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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/jim-frazier/christian-sobriety/
Yesterday, our brother Paul was mentioning the desire of brethren to give ministry that are full-time workers or shepherds or teachers in their assembly. I'm sorry I don't approach his podium trying to tell you that I fit any of those categories.
But I do trust that what we have before us this afternoon will be something that will have a stabilizing effect upon our lives. I want to read first of all in Mark chapter 5, the Gospel of Mark and chapter 5.
Verse 15,. Mark 5 verse 15,. And they came to Jesus, and see him that was possessed of the devil, and had the legion, sitting and clothed, and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Romans chapter 12.
The epistle to the Romans chapter 12, for the sake of time, we will not read the first two verses. It would be very valuable to do so. I trust you are somewhat familiar with them. Verse 3 of Romans 12.
For I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
Titus chapter 1. Titus 1, verse 7, we could read a parallel portion to this from 1 Timothy chapter 3 and in particular verse 2, but we'll read it here from Titus. Verse 7,. For the bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-will, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober where the thought is discreet, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he had been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince against their.
Chapter 2, verse 1,. But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things.
That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. Verse 12,. Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking for their blessed hope in the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Finally, over to 1 Peter, Peter's first epistle. Chapter 1, verse 13,. 1 Peter 1, verse 13,. Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts or strong desires in your ignorance.
But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. Because it is written, Be ye holy, for he is holy. Chapter 5, verse 8,. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil is a roaring lion walking about, seeking whom he may devour.
And the Lord will bless what we have read together. The thing that got me thinking on this one time, some years ago, was a video that I saw that was put together by Bob Searchner, Jr. Of course he was a police officer, I believe in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and he got into this thing of putting a video on a machine on his dash of his car, and he started taking pictures of everything that he saw when he made an arrest, or when he made a traffic stop.
He had the little lapel mic on and he had it all coordinated. And I can remember one time looking at that, it was very entertaining, but I remember there was a lady, I believe it was, it was stopped, and under the suspicion of being not sober, under alcohol influence, and she was taken out of the car, she was asked to get out, and this is the instruction that she was given, put the index finger of your right hand, bring it to your nose.
This is what happened. It went just like that. She was totally out of it. She was intoxicated, supported his assumption that likely that was what the matter was with the individual. It made me think about Christian sobriety, dear saint of God.
It's very important now, before I consider these verses, I want to speak to you about something about social drinking. Did you ever hear such a thing? Where Christians actually think it's right to take alcohol and sit on together and to enjoy it.
I don't know, but it looks to me if people want to have something social, and have a social drink, it could be done over tea, or it could be done over coffee, or it could be done over water, or it could be done over soda.
Likely you'd want to use Pepsi products, please our brother here. But you see, there's a lot of things that people are willing to involve themselves in. And when I think of social drinking, it's an open shame as far as God's people are concerned.
God's people should never be involving themselves that could bring them into a state of intoxication. I can support that by scripture, I'm just going to put it this way, just looking at it from a logical standpoint.
In working with some people in a jail, you know what I found? Most of them are there because of alcohol, or drug abuse. And of course, alcohol is a drug, we all know that. I have asked someone, when did you take your first drink?
And they said, well, we have taken it when we were nine or ten, given to us by our parents, or by older friends. And of course, when they get into their teens, and there's a peer pressure, and there's a continuance in that thing, and it does nothing but just create a downward spiral, and things get worse, and worse, and worse.
And you know what it actually comes down to? It comes down to creating a lot of jobs for social service. It breaks up marriages, it brings abuse to little children, and so it is. So that's one reason I would say, Christians should never involve themselves in partaking of alcoholic privileges.
But let's go to something else, let's go to 1 Corinthians 6, in verses 19 and 20, it says, What know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. And those verses tell me that when I have been reached and saved by the grace of God, and as has you, my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit of God.
And what correlation is there between that and taking a substance to our body that results in us not thinking right? And I have been redeemed by the precious blood of God. What is there as a correlation between the place that I have been brought to by the grace of God and having anything to do with drinking alcohol?
