Committed to Generosity

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Committed to Generosity

1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11

March 26, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • 1 Thessalonians 4:13—5:11

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We are continuing today in our sermon series Committed Talking about Essential Habits of abundant Life. If you have your Bibles open up to 2 Corinthians 9, that's we're going to be spending most of our time today. And if you haven't been with us, what we've been doing throughout this series, we are about 10 weeks in. We got two weeks to go. Next week's going to be the conclusion of this series. We've been talking about the essential, non-negotiable, super practical commitments that we all need to make as followers of Jesus in order to grow and persevere in our faith and in order to experience the abundant life that he calls every one of us to. And we've covered a lot of ground in this series, talked about a lot of topics. And the topic that we're going to be talking about today is we're going to be talking about money.

We're going to be talking about generosity. We're going to be talking about giving every pastor's favorite thing to talk about. Actually, a lot of pastors are uncomfortable talking about this. And really I think a lot of the reason is because we've seen it done so poorly. Especially you think about Christian television, these guy, they're practically like charlatans, pedaling the gospel for financial gain. And that's not what this is about. And so just right up front in case you're worried, I do not live in a mansion. I have a nice apartment in Brooklyn. I do not fly in a private jet, but I do have a pretty nice Mazda. I'm proud of that. But I'm not after your money. I don't need your money. God doesn't need your money, right? That's not what this is about.

Psalm 50, God tells us, he says, "Listen, every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle on a thousand hills, they're mine. I know all the birds of the hills and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, would I not tell you? For the world and its fullness are mine." He says. And God's not lacking in anything. He doesn't need anything. He made it all. He owns it all. But the reason that we're talking about money today is because as much as God doesn't need our money, he does desire our maturity and how we relate to money is going to be one of the single most, the greatest contributing factors to that, to our spiritual health, our growth, and our maturity. Because we live in a world that worships money, that is obsessed with money. And every single one of us, we are either going to worship money as well or we are going to learn how to worship with our money, but we can't do both.

And Jesus, he made this clear in Matthew 6:19. He said, "Remember, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves breaking and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither rust nor moth destroy where these do not breaking and steal for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also." And then he goes on though in verse 24, he says, "Listen, no one can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other, but you cannot serve both God and money." And so we need to see money as what it is. Money's a tool and it's a powerful tool. But if we fail to learn how to use it properly, it will slowly begin to use us.

It will take us captive and enslave us. And there's danger here. The apostle Paul writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6 he warned him about this. He said, first of all, verse six, he says, "Godliness with contentment, that's great gain for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing with these we'll be content." But he says, "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. And through this craving, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs." There's a warning there. But we also need to look carefully at this because this verse 10 it's up there in the list of probably the top most misquoted verses in all of scripture.

Because usually when you hear this verse, you hear it said that "Money is the root of all evil." But that's not what it says. It says that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The money itself is not the problem. The problem is how we use it and how we use it can be either to produce great good or to cause great evil. And this is why when you look at the gospels, Jesus talks about money all the time. Actually, he talks about money more than just about anything else. Over half of his parables had to do with how we manage money. He talked about it all the time. And so we need to talk about it as well. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today. And so we're in 2 Corinthians 9 and I believe this gives us one of the most straightforward, clear, practical teachings and scripture about giving about Christian and generosity.

And so we're going to just work through this verse by verse. And as we do, we're going to be looking at seven principles of godly giving the apostle Paul teaches us this passage is packed with application. And so we're going to be looking at these seven principles. We're going to move through them pretty quickly. And the big hope, the idea is we want to learn how to wield our wealth as generous stewards and use these things for God's glory. And so 2 Corinthians 9, beginning in verse six, the apostle Paul writes this. He says, "This is the point. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work as it is written, he is distributed freely.

"He's given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way, to be generous, in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many Thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift." This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer for our sermons day?

And God, we do give you thanks for this inexpressible gift that you have given us life. You have given us your word. And Lord importantly, you have given us your son Jesus Christ to pay our debt and to supply our every need to be completely sufficient in every way. And Lord, help us to know, to trust and to see you for who you really are, that you are our gracious and generous father and we ask that you would teach us as your children to live in that grace and to live lives of grace and generosity as well. And I pray this for your glory and we pray this in the name of your son Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, so we're looking at seven lessons, seven principles of godly giving today. And the very first one we see in verse six. And Paul starts out just plain and simple.

He says, "The point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." And the first principle that we see is that as Christians we need to get beyond this view that giving is this drudgery, this obligation that we're all bound to and actually start to see it for what it really is, which is it is an incredible opportunity to invest what God has entrusted with us, with the expectation that there will be a reward, there will be a return. The first principle is that giving is an investment opportunity. That God is not the IRS, he is not taxing you on what is rightfully yours. God is your father and he is entrusting you with what is actually rightfully his. Everything you have it's a gift from the father's hand. And he doesn't give us these things just to hoard them for ourselves.

He wants us to experience the freedom and the joy of using them, of investing them to bless others, to bless God, to seek his kingdom and invest in his kingdom pulses. "So therefore, if you sow bountifully, don't worry, you will also reap bountifully." In Matthew chapter 25, Jesus teaches one of his most famous parables on this very subject. And it's a little bit long, but I'm going to read the whole thing cause this is extremely important. This is the parable of the talents. Matthew 25:14. Jesus teaching his disciples about the kingdom of God and he says "It's going to be like a man who's going on a journey." "He calls his servants and he entrusted to them his property to one, he gave five talents to another two and to another one each according to his ability. And then he went away.

"He had received the five talents, went at once and traded with them and he made five talents more. So also he had the two talents, made two talents more, but he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and he hid his master's money. Now after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them and he had received the five talents, came forward bringing five talents, more saying, "Master, you delivered to me five talents here I've made you five talents more." And his master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much, enter into the joy of your master." And he also who had the two talents came forward saying, "Master, I delivered to you. You delivered to me two talents. Here I've made two talents more."

"And his master said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful over a little. I will set you over much enter into the joy of your master." He also had received the one talent came forward saying, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seeds. So I was afraid and I went and I hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours." His master answered him "You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I reap where I've not sewn and gather where I scattered no seed, then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers I might coming, I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to the one who has 10 talents for to everyone who has more be given and he will have an abundance, but from the one who is not even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.""

And one of the things that we're meant to do as we read this parable is notice the dichotomies that are going on that in this parable what we see are two very different types of servants, two different categories of servant. We have two very different destinations, but we also see two very different perceptions of the master. And that what separates the good and the faithful from the wicked and the lazy servant in this parable is not just that the good servants go and they invest the talents that the master gave them. What really separates them is this perception of who the master was, that the good servants were willing to invest their talents to go immediately, to go quickly because they understood that the master was a very joyful and generous guy.

Now the wicked servant, he didn't see that. He didn't know the master clearly. The wicked servant believed that the master was cruel and corrupt. And so he hides his talent out of fear and he wasn't willing to take any risks to make any investments with what he had because he was afraid. He's afraid that the master was cruel and that if he made a mistake, if he didn't get a good return, that the master would punish him for that. But that that's not the kind of guy that the master was. The good servants they understood this, that the master wasn't cruel, the master wasn't unjust, he was kind, he was joyful, he was generous. And then all he was really asking them to do was to take what he had entrusted them with and go out, take a risk and invest it. And we see that when the master returns, notice that he doesn't praise them for their success.

Primarily what he praises them for is their faithfulness. He says, "Well done, my good and faithful servant, you've been faithful over what" he says, "a talent" and the master says "is a little." And then from the master's perspective, apparently a talent was just a small amount, but to the average person, a talent represented like 20 years of wages. For the average person, five talents was more money than they would see in their lifetime. And yet to the master, he says, "I was just trusting you with a little and you were faithful with that." And the big idea is that how you give is ultimately a reflection of how you view God. And if you view God as stingy, as cruel, as withholding, as unjust, if you believe that God's provision is scarce, then yeah, you're going to live in fear.

You're going to be afraid to take risks. You're going to be afraid to invest what he has given you. You're going to be afraid that God won't take care of you. If on the other hand you understand that God is a good father, that his resources are limitless, that as we read that creation and all the fullness thereof, that's all his. He has everything he needs, he's never going to run out. Well then you, you're set free as the good servants were to just go at once without hesitation and invest what he is giving you to invest because ultimately at the end of the day, the father's not looking for our ROI. What he's looking for is our faithfulness. He says, "Well done, good and faithful servant." The question is, "Do you trust me and are you willing to do what I say even in when that involves risk and sacrifice," and how you answer that question, it's dependent on how you view God.

And so guys, the master in the parable says, "You were faithful over a little and I put you over much. You were faithful over a little. Enter and experience the joy of your master." Luke 6:38. Jesus says, "Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together. Running over will be put in your lap for with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." And so the first principle is we need to stop viewing giving as this taxing obligation and begin to see it as the opportunity that it is, an opportunity to take what God has given us and invest it for his kingdom, for his glory. The second principle we see is that giving is a matter of the heart. Paul says that whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

And then in verse 7, he says, "And each one must give as he is decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver." And so he says, "You got to give as you've decided in your heart." But then he also gives us the filter of how you reach that decision. How do you decide in your heart what to give? Well, he tells us. And if you were here a couple weeks ago we talked about the Venn diagram of discernment, of how you discern God's calling God's will for you. Well, this verse here, it's kind of like the Venn diagram of giving. How do you decide in your heart how much to give? And we see these three circles in the text and you're looking for the sweet spot again in the middle. And the first circle that we see is the first verse that we read that God calls us to give bountifully, to give generously, even to give sacrificially.

And the illustration that he uses is that of a farmer planting seed. Like the farmer has a decision. The farmer can hoard everything, keep it for himself and use it, eat all of the grain, all of the seed that he sort. Or he can deny himself a portion of that in order to plant with the idea that the more you plant, the more you sew, the more you will eventually reap. And so practically, when it comes to deciding how much you should give, particularly we're talking about giving to church, tithes, offerings, things like that. But also generally how do we give when God provides us opportunities to live generously with The principle is that you should be giving enough that it actually feels like a sacrifice. That in order to give bountifully, well that means you got to be able to deny yourself right now, like deny yourself certain comforts, certain luxuries that you need to decisively live below your means in order that you may be have that margin in your budget to give to God and to be generous with others.

And in the Old Testament, the principle, it began with it, the idea of the tithe, remember this, that God's people were called to give 10% of all that they had back to God as a worship offering. And in the New Testament, Jesus actually he affirms and he assumes the tithe is a good thing, something that his followers will do as well. We see this in Luke chapter 11. We see this in Matthew 23:23. Jesus is addressing the problems with the Pharisees. And he says to them, he says, "Whoa to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For, you tithe mint and dill and cumin." He's talking about you. You tie even the most minute things in your life, making sure that you give precisely 10% of everything. But he says, "But you neglect the way your matters of the law, justice, mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done."

Yeah, you ought to have tithed, "But without neglecting the others, you blind guides, you're straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel." So the Pharisees, they thought they were like hot stuff. They thought they were really flexing by how precisely they ties on everything that they had. But Jesus says, "I'm not impressed." You might be trying to impress others, but you're doing this and you're doing it for the wrong reason. And Jesus says he's not impressed. Yeah, you should have been tithing, but more importantly, you should be faithful. You should be, be merciful. In other words, you should be living beyond the letter of the law in order to fulfill the spirit of the law, in order to be people who's who are living radically sacrificial lives of generosity, both in their tithes and offerings to God, but also with how they, they're generous with their entirety of their lives.

Are you generous with your time? Are you generous with your talents, your skills, your ability? Are you generous with your talents, your treasures, your material possessions? And so as we try to decide in our hearts what to give, the first question is, am I truly sacrificing? Am I sowing bountifully? Or if I'm honest with myself, am I just kind of serving up my leftovers to God? Like the things that I wouldn't miss if they were gone anyway? Well, scripture calls us to give sacrificially. C.S. Lewis in mere Christianity. He said, "I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I'm afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare." In other words, if our expenditures on comforts, luxuries, amusements, et cetera, if that is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, well we're probably giving away too little.

If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small, there ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures exclude them. And so that, that's the first circle. But then Paul goes on, he tells us the other two, which are also important as well. In verse seven he says, "You also, you must give as you've decided, your heart give not reluctantly or under compulsion and cheerfully for God loves a cheerful giver." So give it cheerfully, joyfully, not under compulsion and not begrudgingly and sacrificially as well. And the only way that you can find that sweet spot in the middle and be able to do all that is when you understand that your giving is a response to just the incredible, abundant, overwhelming generosity that God has already shown us in his son Jesus Christ.

And so personally, just practically, this is what I do, this is what I think I would recommend all Christians do in our household, Kelly and I, every year or any time that our household income changes, we sit down and we update our budget. And the way that we budget our household budget is we figure out our income and then before anything else first, foremost, before rents, before taxes, before Uncle Sam gets his hands on a single penny of that income, we block out, we are giving our tithe that at least 10% of that is going straight to our local church to Mosaic. That is our offering to God. It's an act of worship. But then beyond that, you build the whole rest of your budget with that idea in mind of like, we need to leave space, we need to leave margin, we need to cut things out, luxuries, comforts that maybe we would like to have but don't need to have.

So that we have that space there to be generous when God presents us opportunities to be generous and to do so knowing that Jesus taught us it is more blessed to give than to receive. And so this is not easy to do, especially if you've never done this before. This can be hard. It can be scary to really trust God and to commit to do this. And I think that's why the next principle that we see in our text is that giving is not only a matter of heart giving is also an act of faith. Giving is an act of demonstrating what we truly believe, that at the end of the day that God is the one who cares for us. He is the one who PR has provided for us and that he will be faithful. Paul says verse seven, each one us give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

And then consider these next few verses carefully, verse 8. "And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency and all things at all times you may abound in every good work as it is written, he has distributed freely his given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever and he who supplies seed to the sower and bred for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. And the question here is at the end of the day, do we really believe this? Do we really trust that God will take care of us or are we putting our trust in our own ability to take care of ourselves, our own ability to produce wealth? Jesus, he also taught a parable about this in Luke 12, which told in verse 13 that someone in the crowd came up to him and said, "Hey teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."

