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If you struggle with work, then the Bible talks about work and so God uses
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His Word to transform your minds and once your mind is changed, then your life will change.
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So preaching is of course, it's holistic, but I'm after your mind because the
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Spirit of God then applies the preaching that I'm going to, the preaching from the pulpit and then changes your life and changes your mind and so if you struggle with contentment, today will be a good sermon for you because my prayer is that the
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Spirit of God will use these verses in 1 Corinthians 7 to help us increase our contentment and increase our joy and we can get past the grass is always greener conspiracy, as Stephen Altrogi's new book talks about.
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Just even last week, we were at the beach and about eight or nine of us were out body surfing and the waves were better just a ways down.
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They were bigger, they were nicer and you just go a little farther down and oh no, they're just even bigger and better.
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They're breaking more smoothly down that way and that's the way our life goes lots of times.
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If I only could have this, I'd get more happiness out of life. Well where are we in 1
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Corinthians 7? What has happened so far? Big picture of 1 Corinthians. He says in the first six chapters, there are four moral issues in 1
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Corinthians that Paul deals with. He's received a letter and the letter says we need help with these four areas.
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He writes back and says, okay, when it comes to division in the church, chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, here's what you do.
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When it comes to immorality in the church that's tolerated, remember that whole incest deal, chapter 5,
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Paul says, here's my advice, the inspired advice from the Spirit of God through Paul the
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Apostle. Chapter 6, it starts off with people were suing each other and the testimony of the
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Lord Jesus was decreased because of Christians suing Christians and then there was an issue of morality, sexual immorality at the end of chapter 6 that Paul addresses.
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Then if you look at chapter 7, the questions and the answers begin. We don't know the questions, we only have the answers.
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Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, it's good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, etc.
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Paul begins to deal with questions that he received and then he begins to answer them.
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So we're up to verses 17 through 24 that we started last week and let me continue in the series in chapter 7, verse 17 through 24 in the issue of contentment in your lot in life, how to become more content.
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So pretty much I know I've got all of you covered today, everyone here needs to understand this better and the context specifically is marriage, singleness, divorce, celibacy and so you say, well
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I could be more content if I only had a better husband. I could be more joyful only if I had a husband.
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I could have more contentment and happiness if I could just get rid of this husband.
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I'm not laughing, that was not supposed to happen. You guys, that was not set up, insert laugh here, that was what the carnal
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Corinthians were laughing about too. And then he gives this deviation in 17 to 24 that seems like it's in a different subject, it's a digression that he's talking about, circumcision and slavery and all these other things and you think what is he doing but it's in the same context but coming from a different angle, what about my lot in life when it comes to marriage to an unbeliever, to a believer, do
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I stay single, dealing with this whole issue of if I only had this then
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I could be happier, if only this were true. And so Paul's going to get rid of all the should of's, would of's, if only's and I love that when it's out of my mind, this would have happened, that would have happened,
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I should have done this, I should have done that, to think you know God knows what he's doing and so you'll see the force of God's great hand in this passage.
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The outline for today is, continue from last week, some spiritual contentment vitamins if you will, designed to boost your stamina or your contentment immune system,
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I want you to be more content in other words in all situations, marriage, singleness, social issues, ethnic issues, to help you not complain and grumble.
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Number one, this first contentment booster, grip God's sovereign call. Let's look at verse 17 again just quickly in review, grip
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God's sovereign call. Verse 17, only let each person lead the life that the
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Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him, this is my rule in all the churches.
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Paul has this theme, remain, remain, remain, remain, look with me if you would at verse 8 of the same chapter, see if you can see how he emphasizes through repetition.
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Chapter 7 verse 8, to the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am.
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Verse 11, but if she does she should not remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband should not divorce his wife, you see there it is again, remain.
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Verse 20, each one should what, remain in the condition in which he was called.
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Verse 24, so brothers in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.
