And he, my man, redeemed.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord.
His name shall above all names shall stand exalted more and more.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, Blessed be the name of the Lord, Blessed be the name, Blessed be the name, Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord.
His name shall be the Council.
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord.
Amen. Wonderful singing. Let's start our service with a word of prayer.
Dear God, Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, oh Lord, dear God, for just allowing us to be in
your house this morning. Thank you so much for bringing everybody here safely, Lord God. And
Lord, I do pray that you please just bless every aspect of our service. Please bless the singing
unto you, oh Lord, dear God. And I pray that you'd also just please bless the preaching of your Word,
most importantly. I pray that you please just fill our pastor with your Holy Spirit, guide him
through the scriptures, Lord God. And I pray that you would please also just be with us in the
congregation, Lord God. Help us to have open ears and open hearts to receive your Word with gladness
In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated.
Song number 296.
Follow on.
Song number 296.
See you on that first verse.
Down in the valley with my Savior I would go.
The sweet waters flow
Everywhere he leads me, I would follow, follow on
Walking in his footsteps till the crown be won
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus
Anywhere, everywhere, I would follow on
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus
Where he leads me, I would follow one
Down in the valley with my Savior I would go
Where the storms are sweeping and the dark waters flow
With his hand to lead me, I will never, never fear
Danger cannot fright me if my Lord is near
Follow, follow, I will follow Jesus
Everywhere I would follow on, Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus,
Everywhere he leads me I will follow on, Down in the valley or upon the mountain steep,
Closed beside my Savior would my soul never keep,
He will lead me safely in the path that he has taught,
Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow
before we sing our next song, which would be song number 173,
Love Lifted Me, if you want to get that ready in your song books, 173.
If you did not get a bulletin, go ahead and raise your hand and one of the
ushers can get one for you. Some important information on there.
Of course, we welcome you to come back tonight for our Sunday evening service
at 5 p.m. and tonight I'm actually going to be preaching on
the Doctrine of the Rapture. So if that interests you,
want to welcome you to come back to that tonight at 5 p.m. and then we do also
7 o'clock and we are currently going through the book of Isaiah. We will be in chapter 51 this
coming Thursday, so hope to see you then. Excuse me.
We are a family integrated church and so infants and children stay with their parents.
For your convenience, we do have a mother baby room located in the back of the building.
So does your child need some diversion. Keep that in mind there. If your child gets a little fussy,
you can escort them out to the mother baby room. Use the changing tables, speakers and screens there
as well. And so that's there for your convenience. You see the so many times in teams, the list of
and then you see the stats there for salvations and baptisms for the month of February.
We had a great month there on the right hand side is the upcoming church events. We have the
homeschool park day on Friday, March 14th and they'll be meeting at the park there at 10 a.m.
You have the address there if you have any questions about that you can talk to my wife Sarah for
more details. The TJ mission strip is coming up on Saturday, March 29th meeting at the building
even if you don't speak Spanish, just make sure you get with Brother Ulysses Hernandez
and make sure you bring your passport to that. Be in prayer that we would see a lot of
salvation on that Saturday. Ladies Prayer Breakfast is also coming up on Saturday, April 5th.
and they'll be meeting at the building at 10 a.m.
You can talk to Ms. Jeannette Gonzalez
for more details about that.
She heads that up, and so, and then lastly,
big thing coming up here is our Easter service,
which will be on Sunday, April 20th.
And so I wanna encourage everyone
to start inviting people to that Easter service now.
And you can tell people, hey, you know,
come to my church on Easter.
A lot of times people do have in mind
like I need to be in church on Easter.
Every other time of the year Easter seems to be a time where they feel like they need to make time to go to the house of God
And we want to take advantage of that bring them here a man
And so in the foyer we have these invites there
The only problem is is that it doesn't have when Easter is but I'm sure everyone knows it's on and if you don't it's right there
April 20th, but when you're passing out your invites out soul winning
take a stack with you, hand them out to your friends, family, and try to get some people
to come for our Easter service. We like to break record attendance once again. For Friend Day,
we had 218 people in attendance, and I think we can smash that. I think we could get 225,
But maybe we can have the single stand outside or something. I don't know. We'll figure we'll figure something out
But please make sure you hand these out, of course
I would say they're time-sensitive, but they're actually not but you know
we still want to hand them out and
So that's pretty much it so be in prayer over our Easter service that we would have a great turn out there a lot of
Salvation's a lot of baptisms and then lastly, please make sure you silence your phones during the preaching so as to not be a distraction
During the service and that is it for our announcements. Let's go ahead and sing our next song 173
Love Lifted Me.
Sorry, number 173, Love Lifted Me.
Singing on that first verse, I was sinking deep in sin on that first.
I was sinking deep in sin up in the peaceful shore, very deeply stained within, sinking
But the master of the sea, heard my despairing cry.
From the waters lifted me, now say, am I?
Love lifted me, love lifted me, when nothing else could help.
Love lifted me when nothing else could help
Love lifted me on that second
Oh, my heart to Him I give, ever to Him I'll cling
Love so mighty and so true Merits my soul's best song
Faithful loving service to him be long
Wonderful singing at this time our ushers will be receiving the offering and please turn your Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 1
morning we're in 2 Peter chapter number 1. 2 Peter chapter 1, Bible reads,
Sam and Peter are servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ to them that have
obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior Jesus Christ.
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
According as His divine power have given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,
the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue,
whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises,
that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue.
and a virtue of knowledge, and a knowledge temperance, and a temperance patience, and a patience godliness, and godliness brotherly-kindness, and brotherly-kindness charity.
For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
but he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he
was purged from his old sins. Wherefore, therather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling
and election sure, for if you do these things, you shall never fall. For so in entrance shall
be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. Wherefore, I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things,
though you know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it needs,
as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance.
Knowing that shortly I must put off this, my tabernacle, even as even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me.
Moreover, I will endeavor that you may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.
For we have not followed
cuddling devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
For He received glory from the Father, for He received from God the Father honor and glory.
When there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son and whom I am well pleased.
In this voice, which came from heaven, we heard when we were with him in the holy mount.
We have also a more assured word of prophecy, we're unto you do well that ye take heed,
as unto a light that shinineth in the dark place, until the day dawn and the day star
rise in your hearts.
Knowing this first, then know prophecy of the scriptures of any private interpretation.
The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the holy ghost.
Let's pray to the Lord God.
Thank you for this church, thank you for our pastor.
Just ask that you would be with them now
and please fill in with your Holy Spirit.
Please bless the message that he's prepared
and Jesus, we pray, amen.