And he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them a parable saying "The land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, "What shall I do for I have nowhere to store my crops?" And he said, "I'll do this, I'll tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods and I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry." But God said to him, "Fool. This night your soul is required of you and the things that you've prepared, whose will they be?" So is the one who lays up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God.""

And when we are rich toward God, ultimately what we're doing is we're demonstrating that we trust that God is our provision. And that also means that we're not trusting ourselves to be that provision ultimately. And I don't think it's a coincidence that therefore the very next thing that Jesus begins to talk about with the people listening is their anxiety, their anxieties about the things of life every day, things that average people worry about when it comes to money. But we go on and you read in verse 22, he addressing these anxieties and he does so by offering just some of the most comforting words that we have in all of scripture. And so it says that, "He says then to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you in light of everything we just said in light of this call that I've given you to live richly toward God," He says, "I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you eat nor about your body, what you will put on life is more than food in the body is more than clothing."

"He says, "Consider the ravens. They neither sew nor reef. They have neither storehouse nor barn and yet God feeds them of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour or to a span of life if then you are not able to do as smaller thing as that? Are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies how they grow. They neither toil nor spin yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothed the grass which is alive in the field today and tomorrow's thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, oh you of little faith."

"You're not seek what you are to eat what you're to drink nor be worried for all the nations of the world seek after these things and your father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom. And these things will be added to you. Fear not little flock for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old with treasures in heaven that do not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also."

So how is your anxiety level right now, particularly when you think about money, when you think about these cares that we all have? Well, scripture consistently draws a connection between our level of anxiety and our level of faith that Romans 8:15 it says, "You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. You received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father." That God doesn't call us to live an anxiety and fear as if we were orphans, as if we were slaves. He calls us to live as sons and daughters of the king in that safety, in that security. And what this means is that that for the Christian anxiety, it's based on delusion, illusion, it's based on deception. It's a lie of the enemy telling us that God is not good, that he is not our father, that he is not going to keep his promises, he's not going to take care of us.

And the only way we overcome that is through the eyes of faith. It's through the eyes of trusting and seeing God for who he really is and that ultimately our lives are safe in the father's hands, Paul talks about this in 1 Timothy 6. He's again teaching Timothy and he says, "As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share. Thus storing up treasures for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life." That when you see reality for what it really is, when you see God for who he really, that's how you take hold of that which is truly life to not live basing your life in the uncertainty and the anxiety of earthly riches, but resting in the security of your father who as Paul says, richly provides us with everything to enjoy.

So giving is an act of faith. Fourth, we see giving. Giving is also a catalyst for spiritual growth. It's a means of growing our faith. Paul continues, verse 10. He says, "He who supplies seed to the sewer and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You'll be enriched in every way to be generous, in every way, which through us will produce thanks giving to God." And what we see is that not only is giving an act of faith, it is also a means of growing in our faith that as we sow the seed the father entrust to us, Paul says we will be enriched in every way that we will reap a harvest of righteousness. Most of us know this, that scripture tells us to not put the Lord our God to the test.

But there is actually one place in scripture where God commands us to test him, where he invites us to test him in something. And it has to do with this topic of giving ex. This comes from Malachi chapter 3:7. God is talking to his people Israel and he tells them, "From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them." And he invites them, "Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, "How shall we return?"" And then God asks them this question. He says, "Well man, Rob God, yet you are robbing me. You say, "How have we robbed you?" Well in your tithes and contributions, your curse with a curse for you robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test," says the Lord of hosts.

"If I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need, I will rebuke the devour for you so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil and the vine and your field shall not fail to bears as the Lord of hosts." And then verse 12 says, "And then all nations will call you blessed for you will be a land of delights," says the Lord of hosts." I remember the first time that I read this, the first time I heard this scripture, Kelly and I, we were newlyweds, we were baby Christians and we saw this and we're like, "We don't want to miss out on this. So we're going to do this. We're going to make the decision to start tithing as a family as a couple." Now at the time I was pulling in about $25,000 a year as a entry level graphic designer.

Kelly on the other hand, she was pulling in negative dollars a year as a college student. And so things were pretty tight for us. We were getting by on chicken nuggets and fish sticks from Walmart. But we were like, we read this and we're like, "We trust God. We're going to do this. We're going to put God to the test." And so we did. And what we found is that he proved himself overwhelmingly, abundantly, faithful, not just then, but every day since then. And as we saw God's faithfulness, God's provision over and over and over, well as we saw all these examples of God being faithful to us, our faith itself grew in tandem. We were given so many opportunities to grow in our faith because of witnessing his faithfulness to us. And so giving can be a catalyst for spiritual growth. And fifth is that giving is a blessing to the church.

Paul says in verse 12, "The ministry of the service," he's talking about their the church's giving. He says, "The ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanks givings to God." And I love this because even just thinking back over the last year, we can see clearly that Mosaic, the ministry of your service, of your giving, it has supplied the needs of the saints. And it has resulted in an overflown in many Thanksgivings to God. If you don't know this Mosaic, we as a church, we tithe. And so what that means is that 90% of everything that we take in is used for the work of the ministry here in Boston to be a blessing to the saints here so that we can be a blessing to the city. It covers the cost of doing ministry and a really crazy expensive place like this.

But the other 10%, at least 10% as an organization, we send that out to be a blessing to saints all over the world. And so last year we were actually able to go above and beyond that. Last year we were able to give around $220,000. And just to break it down about 80,000 of that we were able to raise through the Ukraine fund, which directly every dollar. Well that went to support a ministry in the Ukraine that was caring for orphans, refugees. In addition to that, another $40,000 was sent to basically fund a brand new church plant in Ukraine through that same organization. And then the remaining $100,000 was used to support church planting efforts here in Boston, new England, north America, all over the world. And so I say that just to say praise God for Mosaic's generosity like this is so encouraging.

It's a blessing to us to be able to see how God uses this. And it's a blessing to saints all over the world that results in thankfulness of God. And I want to thank you, I want to encourage you in that. And then I also want to stir you up and challenge you because I think as a church that we can do more that we've been faithful over little, God wants to put us over more. The last statistic I saw reported that the average Christian in America only gives about 2% of their income away. By God's grace we can estimate the average a tender at Mosaic gives around 3%. So we're above average, but there's room to grow. Imagine, just imagine what we could do if even just the members of Mosaic started to bring in the full ti as Malachi said.

Malachi says, verse 10, "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test as the Lord if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need." And then he says, "And when you do this that all the nations will call you blessed and you will be a land of delights." And somewhere around 2 billion Christians in the world today, imagine if they all tithed. Imagine if it started with us. Imagine like the work that we could do, the blessing that we could be, the reward that we could expect if we stepped up as a church to go against the odds, to go against the norm and prove to be faithful over however little, however much God entrusts with us. Imagine the thanksgiving and the glory that could be given to God as we grow together in this area.

And that really leads us to point number six, that not only is giving a blessing to the saints, a blessing to the church that giving is also a blessing to God. And we see this throughout the text. Verse 11 says, "You will be enriched in every way to be generous, in every way, which through us produces thanks giving to God for the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanks givings to God. And by their approval of this service, they will glorify God." I'm not going to say a whole bunch about this because it's pretty self-explanatory, but this is really the greatest benefit of giving that people get to see through us, that as Christians, as we live generously, people get to see a reflection of God through us. They get a picture of what God is really like, that God is generous, he is gracious, and he is trustworthy.

And this results, thanks giving results in him receiving the glory that He deserves. And then finally point number seven is that giving is the natural response to God's grace. 2 Corinthians 9:13, Paul says, "By their approval of the service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all the others while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift." And this is ultimately what motivates it all. This is what's at the heart of it all, that we give God our first and our best and we do so joyfully because God gave us His first. He gave us His best, that God's greatest gift, this inexpressible gift, it's not money, it's not possessions, it's not treasures here on earth that God went so far beyond that, that God gave the very treasure of heaven itself, his son, Jesus Christ, to come and to secure our salvation, to secure our eternity.

John 3:16 says "That for God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." And once you've received this gift, you clinging to it for dear life. And as you clinging to this gift, this is what sets you free and enables you to hold everything else in life loosely, to hold the treasures of this world loosely and to give the treasures of this world freely knowing that you are merely giving freely of what you cannot keep. And knowing that you have found the one treasure that you can never lose, the treasure that itself has taken hold of you in Christ Jesus. I'm going to close this morning by reading from Philippians 4 because this is just a great example of getting to see this played out in real life and the relationship between the apostle Paul and the Philippian church that throughout Paul's life, the Philippian Church was a church that brought him a great deal of joy.

And it was a church that faithfully throughout the years supported him financially in the work of his ministry. And he writes to them towards the end of his life to thank them and to remind them of this partnership. And he says in verse 10, he says, "I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity to show it. And it's not that I'm speaking of being in need for, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble."

"And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except only you. Even in Thessalonica, you sent me hope for my needs once and again. And it's not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit, I have received full payment and more, I am well supplied having received from Epaphroditus, the gift you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice, acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus, to our God and Father, be glory forever and ever. Amen." This is just a great picture of godly giving, of faithful stewardship. And my hope today is that as we all walk and grow in faithfulness in this area, that we would learn the secret of contentment that Paul talks about, that we would learn that the joy of the master, that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

That we would learn to do all things through Christ who strengthens us, that we would press on faithfully toward that day where we will hear those words. "Well done, good and faithful servants, you have been faithful over a little. I will put you over much calm and enter into the joy of your master." And if you haven't been faithful in this area, well my challenge to you today is that you would start today. You take that first step of faith and really put God to the test and see if he will not answer with faithfulness and help you to experience all these blessings that we have talked about today. And I say that not to seek the gift, as Paul said, it's not just about the money. He says in verse nine, "It's not that I seek the gift, it's that I seek the fruit that increases to your credit."

Now with that being said, would you please join me in prayer and we'll continue and worship this morning. Lord, as we close today, I remember Acts 20:35, which tells us to remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. How He himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And we thank you that this is true and we know it is true because you have proven it is true that you are the most blessed and you are the one who has given more than any of us could ask or even imagine in your son Jesus Christ.

God, we thank you for your abundant provision in our lives. Every breath we take, every moment is a gift from your hands. And we pray that you would help us by the power of your Holy Spirit to not waste it, to steward it well, to use every ounce of time, talent, treasure that you have entrusted to us, to invest that for the sake of your kingdom and glory, willingly, joyfully knowing that you are our good Father who provides for all our needs. Help us to steward well. Everything we have to bring you, honor and glory to you, our joyful master, our generous father, help us to be faithful over little so that we can be given even more. And Lord, we do all of this as we long to hear those words. Well done, good and faithful servants. Lord, I pray that those words would be heard by every soul that is gathered here today. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Commit to Finish Well

