← ArchiveSunday, October 27, 2013DateOctober 27, 2013Speaker—TextRomansPassages in this sermonRomans 1213:121 John 1:515:151 John 821:231 Timothy 422:47Acts 622:471 Thessalonians 5:2323:27Hebrews 1324:591 Peter 126:27Galatians 531:51Romans 632:14Romans 8:1335:15Philippians 2:1235:28Ephesians 4:1437:09Revelation 2:1437:21TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00Outstanding. What a blessing we have here to have such a wonderful choir and worship leader and special guests, not guests, she's not a guest, she's a member, but I guess gifted people. Amen? Special gifted people. I want to, you know, thank our Sunday school teachers as well. I just appreciate so much the work of our Sunday school teachers and how they0:24study every week to prepare. And I want to challenge you, if you're not in a Sunday school class, to find one and join up. I assure you, if you're a single mom today, a single lady, we have a very wonderful class. We have a couple you can choose from, but we have several that are, you know, some that are just specific in that area. And Ms. Donna Johnson teaches0:52that class and does a wonderful job. And it's just fantastic. Stuart McCullough teaches also a class for singles. And it's kind of mixed with men and women. And we have single men, single women in there. And it's not a find a date class. It's a class to study the Bible so that you know where God is in your life. And we have a great time there. We have class for young1:18married couples. And the young lady that just sang, her husband leads that class and she's the heart of that class. He does his best in teaching, but she does a wonderful job of making everybody feel comfortable there. Amen. Those of you that are in that class, amen. That's right. And, but we have so many extraordinary teachers. I would just challenge you to be a1:46part of one of those small groups so that you can learn what the Bible says and how it says. Last week, we talked about being born again. I used to say before my wife corrected me for years, being born again. I put an ED on being born and made it born again. But that's only because I was2:10raised in Alabama. And Alabamians are born again while everybody else is born again. But it really doesn't matter whether you're born to born. You got to be born again to see Christ and to know Him. So that's an important part of who we are. And I hope you understood that. If you didn't catch, you weren't2:37with us last week, please go on our website. Eric's got it up and running and you can watch it. And it will just encourage you if you're a believer already. So I would encourage you to do that. Today, I want to talk to you what happens after we're born again. You know, I know Nicodemus left that night. We don't know if Nicodemus was born again that night or later on he come to confess Christ as Savior. You know,3:03there are a lot of biblical figures that we can look at and, you know, say, you know, they were chosen by God. And I know, for instance, one of the most probably portrayed biblical or popular biblical figures in the New Testament that had a struggle with understanding all that God was revealing to him as he walked with Christ was Peter. You know, Peter one minute was confessing Christ and God was3:32quick to tell him. Christ was quick to tell him, Peter, I wish you'd read that. I wish somebody, no, he didn't say that. He said, Peter, I want you to know that flesh and blood has not revealed to you who I am. But it is my Father in heaven that has revealed that to you. So here was a young man chosen by God to become the head of the apostles down the road. You know, he was going to be the3:59spiritual leader of them. And yet later on, Jesus tells Peter, get behind me, Satan. Can you imagine what it must have been like? One minute he's confessing Christ and the next minute Jesus is calling him the devil. You know, if you're married, you know what that's like. Amen? Some of y'all are going, did he just say that? You know exactly what I'm talking about.4:27And Paul in the seventh chapter of Romans talks about this struggle that existed within him to do that which was good and to struggle with that which was, well, he wanted to do what his, the spirit was leading him to do. But for whatever reason, he said he struggled with the flesh and he would do that which he couldn't do and do not do that which he wanted to do. And then the struggle went back and forth. And we'll read as Paul is teaching in Galatians that Paul also reminded the church that4:57there would be those that struggled in this area. So what I want us to talk about this morning is understanding our sanctification. What happens after we're saved? When a person is born again, they are born of spirit as we taught last week. And that's important for us to understand. Salvation is a work of God from God and demanded of God. In other words, you're not saved by your goodness.5:23You're not saved by your righteousness. You're not saved by anything other than it is an absolute, complete, and total work of God. You know, and that brings me to an interesting, just a little sideline story. You know, it's one of those rabbits I want to chase for a minute and I'll reel him back5:49in and we'll go on. But I was eating alone one day this week. I call my deacons all the time to eat with me and they always are busy. I'm going to get, I'm going to catch on to this eventually. But, uh, so I'm, I'm, I'm saying cause my wife has got me on this diet. Yeah. It's killing me. The good thing is I like eggs. Uh, the bad thing is that's about all I need and I'm not going to6:18like them much longer. But, um, but anyway, I could eat meat and vegetables. So