Amen. Okay, we're in 2 Peter chapter 1 and look down at verse number 10.
It says,
Wherefore the rather brethren give diligence to make your calling and election sure.
For if you do these things, I want you to notice this,
ye shall never fall.
And the time of my sermon this morning is never fall,
never fall.
fall. Now this is actually one of my favorite chapters to preach from. I
actually probably preach on it maybe once to twice a year. I think it has a lot
of great principles found in this particular chapter that will help us
as Christians succeed and as we see here in verse number 10 that we will never
fall. Now this doesn't mean that we'll never sin. It doesn't mean that we're
never going to be
flawless, or excuse me, we'll never have flaws, we'll never disappoint the Lord,
maybe we fall short in a particular area in our Christian life. I believe this is simply
referring to never falling from our own steadfastness, from serving God, being in the will of God,
and that should be the goal for every single Christian that we never fall out of church, right?
That we never fall out of the will of God, we never fall out of the Bible, we never fall out of
some directives that we can do in order to never fall.
Now, this may seem contradictory because the Bible also says elsewhere,
in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12,
wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth,
take heed, lest he fall, right?
And we often quote that to say,
hey, don't be proud, don't be an arrogant person,
don't think that you are just the exception
to the rules of the Bible because of the fact
that ultimately that pride can lead you to destruction,
it can cause you to fall,
so you better give heed, lest you fall.
And that's definitely a good application
to that particular passage,
but I want you to notice that it actually says,
take heed.
lest he fall. He to what? Well, he to what we're going to look at this morning.
In other words, in order to avoid falling away from your own steadfastness,
falling away from serving God, you better make sure that you don't just
flippantly live the Christian life.
Don't just, well, if I just go to church and maybe read my Bible every once in a while,
pray every once in a while, obey the Lord at my whim, somehow that means that I'm just
never going to fall away from the service of Christ.
But that's wrong.
You know, we need to be intentional about serving God.
We need to be intentional about reading our Bibles, intentional about church.
You better make sure, listen to me, that you never fall, okay?
And so obviously, as we see here in 2 Peter 1, I'm speaking to a crowd who, like those
Peter is writing to, have obtained like precious faith, right?
Meaning that we here at First Works Baptist Church believe in salvation by grace through
Faith alone in Christ we can never lose our salvation
That is the like precious faith that we all possess that we all share meaning that we're saved
But here's the thing one of the things that second Peter chapter one is trying to explain to us is that in order for us not to
Fall we need to make sure that we're adding to our faith. That's being intentional about our faith, right?
that we are constantly seeking to grow in our faith,
that we are exercising our faith,
that we're adding works to our faith.
Now thankfully, if we don't do those things, we're still saved.
Because the Bible tells us,
but to him that work is not,
but believe it on him to justify it to the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness.
But don't make that your life-verse
as a reason why you don't serve God, though.
Well, I don't work because to him that work is not,
yeah, I know you're saved,
but you know what,
we're still supposed to work before the Lord, though.
Why?
Because we are as workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them, the Bible says.
And so it's good to use those verses when refuting false doctrines about salvation,
but at the end of the day, let us go on to perfection, amen, and serve God.
Look at verse number two.
It says here,
"'Recording as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain into life and
godliness.'"
And by the way, the Bible has all things that pertain to life and godliness.
You don't need to go to a podcast.
You don't need to go to a book written by Joe Olstein.
You don't need to go to a TED talk.
You can literally find the answers needed for all matters of life in the Word of God.
It has everything through the knowledge of him that has called us into glory and virtue now by the way
You know the world can scour the Bible all they want for the answers
They'll never find it if they're not saved
Because it says that we get it through the knowledge of him that has called us into glory and virtue
You know the natural man receive it's not the things of the Spirit of God neither can you know them for the spiritually discern
In fact, the Bible says that they're foolishness unto him
And people out there can esteem the Word of God
and believe the Word of God or claim to believe it,
but if they not come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ,
they're ever learning and never able to come
to the knowledge of the truth.
So in order for us to obtain these promises,
the things that pertain to life and godliness,
we need to be saved.
It says in verse four,
whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises,
that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.
So, according to the Bible, the more we read the Bible, the more we become like unto the Lord, right?
The Bible tells us that He wants us to be conformed to the image of Christ.
We become more Christ-like the more we read the Bible through these exceeding, great and precious promises.
And it says here, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Now, what I want to talk about this morning...
These seven directives that we find we find in 2nd Peter chapter 1 and they come with specific promises
Right look at verse number 8 if you would
It says, for if these things be in you and abound.
So in other words, you're following these directives,
but you're also abounding in these directives.
You know, in order to abound in something,
you have to just continuously do it, right?
Grow in that particular area.
He says, if these things be in you and abound,
they make you.
They ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful
in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So look, if you want to be a fruitful Christian,
you don't want to be a barren Christian
in the knowledge of the Bible
and in just being fruitful in the service of God.
We need to make sure that we have
these particular directives and that we abound therein.
But, hold on a second, there's also a warning
that if we don't follow these directives,
consequences will ensue.
Look at verse number nine, excuse me.
It says, but he that lacketh these things is what?
Blind.
Now look.
Unsafe people are blind, right?
Meaning that they can't see anything spiritually speaking.
They can memorize the entire Bible all they want.
You know, I know Catholics believe it or not
that can quote the Bible,
but the verses they're quoting
that don't even understand themselves.
Why?
Because they're blind.
Mormons can quote the Bible, I think,
but they're blind.
Jehovah's Witnesses can quote the Bible, but they're blind. They don't understand it.
They're spiritually blind and it's not until they come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ that they can see, right?
Spiritually speaking. But it says here that the believer if he lacks these particular
Directives, he can be blind. Now, I don't believe this is referring to just a permanent blind where they just don't see anything at all
Because I want you to notice what it says and cannot see far off
You know, there's people in this world who are legally blind, but they're not like 100%
blind, but they're like legally blind.
Some of you are legally blind, right?
If you forgot your glasses, you'd just see a blurry face yelling at you this entire
time, right?
You cannot see a far off.
You are essentially nearsighted.
So in other words, you know, you can see what's in front of you.
But you cannot see afar off, you cannot see what is ahead of you.
And you know what, a Christian who does not add to their faith
and actually adopt these directives,
yeah, you know, they can see a little bit,
they can see what's in front of them,
but they don't have the discernment to discern
and decide what's going to happen in the future.
They can't see what's ahead of them.
They don't have spiritual discernment is what it's referring to.
So you know, we want to avoid being a person who lacks discernment.