April 2, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Matthew 24—25

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Over the last 11 weeks we have been looking at some of just the super essential, practical, non-negotiable commitments that all of us as followers of Jesus need to make in order to grow in our faith, in order to persevere in our faith, in order to experience the abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give us. And if you have your Bibles, open up to Matthew chapter 24. The title of today's sermon as we finish this series is, Commit to Finish Well. And on the surface that might sound a little bit redundant because that that's really what commitment is. The whole purpose of commitment is to see something through to completion. And the whole reason you need to make commitments, it only is necessary when you're attempting to do something that's going to be difficult, that you're going to be tempted to give up on or possibly quit. And Jesus promised to give us abundant life. We looked at that when we began this series, but that doesn't mean that the Christian life is going to be an easy life. That the abundant life that Jesus talks about, yeah, it comes with peace that passes understanding. It comes with joy and contentment and hope, but it comes with its fair share of difficulties as well. The Christian life is we live in this tension of both tribulation and hope that John 16:33, Jesus told his disciples, "I have said these things to you, that in me, you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, for I have overcome the world." This is the tension that we live in as followers of Christ, that in this world we will be faced with tribulations, with temptation, persecution, with many trials. And there will be times when we are tempted to give up. There will be times where all we can do is hold on to the hope that we have in Jesus Christ and do what he calls us to do, which is to endure, to overcome these tribulations by standing firm, by persevering, by holding fast until he returns so that we may finish well. It's a race that we must run with endurance, but as we're going to see in our text today, it's also a race that could come to an end at any moment. And at the heart of our text today, we're going to be looking at a really large passage of scripture and I'm going to talk a little bit more about that and introduce it here in a little bit. But at the heart of this passage, Matthew chapter 24 is verse 36 through 44 where Jesus says this, he says, "But concerning that day and hour, no one knows." And he's talking about his return, "not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as in the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away." And he says, "So will be the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the middle, one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known and what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming in an hour you do not expect." And the big idea is that Jesus is coming back. No one knows exactly when, but when he comes, he says it's going to be like some people are asleep. That they're just completely caught off guard unaware by his return. It's going to be like in the days of Noah, people are just going on with their lives, ignoring the warnings coming from the Prophet Noah until that day when the flood comes and just swept them all the way. And he says, "It's going to be like that. When I return some people are going to be caught off guard as if they were asleep. But others," Jesus said, "well, they're going to be wide awake. They're going to be ready, waiting for Jesus' return." And Jesus doesn't tell us exactly when he's going to return, but he does teach us how to be ready for his return. And that's what we're going to be focusing on today. Today as we've said, is Palm Sunday. In the passage that I just read, it comes from a larger passage of scripture that's often referred to as the Olivet Discourse. It's in Matthew chapter 24 through 25. And in Matthew's gospel, this is the sermon that Jesus preached on the Mount of Olives to his disciples sometime after his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, but before his crucifixion on Good Friday. And there's way too much here for us to get through all of it verse by verse today. But we are going to get through most of it section by section. And as we do, we're going to be looking at five lessons, five steps that Jesus gives us that will enable us to be ready for his return, five areas that we need to endure in, in order to run this race and to finish well. And so the outline of today's sermon, Five steps to Finishing Well. The first step is to endure in hope. This is the beginning of Matthew chapter 24. Point two, endure in obedience. That's the end of chapter 24. Third, endure in faith. That's the beginning of chapter 25. Endure in mission. And then finally at the end of his sermon is the call to endure in love. Before we jump into the first point of today's sermon, would you please join me in prayer for our sermon today? Father, we thank you that you are a good and a just God. That you will not tolerate sin and evil forever, that a day is coming when you will judge the world in righteousness, where all sin will be accounted for, either in hell for all of eternity as it deserves, or on the cross by Jesus Christ in our place. Jesus, we thank you for your sacrifice. We thank you for taking the punishment, the wrath that our sins deserve so that we can look to your coming, not with the fear of punishment, but with the hope of salvation, of deliverance. That you have saved us, you've justified us, you've saved us from the penalty of our sin, that you right now by the power of your Holy Spirit are saving us, delivering us from the power of sin in our lives. And that you will come again to once and for all time deliver us from the very presence of sin for all of eternity. We long for, we look to that day. And Lord, we pray as we do that you would give us the strength to endure. That by the power of your Holy Spirit we would persevere for the glory of your name. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, point number one today is to endure in hope. And this comes from the beginning, Matthew chapter 24. Beginning in verse one, Matthew sets the context for us. He says that, "Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, 'You see these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.'" And then later, "As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, 'Tell us when these things will be? What will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age?' And Jesus answered them, see that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All of these are but the beginning of the birth pains. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." And so Matthew begins, he sets the context for us. Jesus and his disciples, they're in Jerusalem and he begins to notice that his disciples are, they're starstruck by the impressive buildings, the stones of the temple. And he answers them. In verse three he says, "You see these things?" He says, "Listen to me. Truly, I say to you, there's not going to be one of these stones left on top of another. They're all going to be thrown down." And then his disciples come to in verse three and says, "Well, tell us Jesus, what are you talking about? When are these things going to happen? What are going to be the signs of your coming at the end of the age?" And then Jesus begins to answer their question. And as you read the next two chapters, it becomes clear that Jesus' answer is not so crystal clear. That he doesn't give him a straightforward, "Well, here's the time and here's the date." And actually what you see is that as he answers, he seems to be actually describing multiple different events all at the same time. Events that are distinct, but that are in some ways similar, some ways connected. On the one hand he's predicting the literal fall of Jerusalem. He's predicting the literal destruction of the temple, a prediction that actually came true within the lifetime of his own disciples. That happened, we know this from history. Now, on the other hand, when you look at the larger context of Matthew and especially the Gospel of John, we see that Jesus often compared the destruction of the temple to the destruction of his physical body, that he was foreshadowing his crucifixion and his resurrection. And this is why a few chapters later in Matthew 26, when Jesus is standing trial, well, some of his accusers come and say in Matthew 26:61 that, "This man said he was able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days." Well, we know Jesus actually did say something like that, but he wasn't referring to the literal temple at that time. He was talking about himself. That he was going to be crucified, buried, and that three days later he was going to rise from the death. Now, on the other hand, Jesus is clearly not just talking about himself. He's clearly not just talking about the temple, he's talking about the end of the world. And so he's preparing his disciples for God's judgment. He's preparing his disciples for the judgment of God that was going to be poured out on him later that week on the cross in their place for their sins. And he's also teaching them about the judgment of God that was going to fall on the whole temple system, that this was going to be a sign. That that old temple with its old, it wasn't needed anymore, because Jesus had come to fulfill all of that. Jesus was the true temple, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. And his disciples were as well as the Holy Spirit came to dwell in them and that they didn't need the priests and the sacrifices. Jesus was the high priest. Jesus was the sacrifice. But then thirdly, he's foreshadowing the judgment of God that was going to someday day come on all of creation. There was going to come a day when Jesus is going to return to judge the world in righteousness and to make all things new. And the apostle Peter later on in his life, he wrote in second Peter chapter three, remembering the words of Jesus. He quotes him in II Peter 3:10, "That the day of the Lord will come like a thief." And then he says, "The heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and all the works that are done on it will be exposed." Nothing's going to be hidden from the judgment of God. And so verse 11 he says, "Since these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness in godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. But what is our hope? Verse 13, "But according to his promise we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." And this should cause the enemies of God to tremble in fear, to humble themselves and repent. But the reason that Jesus is telling his disciples this is because he wants them. He needs them to fix their eyes on this hope, because this hope is going to be the only thing that is going to allow them, enable them to persevere the tribulation that is about to come. And we need the hope of Jesus' return, because as we wait for his return, the truth is, things are going to get pretty bad. That before Jesus returns to rescue his church and lead us to glory, Satan is going to do everything he can to ravage the church and lead us astray. Jesus continues in verse four and he says, and so therefore he says, "See that no one leads you astray. For many are going to come into my name, saying, 'I am the Christ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you're not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. And all of these are but the beginning of the birth pains. And then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.'" Jesus warns about three tactics that Satan, that the enemy is going to use, three categories of tribulation that he's going to wield against the church in order to lead us astray. In the first category we see. The first category of tribulation we see is that of trials. And what I mean by trials here, as Jesus talks about, there's going to be times of great difficulty. Wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, pestilence, disease, that he says, "There's going to be an increase in lawlessness. That it will just become common for people to lie, to cheat, to murder, to steal. And that these trials, they're going to be experienced, they're going to be common to everyone, but that Satan is going to use them in order to lead people astray. To lead people away from God, to lead them to extinguish their love, to grow cold in their love for God and their love for one another." And Jesus refers to these tribulations as birth pains. That they'll come and they'll go. They'll ebb and they'll flow throughout human history. And every time they do it's going to feel like the end of the world. It's going to feel like things couldn't possibly get any worse. And that these cycles of tribulation, they're going to come, they're going to continue until eventually a time of great tribulation, which the church will have to endure. But this will take place immediately before the return of Christ. It'll be painful, they'll be scary, but the hope is that these pains are leading to something glorious. And Jesus doesn't try to sugarcoat it. He says, "It's going to be bad." But he says in verse 13, "But listen, the one who endures to the end will be saved." And so in the trials of life, dear Christian, endure. The second category we see, the second category of tribulation is that of persecution. Verse nine, it says, "They will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another." Again, like the pangs of trials, persecutions, they come and go throughout church history and as they do, Jesus says, "They're going to cause some Christians to fall away, to turn against one another, to even hate one another." And I think a lot of people think that Christian persecution, oh, that's just something of the past. That's maybe something the early church experienced under the Roman Empire, but that doesn't happen today. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. It is estimated that since the dawn of the church, 70 million Christians have been martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ, 70 million. And over half of those took place within the last 100 years. And estimated around a 100,000 Christians are martyred every year, because they bear the name of Christ. And those of us who grew up here in America, we don't think about this often, because the world doesn't want to look at it. The world turns away from it, pretends like it's not happening. And much of it is happening far away on the other side of the world. I think a lot of Christians got a wake-up this week, these demonic evil attack that took place at the Covenant Christian School in Tennessee. It was a young woman who hated God, who hated Christians and targeted her rage at a Christian school. Satanically murdered three adults, three children, and I don't use that word satanic lightly. What is persecution? Persecution is what happens, when Satan tempts a person to love their sin and their perversion so much that they are willing to kill for it, rather than look to the one who loved them so much that he was willing to die for it, to die for them. It's demonic, it's evil, it's satanic and it's heart-wrenching when it hits so close to home. But this is a reality that many Christians throughout history and around the world today face every single day. This is the reality that got Jesus nailed to a cross. This is the reality that led every one of his apostles to a brutal martyr's death. That when the general calamity of the trials of life are not enough to pull us away, well then Satan is not above using specifically targeted evil at the people of God through the form of persecution. And sometimes it's social coercion, sometimes it's economic exclusion, sometimes it's threats and acts of violence. And Jesus warns us, verse nine, "They'll deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you'll be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another." Again, he doesn't sugar coat it for us, but he does leave us with this hope in verse 13, "That the one who endures to the end will be saved." So endure in trials, endure in persecution. The third category of tribulation we see in this passage is that of temptation. That Satan, look at verse 11, "Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because of lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." And then later in verse 24, he says, "For false christs and false prophets will arise and even perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." Obviously, that's not possible, but he's trying to communicate how severe the temptation will be. That Satan doesn't always need to use persecution when sometimes all it takes is a little temptation. Sometimes all he needs to do is raise up a false prophet to tell us what we want to hear. Raise up a false pastor who instead of boldly preaching the truth that we need to hear will cower before the crowds and just tell them what they want to hear. This is, I mean these signs, they're everywhere. We see them all around us in this world today, the pains of labor. And when we feel them and when it feels like they've become too much, there's really two ways we can respond. We can look at this rising hatred of God, of persecution against Christians around the world. We can look at the cult of rampant perversion and sexual immorality that is domineering our culture. We can look at the wars, the rumors of wars, the famines, the disaster of the disease. We can look at the alarming apostacy in churches around us that scoff at the Word of God. We can look at these signs and lose heart. We can get discouraged, we can get angry. We can get bitter. We can allow our love to grow cold. We can believe the lie that these pains are just leading to a meaningless death. Or we can believe the truth, that these pains of labor will someday eventually give birth to eternal life, to new creation. And so dear Christian, endure the pains of this tribulation. Pick up your cross and fix your eyes on Jesus, the founder, the perfector of our faith who promises us Matthew 7:13, "That the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." And then 24:13, "But the one who endures to the end will be saved." And finally, Matthew 24:32. Jesus gives us this beautiful illustration of hope, because after hearing all that, we need some hope. And this is what he says. He says, "From the fig tree learns its lesson, as soon as its branches become tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all of these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates." I don't know about you, but I am ready for summer in more ways than one. Outside the front window of our apartment we have these two magnolia trees, and right now they look like death. They're barren. There's no leaves. They've got these ugly, fuzzy, grayish, greenish, brownish buds on the end of their branches. But