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God is sovereign over everything including you, over every molecule, over every atom and if he saved you when and where he did, you shouldn't spend all your time, all your energy, all your resources trying to rebel and say
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I've got to undo what God has done. Specifically, if you got saved later in life and you were already married to an unbeliever, you say, well now
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I'm married to this unbeliever, does that affect my status before God, if only I had a believing spouse,
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I've got to get out of this, Paul says, God saved you at the exact right time with his monergistic sovereign distinguishing grace, he saved you where you were so then bloom where you're planted.
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If you could save yourself, I said last week and I'll say it again this week, you should have saved yourself a lot earlier.
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I should have saved myself a lot earlier because the ages of 18 to 29 for me in my life was a complete sinful train wreck.
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If I only could have saved myself earlier, I could have stopped all that, I could have not had all those memories,
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I could have not had all those things that will haunt me until glory, I could have stopped those things but I can't save myself, you can't save yourself.
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God's sovereign call saved you when he did and if he saved you where you are, whether you're a slave, whether you're a
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Gentile, whether you're a Jew, whether you're married to a believer or unbeliever, he saved you at that exact right moment for his sovereign purposes.
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Now he's not saying if you're single, don't ever marry. He's not saying if you have a certain job, don't ever find another job.
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He's saying this, you can serve God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength where you are right now.
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You don't have to have anything better. If I could only get that other kind of job, I could serve him better. If I only had a husband,
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I could serve him better. If I only had a better husband, I could serve him even better. No laughing. Calvin said, ignorance, excuse me, of providence is the ultimate of all miseries.
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The highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it. How good it is to know that God's in control of everything.
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You're going to have to go back and undo all these things. That's going to drive you to be not content but to think,
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I'm just going to rest in God's divine call, the effectual call, the irresistible call, the invincible call of God.
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When he called my name, as it were, when Jesus was called out of Egypt, it had to happen.
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God saved me exactly at the right moment. I mean, I think about it in my own life.
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How many times did I hear someone say, Mike, you're sinful and you need to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? And I would hear it over and over and over and over, but one day in God's sovereign timing, he had the lights go on and that's when
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I believed and it was all of God. And when he did it, he knew what he was doing. He wasn't in heaven saying,
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I just sure wish Mike would believe, please believe, and he's kind of this false Jesus we know of as a gentleman
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Jesus, I won't impinge upon you, I won't make you do anything, I'm just kind of waiting.
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And he's kind of this, you know, shunned lover. No, here's what
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Jesus does. The Father has chosen you in eternity past, Jesus has died for you at Calvary, and then the
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Spirit of God says, I now make you have a new nature, and that new nature that used to, the old nature loved sin and hated
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God, now that new nature says, I love God and I hate sin. And God makes people
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Christians. That's 1 Peter chapter 1. That's Ephesians chapter 2.
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Corinth, be willing to accept any marital condition or any social condition or any ethnic condition because you can serve
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God right where you are. Each one of you, look at verse 17.
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The NAS is a little better here. Let me read the NAS as you look at verse 17, probably in your ESV.
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Only as the Lord has assigned to each one, NAS, as God has called each, each person twice in the
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NAS. Why? Because Paul wants everyone to know, no matter what your social position, your marital state, you can serve the
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Lord right where you are. So here's what he's saying. If you'd like to be discontent, try to figure out how to undo all the things
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God has done in your life. That will drive you to murmuring and complaining. There's another way you could be having no contentment is just sit and watch
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TV all day because TV says this, your current car isn't nice enough. Your current car isn't big enough.
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Your current car doesn't have a good enough gas mileage. Your current car doesn't have five DVD players simultaneously in the back.
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Your current car... And the list goes on and on and you go, I want more because advertising creates discontentment.
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And so does the person who says, God, your sovereign hand in my life isn't working out.
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I should have married that other guy. I shouldn't have married that guy. Paul says, just live where you are.
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The NAS goes on to say, and I don't know why ESV left it out, in this manner, let him walk.
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That should be in verse 17, but it's not. In other words, don't have undue concern for getting out of your situation.
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Walk before God now. Since God is sovereign, just be where you are. Be all there.
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Wherever you are, be all there. Be, be, be there. I love David Livingston.
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I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward. That's good.
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God saved me here. I'm ready to go anywhere, as long as it's that way. Because trying to go back in the past and undo it all, you're going to go crazy with discontentment.