I, I went to a restaurant and I'm sitting there and I'm got two really young guys sitting next to me and, and I'm, I'm, I'm doing the very best I can to hear what they're talking about. Uh, is that called eavesdropping? Is that a sin? Uh, uh, if it is, I don't want to tell you what I heard, but, uh, but it was really good.6:46They were talking about the Bible and they were talking about sovereignty. And I thought, oh, this is going to be interesting. And what I wanted to do is just slide over and start eating off that end of the table, you know, so I could hear everything. But they were, they were back and forth and, and, and, and discussing it and, and not sure where, you know, and, and, and all I wanted7:13to say was until you define sovereignty, you're going to argue about it. But once you define it, there's no argument, either God is sovereign or he's not sovereign, right? He's either in charge and in control or we are, and, and that'd be a mess. That'd be like putting some of you behind the wheel of a 747, putting you in charge. But let's go on. That's, that's what's real that in. And, and,7:42and that's why I said God's salvation and the salvation that we enjoy in Jesus Christ. It's God's salvation. It's not ours. Our salvation is a work of God to reveal his glory by reconciling us to himself while we are sinners and he is God. But our journey with God does not end at salvation. For some folks, they think that it does sometimes and, and they walk the aisle and, and they may be8:10truly and truly saved. Sometimes I wonder, and, and I think scripture could argue the point either way, but salvation in the new birth is a once and for all event that begins a time of change, while at the same time, it is an event that brings immediate change. It brings immediate perfection in the8:33eyes of God because of the gift of the Son and the Holy Spirit in the life of those that confess Christ. In other words, we are made perfect in Christ. Old things pass away. All things become new. God sees us in Jesus as Jesus is our sacrifice and our righteousness. We're not our righteousness. We don't have any8:55righteousness. Our righteousness is as filthy rags, but bless God, Jesus is perfect in every way. He did not sin and he is the righteousness of us all in Christ Jesus. The new birth comes when we see our sin as the Holy Spirit reveals it to us and then we repent, turning away from our sin and by faith trust God for the work9:24of salvation which is a new heart. God gives us a new heart. In other words, this heart is infiltrated by the work of the Holy Spirit as God the surgeon opens us up and puts the heart of Christ in us. The work of the Spirit then begins at the new birth, or doesn't begin at the new birth, actually the work of the Spirit9:53began before your salvation because it was the work of the Spirit that convicted you of the sin, of your sin. It was the work of the Spirit that drew you to understand your need for salvation. It was the work of the Spirit that called you to repentance. It was the work of the Spirit that reflected the truth of God's Word in your life. It was the work of the Spirit that causes the dead man to rise and see his sin. It's the work of the Spirit of God because of his mercy and his love toward us10:20that he reveals himself to us. But yet the work of the Spirit does not end there. The work of the Spirit in the new birth provides us with everything. Did you hear me? With everything that we need to profess Jesus as our Lord and as our Savior. We don't need to diet. We don't need to work out once we've been born again. We are saved once and for all. As stated earlier, our journey is just beginning. Remember,10:50you were made new in Christ. And as Christ comes into your heart to work, he does throw through the work of the Holy Spirit. Thus you've been given a new heart, a new mind, a new freedom. And that new freedom is from the control of sin, from the control of flesh, from the control of Satan, from the control of darkness that you were before you were born again, and from control of the darkness that you once lived11:18in, and from control of the world order that exists in our world today. God comes into our darkest world and his desire is for us to have fellowship and he plucks us from the mouth of hell that we might live in his glorious lie. That's a God I want to serve. I believe I just give the invitation now. We'll go home. Now let's look at what lies ahead for us. Not what lies there are ahead for us, but what lies ahead for us11:48that we may truly reflect Christ. You see, that's what we're called to do. We're called, when we were born again. You know, when you were born the first time into the flesh, you were born to parents. And you know, my parents had some expectations on my life. And you know, I can remember when I did things wrong,12:13my dad disciplined me. When I didn't do some, he had an expectation when he told me to be quiet. In other words, he sometimes used the word shut up and don't open your mouth. Don't move. Don't do this and don't do that. And you know, sometimes in the glorious ignorance of my youthful energy, I would speak12:35anyway. And it's not unusual for me to have picked myself. No, I never had to pick myself up off the ground. I just knew that's what was going to happen. My dad always held me up when he spanked me so I couldn't fall down. And sometimes God does that too. Let me read to you some passages of scripture that12:57will give edification to what I'm saying. Brother Rick, generous, I don't know that the Lord works out mysteriously, but in Romans 12, 1 through 2, 1 and 2, he writes, therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable or an acceptable to God, holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. In other words,13:24worship's just not what we did here. Worship's what we do seven, you know, 24 seven. We worship God when we raise our children. We worship God when we work, go to work. We worship God in our language, in the way we speak, we worship God in our desire to put on the attributes of God through the work of the Holy Spirit. So he goes on and he says, and do not be conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and13:54acceptable and perfect. You can prove what is perfect. You know, I want to tell you something. There are people that I've seen that told me they were saved. I didn't see much change in their life. There are people when I've gone to churches, to pastor churches, said I've been a Christian 40 years. I said, you sure would have surprised me after I served with them for five or six. There are people though that I know that they don't have to tell me they've been born again. I can see them as they14:20walk. I watch them walk. I watch them talk. I watch them live out their lives. I watch them live a life of sacrifice. I watch them live a life of love. I watch them live a life of joy and of understanding, of patience and of hope and without fear. And I say in my spirit, this is a man, this is a woman of God. I want to tell you, there are many times that I've had in my pastorates,14:47in churches as you've seen even in this church, that there's no doubt when you see somebody that they've been born again. And then when you see others, if they're born again, they were stunted at birth. Somehow they got put on pablum that was bad and they didn't grow. First John 1 5 says, this is the message we've heard from him and announced to you15:15that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, yet walk in darkness. How foolish it would be. How dumb it would be. And excuse me, young people, how stupid it would be. We lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves. Isn't that15:43interesting? Paul says, if you're going to walk as though you have no sin, you should walk in the light. But if you say that you have no sin, then you lie and the truth is not in you. I think there needs to be an understanding by every born again believer in Jesus Christ that there's a struggle with sin and will be a struggle with sin as long as we're in the flesh. We struggle to do that, which is right. But I want to tell you something. I don't believe I'd have to convince anybody in here that's born again16:11the last time you sinned. Do you know exactly when it was? You know exactly what you said? You know exactly what you did? You know how you did it? And you know it was wrong. You lost your temper. You know it was wrong. You let curse words come out of your mouth that shouldn't have. You know it was wrong. You lied about something. You know it was wrong. You looked upon someone and lusted for them, and you know it was wrong. You desired something that God did not desire for your life, and you know it16:36was wrong. You watched something for just a moment on the internet or on TV, and you know it was wrong, and God did not want it for you. Why? Because the Holy Spirit of God is working in you to produce the holiness that will honor God, and you know those things because you've been born again. My friend, those that I worry the most about that claim to be born again, and I don't want this to be negative,17:01but I believe with all my heart that there are people that fill the pews of churches Sunday after Sunday in hopes that by filling the pews, they're going to make it to heaven, and filling the pew is all that they need to do. They'll tell you how good they are. Listen, you don't have to tell somebody how good you are when you've been born again because the Holy Spirit of God runs offense17:25for you. He's the tackle that pushes everybody out of the way so you can make it for the finish line because he knows the importance that he has placed in you to finish the race that God has started in you. If we confess that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all17:50unrighteousness, not just some. If we say that we've not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. And here's why I say that's not just written to lost people. He uses the proper pronoun in the Greek we. So he's talking about himself, John is. He's not just talking about himself. He's talking to that little church that he's writing the letter to. And they're struggling with a lot of false doctrine that18:16are running around. But the reality is this. He says you need to know where you're from. He said you need to know what's happened to you. And you need to know the responsibility you have and where you're headed. And then Peter and John also writes this in 2 John, my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the18:40righteous. Let me tell you, if the sanctification process wasn't a process of holiness in the life of a believer, we wouldn't need an advocate. Did you hear me? The Bible says we need an advocate. Jesus Christ is our advocate. Notice what this advocate is doing. If anyone sinned, we have an19:04advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Do you know what an advocate is? A good description used in the Greek, and it's a paracletos, is someone called to one's side, especially called to one's aid. One who pleads another's case before a judge, a pleader, counselor for defense, a legal assistant, an advocate. For just one minute, would you just focus your mind19:30on heaven right now? As the Father God, in all of His infinite glory, fills heaven, and