when we see that ugliness, we get a little bit excited because we know what's about to come. We know it's only a matter of time before these buds start to bloom, before this barren tree begins to explode with color, with new life. And I really think this is just the providence of God. I looked out our window this morning and I can see just a few here there, 10, 11, maybe 12 of these buds beginning to open. The signs of life and color peeking through. Jesus may return in our lifetime, or he may not. We don't know the day or the hour. If he doesn't return soon, we have the promise of scripture that he is going to be with us. He will never leave us or forsake us. He will give us the power and the strength to persevere. And if he does return soon, he will do so in power and great glory to save and glorify his church and to put an end to Satan, sin, and death once and for all. In these last few verses of this first passage in verse 29, Jesus tells us, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the heavens, and the powers of the heaven will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and all of the tribes of earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." And so first and foremost, in order to finish, well, we need to endure in this hope. And we see this here in this first section that we've looked at. But now as we look at the rest of Jesus' sermon throughout Matthew through chapter 24 and 25, what we see is that Jesus teaches a series of parables and each one of these shows us another step, another area that we will need to endure in order to finish well. And that we can endure in because of this hope that we have in Jesus Christ. And this really shows us practically what this is going to look like in day-to-day life. Point number one was, endure in hope. Point number two is verses 45 through 51 to endure in obedience. Jesus says in verse 44, "You must also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." And then he begins to teach this parable. He says, "Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, 'My master is delayed,' and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, at an hour that he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place that will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Parables are a lot like jokes. And I don't say that to say that this parable is funny. It's not. This is a very serious and grave warning that Jesus gives us. But they are in the sense that they're the closest, modern equivalent in the sense that a lot of the details in a parable are really meant to get you to the punchline of the parable. They're usually not meant to be read allegorically. They're meant to communicate one big idea, one big aha moment. As we read these parables, we got to ask, "What is the punchline of this parable?" And the punchline of this one Jesus is teaching us is, don't be like this wasted servant living a wasted life. In other words, you need to live every day as if it were your last because it very well could be so. That there is an urgency to our obedience to Christ. And the reason that there is an urgency to obedience is because we all have this tendency to want to put it off, to get to it later. How many of us have been in that place in life where we tell ourselves, "I want to follow Jesus, but I'll get serious and really give him my full obedience someday, later. I just got some stuff I want to do first." I've been there. I was that stereotypical church kid that went off to college and drifted away. And you know this about me, my first semester I joined a band and on the weekends, I wasn't going to church on the weekends, we were driving all over the Midwest, touring, playing shows. And I remember one spring morning we were on some college campus, we'd been up late playing a show the night before. And I don't know, we got up at the crack of like 10:30 or 11:00 and decided to go out and try to find something to eat. As we were driving through town, I see this woman, she's got a nice dress on, she's got a big fancy hat. She's walking down the street by herself waving a palm branch. I was like, "What on earth is she doing?" And then suddenly it dawned on me it was Sunday, today was Palm Sunday. I'd considered myself a Christian, and yet it had been so long since I thought about God or I thought about church, I didn't even realize the season, that Easter was just a week away. I was oblivious. I was like the hypocrite in this parable. And if you're waiting until later to give your full obedience to Christ, that's a really dangerous game to play. Later may never come. And if it does, you might not have the heart to respond when it does. Hebrews three warns us. Hebrews 3:12. It says, "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end." And so endure in obedience so that you may not be hardened by deceitfulness of sin. That's point two. Point three is to endure in faith. And this is the beginning of the next chapter, chapter 25:1-13. Jesus tells us another parable. He says, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bride groom. Five of them were foolish and five of them were wise. And when the foolish ones took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wises took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, 'Here's the bridegroom. Come out to meet him.' Then all those virgins rose, trimmed their lamps. And the foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise answered saying, 'Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.' And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. And afterward the other virgins also came saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us.' But he answered, 'Truly, I say to you, 'I do not know you.' Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.'" So again, we got, this is not an allegory, it's a parable, so the punchline here is, does Jesus know you? He answers the foolish and he says, "Truly I say to you, I do not know you." And this is echoing a statement that he made in the Sermon of the Mount earlier in Matthew chapter seven. He says, "Listen, not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. And on that day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" When Jesus returns, he's not going to be impressed with our self-righteous list of accomplishments as we stand before his throne in judgment. The question is, does he know you? Do you have faith? Do you have a relationship with Jesus Christ? Oftentimes we're tempted to put off our obedience to Christ. Well, oftentimes we're often tempted to put off our relationship with Jesus Christ to say, "I'll get serious about my faith later. I'll spend time in fasting and prayer. I'll start to read my Bible later. Someday when I'm less busy, someday when I have more time." Well, later may never come. And the question is, Jesus wants us to feel an urgency that if he came back today, would it be like you're meeting a stranger, or would it be like you're meeting a friend, somebody that you know, someone you have a relationship with? You need to endure in faith. Point number four is to endure in mission. This is verse 14 through 30, Matthew chapter 25. This is the parable of the talents. And we looked at this last week, so I'm not going to read through the whole thing again for us this week, just to give you the CliffsNotes version, the parable of the talents that there's a wealthy master, a wealthy king. He's entrusted three of his servants with a certain amount of money, with a certain number of talents to invest as he departs and goes on a long journey. And then he comes back to settle accounts with them after a long time. And what we're told is that the wicked servant, he took his master's money, he hid it, he buried it in the ground, and when the master comes back he punishes him. But the good servants, they took their master's talents, they invested them faithfully. And when the master comes back, he says to them in verse 23, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little, I'll set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." And last week when we looked at this parable, we looked at it through the lens of giving and generosity. And that's, I think a good way to look at it. It's one of the ways that you can look at it. But ultimately, Jesus was talking about a lot more than just managing money when he was teaching this parable. He wants us, we need to look at this through the lens of God's mission that Jesus is teaching about the Kingdom of God. Now, Jesus is the master, right? He's gone on a long journey. He's ascended into heaven. We don't know the day that he's going to return, but we know that when he does return that he will be back. And while he is gone, he has left us with a mission to accomplish. If you remember back in Matthew 24:14, Jesus tells us this, "That this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." We all love this idea of doing evangelism, of making disciples, of answering God's calling for our life, investing our talents for his kingdom. But so often we are not doing those things now, because again, we keep saying, "Oh, well, I'll do those things someday later." And what we're doing in those moments is we're really acting like the foolish, like the wicked servant. Were burying God's talents in the ground. And Matthew 9:57 we're told that as Jesus and his disciples were going along the road, someone came and he said to him, "Hey Jesus, I'll follow you wherever you go.' And Jesus said to him, "Well, foxes have holes in birds of the airs have nests. But the son of man has nowhere to lay his head." And to another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Well, Lord, let me first go and bury my father." And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." And yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to those at my home." And Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." And obviously Jesus is using a bit of hyperbole here, but the point is clear, that the mission doesn't start tomorrow, the mission starts today. That we cannot put this off. We need to go, proclaim the kingdom of God, keep both hands to the plow and not look back. We need to endure in this mission. And then finally, we're called, at the end of his sermon Jesus calls us to endure in love. That is point number five, Matthew 25:31-46. But first, if you remember back to the beginning of chapter 24, Jesus warned us about this. He said, "That many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." That we need as the church to endure and love. We need to endure in our love for God, we need to endure and our love for our neighbors, for people in general. But at the end of his sermon here, Jesus gives us a parable in which he is calling us specifically to endure in our love for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the meaning of the final parable. This is the parable of the sheep and the goats. Matthew 25:31. Jesus says, "When the son of man comes in his glory and all of the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. And before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left and then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me." Then the righteous will answer him saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you as stranger and welcome, or you are naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?" And the king will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me." And then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, I was naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then they will also answer saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and not minister to you?" Then he'll answer them saying, "Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." And I think most of us, at least for myself, whenever I've heard this read or preached, it's usually preached in the sense of, this is a call for Christians to do good works. This is a call for Christians to be charitable and compassionate and to care for those are who are in need. And those are certainly all good things that Christians should do. But that's not the point of what Jesus is talking about here. Because again, so the parable, it's not an allegory. And so what it is the punchline of the parable, it's verse 40, "That the king will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of," the least of who? "One of the these, my brothers, you did it for me." And when you read the gospels, when Jesus uses that language of the least of these, when he uses the language of my brothers and sisters, he's referring to his disciples. That as Christians we should love our neighbors as ourselves, that we should be charitable and compassionate to people in general. But the big idea that Jesus is talking about here is that this needs to be especially true for how we love and care for our brothers and sisters in Christ. That as Christians, when we love other Christians, when we care for the body of Christ, it says, "If we are caring for Christ himself." And when we don't, we see the warning there as well. Now, we need to think about this in the context of the sermon that Jesus is preaching. Jesus is preaching to a people who are about to face tribulation. And in just a few days he's going to lead the way by going to the cross himself. And I think part of what's going on here is that Jesus is, he's foreshadowing the reality that a time of difficulty was about to come for himself, that he would be crucified, and that when he was his followers, his disciples, his brothers and sisters would be tempted to desert him, to betray, to deny, to be ashamed to associate with him. And that's exactly what happened. But he's also saying, "That a time of difficulty is coming for you, my church as well. And when it does, you're going to be tempted to do the same, to turn against and to abandon one another." And he's reminding us that in those moments when it becomes the most costly, the most inconvenient to love one another, that is precisely when we need to love one another the most. And we have a very direct example of this in the New Testament. In II Timothy chapter one. The apostle Paul writes in second Timothy 1:15, he says to Timothy, "Listen, you are aware of all of those in Asia who turned away from me, among whom were Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. But when he arrived in Rome, he searched for me earnestly and found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day." And so he says, you remember Phygelus and Hermogenes, right? Phygelus, goat, Hermogenes, goat. They're hypocrites. They claim to be followers of Jesus, but they were fakes, they were frauds. When it came time to prove their faith, they were ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They turned and they abandoned the apostle Paul. Onesiphorus, now there's a sheep, right? He cared for Paul while he was in prison. He wasn't ashamed to go to him and give him help in his time of need. He's the real goat in the modern sense, not to get too confusing. But you see what's going on here. He cared for Paul. And in caring for Paul, it's as if he cared for Christ. And look at what Paul prays for him in verse 18. He says, "May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day." On what day? On the day when Jesus comes to separate the sheep from the goats. That as the church we must endure for love and love for one another always, especially when it's hard, especially when it's costly, especially when the world around us hates us. By doing so, we honor Christ and we prove, we test testify to the world that we truly are his disciples. And Jesus, in John 13:34, he tell his disciples, "A new commandment I give to you that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." And he says, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have loved one another." And so the five steps to finish well, endure in hope, endure in obedience, endure in faith, endure in mission, endure in love. And Jesus gave this last commandment that we just read. If you remember this, he gave this in the context of the Last Supper, right after having washed his disciples' feet. It says John 13:12. It says, "When he had washed their feet and he put on his outer garment and resumed his place, and he said to them, 'Do you understand what I've done for you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you're right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I've given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed you if you do them, I'm not speaking of all of you, I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate bread has lifted his heel against me.'" He's talking about Judas who would betray him. "But I'm telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." Today is a special day, today is Palm Sunday. It's the beginning of Holy Week and it's fitting that we look to the return of Christ on the day that he first entered, his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Today is also Communion Sunday, we remember the crowd that cried, hosanna, that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem as their savior. We also remember that crowd quickly turned into the mob that later that week rejected him as their Lord. And their response, it stands as a warning, as a reminder throughout the ages that our greatest need is not for a savior who is going to come and save us from our circumstances. Our greatest need is for a savior who's going to come and save us from ourselves, save us from our sin, our guilt, our shame from the wrath of God that those things deserve. And communion is a time for us to remember and to give thanks and to celebrate that Jesus Christ came to do just that. Jesus died on the cross to deliver us from the penalty that our sin deserved. That Jesus rose from the grave to deliver us from the power of sin over our lives. And that Jesus is going to come again to judge the living and the dead, and to deliver us from the very presence of sin, a once and for all and for all eternity. God, we thank you for your amazing grace. We thank you that the signs are all around us, that the winter is almost over, that spring and summer are almost here. And that when we see these signs, we know for certain that you are with us. You have promised to be with us always to the very end of the age. And whether that day be soon, or whether that day be long beyond our time here on earth. Lord, I pray that you'd give us the grace and the power to walk faithfully and endure to the end for the sake of your name and glory. That every one of our lives would be used as a witness, as a testimony to your goodness, to your grace, to your power, to your glory. And we thank you for the blood of your son, Jesus Christ that was poured out for us, so that we could be forgiven, so that we could be redeemed from our slavery to sin and adopted into your household as sons and daughters. And we come now as your children and just continue to give you thanks and give you our praise. In Jesus' name, amen.

