The American Christian
The American Christian
Ecclesiastes 5:1-2
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Guarding our steps as we enter the house of the Lord.
All right, we are uh in uh Ecclesiastes chapter 5, working our way through uh the first four verses, and I do need, and maybe I can go this way, I do need people to open the word to some different passages just in the beginning. So Michael, uh 2 Corinthians 3.18, please. Nance, Romans 1.28. Uh who's next to Nance? Mike? Mike, uh 2 Corinthians 5, 17 and 18. And uh Andrea, if you would turn to um Titus 3.5. And um we're gonna read those verses in a row. Uh we were talking about Romans 12.2 as we uh want our steps, as hopefully we have a desire to be guarding our steps uh as we not only go into the house of the Lord, but as we live our lives for the Lord. And it brought us in our study to uh Romans 12 2, and I'm just gonna refresh our memories as to what that says. Paul writes, this is the NIV, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. And the verb, the verb transformed here, when he tells us, you know, don't any longer conform to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's actually the same uh word used uh of Jesus' transfiguration on the Mount of Transfiguration when when uh it's recorded in the Bible that uh that he he actually shone like the sun. We we see him, uh read about him, and and those that were on the mountain with him saw him in his, you know, probably in his eternal state, the way he's going to be. It was that kind of transformation. It was a transformation like nothing these men had ever seen or had ever taken place on the planet. That's the same kind of transformation that Paul is commanding us to be through the renewing of our mind such that we can live lives for God. Again, he goes on to say, so that we will be able to test and approve what uh approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. And we'll talk about for just a minute on what that means to test and approve. But as we can see, um we too, and I would like Michael, would you read 2 Corinthians 3 18 for us?
SPEAKER_02But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00So we can see from that passage that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that as we are in union with Christ, all by his all by his work, all through his spirit, that we too are being transformed into his likeness with an ever-increasing glory, right now, right here. But as that slides its way a little bit into our sanctification as well, sanctification being the process. So there's there's a sanctification that takes place in us at the moment that we are born again. All right, we become transformed, as we're gonna read about here shortly, we become sanctified and um and we become glorified. And all those things, those three things take place at the moment of our salvation. But there is a, I don't know if I want to say secondary, but there's an addition to the sanctification that takes place. So the initial sanctification is uh we have been made holy before God. If we were to die a split second before after we had been saved, we would spend an eternity with him. The blood of Jesus Christ would have covered every and does cover every one of our sins, and we have been made holy, sanctified, set apart. But then there is a process of sanctification. So positionally, we are sanctified in God the Father's eyes to be able to spend an eternity with him. Practically speaking, there is a sanctification in us that is a process, and that is a process of becoming more and more like Jesus, of allowing his spirit to rule and guide our lives more and more. That's a choice. We don't have to listen to his spirit dwelling within us. And when we don't, we will uh halt the process of sanctification in us for that period of time, however long it may be. It's something we should not want to do, it's something we should work hard at not doing, and that is that we have to fight all the time that our spirit wants to override the spirit of God dwelling within us. And when we do that, we stop momentarily for whatever period of time that is in our sanctification process. And that should, when that becomes cognizant to us, which again is the work of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, it should bring us to sorrow, repentance, and asking for forgiveness that we stepped on God's Spirit dwelling within us to have our way instead of his ways. By nature, uh we have a depraved mind. And so, Nance, would you read Romans 1.28 for us?
SPEAKER_03And even when they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debated mind to do those things which are not ready.
SPEAKER_00Uh keep going, actually. Read read uh all the way uh through thirty-two.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03Being filled with all uprighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malicious words, maliciousness, maliciousness, full of energy, murder, strife, deceit. They are whispering. They are with haters of God, violent proud, posters, inventors of evil things, just being in there. Undeserving, I'm trusting, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. Knowing the righteousness and the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death. Not only do this thing, but also approach those who practice.
SPEAKER_00Yikes. Right? And uh Paul Paul says, Paul says at another point in the New Testament, and such were you. And such were you. When you read through this list, my point in this list is that by nature we have a depraved mind. We know it from just the way that we uh act, especially before Christ. And but these things, Paul brings these out, and you know, you and I could probably check them off you know, as we look at our lives before Jesus uh uh and his spirit took us over. But we have depraved minds, right? But we're still working our way through uh Romans 12, too here, guys. By grace, this mind has changed. And so, Mike, will you read 2 Corinthians 5, 17 and 18?