We want to be able to see the future not through palm readers,
not through the stars, not through whatever.
We want to be able to discern the future by using the Word of God
because our senses are exercised to discern both good and evil.
But hold on a second, if you lack these things though, you're going to be blind.
If you lack these things, you cannot see a far off.
And it says,
and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
And I do believe what this is referring to is the fact that people
who do not grow in their faith,
they don't add to their faith,
will eventually begin to regress spiritually speaking.
They don't lose their salvation.
It doesn't say that their sins will no longer be forgiven.
It says that they'll forget that they were purged from their old sins.
And I know people that I've been at the door,
that I'll knock on the door,
I'll preach the gospel unto them,
and come to find out that they're saved.
But because they've been in the world for so long,
they've been involved in sin for so long,
they can often forget that they were purged
from those old sins.
Why is that?
Well, because that person never got into church.
That person never started reading the Bible.
Or that person once read the Bible,
once was going to church, but then stopped.
What happens, they regress, they became blind, they cannot see a far off, and they have now forgotten that they're a purge from their old sins.
Okay?
What happens when you don't grow, when you don't add to your faith?
I'll tell you what happens is that you'll become blind and you will begin to regress.
In order to remain grounded in spiritual success, we need to make sure that we follow these particular commands.
And look at verse number 10 again.
To make your calling and election sure. What does that refer into the calling on the election?
Well, obviously we can relate this to the calling and election of God in regards to salvation
Right meaning that when we get saved we become the elect of God
We are called of God through Jesus Christ, correct?
And you could relate this to the service of God as well
But either interpretation is correct because at the end of the day it says make your calling and election sure meaning steadfast
So if you want to make sure that you remain in the service of God you know
You need to make sure you give diligence to growing in your faith in order to make that happen
And then he goes on to say of course for if you do these things ye shall never fall
So let's go over these directives and I love preaching through this particular list here because in my opinion
It's a very powerful list. I believe it's helped me throughout my Christian life, and I believe it could help you too
So let's talk about it. Look at verse number five
He says here in 2 Peter chapter 1 verse number 5 and beside this the first thing we're going to look at here
It says giving all diligence. So what's the first thing that you need to make sure you do?
Well before we even get into the seven directives, he says you need to make sure you give all diligence
Now what is diligence? Diligence is persistence and consistent effort. Okay
What the Bible is telling us here is that in order for us to be successful in the Christian life you need consistency
You need diligence or what the Bible also refers to as what? Faithfulness, okay?
Persistence, consistent effort, constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken. Being faithful in the things of God.
The Bible says a faithful man, listen to this, shall abound with blessing. Someone who's consistent in the things of God.
You're gonna be blessed by God. Hey, if you're consistent in your Bible reading, you're gonna be blessed of God.
If you've been consistent since January 1st in reading the Word of God, you've been reading
the Bible, you've been consistent with it.
I promise you today, what's today's date, March 9th?
You can say to yourself, I'm blessed because you're understanding the Word of God more
and more.
If you've been in church for any length of time consistently, you can attest to the fact
that you are blessed of God.
Why?
Because of diligence, consistency.
Faithfulness. Faithfulness, listen to me, is a necessary factor for success in the Christian life.
Fact.
People who complain about church, they complain about the service of God, they just complain about,
oh man, I just don't know why this is happening to me.
I promise you, that person is inconsistent in the Christian life.
They're not in it long enough to reap the blessings of being faithful and consistent.
We are to endeavor all the days of our life to fulfill our Christian duty and that requires, you know, faithfulness now
Here's the here's the great thing about diligence and faithfulness is that you can lack talents
You could lack giftedness
You could lack knowledge
intelligence
looks
You could be ugly
very ugly
atrocious
talentless
just no gifts you just
You just got nothing.
But you can actually make up for those things,
for those deficiencies of your diligent though.
In the Christian life if you are a consistent faithful diligent person even if you have those deficiencies
You can actually make up for those things. You'll make up the difference because of your diligence
And in fact the Bible says see us now a man diligent in his business. He shall stand before kings
He shall not stand before mean men meaning average men
I mean think of the Apostle Paul who says I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who at the enabled me
for the economy faithful put him into the ministry.
I mean, the Bible literally says that God put the Apostle Paul into the ministry
not because he was intelligent, not because he was a former Pharisee,
not because he knew the law greatly, although he did,
he put him into the ministry because he was faithful.
He was a consistent man.
And look, prior to Christ, he was faithful in persecuting Christians.
He actually went door to door
more than the Jews who were saved were going door to door preaching the gospel.
He was going door-to-door arresting people and the law is just like hey, this guy's pretty faithful
Let's get him saved and he'll just go door-to-door preaching the word of God
He was a faithful man God counted him as a diligent person
Therefore placing him into the ministry enabling him to do the work of God
You know as difficult as these other qualities that we're gonna go over this morning may seem for us to adapt to
Diligence can break the plateau of difficulty
Whenever something is difficult in your life something is just hard. It's arduous
It just seems too difficult to actually execute and do just remember this add diligence and you will be able to accomplish that
okay
Giftedness and talent can only go so far if you do these things you shall never fall
So let's get into these seven directives here
So he says giving all diligence verse number five beside this giving all diligence. I want you to notice this add to your faith
Virtue, okay, so I need a virtuous man.
We're gonna have seven guys come up here in just a bit,
but let me get a virtuous man.
Who's willing to be humble enough?
Come here Damien.
Here's our virtuous young man here.
There we go.
Gonna stand right here, Virtue.
This is Virtue, okay?
Amen.
Now what is Virtue?
Virtue is moral excellence, okay?
What is the Bible telling us here?
Let me just say this before I get into my point.
I do believe that these are in chronological order.
Like, I believe God laid them out in this manner for a specific reason, and when we add to our faith, it has to go in this particular order.
And I believe one kind of gives over space for the next.
So, the Bible is saying here, you know, Damian comes to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, right?
So when it comes to him, preaches the gospel into him,
he gets saved, he knows it's by salvation,
by grace through faith, it's eternal, he can't lose it,
and he's like, man, I'm saved, I'm a child of God.
What's the next step for this guy?
Virtue.
Believe it or not, it doesn't say like Bible reading,
it doesn't say knowledge, it actually says virtue.
And what does this mean?
It means that what God wants this guy to start doing
immediately is cleaning up his life.
Now, obviously, he's not gonna be able to clean it up
his life completely because he hasn't read the Bible.
He hasn't been in church.
He doesn't know necessarily what the standard of God is yet.
But let me just say this.