Commit to Good Works

March 19, 2023 • Andy Hoot • James 1:1–5

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Heavenly Father, we praise you that you have made this day. We thank you for the light, the bright, almost spring sky that just reminds us of the light of Christ coming into our lives, penetrating the darkness of our souls and the situations that we have lived in. And we praise you that in every season and every situation, we can trust you. We pray right now, Lord, that you would show us how to trust you in the small moments of life, how to trust you in the training that you are providing for us through day-to-day life. Give us just great joy to honor you and serve you in all situations. And we pray that we would all leave here encourage and embolden to be your disciples and to face a world that does not know you or love you. Please, Holy Spirit fill us that we might be fruitful servants this week. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. And as I mentioned, we are talking about our commitment to good works. And as I prepared for this sermon, it really made me respect Pastor Shane's service throughout this series. I realize that every topic he's taken up has been a huge topic. We've talked about commitment to following Christ, commitment to the local church, evangelism, discipleship, scripture, prayer, fasting, worship and calling. And I think he's done an incredible job to consolidate these giant topics with a lot of scripture in forming them into just digestible just amounts of wisdom for us. And today, the task about talking about our commitment to good works as Christians could be endless. And really the reason is because everybody, not even just Christians, they know that Christians should commit themselves to good works. As Christians, we know verses like Ephesians 2, eight through 10. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Not a result of works so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And so we know these key verses, these popular verses when good works, but people who aren't even Christian know that we are called to good works. I walk around the Brookline parks often with my children. And when a non-Christian man or woman, when their dog invades my personal space or my children's personal space, I reward their evil with kindness and bring up the church and Jesus Christ. And those conversations typically result in them really just without any preparation, having a list of good works that Christians should be doing, good works that the church should be doing. And so there's no shortage of thought and conversation in our world around what good Christians should be doing in day-to-day life. And there's no shortage of scriptures around this topic. And so we can talk about Christian good works in many ways, but what the Lord has been giving me the past few weeks as I've pondered this topic, commitment to good works. It's been filled with a strong dose of realism. You see, the last four weeks I've had big plans to do a lot of good works. I planned and scheduled many counseling sessions, many meetings with leaders of the church, tried to set aside time to proactively pour myself in the study and prayer and planning for future endeavors to take up in the church. But the Lord has caused me to postpone a lot of that work or begrudgingly do it in the early hours of the morning or late hours of the night after my children have gone to bed. And in this period, why have I had this situation? We've had four weeks. We had two weeks of sickness, colds and stomach bugs pass from one person to another from school and daycare. We had two snow days. Childcare fell through for one day of the week for one of my children for several days. We had to deal with daylight savings. This Tuesday, after I dropped off my children and one gets straight to work. I came back to my condo building and the public laundry machine right next to my unit was banging really loudly. It was like a sledgehammer pounding on the wall and I stepped out, it was overheating, it was smoking, it was melting, it's some of its machinery and I was the only person there to address it. So I ended up having to just address the situation, ended up having to take my neighbor's laundry and actually do her laundry for her, wasted a few hours of that morning. And so it's been quite a month as I've had looked at this date where I have to preach about commitment to good works and my availability to do good works and capacity and energy has been severely limited. And I don't tell you this to ask you for pity or to just get some sort of catharsis, emotional purging. I tell you this to really introduce the lesson of the day regarding good works. And really I hope through my sermon teach you the main lesson of the sermon. Through all that I've faced in the past month, I've been reciting just a verse that I've memorized years ago, James chapter one, verse two through five. And what I've learned with time as this month has passed is that our ability to do good works for God is highly dependent upon our ability to receive God's training for good works in day-to-day life. Our ability to do good works for God is highly dependent upon our ability to receive God's training for good works in day-to-day life. And so what do I mean by training? A personal example of the training that God has called me to as a pastor is how I stand over what's happening in my house. One of the requirements, one of the character qualities of a pastor is found in 1 Timothy three, four to five. It says, he must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church. Right? So I'm called to, part of the central era of training for me to serve as a pastor is as the head of my household. And what did the Lord require me to do over and over again in the past few weeks with a lot of these unforeseen challenges, he forced me to give the priority of my time and attention to my household. Love my wife, love my children, make sure that everything was going well. Try to continue to train them in the word despite all of the hiccups, make sure everyone's healthy and strong. And now when I had to pause from my good works that I planned for the church and outside of the home, how do you think I felt in the moment? I did not receive a lot of these moments and these things that I thought as inconveniences as my training, but really it is, it was. Fortunately, I did have my wife there to remind me that these situations were, these scenarios that I faced were essential to my training for doing good works in the church, but I struggled to view it as training. Another area where God has called me to do training is just as a neighbor, right? Christ says, the primary commandments are to love God, the Lord your God to all your heart, soul, strength in mind and love your neighbor as yourself. And furthermore too elders of the church. He says, moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace. And so my training took place this week in that situation, when that washing machine was banging against the wall and seemingly melting itself. I literally had a crossroads moment of I can act like I'm not hearing that sledgehammer sound and get on with my day or I can responsibly address it. And I did follow in the ways. I followed the smell, I had turned off the machine, unplugged it. And you know what? If I didn't, I would've missed an opportunity. With that laundry, my neighbor's laundry was completely soaked still and is covered in detergent. And so it's this woman, recently widowed whose husband did everything for her in life. And so a thing like laundry is a lot for her. And she was just absolutely distraught that the machines were off, her whole schedule was thrown off for the day. So I said, I can work from home. I'll put your laundry in my machine. So when I did her laundry, it just amazed her that a person would pause and do an act, a simple act of kindness like that. She was so touched that she went out, and I'm not trying to brag about myself, I'm saying I could have missed this. She went out, she bought flowers. Not for me, for my wife. She knew the best way to bless me was to bless my wife. And this little illustration of we can miss these moments of training if we get lost in thinking that all of our works, good works as Christians are out there. They're these big grand gestures, often ones that you can take pictures of and post on social media. But what the Lord wants us to do is view trials, view tests, view conflicts that you need to address as your training and actually as the good works that he's calling you to do. And do you want... As you listen to this, if you know Christ, you know that if you have experienced the love of God, he has offered his son for you on the cross, despite your sin. You cannot but want to live a life for his glory and do good. That's really what's behind Christian works. If you don't want to offer yourself entirely for God, you have to really pause and question your faith and ask, Lord, do I know you? Do I really love you? Pour out your love upon me. Let me just be amazed by your grace. But Christians, it's an assumption that you want to do good works. And so how do you do good works? How can you continue to do works for the length of your life? And so I instruct you today, ask yourself, how are you training me, God? What are some trial, storms, broken situations that he's put in your life? How are you addressing them? Are you looking at them as inconveniences? Are you dismissing them as insignificant compared to the greater things out there, outside of your household that you want to do? Are you handling them unfaithfully with a poor attitude? Really ask yourself, Lord, how are you training me? Again, I said James one, one through five as the passage that I've just recited in my mind. The Lord use the simple set of verses to help me through this season and it's what I want to meditate on today to drive home this point. And I just want to hammer home, the main single point of the sermon is the degree to which Christians can stay committed to good works for God is dependent upon the degree to which they can rejoice in their training from God. The degree to which Christians can stay committed to good works for God is dependent upon the degree to which they can rejoice in their training from God. And so this is, I pull this from James one chapters one through five, and I just want to just belabor this point because I think it's so essential. Especially for a young, really hopeful believers. We have a very young church and we have a tendency to just look, see people post on social media, read books of great endeavors that Christians have taken up through history at the cost of really having sight for how the Lord is teaching us, training us, using us in day-to-day life. So I'm going to read James one, one through five and continue on this point and we'll walk through the text to elaborate on it. So I have my Bible down there. Can't fit my notes in my Bible here. So I'll read from my notes. James one, this is the word of our Lord. James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes of the dispersion, greetings. Count it all joy my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness habits full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him. So who is James? The little background kind of emphasizes the thrust of the points going forward. Who's James? James is the brother of Jesus, the half-brother of Jesus. The son of Mary and Joseph, one of the sons. And the Apostle Paul mentions that James actually got a special visitation post resurrection from Jesus, first Corinthians 15, 6 to 7 says, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to the apostles. Perhaps this is the moment that James committed his life to Christ, received him as his savior and Lord. 4 John 75 says, for not even his brothers, Jesus believed him. And I just dab into this background because it makes the first word of the book of the James amazing. James one, one. James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. A servant, doulas in the Greek. It means servant, slave, bond servant. A bond servant is someone who willingly dedicated their entire life to service to another. So James says he's a bond servant of Jesus Christ, this brother that grew up in his household. Further, James goes on to say that he's a bond servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. In doing this, he's equating Jesus Christ with God. And that's pretty amazing given that Jesus again was his earthly brother. And I just want to elaborate on this point because this is one of the reasons why we believed scripture. A guy who grew up with Jesus, lived his life and in submission and believe saw him as a savior. And James writes here about suffering. He probably suffered for the sake of his brother's kingdom, not just advised the church as he does in these verses. So at the end of verse one, James tells us that the letter is addressed to the 12 tribes of the dispersion. This doesn't mean that it's not relevant for gentiles in his day or us. What this reference to 12 tribes is an appeal to persecution, a persecution that happened amongst his readers. James was one of the leaders. He was Jewish, he was one of the pastors of the church, placed his faith in Christ, became a pastor, committed his life to Christ. And at one point during the history of his tenure, there was a great persecution of the Jews. He's appealing to a time when believers, probably primarily Jewish believers were persecuted and scattered. And scripture talks about in Acts 7 when Saul, before he became the Apostle Paul, persecuted Steven, went house to house persecuting Christians. Act 8, one says, and there are rose on that day, a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem and they're all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samara except the apostles. And so James is appealing to this group of believers who have been persecuted and it's not just they face persecution from Jews who were mad that they became Christian. It's probably you have to think about the internal family strife that they faced. They left. Think of any Jewish friends you have today and what it would mean for them socially, familiarly to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior. These people experienced it to the stream. They're probably kicked out of households, lost their inheritance, lives worth, physically threatened for Jesus. And all of this really just drives home, just makes James next words just that much more powerful when he says, count it all joy my brothers and sisters ] when you meet trials of various kinds. And so James is talking to these people, this population who's been scattered, persecuted, probably kicked out of their homes and he is telling them to count it all joy. Everything that they're facing and it's just, we have to pause here because it is ludicrous. We're allowed to look at the text and say, this sounds crazy. Trials, conflicts, persecutions, storms. They're not things we typically consider to be joyful. Rather, we tend to think of them and label them with other derogatory terms. But James is trying to get his audience and us to zoom out of our worldly logic. He's trying to get Christians to consider what he is saying with supernatural logic. He's appealing to the cross of Jesus Christ here. Apart from the central story of Christianity, this call to count at all joy when you meet trials of various kinds makes no sense. And so how does someone look at trials, conflict and experience joy? It's only if you believe that the most excruciating experience of pain in the history of the world, the most ugly act of violence against the sinless son of God. If you only believe that this moment of Jesus Christ, the sinless son of God being put on the cross, was redeemed into the most beautiful act of history in the world, the resurrection that procured the salvation of God's children. Then you can count sufferings, trials, storms, tests, training as joy. And so, no, this isn't like sadistic like advice from James. He doesn't want these people to suffer because he is evil. He's not alone in providing such wisdom and scripture. God is not a sadist. Again, he's calling them to rejoice. He's not saying rejoice because this trial is in your life. The fact of it, he's saying rejoice in it. Seek joy in it. There's a big difference there. And he's saying, look, Christian, you are struggling right now, but you're not facing anything that compares to the struggle that Jesus Christ experienced when his own father turned his back on him for your salvation. He's saying, if you believe that Jesus Christ, his just terrible death was the means for God to procure your salvation, your redemption. You can trust the Lord in this moment, trust that he's sovereign over it, trust that he can use it for your good in his glory. And so James is appealing to the central part of Christianity. When he says, count it all joy. The Lord does work in this mysterious way where he can use brokenness for his glory and that's the source of hope for Christians when we are facing trials. And notice that the text doesn't say count it all joy if you meet trials. It says count it all joy when you meet trials. The assumption is that every single Christian worships a God who redeemed us, not in despite of Christ's suffering, but through Christ's suffering. And so Christ himself said, a servant could not be above his master. Every Christian is going to face suffering. This Christian life is not just a rosy walk where you are going through life and everything goes well for you and people when you share the gospel always receive you kindly. It's going to be a challenging one. And so how are you going to respond? Do you believe that Christian, do you believe you can actually have joy in it? And we need to be thinking along these lines. If we're not expecting the trials, not expecting the pain of some of these situations as Christian, we're just going to live in shock. And how do many Christians respond to trials? There's a few typical ways. A lot of Christians face challenges and they just get paralyzed. They say, I am too frightened about facing this head on. I don't want to engage the tension. I can't see the way forward in my own strength and they just become just useless for the kingdom. A lot of Christians, they face trials and what do they do? They over busy themselves to escape the fact that there's a tension lingering in their life. There's a situation that they have to trust God but they don't want to. They'll do everything they can to distract themselves. A lot of people just don't acknowledge it and they sweep it under the rug and then it comes back to really biting them. And so we can't be shocked by these tests and we know that facing them in faith is good. And that's what James says, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. For you know it's an appeal to something that we know, but something that we tend to selectively forget as Christians. When we're lashing out, when we're groaning, when we're complaining about the difficulty or simply avoiding it all together. We know that the Lord, especially when we look upon the cross, can use the most trying of circumstances for his glory. And so we know this, we know that the pain of a good workout results in a good pump and greater strength, greater flexibility, greater energy levels. We know this, like we know that studying for a test does often, more often than not result in greater results on the exam. We know that preparing, putting the time to prepare for a recital pays off in better performance. But in our faith, when we're challenged by trials, we don't lose this all together. We don't pause and think, how could God be using me for his glory? How could he be strengthening me and sanctifying me for greater works in the future? We easily forget this and I do too. I'm guilty. I had many times where in the past few weeks I just got overtaken by anger before just the Lord convicted me or my wife God on me. But James says that we know that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness. Steadfastness, a better translation here instead of steadfastness might be endurance. The testing of our faith produces endurance. In the Greek, the word carries the meaning of the perseverance that it takes to finish a marathon. That's significant. For the Bible talks about the Christian life, it speaks of it in terms of a long race like a marathon. 