SPEAKER_01Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away, behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given us given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_00So now we see that um anyone that is in Christ is a brand new creation. The old is gone, the new is come. Right? We are no longer under the law. We are now under God's grace. Uh, the law doesn't save us, obviously, but it is our practical instructions for how we are to live to glorify our Lord while he leaves us back on this planet. So we can see that, you know, we started out with depraved minds, separated from God, an enemy of God, drove the nails through his hands as he, as it were, as he was hanging on on that cross. But by grace, all by God's grace, nothing we did. He has made us a brand new creation. Jesus uh dying on the cross uh and then and then uh hanging on the cross, dying and then rising again from the dead, all right, has reconciled us back to God. We were born out of reconciliation with him because we're born as sinners. You know, we've heard it a thousand times. We're not classified sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. We're born that way. We carry, we carry that from the federal head of the human race, Adam. And it's passed along from generation to generation to generation through every human being that is born. David says in Psalm 51, in sin did my mother conceive me. He doesn't mean it was an illicit relationship. He means that there was just sin abounding in the whole process, including in his body in the womb. But yet, this incredible work uh that that the triune God planned out before the foundation of this world to work together, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to make a way for sinners who God would not have before him for one split second because he's holy and can cannot have sin before him. Read Psalm 5, 4, and 5. And yet he made a way. And the only way possible was for his son to also become a man. He would become our advocate. He would be the one that could put, Jesus, that is, could put his hand on you and me and simultaneously put his hand on the Father, for he was both perfect, 100% God and 100% man. And through that, through accepting him and the work that he did on the cross, we become reconciled back to God. It is a beautiful, wonderful, and amazing thing. And then to wrap this up, um, Andrea, if you will read uh Titus 3, 5.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_04He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regener of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00The renewal of the mind is the work of the Holy Spirit. That's who does that work in us. The Holy Spirit gets shortchanged an awful lot. Uh, in probably in all of our lives, in the in the life of the church. You know, we are a Christocentric faith, right? Jesus Christ is and deserves to be the center of our focus. Without him, we are all doomed to hell. Praise his name. His name is to be praised forever and ever and ever. It is he that is going to return to make all things right and true. It is he that did everything that the Father asked him to do when he was here on this planet. But while it's his work on the cross and the faith that God gives us to believe on him and the work that he did in the cross that saves us, what changes us? Holy Spirit. Why, after you are saved, do all of a sudden you say, and maybe it's not all of a sudden, maybe there's a period of time, but at some point, within a reasonable amount of time, you say, hmm, I'm not going to get drunk anymore, I'm not going to get high anymore, I'm not going to go carousing anymore, I'm not going to lie anymore, I'm not going to steal anymore. I've never had a Bible. I want a Bible. I have this yearning for the Word of God. I haven't been to church in 40 years. Now I want to go to church. I want to hear the gospel. I want to hear preaching. What, who does all that changing within us? It's the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, matter of fact, what's Paul say? Paul says, if you don't have the Holy Spirit, you are none of Christ's. It's impossible to be, it's impossible to be born again and not have the Spirit of God dwelling in you or me. Impossible. Because it happens at the moment that we are saved. The Holy Spirit enters into us, and He is our guide. He is our teacher. He is our He is the one that transforms our thought process. He's the one that we struggle with. You know, when Paul says, why do I do the things I don't want to do and don't do the things that I do? Right? He's struggling like we all struggle with. Do I go my own way? Do I follow the yearnings of my own spirit? Or do I follow the yearnings of the Spirit of God who dwells in me, who is there as a result of the fact that by God's grace he saved me and brought me to the cross? That's the fight. And that's what Paul is talking about in part in Romans 12, 2, when he says you need to do these things. You need to be transformed in order to live the life that Christ wants you to live. A transformed means human thinking turned upside down by grace. It means to submit to Jesus the King, even though you know the age that we live in right now, especially shouts to us that other powers rule, other powers are perhaps more important. We need this if we are able, we need this, meaning that we need this turning up, our thought process being turned upside down by grace. We need this if we are able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. This is not, I don't believe Paul is talking about guidance in the sense of what job will I take, or who am I going to marry, or where I'm going to live? The verb translated test and approve in Romans 12, 2, means here to recognize that God's way is the best way and really want to go that way. So, how do we find out on a regular and ongoing basis what God's way is? Gotta be in the word. Gotta be in the word. Right? Physically, when we skip meals, we get hungry. It's the natural reaction to not having enough sustenance to keep us going or to keep us at our present weight, in my case. Spiritual hunger is exactly the opposite. Exactly the opposite. The longer you stay away from the food of Scripture, the less inviting it will be to you to come back to it. That's why, even if it's only for a brief time, it is so important that we never get out of the habit of getting into the Word of God. You know, it's it's uh no matter how many times everybody that's done this can can swear to it as being true no matter how many times you read the word. Either you'll find something you never saw before, you will uh look at a phrase or a sentence or a verse that you've