Everyone who gets saved, they have this innate understanding
that there's something in their life
that gotta get right, right?
Everyone who gets saved is just like,
all right, time to get rid of whatever.
Like, I gotta stop doing this.
Like, they just kinda innately know that.
It's not like they're gonna be able to, like,
just conquer everything, and, you know,
they don't come with batteries included.
You know, they come with the cheap batteries
that give out in an hour or so, okay?
But virtue is important.
Righteous living, just automatically,
once you get saved, start living righteously.
Meaning, stop, you know, get rid of some of your friends.
Add some good friends.
You know, I don't know people who get saved
and they're just like, you know what,
I just need to stop drinking.
And it's not for salvation, they just know like,
I'm struggling with the sin, I know I gotta get rid of it.
Right?
What is that? That's called virtue. You know what God wants from us? He wants us to live
Virtuously, he wants us to live righteously. He wants us to live holy, right?
Cleaning up our lives add high moral standards to your life be a virtuous person
Go to James chapter 4 if you would you want to grab you could grab your Bible so you can
He can also reference virtue can look at virtue James chapter 4
Look at James chapter four and verse number eight. We're talking about how to never fall
This is how you can ever fall once you get saved add virtue to your faith
It says in James four verse number eight draw night to God and he'll draw night to you
And I want you to notice this cleanse your hands the Bible says you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded
Well, hold on a second. I thought I was supposed to purify my heart first. Well here. It says you're supposed to cleanse your hands first
And what is cleansing your hands? That's called virtue
Automatically, once you get saved, you're like,
all right, it's time to start living holy.
Now, let's just be honest.
When Christians first get saved,
even if they try to live a holy life,
there's still a lot of deficiencies there, right?
There's still a lot of things that they need to get right
and we need to be patient with people
and not just come down hard on individuals or whatever.
We need to make sure that we give people space to grow,
that they can pace themselves.
Etc. But the point is virtue is necessary to add to your faith in order to grow
He says cleanse your hands these sinners purify your hearts you double-minded be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter
Return to mourning and your joy to heaviness new Christians and lately. No, there's something that's got to be fixed
Okay
Turn with me if you would to 2nd Corinthians actually go to Luke chapter 3 Luke chapter 3
I'm gonna read to you from 2nd Corinthians chapter 7 and verse number 1 you go to Luke chapter number 3
2 Corinthians 7 verse 1 says this,
having therefore these promises dearly beloved,
let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Now, here's the thing is that,
you know, obviously this person is not gonna live
100% virtuously, not even 50% virtuously,
if they don't go to the house of God.
You know in order for this person to really meet the standard of God of the Bible
He needs to bring his rear end to the local New Testament church. He needs to hear hard preaching
He needs to hear what the Bible expects of him because he's gonna hear some things through preaching
He's like whoa. I didn't know fornication was that bad. I
Gotta break up with my girlfriend now. I gotta break up with my boyfriend or we got to get married
I didn't know that but you know, I don't know just loving her wasn't enough
You know, I got to get married so he needs to come to church in order to hear hard preaching not soft preaching not watered-down preaching
Not Ted talks
Not the Joe Olstein, you know sermenette of the week or whatever
He needs to hear
Legitimate preaching from the word of God to clean up his life because that's what the Bible does to you it cleans you up
Right, but hold on a second even before that. He knows there's certain things that he needs to get right
And you know what, once he begins to live virtuously,
he places himself on a path to virtuous living,
adding to his faith virtue.
And again, this is not, we're not talking about
being sinless, we're talking about sinning less though.
And that should be our goal as Christians, right?
That the longer we're Christians, you know, we're not sinless, but we are seeking and endeavoring to sin less.
We're seeking to live a life that's pleasing unto the Lord.
We're seeking to live a virtuous life.
Look at Luke 3 verse 10.
And the people ask them saying, what shall we do then?
He referring to John the Baptist answereth and saith unto him unto them
He that hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none and he that hath me let him do likewise
Then came also the publicans to be baptized and said unto him master what shall we do and he said unto them
Exact no more than that which is appointed you now. Do you think that the publicans know that this is something they got to fix?
Yeah
You know the reason John the Baptist is even calling this out because he knows the publicans are guilty of
You know taking a little off the top
Right a little commission here and there and he's telling them
Exact no more than that which is appointed you stop stealing from the top and just be happy with whatever it's given to you
He says in verse 14 and the soldiers likewise demanded of him saying and what shall we do and he said into them do violence to no man
Neither accuse any falsely and be content with your wages. You know the soldiers obviously would take advantage of people
In some instances they would enact violence on individuals. They would accuse people and
Basically for filthy looker's sake because it says there be content with your wages
So we see here that John the Baptist is preaching virtue
to these people, to these converts.
And in like manner, this is what we need as well.
We need to add virtue to our faith.
Well, I thought knowledge was important.
I thought learning the Bible was important.
Yeah, but that doesn't come until later, though.
The first thing God wants you to add is virtue.
You don't want to fall from your own steadfastness.
Live a virtuous life.
If you don't wanna fall outside of the will of the Lord,
outside of the service of God,
be a virtuous person, endeavor to live a holy,
virtuous life, ye shall never fall
if you add this to your faith.
Bro, Damien, you can have a seat, virtue.
I'm not gonna have everyone stand at the same time.
All right, I need knowledge now.
Oh, I thought you'd do it.
Oh, you're waiting for that.
All right, TJ, come up.
Cody was just waiting for that one.
All right, TJ, right there.
Your knowledge, OK?
So the person gets saved, he's got the right salvation down,
and now he's adding virtue, right?
He chopped off the beard.
He's only keeping the mustache now.
He's putting away the video games, amen?
He's put in a way godless living as best as he can.
What does God expect from him now?
Well, God expects his knowledge, okay?
Now, what is knowledge?
Look what it says in 2 Peter 1, verse 5.
Let's read it first.
It says, beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue to virtue, knowledge.
What is knowledge?
Knowledge is knowing the will of God.
You know knowledge of politics current events we're talking about knowledge of the Bible
knowledge of the standard of God.
What is it that the Bible says regarding all things that pertain to life and godliness, right?
That is what knowledge is.
And the Bible explains to us over and over again the importance of taking in knowledge.
And in fact, the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 5, you don't have to turn there.
And verse 15 says,
See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.
Redeeming the time because the days are evil.
Listen to this.
Wherefore be not unwise,
but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
The best way for you to live your life
is knowing what the will of the Lord is.
And you know what, a lot of Christians
don't know how valuable that is.
Because you don't realize that there's a lot of Christians
who think they know what the will of the Lord is.