2 Timothy 4, 6 to 7 says, for I'm already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departures come. This is the Apostle Paul toward the end of his ministry. I've fought the good fight. I've finished the race, I've kept the faith. I was thinking in between services, it's like a life as a Christian is a long boxing match. And I'm from Philadelphia, so for some reason I thought was triggered to a lot of life is Rocky just taking on opponents that are so much better than him. But in the end he somehow finds the way. He wins or he loses righteously and earns the respect of his opponent and wins their heart over. But there's stick to the marathon. A lot of this life is like it's a marathon. Christian life is a marathon. A long race that requires a lot of preparation, a lot of endurance, a lot of pain tolerance to go forward. And we need to be realistic about that. I believe we're at this point because I know a lot of you are sprinters, a lot of you are good for going 50 meters to a hundred meters really fast. I've worked for churches for almost a decade now and you see so many people sign up, sign up for five ministry teams, just really pour themselves out, show up to everything for a couple of months, flame out. And then you see people in the church who are there at least for a year is a little bit better than the people who flame out and disappear in a couple months. You see a lot of people in the church for years just stuck in this cycle of going hard, burning out, going hard in engagement with the church and their faith, burning out. You need to maybe retain those sprinter tendencies with your work that might benefit you. But in your spiritual life, how do you change your approach to become a marathoner? And notice I'm not talking about 75% of the people who run the Boston Marathon. I've lived on Beacon Street, I still live a block away. I lived on the street of the Pittsburgh Marathon and watching marathons is very painful. You get that first wave and then you... I've always lived on my mile 15 and it's just people who shouldn't be running marathons just crawling their way forward and you just don't know how they'll get there. I find it to be very painful and I pray for them and I say, well, they're doing something that I'm not and I really fight my heart to respect them. But we are not called to be marathoners who are just limping through at mile 15. There's 26.2 miles in a marathon. And so as Christians we want to... Like how does that affect, how can that be a good witness for our great God? And there's this balance as Christians in day-to-day life, we don't need to lead with our strength. We lead with the fact by telling people I need God's grace daily, but at the same time we can pursue excellence for God's glory. And so we don't want to be marathon runners who, sprinters who flame out a hundred meters in. We don't want to be marathon runners who are just crawling forward at a snail's pace. You have to learn to walk far then you have to learn how to do a speed walk. You can do the Olympic silly style of walking. You can then learn how to jog and then try to get to a pace where you're running at a solid pace. And the Lord is using you to attract people to his kingdom as you just try to offer yourself as a living sacrifice to build your witness up daily. And so Christianity, it's a marathon. What James is doing to these primarily Jewish believers, he's not saying, I feel bad for you. You've been persecuted. Like there's not really much sympathy in his message. It's greetings, kind of cold hard wisdom. This is what you need and he's training them well. He just gets to the heart of you need to see that, pursue joy in these moments. You need to trust that the Lord and your challenges is growing you and there's a fruit of steadfastness, of perseverance that will help you finish the race. And we need to apply this in our own lives. We need to learn how to pace ourselves. And so when our faith is tested by storms, like we really have to pause and say, Lord, what are you teaching us? Verse four, he carries on. Let steadfastness slash endurance have its full effect so that you may be perfect. By perfect, he's not talking about being sinless necessarily or not messing up anymore. By perfect, he means having reached the finish line, finish the race, getting to the point of full flourishing and wholeness that God wants you to attain on this side of heaven. He's saying like go as far as you can in the pursuit of Christ-likeness and holiness. That's what the Lord is calling you to do. And in this life that use of let. Let steadfastness endurance have its full effect. He's saying you need to let hardship have its way with you so that you can finish the race, so that you can be made perfect, complete, lacking in nothing. There's this element to where we are responsible for the way that we respond to these trials and the way that we respond to them affects how much we get out of them. So God wants to give and his talking about God is being generous here. He wants to give you a lot of blessings, not just an eternity but in this life. And so how can you trust the Lord in them? He wants to give you blessings so that you can be a blessing and be able to better tell more people about the love and mercy of God. Do you really want that? If so, trust him in the tension, the challenges, complete, lacking in nothing. James is saying that God wants us to have the whole portion that this race, this life offers. And whatever that is, whatever it is for each of us, I think you can pause and ask, what is it that you think he wants you to have? What are you lacking in Christian character? What are you lacking in your gifting, in your arsenal of things you can use for the advancement of God's kingdom? What are you lacking in Christ-Likeness, holiness? That's probably what God is trying to grow in you in these moments, in these situations and hardships. And you have to pause and heed the lessons. For us to understand what James is talking about, we need to understand just a few key verses that are helpful here that continue in this main. Romans 8:28 says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. We need to really know and believe that God has purpose, that the trials in our lives will bear fruit for his kingdom and for our good. And it's really a matter of faith here. And this is not prosperity gospel. I'm already telling you, you're going to face trials, but trust that the Lord can use them for the advancement of his kingdom and your good. It really comes down to in the moment, do you trust that he is using these situations for good? And that's right now, some of you are in hard phases and trials and it feels like torture. But can you stay present in the moment and trust that he might do good in your life through it, he might refine your character, he might give you perspective to be a better disciple. He might use you to save someone by staying faithful and not lashing out in the moment. Furthermore, Hebrews 12, 7:11 says, it is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons for what son is there whom his father does not discipline. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. So God has purposed that through endurance in trials and storms, there will be a harvest of righteousness, a peaceful work of God that will come from this. So as you are going through life planning a lot of good works, but then being slowed down by these trials and conflicts and storms, are you open to God training you like this? Do you see these situations as inconveniences that stifle your interests on all those great works out there? Or do you see that God might be training you and he might be saying, this is the good work I want you to do right now. Stay faithful in it so that maybe I can bring you to that grand thing later. Will you have the faith to just trust God at his word with these verses? Do you want endurance and steadfastness? A lot of people, these are just foreign categories. The sprinter is out there. You just don't even know this. If people engage you this week and say you're a sprinter, you don't know steadfast. I love your witness for Christ when you're like on for about two weeks, but you don't know steadfastness, really seek it. Seek faithfulness in these moments, read, study this topic. The passage says, let steadfastness have its full effect. This is again, let. We need to let God the Holy Spirit speak to us, give us what we need to learn from our trials. We need to have a devotional life that on day-to-day basis to allow God as we engage his words, speak to us, to help us identify that lesson. He's trying to teach us God's promise says that he has good purposes for our trials. He's disciplining us like a father, but there's this element of responsibility to let. And so a lot of this letting is a check of our pride. A lot of Christians think I've suffered too much for the kingdom. I don't deserve this situation, this scenario. We have to be humble in difficult times even as we go further. And really the lesson is as you look at scripture, is those great leaders that God has given great responsibility to, he has humbled them through just brutal experiences. And that he couldn't use them for good things, until he just broke all elements of pride within their being. And we need to have humility and difficult times to say, Lord, I probably need to learn something from this. And there's an element of you can, James goes into this, count it all joy. There's an element to as the Lord is shaping you and training you, it can be joyful. For you can say, Lord, you have saved me. You have used the cross to save me. You have the power to use such a moment. You can use any challenge to refine me, shape me, grow your kingdom. Lord, have your way with me. Let your will be done. And that can be a very joyful process. You can have joy in the midst of sorrow and trial and you can have joy that just the existence of the sorrow is just an affirmation that God's loving fatherly hand of discipline is upon you. It can be joyful or you can resist it and ignore it and it can be dreadful. And a lot of Christians, you really need to learn to embrace this moment, all moments you're facing. Are you in it? Is it the will of God? If you're there, it is. And seek the presence of mind and the humility to receive what God has for you and even have the hope that you can't just survive it, but that you can have joy in it. And so Christian, what hinders you from hearing these lessons? A lot of people face challenges and trials and storms and they respond with just bitterness. Some of you might just be bitter. God has forced by his severe mercy hard situation on your life that really could be a great means of learning, of growth and steadfastness, of great growth and wisdom for you. But you are so mad at him that you have never paused to try to figure out why he did that, what his purposes could be, what perspective, how he could use that for his glory going forward. Are you just a Christian that doesn't want to hear any of this because you're bitter? Christian is it bad theology? Someone told you that Christian life would be easy? Has someone told you that God only has good things and good plans for you? The tendency of the struggle with these kinds of things like yeah, God works all things for the good who walk according to his purpose. But the issue in these situation is that people don't want to submit what is good to the ways that God has submitted it. And so what is good? It is all that which honors God, all that which grows Christ-likeness in me and in others and spreads forth God's kingdom. And so according to his word as the most blatant clear revelation of those things. And so have you surrendered what is good to God? If not, that's going to get in your way of having joy and learning and growing in these situations. Many of us are just really impatient. We live in an on-demand culture and we have been for decades. We don't really have to wait for anything. We don't see crops being grown outside. We don't see just how food is prepared. We put it in the microwave. We just get everything instantly. And we're not aware that just like the moment of time of history that we've been born into has bred just impatience in us. And so we need to pause and see just Lord sit back. One of the ways that a lot of Christians just are disobedient is that they don't take a Sabbath. They don't pursue, they don't commit a whole day to the Lord for they have greater good things to do. And there's no way the Lord will contradict himself. He wants you to pause once a week to take in, to let your body, let your heart, let your mind refresh, to better take in how he is working in your life and how you can from that day forward better serve him in your life. A lot of Christians, what they wrongly do is they get lost in a bit of a prosperity gospel. Just believing that God is only working and they're flourishing their success and they rebuke moments of trials and discomfort and convenience as something that just must be denied altogether or declared as satanic. They don't have eyes to see, ears to hear, they completely missed the moments of trials. And these people just get stunted in there development. Everything is over spiritualized. There's no reflection in the moment of, Lord, I'm in this situation. This is hard. Search me and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there'll be any grievous way with me and lead me in the way of everlasting. There's no heart check. It's always something on the outside that is causing, Satan particularly, that's causing this inconvenience. And so people blame the devil, they blame other things. A lot of Christians just look at hardship and say, I'm doing something wrong. And that is right there, the gospel is that we're not saved by our works. We're saved by God's grace. His grace is always there to save us, to help us in the way forward. And we're just stuck in an achievement type mentality. And know sometimes God has ordained hardship for us. And ultimately what this text is teaching, it's for our joy, for our good, for our ability to persevere. One Peter 4:19 encapsulates a lot, basically all that I've said. Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. And so it's a faithful and trust your soul to a faithful creator while suffering, while doing good. And it really is a matter of faith in these moments. Can you trust God when you're facing the trial, when he's put hardship in your life to train you? Says, will you trust him? And that's a yes or no. And if you're going to be split minded about it, that joy, that ability to see the situation through in a way that glorifies him will not be there. And after all of this, we ask, why does God test us? Why does he train us like this as his disciples? And God doesn't put us in the fire, the crucible just because it gives him pleasure. He puts us in the fire because he cares more about holiness instead of momentary happiness. Because he knows that holiness breeds true joy and joy that's rooted in him and that's what he wants. If he really wants what is best for us, he's going to just expose us just to that which is going to bring about true holiness, true joy. And he is good in it. Even if in the moment it's hard for us to understand that and agree. God, ultimately, he's trying to breed greater dependence on him than us. Verse five says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him. So God doesn't want us to go forward doing our work for his kingdom, thinking that it all depends on us. He wants us to grow in our dependence on him. He knows that we are going to stop short in the race if we do it on our own strength. He wants us to become more and more dependent on him and trust that his Holy Spirit is there with us and working in us and through us. Furthermore, he wants us to develop a loving and abiding relationship with him. When we are stretched in this cycle of going out, being stretched, being faithful in the tense moments to the point that our bodies, our souls are on the brink of being crushed to our mindset, but then we're drawn in and we go to Him. He wants us to get to truly see that he, his presence, his wisdom is actually what satisfies our souls and gives us joy. It's not achieving anything in the world, it's not showing our own strength, it's just living in his presence. These challenges force us to go to him in communion and say, God, help me. It challenges us to learn more about him, to understand how he works. And when you understand that, you grow in your appreciation and love for him, you grow in your appreciation of how he is sovereignly directing your life, shaping and cultivating you to become more like Christ and you love him all the more. Your faith goes from just an appreciation of deliverance from sin and the power of sin and the chance of be in heaven to God, I just love you because I love you. As I see your heart, as I see your ability to redeem the hardest, the most challenging of moments for your glory, for my good, for the salvation and sanctification of others in my life. I love you more. And do you really want that? That's a deepening of faith that a lot of people, because they just don't even stay present in trials, they don't even know this experience of Christianity. Of just, I love this life because I know God, you are with me. That's all I need. That's all I want. Use me as you will. And if that means struggle and conflict and trial, so be it. And so when Christians understand this, it changes them. It gives you wholeness as you are forced to just lean on the Lord more and more because you turn to him, you receive his guidance, you receive as counsel, it becomes a greater part of you. And so you have to master this. If you want to do good works for God, we can't really start off with a sermon on listing them out, on identifying the most important ones, on how we and our contexts can do the most for His glory here. If you don't understand how he trains you, if you don't understand the cycle of going to him in the midst of the trial to be satisfied, to find the way forward. And so Christian, do you want to do good works? Do you want to commit yourself to them for the rest of your life? Do you want to persevere to the end being used tremendously by God? I ask, think about how is God training you right now and rejoice in the training. Let me pray to close. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your wisdom. We praise you that what is foolishness to men is a means of your glory and our glory and our growth. Lord, you have the ability to just use the darkest of moments, the most challenging of moments, the graves of sin for your eternal purposes of redemption and making us new and bringing about, just working toward the return of Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray, give us faith to trust you. To trust that in the hardship you are working in us and through us, and training us so that we might love you more and we might have greater capacity to serve you if we trust you through it. Give us faith to trust that we can actually have joy in the midst of sorrow and trial and hardship. Give us great hope that all of this sacrifice is worth it. That when we lay ourselves down daily, you are glorified and that you are actually using these moments for your eternal purposes. And let us trust that your wisdom is so much higher than ours. And when we do this, let us just have peace. Peace that transcends understanding. And as we exhibit that peace, use it to draw others home to your kingdom. Pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Commit to your Calling