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Paul said later in Philippians, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.
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Trust me. It's interesting that God knew what he was doing when he saved me. I mean it, what
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I'm going to say right now. If you buy The Sovereignty of God by A .W. Pink, and read it this summer, and it does not revolutionize your life,
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I personally will pay for that book. You give it back to me, and I'll give it to somebody else who has The Spirit of God.
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No, just kidding. Seriously. You buy that book,
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The Sovereignty of God by Pink. And as your knowledge increases of The Sovereignty of God, your contentment doesn't nosedive.
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It increases too. God's plan is going forward. All systems go.
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Contentment increases. The Sovereignty of God by A .W. Pink. Top five books I've read in my life. Number two.
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Spiritual booster for contentment, found in verses 17 through 24, is retain proper priorities.
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One, grip God's sovereign call. Two, retain proper priorities. Now this is an inference, but I think it's a biblical inference.
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Retain proper priorities. I ask the question, what is the church's priority? Social justice?
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Political reform? Economic redistribution? Earth Day?
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What is the church's top priority? And if you think biblically, it will help your contentment.
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Now let's flesh this out a little bit. Let me read verse 17 again. Only let each person lead the life that the
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Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. Now look at this universal principle.
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This is a universal principle for every church, including ours. This is my rule in all the churches.
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The top priority is not undo what God has done. The top priority is be where God has placed you.
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And now I ask the question for inference. Why has God placed you where you are? Why do you have the family that you do?
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The co -workers that you do? Why do you have the neighbors that you have? Why? Why didn't
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God just take Daniel and Eric straight to heaven after I baptized them? There's a mission to be done.
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There's work to be done. What work is there to be done? Now we give him glory in all sorts of ways, but one of the main ways we give him glory is how?
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What do we do? What's the church's top priority? Why do you have that person sitting in that cubicle next to you?
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Why do you have the mom that you have? God makes you a Christian, and then what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to evangelize them.
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The number one issue and priority for the church is evangelism.
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The proclamation of the glories of Christ to unbelievers. Not political. If you say to yourself, the world,
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America, the western world is going to hell in the handbasket. What can we do to stop it? You're going to be discontent because you can't stop it.
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It's not going to be stopped. But what you can do is to say, the world might go to hell in the handbasket, but God is sovereign.
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He saves people through the preaching of his word, and I'm going to preach the word, and I'm going to do everything I can do, and so when
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I go home and lay my head down on the pillow, I don't have to have world peace as a mission.
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We have a soteriological agenda in the church. In other words,
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I really don't care if you're Republican or Democrat, and the day I see voter registration guides over here is the day
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I want to find out who put them there, because I don't care. Do I vote? Yes. Does it matter?
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No. Just kidding. Vote all you want. Run. But Democrats and Republicans go to hell unless they're born again.
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Do you know pro -life people who work at pregnancy centers? If they're not born again, where do they go?
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Jesus said, I will build my church, and the gates of death shall not prevail against it.
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We are concerned about not social revolution but spiritual regeneration.
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That is our top priority. That's why Paul is saying just stay where you are. Can you imagine? You say, why do
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I work with that guy that I work with? Well, you're there because God placed you there. He saved you at the exact right time.
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He coordinates everything perfectly, and you're there for that guy. When I moved here from my one house in Sterling to Lancaster eight years ago,
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I said to myself, these neighbors were given to us by God because lots of them don't know the gospel.
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And then now, by the way, they hate it that the evangelical pastor is moving into town. And here's the pastor moving in to their cul -de -sac.
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But I'm thinking these people need the gospel. These people, they don't need to say, well, you know what?
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My goal is I'm going to make everybody Republican. That's my goal. I'm going to make everybody in this neighborhood
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Republican. And we're going to fix the world. We're going to have a moral majority in our cul -de -sac.
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And I'm going to be the president. This is nothing new.
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Paul says, I lay down this rule in all the churches. It's not a novelty. It's not new. Vote as you want.
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But you think I'm going to put a vote Republican sign in front of my yard to make 80 % of my neighbors mad at me?