Jesus Christ, His beloved sinless Son, sitting at His right hand, because He's completed, finished the work of redemption for all mankind and for all anyone who would come to know Him as Savior. He's sitting at the19:55Father's side, and He's pleading, by name, your case, because you're struggling in your life, and there are sins that you have in your heart and in your mind that you're not turning over. And God the Father in His infinite righteousness wants to snap His fingers so that you would instantly be gone from this world. And don't think He hasn't done it before. Go back and read the Old Testament, and the earth20:22opened up and swallowed many of the nation of Israel. They wandered in the wilderness 40 years until a generation died. Ananias and Sapphira stood before the church, and they lied to the Holy Spirit of God, and they lied to the church of God. And God did something that we don't all fully understand here and now, but we know today Jesus Christ has ascended to the Father, and He's sitting there, and He's pleading because He knows that we're struggling in our flesh. We're struggling in our world.20:51But He has placed the Holy Spirit in us that we may be overcomers of those struggles. My friend, don't use that as an excuse to be in the midst of a struggle, but know that if you're a true born-again child of God, you're going to move from struggling with sin to be an overcomer of sin. You know the things that are wrong,21:13and so you step back. It is a process. 1 John 8, 1, 8, 9. If we say that we have no sin, I've said that already. Well, in other words, we as a church have a responsibility in the sanctification process.21:32You think, what? That's what He said right there. If you see a brother sinning, if there's a brother sinning, and you know that brother's sinning, that brother's caught up in sin. He may be caught up in21:57immorality. He may be caught up in some kind of abuse that's going on in his life. He may be caught up in any sin, something that you know he does. You've seen him, and you know it, and you say, well, I can't call a hand on it because my life is not in order. That's the tragic problem with the church today is there's no one righteous enough to stand up for the things of God. We need men,22:23and we need women of God that are willing to sacrifice the desires of their flesh to be like Jesus, and we are called to be like Him. The church is set in order accordingly. We ask men to serve as deacons because we've looked at their life, and we've looked at Acts chapter 6, and we've looked at 1 Timothy chapter 4, and we know that there are three, and we know these are men that are spiritual, men that are22:52leaders, and when they don't do what they should do, it's the church that should speak to it. We know that there are elders that were established in the local church. These elders helped the pastors and the leaders make decisions that was going on in the church so that the church could move forward for the kingdom of God. We have a role in the process of sanctification, but let's look at God's role first. God has a role, and you say, whew, I was pretty worried there you weren't going to get there. God has a23:22role in sanctification. Now the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 23, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful, this is what I love because I read that I'm going, I'm messed up. I'm not going to make it, but look what he says in the very next verse. Faithful is he who calls you, and he also23:51will bring it to pass. When God has called you to salvation, and God has brought the new birth in your life, you better know he's going to work on you. He's going to work on you so that you can fully become the image of all that he is. And I want to tell you something, it's a cry in shame when we see so many people walk the aisle, confess Christ as their Savior, and you see it, you never see any fruit.24:19All I can say is there's the potential for a false confession and a false salvation that's brought on by a false religion. And if we're not careful, we'll author that false religion. Because we ourselves are not willing to be where God would have us to be in our walk with him. Notice a sanctification is primarily the work of God. I want you to understand that. Even though I said24:47earlier that we have a part in it, and I'll show you that part later on as well. But the sanctification is primarily the work of God. Hebrews 13 chapter 20, now the God of peace who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do his will. So do you see immediately it is the work of the Holy25:11Spirit of God once you've been born again to equip you to do good works. You say, well, brother Chris, I thought I was doing pretty good. That's the problem with the church today. That's the problem with the universal church today is people start doing good works and the good works are of their flesh and they're not of God. And we forget that God is to get the glory for every good thing that's ever25:38done. Equip you in every good thing to do his will. Working, listen at him, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. In other words, God is working through us. God is changing our minds. God is changing our wills. God has cleansed our souls,25:59come into our lives, dwells within us that he may work through us and equip us not to be saved, but to live a life of sanctification so that he can use us in his kingdom work. God equips his children through the power and the work of the Holy Spirit. First Peter one says to those who reside as aliens26:27scattered throughout Pontius, Glacia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bethany. Notice