read before, and all of a sudden it'll come to light. It was never to light before. It's just the word of God, it's alive and it's active, right? And it's and and when we get into it, uh the Holy Spirit will always teach us. And you think about the times when, oh, uh, I don't know which way to go, I don't know what to do. And I'm gonna go to the Lord in prayer and I'm gonna open his word. I can tell you, there's been a number of times in my life, maybe in yours as well, that invariably I will have something happening in my life, good, bad, indifferent, but it's just I've gone to the Lord and want his uh want him to speak to me, and he'll turn me to a passage that I never saw in that regard before. He just has done it over and over again. So if we reread Romans 12, 2, again, this is all in regard to guarding our steps, not only before we go into the house of God, but in our daily lives, whether it's at home, at work, at play, here in a Bible study, reading the word at home, wherever it might be. If we reread those verses with a, I'll call it an amplified edition. It's not the amplified edition. I've I've put these together, we would read them something like this. Do not, does that sound like a suggestion? No. It's a command from Paul, right? Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world. What's first in your life? What's first in my life? Sue and I watched a movie. I, if I mentioned this last time we met, tell me. We watched a movie a couple of weeks ago, and this guy asked this other guy, he said, Who are you? It's a great question. He said, Who are you, John Smith? I don't remember the guy's actual name. And he said, Well, I'm uh I'm a basketball coach, I'm a history teacher, I've now started to coach the cross-country team, I'm a husband and I'm a father, and I'm a Christian. And uh things went on in the movie and they got back together again, and and the guy that asked the question, Who are you? said to him, Why is being a Christian so far down on your list? You know, something or someone in your life and my life all the time is going to want to be first in our minds and in our hearts. Always. It might be for today, it might be for this hour. I don't know what it might be, but but the world and Satan and our flesh are always having to fight. We're always having to fight Satan in this world and our flesh over who or what is going to be number one in our life at any particular time. And, you know, I don't mean that, you know, when you've been apart from your loved ones for a while and you're just in tears over seeing them again and stuff like that, that is a normal, wonderful, human, loving response to missing the ones that that you love for whatever period of time it was. But I mean truly sitting down and saying to yourself, what are the what or who is the most important thing in my life? And if being a Christian, if being a disciple, a follower of Christ is not number one, and really should be number one all the time, then we need to repent and ask for forgiveness and rearrange our thought process and our heart to make sure that he's number one. Remember, Jesus said you can't serve two masters. You absolutely can't serve two masters. You can't serve two masters whether it's between him and the devil. You can't serve two masters whether it's be him, whether it's between him and anything else that's in your life. Money, job, raises, income, uh, retirement, um, whatever it is, fill in the blanks, home, cars, you know, all the blessings that the Lord gives us. He gives us so much. We have to be on guard that those things don't take the place of him. That we don't, we don't forget to thank the giver of these gifts and focus on the giver of these gifts. Praise the giver of these gifts and keep him number one in our lives. Should he slide, again, we need to either literally or figuratively get on our knees, uh, ask him for his forgiveness, which he readily gives us through his son, and repent and try and do a better job through the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, because you and I can't do that. The creature comforts and all this other stuff, just whoa, this is really such good stuff. So think about that as maybe you drive home tonight. Who are you? Who are you? And where would you put? I am a follower of by His grace, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. And then right, I've got my family, I've got my church, and maybe other things, but they are all. Down below my King and my Lord. So the test and approve here means to recognize that God's way is the best, right? Not just one of the ways that we can choose. It is one of the only one of the ways we can choose, but if we choose on his side, we're going to find that it is the best way to go. And you know, the problem with that is, as we all know, it's not always the easiest. It's not always the funnest. And it's not always the thing that can take place the quickest. Sometimes it takes endurance to walk the way that God wants you to walk. Sometimes it's troublesome, problematic. Sometimes it's discouraging. Sometimes there might be persecution or discrimination against you for recognizing and following God's way. But you have determined in your mind that his way is best, and therefore that's the way that I'm going to go. And that's all part, that's all part of this understanding what God's will is, and then and then following through on it. So again, if we read these verses, do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will recognize what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will, and will want to do it. It means to delight in God's law and really to grasp that this way alone is good. This is a hundred percent against the flesh, by the way, and that's why we have to guard our steps. Paul is telling us that one of the ways we stop conforming to the ways of this world is by changing our views of ourselves and everything around us. And we must change our thinking on what it means to be, as an example, a success in life. In Luke 22, 26, Jesus himself describes greatness as being the youngest or the one who serves. That's in Luke 22, 26. In the Jewish culture, the youngest of the family served everybody. Jesus said, you want to be great? That's how you need to be. Therefore, age was desired so one would no longer have to serve. So the older they got, this is a physical age thing, but the older they got, somebody else would take their place, and then they wouldn't have to serve everybody. However, Christ confronted their understanding of greatness, their understanding of success. He said, Greatness in the kingdom of heaven is opposite to that of the world. Greatness is