They claim to know what the will of the Lord is.
They're all over social media.
Everyone just telling you what the will of the Lord is.
They don't know the Jack Squad about the will of the Lord.
I'll tell you why, because they don't know the Bible.
But you know the young man who's added virtue to his faith who's in church listening to Bible preaching and in the reading
Word of God every single day guess what he understands what the will of the Lord is and folks
that's more valuable than all the silver and gold and raises and
Possessions and abundance of riches of this world could ever offer is knowing what God's will is through the through the word of God
So God expects for this young man to come to church
Listen to the preaching of God's word learn the principles of God's word walk with God on his own to understand Lord
What is it that you require of me and look we got 66 books that tells us what to do, right?
It's no one what God requires of you. This comes as we read the Bible daily as
We digest biblical content regularly through personal devotions
Preaching and even sharing with others what we've learned
You're the best way for you to just keep in mind what you're learning today. Go and teach it to someone else
Go talk to each other about it. Go talk to your family about it. Go talk to your kids about it
Go talk to your friends about it. Why because we often in graft we ingrain
We essentially embed biblical truths in our lives when we teach it to someone else. Okay
Virtuous living listen to this isn't enough to ensure avoidance of failure
We need knowledge to be added to virtue. Why? Well, because if you have virtue, but you don't have knowledge
You have zeal without knowledge
if you're only living right and
Or you know, if you are cleaning up your life, but you don't know the standard of God you become a holier than that
Because whose standard are you using to determine? What is holy living? Right?
God wants you to know knowledge
Knowledge is knowing the why of the what?
Turn with me if you would to Colossians chapter one Colossians chapter number one if you would hold your place here in 2nd Peter
And look a lot of churches they're they're like against knowledge for whatever reason you know
They kind of look down on knowledge they look down on churches that teach the Bible
They look down on churches that talk about doctrine and they're like well read the Bible for inspiration not information
Folks I'm for reading the Bible for inspiration information every other Asian in between
I wanted it for all, right?
And you know what?
The Bible over and over again talks about knowledge.
It talks about the importance of learning the word of God.
And so we are not to talk down on that,
despise that God wants us to understand
what the will of the Lord is.
And in fact, doesn't the Bible literally say,
grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
And look, when someone tells me they know Jesus,
but they don't read the Bible,
here's my assessment, they don't know Jesus.
Like, oh, I know Jesus. Oh, really? Do you read the Bible every once in a while? Then you don't know him
Because Jesus says search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life and they are which testify of me
If you want to know the Lord Jesus Christ, you got to be you got to be a Bible thumper
You got to have this right here before your eyes all the time, you know, I know it sounds romantic
To say that you know Jesus, and you have it in your bio or whatever
follower of Jesus, I know Jesus and all this stuff, but hold on a second
Don't kid yourself
Don't deceive yourself because if you want to know the Lord Jesus Christ who is the word of God
You actually got to put your eyes right into here take your eyes off of Facebook and put your face in this book. Amen
for the boomers
The Bible says in Ephesians 4-13, you're in Colossians 1, Ephesians 4-13 says,
"'Til we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
So it seems to me, according to the Bible, we can never reach spiritual maturity.
We can never be perfect, complete, and entire.
We'll never reach the stature of the fullness of Christ if we don't have the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Sounds to me like knowledge is important.
Now, knowledge isn't everything though, right?
Obviously, there's other steps that we got to take,
but in order for us to ensure that we never fall,
we got to add to our faith virtue to virtue knowledge.
Look what it says in Colossians chapter one,
verse number nine, for this cause we also,
since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you.
And to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.
Being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
So I want you to notice, according to the Bible, knowledge is necessary to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.
You want to please God? You got to have knowledge.
You want to be fruitful got to have knowledge you want to be fruitful never good work have knowledge
Hey, you want to increase the knowledge got to have knowledge
Sounds like knowledge is important
Knowledge is power
Believe it or not
And according to the Bible if you do these things ye shall never fall go ahead and have a seat brother TJ
You can get Cody back later if you like
Let me read to you one last verse Philippians 1 9 says in this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more
And people say oh, you know talk about knowledge, but you know, you know pastor love though
Gotta have love
Got a bound in your love pastor and to that I say amen because it says here
I pray that your love may abound yet more and more
But it goes on to say yet more and more in knowledge
and in all judgment
So in order for you to grow properly in your love you actually have to grow in your love for knowledge and
Judgment sounds to me like God doesn't separate these two
Because you know to know the Lord is to know him through his word and how can you really truly love the Lord?
If you don't know his commandments and in fact doesn't he say if you love me keep my commandments
He didn't say if you love me buy me roses. He didn't say if you love me say that you love me
You know he says if you love me you'll keep my commandments
And it says that we would have bound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment older girls that dirty word judgment
Sounds to me like God wants us to understand know and exercise
Judgment if you do these things ye shall never fall. He goes on the same to add to our faith
Virtue to virtue knowledge and now add to knowledge
Temperance, so let's get a tempered person here. Let's see here brother Adrian. You're smiling
Come on up
Right here. Yep
So this is temperance right here, okay?
Why, don't laugh, he is a temperate person,
he's in church, amen.
What is temperance?
Temperance, a good definition of temperance
would be this, moderation and self-control
or self-restraint, okay?
So how does this look like?
You know, a person comes to the saving knowledge
of Jesus Christ, they're like,
I need to get right with God,
and I need to add virtue, righteous living.
He begins to, he puts away the video games, amen.
I keep saying that because that's like a thing
that young people struggle with.
Put away Call of Duty, that's all the video games I know.
Tetris, I'm just kidding.
Oh, not Pong, what is that game, Pong, right?
You know, he puts away the video games, right?
The things that rot your brain.
And then, you know, he's living righteously,
he comes to church and he starts hearing all this preaching
and the pastor's just yelling at him
about reading the Bible and he's like,
you know what, I need to start reading the Bible.
And then he starts reading the Bible
and he comes across the passage that says,
you know, when I was a child, I spake as a child,
understood as a child, I thought as a child,
but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
He's like, oh man, I gotta put away childish things.
He starts reading the book of Ecclesiastes, amen?
And then he's just maturing and he's just like growing.
And now he has all this knowledge.
Now he's like, I know what the Lord does require of me.
I need to be out there preaching the gospel.
I need to be in church on Sunday.
I need to live a life that's pleasing unto the Lord.
Like, I know what sin is.
He starts acquiring all this knowledge.
And this knowledge that he's acquiring
is increasing his love for the Lord, right?
Because now he's obeying the commandments of God.