March 12, 2023 • Shane Sikkema • Colossians 3:12—4:1

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston, or donate to this ministry, please visit http://mosaicboston.com Today, we are continuing our sermon series committed talking about the essential habits of an abundant life. I think we are eight weeks into this series and we got about three weeks left to go and then that's going to bring us up to Easter Sunday already. And so looking forward to that. And this week we are tackling what is probably the most ambitious topic in this entire sermon series. I sat down to prepare the sermon this week and I realized this really could have been like three separate sermons and so tons of editing to get it down into one. And I promise I'll talk fast. If you listen fast, we'll try to get through all of it. But this is not going to be an exhaustive sermon on this topic. But hopefully it's at least a good introduction into our topic today because our topic today is the topic of calling. And the question before us is what is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life? What is more specifically your purpose in life? Why are you here? I think one of the most frightening and dreadful feelings that a person can have is the sober consideration of a meaningless existence. It's contemplating the possibility that your life might have no purpose. Or even worse that it does, but you are failing to find that or to fulfill that purpose. We live in a world where we have so many options of what we could spend our lives doing, that we are oftentimes paralyzed by all of the possibilities before us. And rather than helping us come to a decision, all of the options actually seem to make the problem even more complex of finding out what is our purpose. Because now in addition to figuring that out, we have the pressure of making sure that of all of these options before us that we choose the right thing. And what if we get that wrong? I think about the opportunity cost of getting something like that wrong. We only have one life to live. How are we supposed to live it? And that can be terrifying. Like what if we are to reach the end of our lives only to look back and see that we never truly lived, that we never truly figured out why we were here, what we were supposed to be doing. And that's a very real fear that most of us have experienced at one time or another. And the only real solution to this is something that Christians have often referred to as calling. And John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he wrote this. He said that, "The Lord bids each one of us in all of life's actions to look to his calling. For, he knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what fickleness it is born hither and thither, how its ambition longs to embrace various things at once, therefore less through our stupidity and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties to every man in his particular way of life. And that no one may thoughtlessly transgress his limits, he has named those various kind of livings, callings. Therefore, each individual has his own kind of living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of century post so that he may not heedlessly wander about throughout life." As Christians, we believe that God has a plan, he has a purpose for every one of his children. And that this purpose is something that we can know, that we have a calling that we need to discern and to answer. And my hope today is that we will look to God's word together and as we do learn to discern what God is calling us to do throughout the various seasons of our life. And so if you have your Bible open, up the Colossians chapter three. We're going to go through this entire chapter actually all the way through chapter four verse one. And I'm not going to read the entire text up here up front because it's a little bit longer. We're going to take it just section by section and work through it together. And as we do, I want us to focus on helping you to discern and to commit to four things. Number one, to commit to your general calling. That's going to be the first 17 verses. Second, commit to your seasonal calling. That's the next few. And then commit to your particular calling. And then at the end we'll look at this idea of commit to receiving an inheritance in heaven and leaving a legacy here on earth. And so I'm going to start just by reading the first 17 verses. This is Colossians chapter three, beginning in verse one. And the Apostle Paul writes this. He says, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality and purity, passion, evil desire and covetousness which is idolatry and account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these you two once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jews circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarians and slave free. But Christ is all and in all. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord is forgiving you, so also you must forgive. And above all of these, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. In whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." This is the reading of God's word for us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer for our sermon today? Lord, we thank you that you are a God who knows each of us individually, that you care for each of us individually and you have gifted and equipped each of us individually according to your purposes and plan. Lord, help us today to know how each of our lives can bring you the most glory, can do the most good according to the unique gifts, opportunities, and personality that you have given us both together as a church and individually as your people. Lord, help our words, our deeds, whatever we do to be done for your glory and the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and out of thankfulness in our hearts to you our God and Father. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, point number one today is to commit to your general calling. Before we get into the topic of discerning and committing to or your specific or your particular calling, we need to understand that God has given a general calling to all Christians, to everyone who is a follower of Christ that we need to answer. And we know that first of all, we are called to Christ, that through the call of the gospel we are called to become followers of Jesus. But then Paul shows us that in Christ we are also called to a few different things. We are called as we see in this text to live with a new identity, to live as part of a new family, the household of God, and to live in a new way, a new manner of living as well. And so first of all, we say that we're called to live with a new identity. Verse two, Paul says, "Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God." And in verse nine he says, "Don't lie to one another saying that you've put off the old self with its practices and if you've put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." And he says here, "There's not Greek or Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free. But Christ is in all." And the big idea here is that he wants us to see is that when you are called to Christ, that you're not just given a better life, that you are given a new life, that the old you dies and that you become a new creation in Christ. And Christ then becomes the centering principle of your life. That this is your identity. And so your past, your reputation, your ethnicity, your job, your bank account, your education, your pedigree, none of that matters. That Christ is all and is in all, that you become a Christian period with no adjective to qualify that statement. We stand before the cross of Christ, all of us from our various backgrounds, we all come, we stand before level ground and we are all then unified, made one body in Jesus Christ. And this is our new identity that we are called to live in, to walk in. And this new identity, it leads directly to the second thing that we're called to do, which is to live and to love a new family. That we're saved out of the world and into the body of Christ, into the church. And Paul gives us instructions of how we are to behave as children in this family, as members of this body. And in verse 12 he says, "And so therefore put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord is forgiven, you also must forgive. And above all these things put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you are called in one body and be thankful with the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and an admonishing one another with all wisdom and singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts." To God, this is how you are to behave and relate to one another in the church. The Jesus saved you out of the world and into this family, the God the Father, he finds us as orphans lost in our sin and he adopts us into his family by the blood of his son Jesus Christ. And this is important because one of the reasons that I think a lot of Christians struggle with discerning God's will or sensing what he is calling them to do and perhaps therefore feel like they're lost, like they're wandering throughout life. Well, it starts because they have failed to answer this first calling, to join themselves to a local body of believers, to surround themselves by the body of Christ because scripture tells us plainly that when Christians fail to do this, that a Christian without the church, it's like a leaf being blown about in the wind or it's like a child that is stunted in its growth, that is suspended in a state of adolescence, not growing, not maturing. And Paul talks about this in Ephesians chapter four. He's describing the church and the purpose of the church and God's vision for the church. And he says that God gave to the church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers in order to equip the saints, all of us, the church, the members of the body to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning and by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth and love or to grow up into every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body joint and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. And so before we can begin to discern our particular callings in life, we need to understand before anything else that this is God's will for you, for me, for us. His will is for us to understand, to live in this new identity that we have in Christ and in this new family to become members of a local church, to commit ourselves to a group of believers who are going to know us and can encourage us and hold us accountable and support us throughout this life of following Jesus. Because the third thing that we're going to see as we follow Jesus, as we're called to Christ, is that we're also called to learn a whole new way of life, a whole new manner of living. And we're going to need people around to help us do this. This is not going to be easy. Verse five, he says, "And so therefore put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passions, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." He says, "The wrath of God is coming and these you two once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth and do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his creator." Says, "Jesus calls us to a whole new way of life, a whole new manner of living, a new morality with new purpose, new identity, new family." And we need a proper understanding of this general calling that we all have because this is going to be like the prerequisite foundation to everything else that we're going to talk about this morning, that we can't begin building the rest of our lives and answering the rest of our callings until we have this solid foundation. If you want to know what God is calling you to do specifically, you always need to begin with what he has already called you to do clearly and generally in his word. That God is never going to call you to do something that contradicts his will, that contradicts his word revealed to us in scripture. And so commit to your general calling. And then number two, commit to your seasonal calling. Verse 17, Paul says, "Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." And then he shifts. He just got done saying, this is how you're going to need to live and behave. This is how you're called to be in the household of God and now this is how you're going to be called to be in your household. And so he begins giving instructions for the household. He begins with wives. Verse 18, "Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. And fathers do not provoke your children less they become discouraged." So he shows us how to relate to one another. In God's household, here He shows us how to relate to one another in our households. And obviously this is not an exhaustive teaching, like scripture has a lot more to say about these familial relationships than what we see here. But for our purposes today, I just want us to begin by seeing this, that God is going to call you, he's going to assign to you certain responsibilities throughout different seasons of your life and those things are going to change and evolve over time. And your responsibilities as a child are going to look a lot different than the responsibilities that the Lord assigns to you as an adult. You're going to have certain things that God calls you to do when you're single that are going to be different than the things he calls you to do if and when you get married or if and when you have children. And we don't think about this here in Boston very often because we're a very young city, but someday you're going to have the responsibilities as a child again. And if you haven't experienced this yet, the day is coming where you're going to be not under your parents' care. Your parents in some ways are going to come under your care. If they get sick or as they're aging, as they're approaching the end of life. And eventually they're going to need you to be there in that season. Eventually you're going to be in that season yourself needing the help of others as you approach that season of life. And so like our general calling, these seasonal callings, they are prerequisite considerations as we try to discern our particular callings. And we're going to get to the particular calling here in a little bit. But first I want us to take a closer look at some of these seasonal callings that Paul talks about in the text. He begins with instructions for the wives. Verse 18, it says, "Wives submit to your husband's as is fitting in the Lord." Pretty short verse, but probably one of the most famous and detailed teachings, descriptions of God's vision for a godly wife in scripture comes from Proverbs 31. You're probably familiar with Proverbs 31, the Proverbs 31:10 says, "An excellent wife who can find. She's far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She's like the ships of the merchant bringing her food from afar. She rises while it's yet night and provides food for her household in portions for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hand to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She's not afraid of snow for her household, for all of her household are clothed in scarlet. She makes bed coverings for herself and clothing. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. Strength and dignity are her clothing. She laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates." Long passage. And obviously this is a very idealized vision of what a wife, what mother can be in God's eyes, but that's what God does. He calls us to pursue these ideals of perfection and then he gives us grace for what's real as we work our way towards those ideals. But the point here is if you're in the season of being a wife, of being a mother, and you're trying to figure out what is God calling me to do right now, this is a great place to start. Proverbs 31, it shows us a wife who supports her husband and she cultivates peace and order and beauty in her home. It shows us a mother who loves her children. She's strong, she's hardworking, she's selfless. She's nurturing and wise. It shows us a business woman who is savvy and charitable and resourceful. Most of all, what Proverbs 31 shows us is it shows us a godly woman, a woman who is known at the city gates, not for her beauty, not for her charm. She's known for her kindness, her humility, her generosity, her wisdom. She is known for fearing the Lord. And I pray that God would raise up more strong women like this, but I also just praise God because I know that we have so many strong women like this here at Mosaic. And the big idea here as it relates to our calling is that what scripture shows us is the primary calling of the wife, of the mother, is to create order, to create beauty, to create shalom in her home. And then as she commits herself to this good calling, we see that if God gives her the margin and the opportunity to do so, she may also be called to expand that shalom outside of the home, into the community, into the marketplace. And so the home comes first, it takes priority, but as we see the Proverbs 31 woman, she's selling in the marketplace. She's purchasing real estate, she's planting a vineyard, she's caring for the poor. She's not doing these things to build up herself or her ego or her career. She's not doing these things to escape her home, but she's doing these things to bless her home and to make her home a blessing to others. And this is not easy. This takes hard work, humility, wisdom. And this is going to look different in every household in some ways, right? Husbands and wives need to work together, pursue the Lord together, to discern and to determine where they need to draw those boundaries, where they draw those lines and keep those priorities straight. It takes a lot of wisdom. But verse 26 says that she opens her mouth with wisdom and that the teaching of kindness is on her tongue, that she looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. And as a result, her children call her blessed, her husband praises her. And in the creation story, God's first observation of something less than good, less than perfect is the absence of Eve. That it was not good for Adam to be alone, that he needed help, he needed a support. He needed a help made to come along and to help him fulfill his calling and purpose. And that God said creation was not good without her. He creates Eve and then he gives them the commandment for the two to become one flesh, for them to be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth and subdue it. And God establishes this family unit as the means of fulfilling his cultural mandate. And I say all this to say that motherhood is one of the highest, most vital and most noble callings that a person can have. And it's also one of the hardest. And that's why we as Christians, we need to support the mothers in our lives. Our culture has been degrading marriage, has been degrading motherhood for generations and it is tearing our world apart. And Proverbs 31 tells us that a godly wife, a godly mother, is far more precious than jewels. It's a high calling to be a wife and a mother. And as Christians, we must value and honor the mothers among us even and especially when the culture around us refuses to do so. And so Paul addresses the wives and the mothers. And then he addresses the husbands as well. It says verse 19, he says, "Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them." Again, he doesn't give us a lot here. Just one little sentence. If Proverbs 31 is the most famous and detailed description of a godly wife, then I would I'd say that Ephesians chapter five is the most famous and detailed description of a godly husband. And this is the parallel passage that Paul gives us in Ephesians chapter five, verse 25. He starts out the same way. He says, husbands love your wives, but then he continues. He says, "Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the words so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. And then he quotes Genesis, "Therefore, man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I'm saying it refers to Christ in the church, however, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. If Proverbs 31 asks us an excellent woman who can find, I think what Ephesians five is telling us is this, that bro, if you find her, she's out of your league. You're not going to find the perfect, excellent Proverbs 31 woman. And if you do, she's probably not going to be interested in you. Your job is not to find the perfect wife. Your job is to build the perfect life, to build the perfect marriage, to find a woman who fears the Lord and commit to her. To commit your life, to laying yourself down, to loving her, to cherishing her, to nourishing her with the word of God so that then the two of you can grow old and excellent together, where you're both through this relationship being sanctified into the people that God is calling you to be. Scripture calls moms to cultivate and care for the home. He calls husbands to cultivate the marriage. Husband, God is going to hold us responsible for the health of our marriages and the health of our marriages are going to dictate the health of our families. It's a high calling. Just like Proverbs 31 seems almost unattainable, Ephesians 5, I mean, you're literally being called to love your wife the way Christ loved the church. It's an impossible calling, but God gives us grace where we fail and then he gives us more grace to get up and to keep pursuing that goal, that standard as husbands. And so your wife's calling is to cultivate shalom in the home. And she can only do this as you commit to your primary calling. And husbands your primary calling, your responsibility is that God has called you to provide, to protect, and most importantly, to pastor your wives and children well so that they are loved, so that they are led, so that they are cherished and treasured so that as you do so that they can flourish to do all that God has called them to do. So practically husbands, as you seek to discern your more particular calling, if this is the season of life that you're in, understand that God is going to call you to sacrifice a lot of things for the sake of your marriage and for the sake of your children. He's not going to call you to sacrifice your marriage and your children for anything else that this world has to offer. Not your job, not your ambitions, not your hobbies, not your friends that you as a husband, if this is the season of life that you're in, this is your highest and most important calling. Second only to your calling to be a disciple of Jesus and to be a child of God yourself. And so he gives instructions for husbands and wives and then he begins to talk to children and parents. Verse 20, he says, "Children obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. And fathers do not provoke your children less they become discouraged." So we're all children and we will always be children. And this command, this calling as children, it's going to look different throughout our lives. But the one thing that continues is the calling that we will always be called to honor our fathers and our mothers. And as a young child, you do this through your obedience to your mother and father. As you're an adult, you grow older, you honor your father and mother through the honorable life that you build and live. And then as your