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You've got another thing coming. By the way, did you know Democrats can't go to heaven?
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That might be a shock for some of you people here in West Boylston. And everyone who's laughing, you're convicted by it.
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The only way you have relief is by laughing. The primary purpose is
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God saves us. We're to remain there because the inference is here, and we have many other texts from Matthew 28 and following, that we're to give the gospel.
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We're to 1 Peter 2 -9, proclaim the excellencies of Christ Jesus. Yeah, I've got that new guy at work, and he sure is a dolt.
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I don't want to be bothered with him. He's an unsaved dolt. That might be true, he's a dolt, but he needs the gospel.
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Why is he in front of you? And then if I want to really hit home, if God saved you and you're complaining that now he saved you while you've got an unsaved spouse,
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I wonder why God would save you in a relationship when your spouse is not a
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Christian. Could it be? Isn't it obvious to everyone else why
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God saved you when he did, when your spouse is an unbeliever? What should you do? Well, I've got to get away from this person.
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He wants to be married to me. She wants to be married to me. I've got to get away from them because I don't like unbelievers. God is saying through Paul, here's the issue, remain.
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Why? Because maybe the reason you were born, maybe the only reason you were born is to preach the gospel to this unbelieving spouse.
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That is a worthy calling. That is the highest calling. I lay down this rule in all the churches.
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It's all about the worship of Christ Jesus. Listen to these words by Jesus. This is Jesus' own life as well.
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My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, he said to Pilate, don't you love it?
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Then my servants would be fighting that I might not be delivered up to the Jews.
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But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. You want to have the church compromise?
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Then do what I call the social gospel cuddle. Just cuddle up to the social gospel people and it is over.
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Jesus Christ's mission, Luke 19, to seek and to save that which was democrat.
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Doesn't that just sound stupid? It sounds stupid to me. To seek and save the lost. That's why you live. That's why you remain where you are.
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Of course, if you're single, you can get married. It's not the issue. You say, well, yeah, but Jesus had it pretty good during the first century.
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And he didn't really have a lot of people who were taxing people exorbitantly. He didn't have a lot of issues going on with cruel despots like Herod.
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Herod was a good old boy. He was a Republican. Why am I on this today? This is on none of my notes,
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Republican, Democrat stuff. Jesus is not a social reformer.
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Jesus is not a political deliverer. He has the gospel to be preached. I'll even push it farther.
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When there was a lot of sick people over here, the number one priority of Jesus was not even healing sick people.
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Was that a good thing to do? That kind and loving of our Savior to heal sick people? But he said in Mark chapter 1,
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I know sick people are going to be at the door here, but there's something more important than healing people's bodies, and that is healing their souls.
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You can be perfectly physically healthy and still not go to heaven. This is my rule in all the churches.
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Remain. Remain. Why? Because you're to be focused on evangelism.
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I love the Reformation for lots of reasons. One of the reasons is it took a huge halogen spotlight and focused in on the reason we live is the gospel.
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That's the church's reason to exist. And if you say to yourself,
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I've got to make America Republican, it's not going to happen anytime soon, and you're going to be discontent.
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If you say, I'm going to do everything I can to live underneath the light of the sovereign God, I can't save my neighbor,
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I can't save my loved one, I can't save my spouse, but I'm going to be a good witness, and I'm going to preach the gospel to them,
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I think you can be very, very content. Someone asked me a couple weeks ago, either at the door or on the radio station, they said, does it kind of bother you that you can't save people?
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Isn't that a lot of pressure on you that you've got a lot of people to save? I said, you know what? I have no pressure.
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How much pressure do I have to save anyone here? Pastors sitting in the audience, if we say to ourselves,
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I have to save people, I would not be very content.
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John Seale said, a politicized faith not only blurs our priorities, but weakens our loyalties. Our primary citizenship is not on earth, but in heaven.
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Though few evangelicals would deny this truth in theory, the language of our spiritual citizenship frequently gets wrapped in red, white, and blue.
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Rather than acting as resident aliens of a heavenly kingdom, too often we sound like resident apologists for a
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Christian America. Unless we reject the false reliance on the illusion of Christian America, evangelicalism will continue to distort the gospel.