Well, what's the next thing that God requires of him?
Temperance.
Temperance is discipline.
Temperance is self-restraint.
Temperance is self-control. Temperance is moderation.
Here's a good way to put it. It's the ability to rule over your body and your spirit.
Okay? Go to Romans chapter 6 if you would.
And here's another way to put it. It means that your spirit led.
See, it's not enough to be virtuous. It's not enough to have knowledge.
Now God wants you to govern yourself.
Right, he wants you to rule over yourself. He wants you to be a disciplined person and
Restrain the appetites of the flesh
He wants you to have power over the members of your body and here's how the apostle Paul put it
I keep under my body and bring it into subjection less by any means when I preach to others
I myself should be a castler. What is he saying? You know, let's buy any means. I would fall away
I would fall, right, from his own steadfastness.
What does that require?
Temperance, self-control, discipline.
Look at Romans 6, verse 12.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the luster of, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, for sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law, but under grace.
to reign over your mortal body.
Make it do what it's supposed to do.
Because here's the thing,
you could try to be virtuous,
you can have knowledge,
but if you're lazy,
you're not gonna come to church.
What is laziness?
This is when the flesh says,
oh, it's time change.
Right?
Laziness is like,
oh, I don't feel like reading my Bible.
Temperance says,
we're reading the Bible though.
Temperance says,
you know,
You gotta do what you gotta do, okay?
Temperance is, I'm gonna make myself do
what I'm supposed to do.
And you know what?
This is an important quality in the Christian life
in order to be successful because of the fact
that the carnal mind is at enmity with God,
it's not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be.
So our flesh does not wanna do godly things.
Naturally, it just doesn't wanna obey the Lord.
Therefore, we need to make it obey the Lord.
A very carnal illustration would be if you're dieting, right?
And if you're dieting, if you're giving over to cupcakes, bread, and all these delicious
foods, and pizza, and man, I'm hungry, I'm just kidding.
All this good stuff, but you're trying to lose some weight, you have to have some temperance
about yourself.
To restrain to have the self-control because here's the thing you know those things will make you gain weight
But knowledge isn't enough if you don't have temperance and here
This particular stage can be vexing for a lot of Christians, especially if they've already grown in knowledge
Because they know what's right to do
They know the wrong things to stay away from but if they don't have temperance, you know
They're always gonna be warring within themselves. They're gonna struggle in the Christian life
Why because you know the things that they're supposed to do they do not the things that I hate that I do right?
Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death?
And that's not to say that we're not going to struggle from time to time,
but in general, in order for us to succeed in the Christian life,
temperance must be added to knowledge.
Once you know what God requires of you,
Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit of God.
Help me to be led of the Holy Spirit.
Help me to be filled with the power of God
to make myself do what I'm supposed to do
and to abstain from that which you would not want me to do.
If you have virtue and knowledge,
But you can't seem to temper your fleshly appetites and the and the desires then you know
You're not gonna be spirit-led. You're not gonna succeed in the Christian life
You're not gonna read your Bible every single day, and it comes to a point that you know
We as Christians can't just live the Christian life on a whim
Like I'm so inspired to read the Bible today
I'm gonna read like ten chapters and you then you end up reading ten chapters, but then tomorrow you don't feel that way
Tomorrow you like depressed or all sad
Well, you know what? Read the Bible when you're depressed and sad, too.
You need to make sure that you learn temperance, that you
restrain yourself, that you make yourself do the things that you're supposed to do.
You know, the Bible says he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he that ruleeth his spirit
then he that takeeth the city. The Bible also says he that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.
Showing us conclusively that God expects for us to be tempered in our spirit look
We're gonna be heartbroken. We're gonna be sad. We're gonna cry
We're gonna have maybe some outburst of anger. Maybe we might lose our temper, but maybe not be
characterized by that
We need to be characterized by spirit filled spirit led Christians who are
Tempered in their Christian life and now you say well, how do I do that?
Well, obviously you got to ask for the filling of the Holy Spirit
But you know it's good. I keep relating this back to church because I'm telling you church helps with all this
When you come to church you run other tempered people and tempered people help you to be tempered
You know if you start like, you know crashing out
You start whining, you know, and you got a brother or sister in Christ, they're going
to come and say, hey, stop whining so much.
You're a man of God, you're a Christian, stop being a little buster, now let's go eat,
you know, you need to quit, you cry too much, stop complaining, stop whining.
You playing video games, too?
No.
That's what's up.
That's what helps.
We exhort one another to be tempered.
And then we're inspired by the temperance of others, right?
Why is this important?
Because it'll ensure that you never fall.
Go ahead and have a seat, Brother Adrian.
Temperance.
If you do these things you shall never fall the Bible tells us add to your faith virtue to virtue knowledge to knowledge temperance
All right, let's get patience up here for the morey man. That was quick. All right
Come on, brother Mori
Let's go brother Mori. I ain't got the patience
Leave your jacket
All right, so what do we add to temperance? We add patience, okay?
Now patience is in the Bible isn't necessarily used the way we would use it
They're very much very closely closely related. We think of patience like what we just need to wait, you know
But patience simply means endurance in the Christian life, okay?
the ability to withstand hardships and
Here is where the men are separated from the boys in the Christian life
Because you can have virtue
You can have a lot of knowledge of the Bible and in fact you could even temper yourself
In the Christian life and being so having self-control of suffer strength. Oh, man, but endurance
That's a tough one right there
Because what's endurance endurance is being able to just hack it in the Christian life no matter what and you don't quit
It means that you do
Virtue knowledge and temperance when you're going through a hard time
It means you're in church even though you're heartbroken.
It means that you're reading the Bible
even though you don't feel like it
and you're just, you're down in the dumps.
You are going through afflictions,
you're going through hardships
and you're still fulfilling the will of God.
You know what that is?
That's called endurance.
And you know what?
This right here is something that I cannot teach people.
I can try to inspire people to be virtuous,
inspire people to have knowledge,
teach people how to have temperance.
Only you can teach yourself to have patience though.
You're the only one who can keep yourself in this race
and to hack it.
And look, every single person here,
every person under the sound of my voice,
you're gonna experience something super hard
in the Christian life.
You're gonna experience hardships and afflictions
that make you wanna take the towel and just throw it in.
But you gotta remember, I need to add patience
to my temperance, though.
How do you add patience?
You just push through it.
You gotta push through it.
And push through it while serving God.
You don't push, it's not called pushing through it
if you quit.
Well, I'm just working on my endurance right now,
so I'm just gonna take a break from church for a while.
That's called quitting, it's not called patience.