Let's go one more time, let's go over to Leviticus chapter 10. When you come to verse 9, you'll find that there was a prohibition given to the priesthood. Now I'm not so sure it was in place before then, maybe it was just a reminder.
But there was to be no taking of drink, strong drink or wine. These men that they functioned there in that tabernacle, and you know the story as well as I do, Nadab and Abihu, they offered strange fire.
It's almost easy to see this, that perhaps they were influenced by alcohol, and they weren't thinking right, and they did something that was tremendously dishonoring and displeasing to God, and it brought the judgment of God upon them.
How would you have felt if you would have been Aaron, and the two oldest sons be taken away by death because of offering strange fire? They didn't take altar fire, they took fire from a source that wasn't pleasing to God, and they had no authority to do so.
I have wondered in my mind, according to verse 9, was it because they knew something of a measure of intoxication, and dabbling in something that should have never been theirs to be involved in? I speak about that with deep concern, because it may be so that there are those, and it may not just be those that are younger among God's people, and the time may come when you will get peer pressure.
You may get it at a college, you may get it at a university, you may get it in high school. The devil is going to do everything he can to wreck your testimony, and that is a very clever way to start out and to begin his work.
And so, being involved in such things, whether young or old as God's people, it is not pleasing to God. We have no right to be dabbling in such. But let me come to my subject now, the subject of Christian sobriety.
It carries the thought of a sound mind, and using sound judgment, and to be in one's right mind. Interestingly enough, the verse that we read from Mark chapter 5, what it said about that man Legion, one who was unclothed, he was suicidal, his habitation at times was in the cemetery, and he couldn't be incarcerated because he was demon-possessed.
But when the Lord Jesus Christ got to him, and this man had the demons cast out, and verse 15 says that he was seated and clothed and in his right mind. And that word right mind is the same word of some that I have read out of our epistles today as meaning the same word as sober or sobriety.
You can look it up for yourselves if you've got a strong concordance and dictionary. Just take a look at it. But not all these words of sobriety and being sober that I have read are the exact word that we have considered from Mark chapter 5 and verse 15.
But I want to tell you they're very much akin and they're very close, carrying the thought of a sound mind, sound judgment, and in one's right mind. You know, never are we in more in the mind of God and in a right mind than when the Holy Scriptures have its proper impact upon us that causes our actions, first of all our thoughts to become actions, all this, all in alignment with the Word of God.
It is pleasing to God. Anything apart from that and a lack of sobriety is dishonoring to God. Now then, I want to think about Romans. I'm not going to go down through them and say what my leading thought is.
I'll just touch on very briefly and make my way down from here. When I come to Romans chapter 12, it's a sobriety that pertains to thinking right about oneself. And if you were to read that whole chapter, all verse 21 verses there, you're going to find out that there is suggested to us how I think and what I do and how I respond to others.
And so I judge from that verse three, what do I think about? How do I think about myself? How do I think about others? It's very critical and it's very vital in our Christian experience. I want to tell you, brethren and sisters, it's a very hard thing to sometimes just to take the time to assess ourselves and find out how do I really think about myself.
But I think it is something that we should do from time to time. You see the psalmist in the 22nd Psalm, the Psalm of David, David is saying, and we heard about David yesterday, he says, judge me and examine me.
You know, brethren and sisters, let's be honest about it. It's easier to look at others and to judge them and to see faults and failures in them. But I would believe it would take a spiritual person with a spiritual exercise and they think about oneself and their thought life and their activity in life.
And am I moving in alignment with the word of God? Am I doing it? Am I being what the Lord wants me to be? And so there's a times that come in our lives when we need to stop and we need to do a personal assessment with all honesty in the holy presence of God.
Just all along with God to find out, just to examine ourselves and to ask of God to examine us, to judge me, to show me from the word of God, if I'm out of alignment, how I should be in alignment with the will and the word of God.
I believe that's what's suggested here. I say it's easy to judge others and it's easy to examine others, but we are not so prone to want to judge ourselves and examine ourselves before the holy eye of God.
You know, when we come to the fourth chapter of Hebrews, it says, Neither is there any creature that is not manifested in his sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Our life before God is transparent. Everything about us, transparency. But yet how is it that we cleverly think sometimes that we can hide and we can cover things and we may even try to keep things hidden from others?