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American evangelicalism is now covered by layers and layers of historically shaped attitudes that obscure our biblical core.
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You have a mission. Number three. The third contentment booster.
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Grip God's sovereign call. Number two is an inference. Retain proper priorities. Three, it's not an inference at all.
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Obey the Lord right where you are. Keep the commandments of God where you are.
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Verses 18 and 19. Two questions and two commands. If you thought chapter 7 was wild earlier on, buckle up.
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I never talk about this in a million years unless it's here, so here it is. Why don't we just skip these verses?
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Verse 20. No way. We're going to preach it all. You're going to see this refrain here.
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Who you are socially, now religiously, ethnically, it's not going to matter.
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You can worship God if you're a Christian, no matter what your job is, no matter who your wife is or isn't.
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You can worship the Lord, full spirituality as you are, because you remain where you're called. Verse 18.
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Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? The effectual call of salvation. When God saved you, were you circumcised?
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Well, let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised?
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When God saved you, were you uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. Now here's the reason.
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For neither circumcision counts for anything. That's a shock. Nor uncircumcision.
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But keeping the commandments of God. Keeping the commandments of God.
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How are these all related? Circumcision, uncircumcision, slavery, freedom, divorce, marriage, celibacy, singleness.
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None of your social standing, ethnic standing, religious standing is going to be a barrier for you to worshiping
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God. That's the point. Serve God where you are. Well, you know, I'm going to try to figure out all this stuff and how this came to be.
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No, just serve now right where you are. Now let's dissect this a little bit and see what happens and what's going on here.
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Interestingly, people back in the first century didn't like circumcision.
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They were Jewish. They, of course, liked it because it was really the commandment.
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But you can just imagine, and I've been overseas before, and I've been in Corinth, and they have bath areas.
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And it was very easy to see if a man was circumcised or not either at the gym or in the baths.
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And it was not a badge of honor to a Gentile. And so now here we have a
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Gentile area, and of course there are some Jews there, but many Gentiles. And if you were circumcised, it wasn't a badge of honor if you're a
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Gentile. Matter of fact, it was a sign of contempt, and it also, just like in Nazi Germany, could get you into a lot of persecution.
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Back in those days, biblical days, they would try to undo circumcision.
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Now, if you're a Jew, now you're around a bunch of Gentiles, and now you're circumcised, and you're at the public baths, they're public, and you're at the gym, they would see it because both of those were done nakedly.
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Then you'd say, well, I need to fit in, and maybe I need to worship God in a certain way, and these people don't like it that I'm circumcised.
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Let me try to become uncircumcised. Josephus talks about that very thing.
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Some Jewish people, men, who were circumcised, wanted to become uncircumcised by surgery.
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By surgery. Celsus, even in the first century A .D., talked about the surgical procedure of de -circumcision.
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Uncircumcision. People do it today, people did it in Nazi Germany time.
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And Paul says this, it doesn't matter if you're circumcised or not, you're not going to be able to worship God better if you are or if you're not.
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If you were saved when you were already circumcised, you could perfectly worship the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're not circumcised, and you say to yourself,
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I'd like to become circumcised so God will accept me more, so I can worship Him more, Paul says, no, don't do that.
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You don't need some kind of operation to have these things restored. Even if people ridicule you, it doesn't matter.
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This is not a Bible verse, but it's in the Apographa, the historical writings.
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They covered over the mark of their circumcision, 1 Maccabees 1 .15, and abandoned the
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Holy Covenant. They allied themselves with the Gentiles and sold themselves into wrongdoing.
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So you don't have to do that. Can you imagine, God will love me more if I become de -circumcised?
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You say, well, that's kind of stupid around here. I guess I wish you would have skipped to verse 20, Mike. And look at that remarkable statement in verse 19 again.
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Could there be a more amazing statement, especially if you've got a Jewish background? Circumcision counts for anything.
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It doesn't count for anything. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision but keeping of God's commandments.
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Let me just read to you Genesis 17, a portion of it. God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your offspring after you, throughout their generations.
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This is My covenant that you shall keep between Me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.