parents' age, you may find yourself in a season again where you now need to honor them by sacrificially caring for them the way they sacrificially cared for you. First Timothy 5:3 says, "Honor the widows who are truly widows, but if a widow has children or grandchildren," he says, "Let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and it makes some return to their parents. For this is pleasing in the sight of God." And then in verse eight he says, "But if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for the members of his own household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." We live in a culture that has devalued motherhood and marriage and children. That's also a culture that devalues the aging and the elderly. And as Christians, this should not be the case. And we should honor our father and mother. And whatever season of life you're in, Paul says that it pleases the Lord when we do this and it doesn't end the day that we turn 18 and go off to college. Actually, some of you college students, you probably need to work a little harder on making sure that your Honor and mom and dad now that you're out on your own and getting that taste of freedom, but it's a commandment that stays with us. And then parents, likewise your relationship to your children, it's going to change throughout the seasons of your life. But the greatest season of influence and responsibility that you have is obviously going to be when your children are young, when they're growing up, when they're under your roof. And so throughout scripture we see Proverbs 22:6 is parents need to train up a child in the way that they should go so that when they're old, they will not depart from it. Deuteronomy 6:4 through seven says here, "Oh, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all of your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children." Talk with them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. Just throughout the course of everyday life, you're constantly teaching, discipling your children. Colossians 3, the parallel passage to this is Ephesians 6. And again, Paul expands on it a little bit more there. And he says, "Honor your father and mother for this is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land." And then he says, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord." I think one of the things that we wrestle with a lot of times as parents is how do we do this? How do we strike this balance between discipline and instruction on the one hand and not provoking our children to anger? On the other hand, this is something that I've personally been trying to get better at as a father, as a dad. And what I've been learning is one of the most important things you need to do is you need to know what kind of situation you're in and what you're dealing with at every given moment. Because getting the situation wrong is often what leads you to provoking your children to anger rather than giving them the discipline and instruction that they need. And so for example, is the situation that you're dealing with sin. Because if it's sin, then you need discipleship, right? Sin is the child has sinned against the commandment of God, and yeah, they might need discipline and correction, but with that you need to talk about the gospel. We need to talk about how God is holy and God is just and he has instructed us how we ought to live, and that when we sin against him, we need to repent and we need to confess our sins. And that when we do this and come to him, he forgives our sins, he cleanses us of unrighteousness. He takes away our guilt and shame. And he does this because Jesus Christ died on the cross and our place and we need to talk about this with them and pray about that with them. And then when we as parents, I mean I've never done this, but maybe some of you have, when we sin, we have to go to our kids too. If we sin against our kids, say, ask for your forgiveness. I need to pray. I need to repent and model that for our kids. Sin needs discipleship, and disobedience needs discipline. And what's the difference there? Well, sin is you've sinned against God. Disobedience is you've sinned against mom and dad. So the Bible never says, thou shall not run out into the street or play in the parking lot or jump on the furniture or anything like that. But mom and dad say that. We need rules in our household to keep things orderly and peaceful, but we shouldn't confuse those rules with God's rules. And so if there's disobedience, a dishonoring of father and mother, there needs to be correction and discipline, but it's a little bit different situation than if they've sinned against God. Is the situation ignorance? Sometimes kids are just... They're foolish. They're ignorant. They don't know what they don't know. And as parents, it's tempting in those situations to get frustrated and want to correct with discipline where actually what the child in that time needs is instruction. They need guidance. They need help seeing what they can't see. Fourthly, it could be weakness. It's not that they're ignorant, they know the right thing to do, they just aren't quite mature enough to do it or they're having... They're struggling. And again, in those situations, they need encouragement from their parents. It could be mistakes. Somebody's always going to spill the milk. Someone's always going to knock over the lamp. And as parents, it's easy for us to get frustrated and want to lash out in discipline where actually everyone makes some mistakes. And in those times as parents, we got to show sympathy. We got to show compassion. Mistakes need compassion. Six, are they just being annoying? Because if you have kids, you understand this, sometimes they're just like, oh, you're driving me nuts. And it's not that you're doing anything naughty or wrong, it's just that you're a kid. And sometimes kids drive us nuts. They're annoying, they're loud, they're crazy, they're rambunctious. And in those times as parents, sometimes we just need to show patience. We just got to let the kids be kids. And then finally is the situation success? Because let's not forget that too often we get really focused on correcting what's wrong, we forget to celebrate what's right. And success needs celebration. When your kid does something well, they should know that you're pleased that you celebrate that with him. So Paul covers all of these seasons in life, husbands, wives, parents, children. But there is one season that he doesn't cover, and ironically, it's the season that he himself is in. And it's a season that many here in this room today are in as well. So I feel like I should say something about this. The season of singleness in adulthood. We live in a very young city with a lot of young single adults. And so the question is how do we live? What does God call us to in that season? I think Jesus kind of anticipated this because in Matthew 19, he was teaching his disciples about God's high standard for marriage. That marriage is a covenant that is foreign between one man, one woman for a lifetime, that you are committing to one another through thick and thin, till death do you part. And he says to them in verse nine, Matthew 19:9, "Whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery." And his disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it's better to not marry." They thought this seems like an impossible standard. And he said to them, "Not everyone can receive the same, but only those to whom it is given. For, there are eunuchs who have been made so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it." Now, obviously Jesus isn't talking literally here, but I think what he's getting at is that there's going to be some people who for a variety of reasons, either can't get married or won't get married, not due to no fault of their own, perhaps they even have the desire to be married, but it just doesn't happen. But then he also says there's going to be some people who choose for themselves to forego marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Well, Paul was one such person. In First Corinthians 7, he talks about this. First Corinthians 7:6, he says, "Now, as a concession, not a command, as a concession, I say this, that I wish that all were as I myself am speaking of his singleness, but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind, one of another." So Paul says, "I'm giving this as a concession." This is not necessarily the ideal situation, but in a fallen world, what he's saying is that while it might be ideal, it might not be ideal for a person to remain single. In a fallen world, singleness is redeemable by God's grace. And in God's grace, this concession, as Paul describes, it can also be described as a gift. And it might not be a gift that you wanted, might not be a gift that you asked for, but he goes on in verse 32 to explain why it should be viewed in that manner. Verse 32, he says, "Because I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife." And then verse 35, just to make it clear, he says, "I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord." And so if that is the season that you're in, you're an adult and you're in the season of singleness, just a couple of things I want you to know. First, it's a unique calling and Paul says, it can be viewed as a gift and it's one that you share with the apostle Paul himself. Secondly, if you are single and you find in yourself a strong desire for a godly marriage, don't feel guilty about that. That is a very good desire. And if you have that desire and it hasn't been fulfilled, you should persistently pray and prepare and pursue yourself for marriage unless God has made it abundantly clear to you that he is calling you to remain unmarried. And along the way, if you have that desire and there are factors outside of your control keeping you from being married as you desire to be, don't lose heart. Ultimately, no, marriage is not going to give you the ultimate satisfaction in life that you're looking for. It's not going to scratch that itch, that ultimately you can only find that in Jesus Christ and in your relationship with him. And then thirdly, in your singleness, know that you are not being sidelined. That on the one hand, God has a very good purpose in marriage and we should not undermine that. Obviously our culture is, and even some spheres of Christianity, it feels like that's being undermined and that should not be the case. God has a very good purpose in marriage that it is a picture of the gospel and it is the means by which he ordained the cultural mandate to be fulfilled. But as we see here, God has a good redeeming purpose in singleness too. And so Paul says, what is that? He says, you're free from the anxieties of marriage and parenthood. And there there's a lot of anxieties, a lot of responsibilities that come with marriage and with parenthood. He says, you're free from those anxieties in order to be anxious about the things of the Lord, that in your singleness you have a greater bandwidth and capacity for ministry, for serving others, for building friendships in the church, for blessing and building up the household of God. And so to summarize, like unless God has clearly called you to remain single, you should pray and you should pursue marriage. And while you're single, make sure that you steward that gift well. And then through all of it, you need to rest and find your ultimate satisfaction in Jesus Christ. So these are the seasonal callings, and these callings are going to affect the way that we approached the final calling that we're talking about today, which is point number three, committing to our particular calling because in verse 22, Paul shifts. Again, he's talked about God's household, he's talked about our household, and now he begins to talk about what we might call like the workplace career, vocation, things like that. In verse 22, he says, "Bond servants obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye surface as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work hardily as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrong doer will be paid back for the wrong he's done. And there is no partiality. Masters treat your bond servants justly and fairly knowing that you also have a master in heaven." And so the general principle is in the workplace, whether you are an employee, an employer, you're the boss, the manager, whatever you are, that you need to first of all be treating the people that you work with, with dignity, with honor, with respect, and you need to be working hard. You need to be working as if Jesus Christ were your boss. And Paul says actually that is the truth that you are serving the Lord when you are at work. And with this, one of the reasons that I think many Christians struggle when it comes to sensing God's calling for discerning God's will for them in this area, they get anxious about what is God's will for my life in this area. Well, I think one of the reasons is that too often we as Christians, we start in the wrong place. We tend to want to start with this, with what is my particular specific calling in life? And then we kind of try to build our faith, our family, our church, things like that around that. And scripture tells us, you got to do the opposite. You need to seek first the kingdom of heaven and then all of these other things will be added unto you as well. And the point is not that God is unconcerned with our careers or our vocations, the point is that God is just... He is far less concerned with your career that he is with your character and with your holiness. And so before we kind of complete this discernment of our particular callings, scripture makes it very clear what God's will is for us. First Thessalonians 4 tells us this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. Not in the passions of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgress and wrongs his brother in this manner because the Lord is an adventure of all these things. As we told you beforehand and solemnly warns you, for God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. And he goes on in verse nine, he says, "Now, concerning brotherly love, we have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God, how to love one another for that indeed is what you're doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you brothers to do this more and more and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. It's a very simple view of God's will for us to just live quiet, godly lives. And we need to understand that more than anything, this is God's desire for us, is our holiness, is our sanctification. And so I picture this process, it's kind of like looking through the lenses of a telescope. And so the first lens, you begin looking through the lens of the general calling that we talked about that before anything that I know that I have been called to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, strength, that I've been called to commit myself to the body of Christ, to the local church, to live a holy life, to grow in sanctification. Anything that God calls me to do in life, it needs to pass through that lens first. And then the second lens is that seasonal calling that we talked about, that I need to ask myself, what are my commitments? What responsibilities has God assigned to me in this seasonal life? Because again, anything else that he's calling me to do, it needs to pass through that lens as well. And when you bring those two together, that's when you begin to kind of be a frame and focus God's particular calling on your life right now. And so how do you take that last step of framing, of focusing God's particular calling? What is he calling you to do right now? Well, I don't think there there's any one right thus sayeth the Lord way to do this. There's no chapter in the Bible that clearly says this is how you discern God's will. But I do think that there's many principles throughout scripture that you can bring together that are helpful. And so I'm going to share just something that I know many people have used, that I myself have used for many years at many times to help me discern God's will, to help me discern what God has been calling me to do in particular seasons of life. Because never in my life have I heard the audible voice of God come down and say, "This is what I want you to do." But I have used this filter on several occasions to help me discern what God's been calling me to do. And it has in the past it's never let me down. I call this the diagram of discernment. So my wife made this cool graphic for us. We all love our Venn diagrams here in Boston. You get the idea. You got the five circles, and what you're looking for is that sweet spot in the middle where they all overlap and come together in agreement. And so you see the first one there is you got to consider your convictions. You got to consider your gifting, your opportunities, your character wise counsel. And when all of those come together, well, that's what you're looking for. So first of all, consider your convictions. What has God put on your heart? Is there something that you're passionate about, something that you're burdened for, something that you feel like you ought to do, that you need to do to be faithful to the Lord? This is a good place to start. It's a good indication of God's calling. It's a good place to start. It's not a great place to finish though because scripture tells us that our hearts are deceitful and wicked, and our feelings often lead us astray. And so we can't just say, well, this is what I feel, and so this is what God's calling me to do, but our convictions, they're a good place to start. We need to go beyond that though. So we also need to consider our gifting. If you're passionate about something, if you feel God's put something on your heart, are you skilled and equipped to do something about it? If God is calling you to sing on the praise team and you're tone deaf and you have no rhythm, well, I'm sorry, but I don't think that's the voice of the Lord. You might be called to serve in a variety of other ways. It just might not be that. And that's okay. You got to consider though, am I gifted? Is this what God's wired and gifted and equipped me to do? Maybe I can't do this. Maybe there's another way that I can find to support this thing, but consider your gifting. Third, consider your opportunities. Something you're passionate about, you feel skilled, equipped to do something about it. The next thing you need to ask is there a legitimate need for this? Are there opportunities for me to use my gifts in a way that's going to be helpful, that's going to glorify God, that's going to help others consider your opportunities. Fourth, consider your character. Understand that God is never going to call you. He's never going to call for your ambitions or your influence to outgrow your integrity, to outgrow your character. That you might have big, big plans to do great, great things, but if your life is all tangled up in sin and you're living this double secret life of hypocrisy, well, God's going to call you to work on your heart before he calls you to go and work on anything else. And then fifth is to consider wise counsel. You're passionate about something, you're skilled and you're equipped to do something about it. You've got opportunities. You feel like your character, your heart are in the right place. The final, and probably I'd say this is the most important step, is to bring that sense of calling. Present it to other spirit-filled godly brothers and sisters in Christ. Say, hey, what do you think about this? God's put this on my heart. This is something I've been sensing. Do you agree? Right? Does it seem good to you and to the Holy Spirit that this is what God... And if all of these things line up, well, that's a pretty good indication that this is what God is calling you to do in your life right now. If they don't, there's red flags that come up along the way. Well, maybe you need to take some more time, spend some more time considering, discerning to figure out what's next. But just that's a helpful resource that I've used. I think it'll be helpful for you as well as you commit to your particular calling. And once you figure it out, commit to it, work hardily at it with all of your might in a way that glorifies God. Finally, point number four today is commit to receive inheritance in heaven and leave a legacy on earth. Just one more quick reminder before we wrap out. Whatever season of life you're in right now, whatever particular calling that God has placed on your life, whatever that is, whatever you do, verse 23 says, work hardily as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord, you'll receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. First Corinthians 7:17 says, "Only that each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all of the churches." And so my hope and my prayer is that whatever it is that God has assigned you to do, whatever he is calling you to do, that he would make that clear. That as that becomes clear, that you would commit to do that with all of your mights, so that as you approach that day, when you're coming to the end of your life, you can do so with just a fearless confidence and hope that your life has not been wasted, that it has not been meaningless, that you have fulfilled your purpose in life, that you have done what God created and called you to do. And so that as you reach that goal, you do so, and you're able to just look back on the legacy that you are about to leave and look forward to the inheritance that you are about to receive. And this is not just my prayer for you, it's my hope for you, but this is God's will for you as well. So I'm going to close by reading the benediction, the closing verses from the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 13 verses 20 through 21 say this. This is now. "May the God of peace who brought again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant equip you with everything good that you may do his will. Working in us, that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." Let's pray. Father, the we thank you that you have not left us to wander aimlessly through this life like sheep without a shepherd, but you have sent your son Jesus Christ, our good shepherd, to bring us into your fold, to love us, to lead us into good pastures of abundant life. Lord, I pray that you would help us to see your good purposes and plans for us, and to give our lives to those things with all of our might. Lord, if any of us lacks discernment, if any of us are uncertain of what you're calling us to do, I pray that you would fill them with wisdom, with your Holy Spirit, surround them by wise council and help them come to know your good, your pleasing, your perfect will. And Lord, if there's anyone here today that still feels lost and wandering outside of your fold, Jesus, I pray our good shepherd, that you would lead them home, that you would seek them, that you would save them today and bring them back into the fold of God. And for all of us, Lord, we pray that you would help us to live lives that bring your name the most glory, that do others the most good, and that leave a legacy of faithfulness and godliness that will impact generations to come for the sake of your kingdom and glory. Lord, we love you, we worship you, and we just want to sing your praises together right now. In Jesus Christ's name. Amen.