in being last, it is in serving everybody. Christ said this was true greatness. We must change our thinking on what it means to be a man or be a woman. Often the world perverse things. Men walk around thinking that they must conquer as many women as possible. Women walk around thinking that they must be perfect, perfect skin, perfect bodies. They must be sexy, drawing the attention and applause of men. This thinking does not reflect the attitude of heaven whatsoever. God said, Man looks at the outside, right, but I look at the heart. That's uh 1 Samuel 16, 7. King Lemuel said this, and this is out of Proverbs 31, and it's presumed that King Lemuel, if you read that Proverb, uh, is never described who he is. And most scholars think that it's really King Solomon, right? King Lemuel's mom, or Solomon's mom, if the scholars are right, said in Proverbs 31, 30 beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Peter said this to Christian women: your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. 1 Peter 3, 3 and 4. As being as we focus on being citizens of heaven, which we spoke about briefly last time we met, those are the things that we need to focus on, on the inward of our own selves, because this is what pleases God, not the outside. Nobody's talking about not showering, right? And not wearing clean clothes and not wanting yourself to look like at noon in the day, you don't want to look like uh, you know, four o'clock in the morning. But that's not where your value is, that's not where your worth is at all, ever. Especially in the one who died for you and loves you more than anybody on this planet could ever love you. God Almighty says, I'm looking at your insides. Both men and women, I'm looking at your insides. We must change our thinking by constantly studying and meditating on the word of God. The word of God teaches us what a citizen of heaven should live and think like. When you and I read the word of God, and again, I hope it's on a daily basis to the best of our ability. Are we constantly transforming our thinking according to the word of God that you or I just read that day? When we read the word of God, we're to meditate on it. You know, there's you know, there's read through the Bible in a year, right? And and um there certainly is some advantages to that. That's I'm not that guy. Um I I just for me, I mean, I read a passage in the word and I just want to dive into the passage. I would never make it through the Bible in a year unless I read 12 hours a day, right? But one of the issues I have with reading through the word in a year is you you read the three chapters or four chapters you're called to do every day, and you close the book and say, check the box off, said I read the word today, what'd you learn? Uh, I don't even remember what I read today, but I know I read it, right? We are to read and then meditate on it. You know, just like Kevin prayed this evening. Lord, have your spirit speak to each one of us, not only in a Bible study like this, but when we open up his precious word and we read it. Just as a suggestion, when you go home tonight, read Psalm 145. It's about 21 verses. It is one of the most gorgeous, beautiful songs on the majesty, power, greatness, love, forgiveness of our Lord, creator, sustainer, and savior, and savior that could be in 21 verses. It's absolutely beautiful. It's written by David to sing praises, to just give praises to the Lord, acknowledge his majesty, and bless his name for exactly who that he is. You read a passage like that, you've gotta, you know, you look at it and you say, Let me reread it. Let me reread it again and again, and let me put myself in David's shoes, who did not have an easy life, right? Mostly because of his own sinfulness. But, you know, he spent, you know, he spent a long time with Saul chasing after him. Then after his sin with Bathsheba, he he lost that son uh as punishment for that adulterous affair. Then he's got kids that want the throne and they want to kill him. And he's running from his own kids after he spent all this time in caves running from Saul. Now he's running from his own kids. And yet he has this incredible love for the Lord. Psalm 51 is his prayer of repentance for what he did. And um, and and the wonderful words from uh from uh I think it was Samuel that told him, you know, the the you're gonna pay for this, I'm paraphrasing, but the you're still the Lord's kind of thing. What what a wonderful, uh, what wonderful words to hear. And you want to know something? You and I can hear those words every time we fall. Because our God never leaves us. He is ever faithful. Ever faithful, no matter how many times we sin. Our goal in our sanctification process is to make those number of sins less and less and to make the egregiousness of those sins less and less and less and less by the power of the Holy Spirit. But then going beyond meditation, we're not just to read the word and meditate upon it and stop there and say, give me a test, I can now get a hundred, right? It's to drive us to action. It's we read, we meditate, and we go. We read, we meditate, and we go. Now that action might be a change in attitude. That action might be, you know, that might be, I'm gonna think differently of this person or this group of people, or my boss, or my kids, or my spouse, or whatever. It may, that's action to take those changes. That's that, you know, it might be more than that. It might, that action might drive you out to get involved in a ministry, might drive you for corporate prayer, might do a lot of things, serve at the church, whatever it might be. But it also might be right here, which of course is attached to right here. So, you know what? I can't read this any longer and not change. I'm my the my Lord is not happy with this. I now see what he says about it. I'm not happy with this. I've been playing around with this sin too long. I've been playing around with not advancing my Christian walk too long, and by your grace, Lord, I'm going to change that one step at a time. And this is how a citizen of heaven should think, and we're all citizens of heaven. And this thinking, this type of thinking should describe us. And this is how we must be when we enter our churches, because we're guarding our steps and come before our God in any special way. Next, may I suggest that we uh do not consider the deep, deep holiness of God uh tonight, but because it's the topic is just so uh broad and um extensive, but that we need to be thinking about his holiness when we approach him. And in order to do that, it wouldn't be, according to Solomon here, guarding our steps, it's not just the moment before we walk through