You know, where honesty and righteousness really start with God. As we have been brought into the family of God, it's just to be willing to come before God and ask him to teach us and to show us and to examine us that we might be in alignment with his perfect mind and will.
If we are sober and in Christian sobriety, we should think right about ourselves. Sometimes we think very highly of ourselves, even when nobody else thinks too highly of us. Well, I think maybe we need some adjustment, don't we?
Sometimes we might think, well, here's an individual, maybe they preach the gospel and they say, man, can I preach the gospel? That's their own personal opinion. Or I can open the word of God and I can minister the word of God and that might be their personal opinion.
You know what? They need to get into the presence of God to get their thinking adjusted about themselves. And how I think about others is very vital and it's very important, especially when it comes to those in the family of God and those in the assembly.
You know, a lot of problems have issued in God's assemblies out of this fact that there was wrong thinking, there was a failure of sobriety, thinking right and having sound judgment and being discreet as to what we think about others in the assembly.
And pretty soon it comes from a thought and it comes into an action and pretty soon it's out and it's open. And all our hearts, a lot of hard feelings. May God help us in the sobriety, being in Christian sobriety as to what we think about ourselves and how we think about others.
When I come to Titus and chapter 1 there, and the qualifications of an overseer, and it says this among other things. Well, he's to be hospitable. The home is to be known for his hospitality. And he's not to be soon angry.
And you say, well, these are qualifications. They're just suggested. Listen, brethren, I don't know what that little word must means in Titus and in 1 Timothy chapter 3. I believe these qualifications as they are set out is fully intended by the Spirit of God that men who take place of overseership seek their level best to fulfill it.
And I'll go a step further. I believe the qualifications that are seen for overseers should be the exercise of every Christian to seek to fulfill those very thing themselves. This thing of holy living isn't just something that you pick off of the shelf and somehow you make a part of yourself.
But let me get back to this thing of sobriety of the overseer. The overseer in the assembly, he's going to have a sound mind. He's going to have sound judgment. He's going to have discernment. So when he comes and gathers with the body of overseers in an assembly, what they do in decisions as far as the assembly is concerned, and especially in the care of the sheep of the assembly, it isn't going to be regulated by sentimentality or partiality.
They're going to be thinking right. They're going to be thinking honestly in the presence of God. There isn't going to be partiality toward this person opposed to that person. They're going to be thinking in a very balanced, honorable, right, sound way.
That's imperative. That's a must for overseers in an assembly. Soon the sheep become aware of partiality, and it just creates an awful fester to which sometimes there's never an end brought to it, and it ends up in divisiveness in the assembly.
I remember one time about, at Bloor, when they were thinking about going on building another hall, the need was there, but there were some who felt it, and I do not say this in a critical way, but I just want to say this.
They felt that much of the structure of that hall, the framing of it, came from timbers that were on a particular farm, and it had a sentimental value, and maybe didn't want to move away from the hall because of that.
I'll let you determine yourself what you think of that, but you know, I'm thankful that there was a change of mind who thought that way, and so there could be progress, and there could be unity in moving on in a project like that.
We cannot be filled with sentimentality as overseers in an assembly or partiality. We cannot be filled with an idea of superiority as, you know, the scripture forbids that function in the assembly and overseerships as lords over God's people.
At the very best, you can only find that they are moving in a servant character for the blessing and the interest of the assembly over which they have been made overseers. We believe every overseer should be brought into that place of responsibility, not by human appointment, but by the Holy Spirit of God, because that's exactly what Acts chapter 20 and verse 28 says.
And as they come into that work to realize the gravity and the dignity of it, because the assembly has been purchased by the blood of Christ, will we tell you any overseers that perform in such a way they say, well, this is our assembly, and they think that you can just say and demand anything of God's people.
I am not being critical. I am just saying I'm laying out a caution. If overseers are going to be sober, they're going to think right, and they're not going to think that they are superior. And what I say must go.
But I would say this, I would balance that statement. When you have a body of overseers and they come unanimously to a decision, it is that in which the flock of God should follow and bow to. There should be a shepherd quality.