he says if we were, if he's talking to those who reside as aliens, guess who aliens are? Y'all a bunch of aliens out there if you're born again. You look around and say, well, so this is what an alien looks like. Well, let me tell you something. If they don't look like an alien, they may not be. Because Paul says alien and he uses the26:55word alien here in relationship to the believer. So he says to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bethany, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with27:16the blood, may grace, peace be with yours in the fullest measure. My friend, don't argue with me about what God's doing in your life. And if God's not doing something in your life, it may very well be because God's not in your life. But if he's in your life, he's doing something to cause a change. And you're growing just as a babe does. That's why when Paul writes to the Corinthian church, he says,27:46oh, I wish I could give y'all some steak. I really do. I'm a good steak cooker. I wish I could give y'all some nice tenderloins. And I'd chop those up. I'd put them in the smoker. And man, that'd be so tender. But I can't. I've got to give you pablum. I've got to give you milk because your process has been stymied by your worldliness and you're no longer growing in the grace and knowledge and work of the28:11Holy Spirit. So I've got to come to you and I've got to be so elementary with you, even though you may have confessed Christ as your Savior, that you can't take the big stuff and the good stuff. I don't know how many times I've been to the restaurant with my children when they were young and they want to order a steak. You know, I come to find out that children and I did the same thing, so I'm not going to jump on my kids for this. But when my mom and dad finally took me to the28:38restaurant and I knew they were going to pay for it and they let me order, I didn't even look at what that said. I just looked at the price. And I figured if it's expensive, it's going to be good. Amen. You want to pick out a good steak? Don't try to go down through there and say, is the T-bone good or is this good? Go and pick out which one gives you the less meat at the most money. That's because it's kind of like gold. It goes by the pound. So Paul said, I'd love to feed you, but I can't feed you. It is the word of the Holy Spirit that29:09equips us to do what pleases God. My friend, I'm not here to please you. In almost 20 years of ministry, in some ways I've tried to please you. I've tried to please you sometimes with my preaching. Sometimes I've tried to please you with decision making. Sometimes I've tried to please you with this. I've tried to please you with that. But I want to tell you something. God did not call me to be a29:35man pleaser. He called me to be a preacher of the truth. And the truth is this. If you begin to get uncomfortable because of what God is doing in your life, don't blame the preacher. Get on your face and be glad that the Holy Spirit is still speaking to you. It is the Holy Spirit who produces in us the fruit of the spirits or the spirit. He says, but if you are led by the spirit, you're not under the law30:03nor the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. That means they're not born30:29again. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy. You know, I'll tell you what, I'm so tired of trying to go by and get people to smile. Come on now, give me a smile. Come on. I like, I think God made us to, if you're saved today and you can't smile, what's wrong? What is so bad in your life you can't go, I'd like to go around looking like a smiling idiot. Then I have somebody that people don't think is30:59saved. Say hello, preacher. How you doing, boy? Have a good week? Well, I don't know about that. Bless God. I'm going to pray for God to either heal you or kill you. You need to go to heaven and get over this. My grandmother had an answer for an attitude like that. Yeah, that's what it was. It was oil.31:23It'd work out in you, whatever was ailing you. It is the kestrel, my wife says. Listen, I want to back up in Galatians 5. I don't want to miss this in verse 7. He says,31:51For the flesh sets its desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that please God. So there's a battle going on in you. And that battle is with the spirit of God, and that battle is with your flesh. And we talked about over in Romans chapter 6 that Paul describes. But the spirit of God is in you to bring about. And I want you to know something. I want to know. You know, I've been around 20 years. I love it when somebody32:20says to me, Brother Chris, you've changed. Bless God. I hope you're not talking about my hair color and my wrinkles. Sometimes people say, Well, you look this way. I want you to know something. I hope that God has brought joy, has brought peace, has brought patience, has brought kindness, has brought goodness, has brought faithfulness, has brought gentleness, has brought self-control into my life.32:47The Holy Spirit is the spirit of holiness, which produces holiness within us. And then we have our role in sanctification. You said our role? Romans 6, 12. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies. So Paul's talking to the Romans, to the Roman Christians there in Rome. He says, Don't let sin reign in your mortal bodies so that you obey its loss. That means that you must make a33:13decision. You must make a choice. You're either going to let the Holy Spirit of God break your heart, change your life, and put a new desire in you, or you're going to follow after the sin that reigns. My friend, I want to tell you, there was nothing more shocking to me than a few months ago, a few weeks ago, that I was watching a YouTube of somebody that I know getting baptized. And I also saw33:36somebody else on that same that came up getting baptized. This was a deacon's wife in a church where I served. One of the godliest ladies. If you were to ask me, I would say because of the sweetness of this lady's spirit, there's no doubt in my mind that she would go to heaven. From the day I met her, her spirit was precious. Until the day I no longer was her pastor, was her spirit precious. Until this34:06day, I would argue with any man that this was one of the most special women. And there I was. And it's just been less than a year ago that I'm watching her be baptized because she came to understand that that which she had had in the past was false fire and not the real fire of the Holy Spirit. And she confessed Christ as her Savior. And God changed the goodness of a wonderful lady into the34:32greatness of a Holy Spirit-filled woman. My friend, I want to tell you, that's what will change the church. That's what will change the life that we live today. Paul challenges us with that. We are actively and passively involved in our role in sanctification. We are to surrender that's passively. We are to work to make sure we don't sin. We don't hold grudges. We don't hate. We don't talk about35:01gossip about people. Through repentance and faith, we are told to present our bodies to God as those who have been brought from death to life in Romans 8.13. We are told to put to death the deeds of the body. This implies an active role on our part to be what God would have us to be. We are encouraged by God to follow the path of sanctification. Philippians 2.12. So then, my beloved, just as you have always35:28obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Let me tell you what this doesn't say. This doesn't say that I'm working for my salvation. It says that now that I am saved with the obedience to the Spirit of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, I am to35:58work out my salvation with fear and with trembling and that shows my part. If it didn't show my part, then I'd just sit down and say, I'm saved. I'm saved. I'm through. Spirit, take over. Spirit, take over. Come on, Spirit. I'm not trying to mock the Spirit of God. What I'm trying to say is that you and I have a responsibility because of what God has worked out in our life through the understanding of the Scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit.36:24To live a life that is perfect before Jesus Christ. To live a life that brings honor to the Lord Jesus Christ. To make decisions according to the knowledge that God's Word has called us. The whole of sanctification is that God would present a church one day to the universe.36:44Ephesians 4.14, as a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by ways that are carried around by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by the craftiness and deceitful scheming.37:09Revelation 2.14, if you don't believe a church struggles, but I have this against you, Jesus says to the church, that you have left your first love.37:21Therefore, remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds that you did at first. My friend, I believe there's either a lot of Christians in this church and in every church in America that need to repent of the actions that they've not been doing for the Lord Jesus Christ37:48And repent of the actions that they have been doing for themselves and their selfishness and their unbelief and their deceitfulness and turn their heart over to the Lord so that God can begin once again blooming in them to bring about his glorious joy, his glorious peace, his glorious understanding in a world that needs the light of the church.37:59When the church is becoming dimmer than it's ever been before, because we've been caught up in all the things that are not of God instead of the things that are of God. We don't need to worry.38:28You know, I look all the time at the offering of our church and I get concerned just as some of you do when you look in the back, because sometimes I wonder, are people truly giving to God? And I want to get up here and I want to preach a sermon on tithing. But I want to tell you something, I don't believe I have to preach a sermon on tithing when God's people are in love with God. I don't believe we ought to beg people to be Sunday school teachers that are gifted to teach when they're in love with God. I don't believe people ought to beg to be greeters in the church and show false smiles.38:54Happy to have you. Bless God you're here. Come on in. No, I think there ought to be people saying, woo, we're so glad you're here. I'm so and so, I want to take you to your Sunday school class. Where are you going? What's your name? How are you? My name's so and so. Hey, maybe we eat dinner today after church. You say, wait a minute, preacher, you're putting a lot more. I want to tell you, there's a lot more to being a Christian than what we've been living.39:22And God is tired. And if we believe it's closer than it's closer than it's ever been, then why wouldn't we repent and step out from our pride and step into his light and say, oh God, have mercy on me, a sinner in need of forgiveness.39:33Oh, Father, I know I'm a sinner, but I've not been living for you. I've been in gossip.40:01I've been in turmoil. I've been in hatred. I've been in all kinds of mixed feelings about people. And God, I want you to forgive me. I want to tell you something. It is only the work of God that can bring about a changed heart in a lost man or a saved man.More sermons on Romans →