the doors of the church. Uh-oh. Better put on my good personality right now. I need a smile, I need to be friendly, and I need to get ready to do the things that we do at church on Sunday mornings. That's not enough. That's not enough because it's if it's not hypocrisy, it's climbing close to it. And Jesus had a whole lot of bad things to talk about the Pharisees, and one of the real bad things was that they were hypocrites. Right? You know, you you you look at the Greek root of that word, and that's putting a mask on, right? Just like in the old plays, right? That's a hypocrite. Put a mask on. I'm really solemn, but put a mask on. Oh, I got the smile face working right here. And Jesus has got a the Bible's got a lot to say about hypocrisy. And that's you and me when we sort of fake it out when we go in front of our holy God who knows us inside and out. Who do we think we're fooling? It's better for us to, before we leave the house, to think about what kind of week have I had or morning have I had. Do I need to repent? Do I need to, do I need to turn from my wicked ways this very morning? So that when I walk through the doors of the church, I'm clean. I've been cleaned by the blood of Jesus. I'm not holding anything within me, right? There's no wicked way. I'm not hiding sin in my heart. I'm not hiding any wicked way in me. He sees it anyhow. What does he want from us? He wants us to acknowledge it, not hide behind the mask. Oh, nobody else in church is going to see you, right? Nobody, because we can't see through the mask. But that mask is worthless before God. It's not the way to go before him, right? We need to go before him with a pure heart. If we guard our steps along the way, we'll be in a lot better shape when Sunday morning comes. If we haven't guarded our steps along the way, then we need to get right with God before we go to worship him. You know, remember what he said uh, you know, for those that were, you know, wanted to give, uh, give to him, and he said, if you've got, if your brother's got something against you, right, go and straighten it out with him first and then come back. How do you think God feels about himself and you? If he doesn't want, if he doesn't want you to give to him until you straighten out your relationship with your brother, how do you think God feels about your relationship about him before you go in there and give that check or raise your hands and hallelujahs or whatever it is? We need to watch and guard our steps so that when we go before him, we have pure and clean hearts. David again says in Psalm 51, create in me a clean heart, oh God. We can't do that. If you find any wicked way in me, lead me to the way everlasting. We don't like to search our own hearts. We don't like to tell him or others around us that we were wrong. We don't like to do that. Our pride jumps in over and over and over and over again. And so we stay angry with somebody, maybe it's a spouse, maybe it's a kid, maybe it's somebody at work that we can't let go of, maybe it's somebody that was in front of us driving to church. You know, it it maybe it's somebody at church, maybe it's somebody at work that you don't like, and you just can't let go of it. And then on Sunday mornings, it's it's oh, praise the Lord, how wonderful He is. And inside you're harboring this disdain for this individual. I'm not saying whatever the situation is is necessarily easy to overcome or get through. But if you hide it and don't do anything about it, it's gonna fester and get worse and worse, and you're not guarding your steps. You're not guarding your steps before you go into the house of God. And so we must, and guys, I've said it before and I want to say it again. If your time in the word, if our time in the word here doesn't change us, not by anything that I say, trust me, zero for what I say, but for what God tells each one of us. If we go through this Bible and say, oh, yeah, that's a good point, oh yeah, I never saw that that way. And we go home and we don't change, your time here is worthless, other than fellowshipping. It's worthless, guys. We're all wasting our time if we don't change. We have to change. That's why we study the Word of God to find ourselves approved in whose eyes, not in man's eyes. Right? So, guys, we got we got to do that. Make them small, teeny, tiny steps. We all know where our problem areas are in life. We all know where they are. And our flesh says we either want to stay mad or I'm gonna push it into the background. I'm not gonna think about it. I don't want to think about it because it makes me mad because I don't like that person. And we never, ever, ever deal with it with God. Is there anything he can't do? Do you think he wants you to have an adversarial relationship with those that are around you? Work, play, neighborhood, church? Of course he doesn't. You may not be the cause. You may be being a peacemaker, and there are times when you can't overcome uh what's happening in a relationship with you and somebody else. But if you're just letting it fester and doing nothing about it, then you or I, if that was me as well, we got a problem, and that problem is before God. He wants us to tell us about that. He wants us to bear our hearts and our soul and our mind about that stuff. Even if we can't get through it ourselves, he can. Maybe it's a test. How would you ever know if it's a test if you're not going to him? How would you ever know that? You would never know it. You need to go to him and say, Lord, this is bad, this isn't working. I this guy just grates me the wrong way. He he comes at me, I run the other way. Why? Well, because that's the best way to keep the peace. Really? Have you talked to God about it, Bob? Have you asked God, is that what to do? Have you asked God, can he open a door so that you two can sit down and discuss whatever's bothering you and get it out in the open? It is the best thing to do. It is guarding our steps. If we hide that stuff from him, we never get better. If you're sick and you go to the doctor and he says, Is there anything else you need to tell me? And if I poke on your stomach, there's a pain there, but you say, No, nothing else, Doc, and you leave, can he help that pain in your stomach? No, because you didn't tell him you had one. But speaking about God's holiness, it's it is one of the attributes I don't think we focus on enough. I'm gonna pass by some passages that I was gonna read, but if you want to jot them down, Exodus chapter 3, verses 1 through 6 is one of them. And uh, and but we all know, we all know that God is holy, and most of us know what being holy means. Being holy means being what?
unknownSet apart.