Endurance is the ability to execute the tasks at hand while weary, pursuing yet weary, pressing
towards the mark even though you're tired, seeking to serve God even though all odds
are against you.
Serving the Lord Jesus Christ even though it seems nothing in the end will work out for
your benefit.
That's called endurance.
And you know what, let me just give you a list of things
that'll cause you to quit.
Offenses, disillusionment, failure of your spouse,
the failure of your children, the failure of a church member
that you look to, just so many things that can cause you
to get out of the race.
Folks, learn endurance, be patient.
Add to temperance patience, you know knowledge does you no good
I've known people in the Christian life as a pastor who have had knowledge of the word of God, and they're not here today
They know the deep truths of end times Bible prophecy. They can find all kinds of nuggets of gold in the word of God
I mean the Holy Spirit led them to deep truths in the Bible. They're not here today
I'll tell you why they didn't add patience to their temperance
And you know what I've said this before and I'll say it again
I'll take a
Tempered person who has patience who has a little bit of Bible knowledge then the person who has a lot of Bible knowledge
But no patience
Because at least this guy is gonna he's gonna hang for the rest of the ride
You know what the longer he's in the ride
He's gonna learn more knowledge
But the guy who has knowledge now he's vexing himself in the world because he knows he's not living right and he knows
He has no endurance
Hey folks, let me let me just give you a harsh reminder from the word of God
It's just the verse if thou fainted in the day of adversity thy strength is small
That's a hard truth right there
There's been times when I wanted to quit as a Christian prior to being a pastor
In tears reading that verse and I thought to myself. I don't want to be a punk
The Bible's calling me out right now
And it's just like I need some comfort here. I need something. It's like if thou fainted in the day of adversity thy strength is small
All right, all right, how do you handle that?
It's a reality check.
I don't wanna have small strength.
Therefore be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.
Grow in your strength, grow in your ability to withstand.
And you know, we all have opportunities where with,
we are presented with the temptation to quit.
And that is an opportunity for you to learn patience.
And you don't have to go it alone,
that's why you have a church.
That's why it's important that when you go through battles,
go through it with the church.
You feel like quitting?
Go tell a brother, I feel like quitting.
You know what the brother will say?
You know what, that's a completely normal feeling.
I've been through times when I wanted to quit.
I'm here for you, I'm praying for you,
that thy faith fail not.
I want you to make it through, you got this.
Call me, text me, let's go out to eat,
let's spend time together and let's help you
to make it through this trial.
Gain patience learn endurance. I want to see everyone here who's in this room here 10 years from now
15 years from now 20 years from now 30 years from now 40 years from now
But it's not going to happen if you don't have patience
And sadly enough as much as I want that I know there's people here
Who because they're not adding patience to to their temperance. I probably won't see you
And that's an unfortunate reality
And all I can do as a pastor is try to exhort you have patience. Hey, are you going through a tough month?
Have patience
endure
Strengthen yourself in the Lord and here's the thing folks. Let me just say one last thing regarding this point
Actually, go to Mark chapter 4 mark chapter 4 if you would
If you don't learn patience and endurance in the Christian life when you go through a hardship and offense and affliction
and you don't learn patience,
that ends up coming back around sometime later in life
and ends up being harder the second time
than it does the first.
Like the purposes of these afflictions
is for us to withstand in the evil day
so that the next time it comes around,
it's just kind of like water for ducks back.
You know, if you learn to endure
the hardships of the Christian life,
you'll find that you'll go through that hardship
again sometime later in life
and you're like, actually, this is actually not as hard.
because you've built up strength,
you've built up the ability to withstand in the evil day.
Hold on a second, but if you don't pass
with flying colors the first time,
you're gonna be extremely weak the second time.
This is an admonishment to you, an instruction to you,
to make sure that you pass that test when it comes your way.
Look at Mark chapter four verse 15,
and these are they by the wayside where the word is sown.
But when they have heard, saying come at the meetingly,
He says and these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground who when they have heard the word
Immediately receive it with gladness, and I want you to notice this and have no root in themselves
And so endure before a time
afterward when affliction or persecution arises for the word's sake immediately
They are offended the Bible says so this person could not endure this person does not have patience
Because they're not rooted in the Christian life
Okay
Turn with me if you would to Romans chapter 8 Romans chapter 8
I'm gonna reach you from James chapter 1 verse number 2 says brethren
Count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations now. That's kind of weird
He says when you fall into diverse temptations what is temptation?
It's a trial to tribulation and James is saying you got to count it all joy when that happens to you now
That's really hard to do
To be happy when you're going through a hard time to be joyful during times of tribulation and temptation
But I want I'm going to continue reading here says knowing this that the trying of your faith work its patience
But let patience have a perfect work that you may be perfect an entire
Wanting nothing in other words trials and tribulations if you make it through if it tries your faith
It works patience and patience makes you a mature Christian
And he goes on to say in verse 12 verse 12 blessed is the man that endured temptations for when he is tried
He shall receive a crown of life
which the Lord has promised to them that love him.
Let me admonish you this morning
and endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
The year's not over too.
There's gonna be some hardships maybe coming your way,
coming my way.
And they never stop.
It's not like, oh man, we went through a hardship.
I'm never gonna experience another hardship again.
Oh no, no, it just gets worse.
The older you get, it just gets worse sometimes.
Sorry to be like a downer, but it's true.
Like it just gets worse sometimes.
But that's why it's important for you to pass the previous trial to make it to the next level.
Go to have a seat brother Moore, thank you.
You see, patience and endurance gives you stamina, the ability to withstand in the evil day.
And if you want your virtue to count for something, if you want your knowledge to count for something,
if you want your temperance to count for something, you better add patience and endurance in the Christian life.
Why? Well, if you do these things, you shall never fall.
What's the next one? I need another guy. Godliness.
All right, who's willing to stand up and be godliness?
All right, Cody, come on up.
You made eye contact.
He's all reluctant, he's like, all right.
Now, after patience, when you begin to work on patience,
you know, the Bible says that we need to add godliness
to patience.
Now, what is godliness?
How do we define godliness?
Well, godliness is when the Bible becomes
the centerpiece of your life.
It's when you basically make all decisions based upon the word of God
Now the person who has added virtue has not yet done that the person who has added knowledge has not yet done that
The person who has added temperance has not yet done that the person who's learning endurance has not yet done that the god
The individual is the person who recognizes. I need to make all decisions based upon how it affects my relationship with the Lord
Meaning that the Bible dictates every facet of your life.
Meaning you, this person does not compartmentalize God.