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He shall be circumcised in the flesh of the foreskin, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.
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He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house, etc.,
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will be circumcised. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people.
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He has broken My covenant. And now Paul says, it doesn't matter. That's radical.
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It'd be one thing if Paul said, it doesn't really matter that much. Paul says, it doesn't matter at all.
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And here, don't forget the point. Paul is really talking to people. Married people, single people, celibate people.
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Should I get married? Should I get divorced? What should I do? He's saying, if this doesn't matter, then your marriage state doesn't matter either.
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That's the digression. That's what he's talking about. But keeping the commandments of God.
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Let's talk about that for a minute. What's the commandment of God? If the commandments of God are the Mosaic Law, the
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Mosaic Law says, get circumcised. Well, it doesn't matter what you are, what you've done, what's happened to you.
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Just keep the commandments. I'm uncircumcised. Keep the commandments means get circumcised.
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I don't think it can mean that. Jump ahead with me, if you would, to 1 Corinthians 14. I think the answer's easy.
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We don't have to split the Mosaic Law into moral, civil, ceremonial, or anything like that. Sometimes when
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Paul writes, he says the commandments and it means the Mosaic Law. Other times he writes, like in this illustration, in 1
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Corinthians 14, verse 37, his own writings are the commandments of God.
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Commandments don't always mean Mosaic Law. Because why would he say uncircumcision doesn't matter, and then he says keep the commandments, then you have to get circumcised.
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Then you get circumcised, and then he would read again, and then become uncircumcised. If anyone thinks that he's a prophet, 1
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Corinthians 14, verse 37, are spiritual, he should acknowledge the things that I am writing to you are a command of the
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Lord. A command of the Lord. The commandments are what Paul is saying.
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If you look to chapter 9 as well, please look with me to chapter 9, verse 20 and 21,
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To the Jews I became a Jew in order to win the Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law, though not myself being under the law, that I might win those under the law.
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To those outside the law I became as one outside the law, not being outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ.
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I'm not under the law, but I'm now under the law of Christ that I might win those outside the law. So the long story short, you can study it more if you want.
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Here's the issue. It doesn't matter where you have been saved and what cultural marriage situation you've been saved.
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What matters is you keep the word of God. Hear through the apostolic messenger, Paul. Back to chapter 7, verse 20,
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Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. He repeats it.
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Don't be busy pining away how to get out of things. Open up your Bible and say, In light of the grace of God found at Calvary and how he saved me,
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I better get busy doing what I know I should do. Let's look at one other verse,
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Deuteronomy 29 .29. I think you know this passage well, but we have a thing that we do here in the
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West, and what we do in the West is we read half a verse. I think that would make a good radio show.
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Half a verse, like half salvation, like half sanctification. Deuteronomy 29 .29.
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I'm sorry, the pop culture songs come to my mind in the year 29 .29, if man is still alive.
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Something like that, I don't know. Deuteronomy 29 .29.
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The context is different, but I think it's helpful to look at. The secret things belong to the
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Lord our God. How many times have you heard that? God is sovereign. Man is responsible.
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The secret things belong to the mind of God. You can't unscrew the inscrutable mind of God.
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You can't figure it out. Sovereignty and responsibility, it's like two ropes, but the pulley is up in heaven, and you can't see the pulley, but the two ropes come down.
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If you jump on the sovereignty rope, down you go. If you jump down on the responsibility rope, down you go.
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But if you hold both firmly and tightly, you'll be fine. Secret things belong to the Lord. Why are some saved?
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Why aren't others saved? Did Adam have a belly button?
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People, try being a radio host for a while. See what the emails you get. Well, how did this happen? How did this happen?
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I'm thinking, you need a job, A. And B, you're trying to do all this stuff.
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We ought to be content with what God has revealed. There's plenty here that we know exactly what
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He says to do. And here, look at Deuteronomy 29 .29.
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The secret things belong to the Lord our God. There are some things we'll never figure out. We're finite. He's infinite.
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We're sinful. He's holy. We're creatures. He's a creator. We can't figure out some of those things.