SPEAKER_00Set apart. Separated, right? But it's but when we look at God and God's holiness, and he is sub, he is set apart from us, he's nothing like us, right? In God's holiness, in his separateness from us, we're talking about the uncreated, that's God, and everything else which is created, all by him, that is his separation, that is his holiness, and it is infinite between the uncreated God and everything that he has created. That's the separation, uncreated with created, perfection with imperfection, sinlessness with sinfulness, and the distance between him and all of his creation, including us, cannot be measured. He is solitary and singletary in his holiness apart from everything else. There is none other with him. There is none other like him. That's his holiness. We have a tendency not to think enough about it, not to try and grasp it enough, but we need to think about his holiness when we're hiding from him, when we're being hypocrites, when we're not guarding our steps before we go into the house of God to do the things that we do in church. Remember, Jesus said, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Here's the word hallowed, right? It means to render or acknowledge or to be esteemed or revered, to be separate from profane things and dedicate to God. In other words, Jesus is saying, when you pray this prayer, this is an outline for prayers that we can bring up before the Lord, and you say to God that you want his name to be hallowed, you want it to be esteemed, you want it to be revered, you want his name to be treated like it should be treated, and that is hallowed and holy. That's exactly what it means when we pray that prayer. And typically we think that we're asking him to change the world. Right? I want your name to be revered and to be held in high esteem, Lord, because the world just doesn't do it that way. But what about us? He's always, if we're reading the word with An open mind. If we're praying an open mind to the Spirit of God. When we're praying to the Lord, if we want to pray to Him so that He hears our prayers, we need to be cognizant of our own thoughts, our own words, and our own actions when it comes to hallowing God's name. Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 16, you shall be holy in the ESV, for I am holy, says the Lord. You shall be holy. Now we're not going to be holy like the uncreated and the creator. We're not going to be holy like God, but uh Peter is telling us that God is calling us to be separate from the world. Remember, Jesus said, you know, I'm leaving you in the world. You're not of the world, but I'm leaving you in the world, right? Because how do people come to faith? You come to faith by hearing, right? And hearing the word of God. And so he leaves us here with the with a command, right, to go and make disciples of all nations. He doesn't want us to be of the world, but in the world. It's a command from our Lord, and it's something that if we don't guard our steps, we will find ourselves in the world and of the world. Both. And that's not a good place to be. So I suggest that when we go to our Heavenly Father, we might better say to him, Father, may your name be made holy and be revered in me right now, in the hours that you give me in this day and in all the days of my life. Shouldn't, if we prayed that way, shouldn't that lead us to confession for the zillions of times when we have not held them in that light of hallowedness, in our own selfish, self-centered, prideful, arrogant, independent selves? You know, it comes through loud and clear when the focus of many of our prayers are ourselves. Certainly we we go to the Lord rightfully and thankfully. We go to the Lord with all of our concerns, with all of our supplications. He wants us to do that. He's the one that's in control. In doing that, in at least in part, if not in whole, we are acknowledging that there are situations in our lives that we have no control over, and we're going to him because he has control over everything. But if we find that our prayer life focuses on those things way more often than on the hallowing of God's name, than on being thankful that he's given us this daily bread, on being a people that are a forgiving people because he's forgiven us, then we've juxtaposed the prayer to be more focused on ourselves than it is on the God that saved us, the God that's holy, the God that wants his children to hold them in the highest reverence and fear. He wants us to rejoice in him. He wants us to tremble in him with a godly fear. He needs to be first. And it comes through in our prayer lives. Think about when you're praying, when you know, when I'm praying, what are we praying for? Is it so much always about what we want, what we need, or you know, is it is it more along uh praise, adoration, thanksgiving, confession, and then supplication for the things that we need? We need to check those boxes off each and every time. It's guarding our steps. It's guarding our steps in prayer. How easy is it to get off track? How easy is it to not pray in the morning, you get dressed, you race off to work, you're in the car, Lord, please help me get to work on time, and Lord, please help me have a good day at work, and Lord, please help my boss not to be so mean to me, and Lord, please this and please that. All of those things are legitimate things to bring up before the Lord. Where's the praise? Where's the adoration? Where's the thankfulness? Where's the hallowing of his name? Where's the read his word back to him, like Psalm 145? How majestic is your name, O Lord God, in all the earth. And you, high and holy, exalted one, majestic one. You stoop down to save me, and you will never leave me, you'll never forsake me, you'll never love me any less when I'm a rotten kid, you'll never love me anymore when I'm a great kid, because your love is perfect and it never changes. Remember that of all the attributes of God, only holy is repeated three times in a row in the Word, right? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, right? It's the only time. We read about all of his other attributes, but his holiness is he is thrice holy. Some have said, okay, that's the Father's holy, the Son's holy, and the Holy Spirit is holy, and that's fine, right? That could very well be. Uh the reason holy is in in uh thrice written like that. In Ezekiel 22, 26, we read this her, that is the house of Israel, her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I, this is God speaking, so that I am profaned. Profaned, desecrated, defiled, insulted among them. What'd they do? They weren't teaching the difference between clean and unclean. They weren't making a distinction between what's holy and what's common. Can you imagine the priests of God are doing these things? How outrageous we would think. They're men called of God, and we'd be right. But we too are priests of God. 1 Peter 2.9, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. We are a priesthood. So when we look at the priest that we read about in Ezekiel 22, we can do the same thing, unfortunately, if we don't guard our steps. We too can say there's not that much difference between me and the holy things of God. We can start to think of God as being more like a human being than who he is. And then we start to question, oh, that punishment seemed too severe, or that grace was too great for that person, or I wouldn't have done it that way. God, I, you know, it would have been different had I been in charge. Who do we think we are? Bringing him down to our level? Hallowed be thy name. So what are we supposed to do as a royal priesthood? We need to proclaim the excellencies of him who saved us. We are to hold him in the highest esteem. We are to hallow his name each and every time we go to him, or even think about him, quite honestly. So the biblical viewpoint would reinforce the holiness of God's very character as totally good and entirely without evil, and our lives should be lived as though we believe that, understand that, and therefore, out of reverence to him, act like it all the time. Not just when we're all together. We need to be nice to one another, and we need to, you know, I had a rotten day at work today, but nobody's gonna know that in the Bible study. Nobody's gonna know in the Bible study that uh, you know, this happened or I did this or I did that. And I'm not saying to necessarily, you know, expose your sins to the rest of the Bible study, but be honest with God. Be honest with him. Clean, you know, clean your heart. We I don't know if we're gonna get to it tonight or not. I don't think we will, but um, in Proverbs, Solomon, here he's talking about us guarding our steps. We'll talk about it next time we meet. He talks about guarding our heart. And and uh, and then he winds up actually in that same proverb talking about our walk and steps. And so they're obviously they're there they're they are integrated, guarding our steps, our walk, our thoughts all all come, you know, where your treasure is, Jesus says, that's where you're gonna find your heart. It's not the other way around. It's where your treasure is. Who's first? Who are you, Bob Sirik? Who are you? Because if Jesus is first in my life, that's where my heart's gonna be. Psalm 37, 4, the psalmist says this delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. If you think about that for a minute, delighting yourself in the Lord. It's almost impossible for him not to be first if you and I are gonna do that. Because what happens when bad things happen to us? When there's a crook in the lot, like we're gonna read uh again in Ecclesiastes, that God has put there. It's not straight, it's crooked, and we can't straighten it. There's nothing we can do. You know, are we still gonna delight ourselves in the Lord? And the answer should be yes, regardless of whatever is taking place in our lives. Is it is it more difficult to see our way through difficult times sometimes? Sure it is. You know, none of us, the Bible isn't telling us to not be real, it never tells us. As a matter of fact, one of the coolest things about the Bible is it's filled with real people that were numbskulls and sinners. And God used them. Look at the lineage of Jesus in the beginning of Matthew or or in Luke. You look at the lineage. I mean, Rahab's in the lineage of Jesus, right? He's a harsh, he's a harlot. God can use us if we'll let him use us. It's when we say, oh no, God, I'm not going any farther. I'm not doing any more. I don't have any time. Um, I've given you enough. When you clearly hear him say to you, you know that's not true. You know that's not true. And maybe, you know what, maybe the not enough is tonight, guys? Maybe the not enough tonight is you're not hallowing my name enough. Maybe that's the lesson tonight. Not that you're not doing enough out there or giving enough out there or praying enough, but that you and I aren't holding him in the most high esteem that we could ever do in this sinful flesh. We need to hallow his name. And by doing so, we will automatically be guarding our steps so that we will be taking the right path. Man was made in the image of God and capable of reflecting, capable of reflecting the divine likeness. And as God reveals himself as holy in all his holy ways, he calls men to a holiness resembling his own as well. Obviously, we're never gonna get there, right? But when he says, be ye holy, for I am holy, that's what he's asking us to do. Next time we meet, as we go into Ecclesiastes, I I want to tell you this story because we got a couple minutes about revering God in your life or in my life, no matter the circumstances, and that's revering the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, the grace of God, the love of God, the mercy of God, the omnipotence of God, the omniscience of God, the justice of God, and the wrath of God. There's more, but those are the ones that come to mind, right? And, you know, do we find ourselves loving the parts of God that uh we would classify