We heard about the good shepherd this morning. There should be shepherd qualities about every overseer seeking to feed the flock of God. Again, the words of the apostle from Acts chapter 20, not only shepherd qualities, but shepherd and servant characters.
It is not a position. It is a work that is done out of love to the Lord. As under shepherds, he is the great shepherd. And I would have to remind ourselves today, if any of us be here as overseers, Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 17 says that they must give an account of all actions.
So it's a very sobering thing coming back to the thought of the sobriety of overseers. Then you come down into the chapter and you have the sobriety of older men and older women and young men and young women.
And we should be characterized by sobriety. I want to say to young unmarried brethren here today, in all your movements and your activities and your interaction with a member of the opposite sex, make sure it's in a sober way.
We appreciate young people coming to conferences. Certainly we do. We're glad to see so many at Blue River. Glad to see so many here. Many have already left to go to their homes. But young brother, young sister, make sure there's a sobriety about your thought process and your actions, because it will prove to be that which will be for your protection and your safety spiritually and your preservation.
It's not something that we should wink at. It's not something that's trivial and small. Young men, young women, older men, older women in the assembly. The Word of God teaches us that we should be sober.
Now, if you come down into that context and you know what you're going to find out, you come right out to verse 13, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
So you see, we should be characterized by sobriety as we think of the encroachment and the coming and the nearness of our Lord Jesus Christ. None of us would want to be lacking spiritual and Christian sobriety at the rapture, would we?
We wouldn't want to be found doing that which is contrary to the mind and the will of God at the rapture. So I just submit to you the responsibility of all of us in God's assembly. For those that are saved, and even there is a responsibility as sobriety to those that are saved and not in the assembly.
We are a chosen people. We are special people to the Lord, and he wants to use us in a special way in testimony and for his glory. And may we therefore be a sober people. That doesn't mean we go around a long face.
That doesn't mean we go around austere and grumpy. And though sometimes I'm accused of that, I'm really not that type of a person, I hope. But we should be manifesting a sobriety, a sound mind, sound judgment, discretion.
We're not of the world. We're different than those in the world. All right, moving down a little further. When we come over to 1 Peter 1, I see a sobriety in relationship to holy living. Notice what he says, wherefore gird up the loins of your mind.
I think it was already pointed out in this conference about those that had long flowing garments, and there was a bringing them up and a tying them around the loins somehow, so that there was a freedom of mobility in their movement.
And you know, that's the very thought that Peter here is conveying about the mind. There should be nothing that would prohibit our mind from functioning in a way that's absolutely pleasing to the Lord.
That's the idea. And then he talks about as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to former lusts. There should be a divorcement in our part, in our mind, from the past life and things that characterize us in unsaved days, because we're new creatures in Christ Jesus, are we not?
Then he goes on to say, but as he which hath called you his holies, be ye holy in all manner of conversation or behavior. And he goes on to say, and it's a quotation, at least three times in the book of Leviticus, be ye holy, for I am holy, a sobriety in relationship, thinking right, thinking discreetly, thinking honorably and honestly, being in our right mind in relationship to holiness.
I think that's what Peter is trying to convey there in chapter one. But finally, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour.
Listen, we got to have our head on right. We got to be thinking properly, because there is the evidence of danger about us. And Satan would like to wreck any of us as far as usability for God. We need to be thinking right.
We need to be vigilant. We need to be on the lookout. We need to be on top of it all. And you know, we have the resources for that, that we might be a people that are sober, thinking right, because if we slip away from that, if you and I fail in this, we could be a victim of Satan.
Never lose our salvation. That's not the question. But you know, Paul was concerned about being a castaway. He was being concerned about being unapproved and not usable as he desired to be usable and useful for God.
So, brothers and sisters, take these thoughts with you as far as sobriety, Christian sobriety. Trust they'll be of an encouragement to you. May they be that which will cause you to understand your personal responsibility, and that we might, when we come to the end of the journey, whether by death or the rapture, we enter into glory.
The Lord will be able to say of us that we were a people characterized by moving in sobriety, Christian sobriety, in our right mind, thinking rightly and properly and our thoughts in alignment with the Holy Scriptures.