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But the things that are revealed, the things that we do know, belong to us here, to Israel, and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
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You say, Pastor, I'm going crazy because I can't figure out if I'm infralapsarian, superlapsarian, if I'm any of these other kind of things.
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And I'm thinking, you have a wife right here.
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And every night you try to figure out your spiritual navel with these things.
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Why don't you just start loving your wife instead? And all the time you're reading all these people trying to figure out things that I'm not sure you could ever figure out.
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I'm not saying we can't ever study these issues. But when they become paralyzing and they say, you know,
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I just can't figure these out, because I say to yourself,
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I say to you, just find what the Bible does teach and do it.
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Say, well, you really don't know what it's like to live with an unbeliever. You don't know how hard it is.
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You don't know how difficult it is. And the answer is, I know. I don't know.
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I know your pain, but I don't know what it's like to live there. Tomorrow, 22 years ago,
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I got married to Wonder Woman. To him. And that was a day of all days.
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D -Day. That's when we got married. It's been great. I don't know what it's like to live with an unbeliever.
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I don't know what it's like to live with someone who doesn't say, you know, our marriage needs to revolve around, we're here to serve the
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Lord. That's what we do. That's why we exist. That's why our kids exist. That's why we are doing whatever we do.
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I don't understand it, but we're going to learn next week that Paul's going to say, you can be a slave and still worship the
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Lord right where you are. I know some of the ladies here and some of the men who don't have believing spouses.
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It's difficult, but you're not a slave. We're going to learn next week that everyone's a slave and even slaves can serve where they are.
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Absolute freedom from circumstances that are tough does not bring contentment.
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So how are you doing with your contentment factor? The sovereignty of God. Why do
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I exist in evangelism? And then saying to myself, I don't have to undo anything.
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I'll just serve. I'll ask you the question. Do you have a ministry here at this church? If you're new, of course you don't have a ministry.
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We didn't give you one. We wouldn't let you have one until you're a member and all that stuff. But if you're here even as a new person, you should say,
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I want to serve my fellow believers. I'd like to have a ministry. When I watch people and they have no ministries, you know what
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I see many times? Grumblers, complainers, backbiters.
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They don't like the church. They take pot shots at the elders. When I watch other people and they have ministries, you know what
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I see? Well, I'll use them as an illustration because they're here. I see the Biltons. Our life, from Doug down, of course
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I know his parents and all that, but Doug says, our life is to serve the Lord here at this local church in Awana.
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We are the Awana family. He didn't say that. I'm saying that of him. What do you see?
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Contentment, blessing. I know more problems at this church than anybody here, probably next to Steve Cooley.
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I'm here to serve. I want to serve you all. I don't want to have grumbling and lack of contentment consume me, and it would be so easy.
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But I'm the chief of sinners here. And if I can sin and still serve other sinners, then we all can.
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So you say, I really struggle with the lack of contentment, then you need to find yourself a ministry and to pour yourself out in that ministry and lay down your head on that pillow exhausted, saying, you know,
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I serve the Lord. I serve these other sinners. Because when I look at some of you, I don't know if I really want to serve you.
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You probably say, I don't want to be served by you. But I want to see Jesus. Because if you do it for one of the least of these, you've done it for Christ Jesus.
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This is the body of Christ. And so I say to myself, self, and then when I say to myself, then you know
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I'm going to get you as well. I say to you, congregation, if you want contentment, Paul says, keep the commandments.
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Obey, serve, evangelize. Why? To increase your standing before God? No, because you have a great standing before God, and in light of His grace, then you serve.
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Let's pray. Father, it is good to reflect upon these great truths and to think that in some way, supernatural way, you attend to the preaching of the gospel, attend to Bible preaching.
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I pray that you'd increase our sovereign, increase our trust in your sovereign hand. That you would increase our contentment.
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Increase the ministries that go on at Bethlehem Bible Church. Not even for us, but for your
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Son, because He deserves it. Father, for those that are here today married, or married to unbelievers,
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I pray that you would grant them their wildest dreams, the salvation of their spouse.
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And Father, if you don't do that, if you don't do it yet, I pray that you would grant these saved spouses joy, contentment, and I ask this in Jesus' name, amen.