as good? And that's a mistake in and of itself, right? Because God is good and there is no no part of him that's not good. But do we have a problem with chastisement, with punishment, with wrath, with justice? And I suggest that in in in at least some instances for some of us, that if we were to be if we were to be confronted by a non-believer about the r justice or wrath of God, uh, we would either stumble in our answer or maybe shrug our shoulders and say, I don't yeah, I don't get that part of them either. Which by the way, guys, you know, Peter tells us that we we should we should we should always uh you know study to have an answer, right? We need to um uh what's the word I'm looking for here? He tells us to be uh show ourselves up. Yeah, that's Paul, right? Um and and and Peter says, um, oh, you know, we need to we need to be prepared to be an apologist, right? For the faith. And uh so when you uh confront yourself through the word of God, you're reading the Old Testament and you read, man, God destroyed men, women, and children. When he told, you know, you take some of the cases like telling Joshua, go in there, don't leave anybody left. Anybody. Nobody.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00That's not a God, that's not a God that I want to worship, says the unbeliever. Frankly, there are probably either believers or those that attend Christian churches that haven't really become born again yet, that have anywhere from a minor to a major issue with the God of the Old Testament. Now, I purposely said that phrase because the God of the Old Testament is exactly the same as the God of the New Testament. I never change. I never change. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and always, right? God, one of God's characteristics that I didn't mention is his immutability. He is incapable. It is his part of his very essence that he cannot change. The great thing for us in that is that when we read this word, it doesn't change. It didn't mean to somebody in the Bible, three, four, five thousand years ago, two thousand years ago, anything different from what it means to us today. When um when Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born again, when Jesus says that I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through or but by me, we don't have to scratch our heads and say, well, that was fine for when Jesus walked the earth, but is it different today? Is there more than one way to heaven? No. We don't have to worry about that. And the reason we don't have to worry about that is because God is immutable, his word is immutable. It he cannot change. All right, so this God that we have a tough time defending from an Old Testament perspective, we can jump right in on a New Testament perspective because it seems like he's much more about grace now than he was then, when in fact he's never changed. The fact is this: the fact is that everything that God does is good and glorious and will eventually bring glory to his name. It can't be any other way, because only he and he alone deserves that glory. So since he controls everything on this planet, he will in fact orchestrate every single thing on this planet that's ever been, is today, or will be to bring glory to his name. And when you remember that in your mind and say to yourself, why did those Hittites and Hebites and Jebusites and Canaanites and all those ice, why did they have to die? Because God had given them 400 years to repent and come to him, and they never did, and he said, Time's up, time's up. I will be glorified. And if it means I'm gonna wipe you out to do it, incidentally, he's also gonna fulfill his promises to his chosen people at the same time, then that's what's gonna happen. When that when he when Jesus returns to turn this world back right side up, do you think anybody's not gonna die? Do you think anybody's not gonna go to hell? There's gonna be scabs of people. Revelation tells us that when the hailstones start coming down on they raise their fist to God. Praise God, instead of bending their knee and begging for forgiveness through Christ, they're holding their fist up, just like Joseph Stalin did moments before he died, angry with God that his life was about to end. God always has a reason for what he does. He is the most incredible God filled with grace. He is long-suffering, he is patient, but it ends when his glory would have ended. It stops, and he says, I will have my glory, because I and I alone deserve it. He is a jealous God. He's jealous of who he is, he's jealous of his own, not in an evil way, in a great way, in a great and good way. My quick story goes like this, and and it's to it's to and it's to um show you guys um about a man, broken, sinful man, just like you and us, um, and a statement he made to me. He was, I haven't seen this guy for 20 years. And I I he he and I were in the Gideons together and there was a meeting in Batavia, and I had learned that his mother had died. And I I don't know what his name was anymore. Say it was Pete. I said, gee, Pete, I'm I'm sorry to hear that. Was she saved? And he said, I'm sorry to say, Bob, she wasn't. And I said, gee, that's too bad. He goes, you know what? I I don't have any problem with this because I know that my God is just and she won't receive one less or one more uh penalty in hell for eternity because he is a just God. I was blown away by that. I was blown, he loved his mother, and I'm sure this guy was a witnessing guy, and I am sure he witnessed to his mother many times, but he realized that God was not going to relinquish who he was for his for my buddy's mother's sake. I'm not worried, Bob. My God is a just God. I'll never forget that when he told me that. But he had more insight into the character of God, appreciated and revered and praised the Lord more for his justice and his righteousness than I ever would have back then. But that's part of who God is, and that's and he deserves our praise for all of who he is. Michael, will you close this out?