Meaning that you're a Christian,
not just when you come to First Works Baptist Church.
That's expected.
But you behave as a Christian at work.
You behave as a Christian at home.
You behave as a Christian with your friends with your family in every situation that you're in
You look at life through the lens of scripture and you make decisions based off of what does the Bible say?
That is a godly person
They've essentially made the Bible the centerpiece of their life
Like what do you think about this situation? Well, the Bible says well, I don't care what the Bible says
Tell me what you think about this situation. Well, what I think is what the Bible says
That is a godly individual
Are you planning to take this job well really depends if there's you know, is there a church out there?
Will it take me out of serving God?
If it does then I'm not doing it because I want to live a godly life
That's gonna affect my service for the Lord
Now this what does this require it requires commitment in a lot of ways
It means that you make your home as an atmosphere conducive to spiritual growth.
Jesus Christ is the Lord of the house.
And not just in Word, but in deed as well.
Meaning that you raise your children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.
They hear about the Lord Jesus Christ and biblical things from sunrise to sunset.
That requires commitment.
But that is what godliness is.
Let me read to you from 1st Timothy chapter 4.
And verse number seven says,
but refuse profane and old wives' fables
and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.
For bodily exercise profiteth little,
but godliness is profitable unto all things,
having promise of the life that now is
and of that which is to come.
This is a faithful, excuse me,
this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
So this guy, he gets saved,
comes to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ,
he gets baptized because that's what you're supposed to do
after you get saved by the way.
Come to church, like, I need to start living virtuously.
You know, he's got Tarzan hair, so he chops that off,
right?
Cause he's like, this is not becoming unto the Lord.
I know God wants me to get rid of this.
And then he begins to add knowledge.
He starts reading the King James Bible.
Starts learning.
He's starting to find all these truths in the word of God.
He's increasing, he's abounding in his knowledge.
And then he's like, you know, I need to be disciplined
because I didn't read my Bible yesterday,
but I can't be a punk.
Like I need to make sure that I rule over my flesh
and do what I'm supposed to do.
So he starts to practice temperance.
And then he starts seeing that there's old heads
at the church.
He's like, these people have stuck it out for a long time.
I want to be an old disciple one day.
I need to endure the Christian life.
I'm kind of weak emotionally sometimes.
I get offended easily sometimes.
I feel like I'm not strong.
I need to learn patience.
I need to learn endurance.
Begins to add that, right?
But then he's realizing, you know what?
I think I need to just live my life
in accordance to the Bible at all times.
You know, like not be so worldly and godless
when I go home.
You know, not be a hypocrite.
Not live a double life.
Right, and we're not saying that you have to be all extreme about it and holier than now
We're just saying you're living a godly life meaning like I'm a Christian 24-7
Like when you go to work, you don't take off your Christian garment and like alright time to put on my worldly garment
It's like no you're a Christian at work, too
Because Christianity permeates all facets of our life. It's supposed to and it improves every facet of our life
But it's supposed to permeate every aspect of our life
Okay, meaning that you know now he's not ashamed to call himself a Christian before his friends
When he's around friends, he's not like you know
They're over here using the Lord's name in vain and he's not gonna shut up about it now. He's like hey, don't do that
Don't use the Lord's name in vain around me. I'm a Christian. That's wrong. Ah
Get out of here. We used to do I'll tell you used to do yeah
But I'm a Christian now and I don't believe that that should be done well
I'm gonna continue to do it. All right, then you and I can't be friends
Because I'm loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's a Godly man.
You know, he has a girlfriend, he doesn't.
We're just the example.
He has a wife, actually.
But you know, he has a girlfriend
and she doesn't wanna come to church.
She's like, I'm fine with you being a Christian.
I will never stop you from serving God.
I will support you in everything that you do.
And he's like, oh great, come to church.
Why can't?
Dump her.
This is a Godly man.
That's kind of extreme. No, it's kind of godly is what it is
What's extreme to you is actually what godliness is in the Bible
It's when you make certain decisions based off of what is the Bible says when you put God first over everything else
Look at Romans 828 and then you know at the end of the day. It's Christ likeness
It's growing in your love for the Lord. It says a Romans 828 and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God
To them who are the called according to his purpose for whom he did for know
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren
So godliness is when you take on that divine nature
You begin to love the things that God loves
Hate the things that God hates and you seek to live a life that's pleasing unto the Lord at all times now
Let me just give this disclaimer. No one in here does that perfectly a hundred percent of the time
So don't think, oh, that's an unreasonable standard.
No, obviously we're supposed to strive
for this particular directive.
The goal should be this directive.
And you know what, I hope you walk out of this building saying,
you know what, I need to live a more godly life.
Lord, help me to be more godly.
Help me to exercise myself rather unto godliness.
And to put you first.
Maybe some of you parents need to go home and say, you know what?
We need to put a Bible in the center of our house and read it at our house
We need to have family devotions. We need to pray with our children more
I need to talk to my kids about the Lord Jesus Christ more
Instead of talking about sports
Instead of talking about politics
Instead of talking about whatever other subject
Maybe we need to communicate do the Deuteronomy 6 and just communicate the word of God unto our children
Maybe you need to start communicating what you read out of your Bible as long as you add a knowledge to virtue though
Communicate what you got from the Bible to your children. Amen
Or you could just talk to your spouse about the Bible and let your children hear it
God then is you say why well, I'll tell you why because if you do these things
You shall never fall go to have a seat brother Cody. Thank you. We're almost done here
All right, I need brotherly kindness
Philadelphia I need brotherly kindness brother Paul come on up your name starts with the P
Come on up come on down
So after we've added godliness now the Bible says we need to add brotherly kindness
Okay, to the right a little bit brother Paul to the right to the right
Alright, go a little inch to the right.
I'm just messing with the book.
What's brotherly kindness?
Brotherly kindness is simply preferring and giving
to your brothers and sisters in Christ.
Now what's interesting is godliness,
it grows here in your love for God, right?
Because you love the Lord,
therefore you want to please the Lord.
Now God says, all right,
now I want you to love the brethren.
I want you to show brotherly kindness to the brethren.
Now how do you learn godliness?
Well, come into church.
but you are able to exercise brotherly kindness if you also come to church.
Because now you have recipients that you can express these things through, right?
You can be a blessing to people.
So now this guy, he gets saved, you know, he adds virtue to his faith, he adds knowledge
to virtue, he adds temperance, he adds endurance, he adds godliness.
He's like, I'm going to determine my life based upon what the Bible says.
Now the Bible says, okay, now go be a blessing to someone in this building.
Go prefer someone else in this building over your own needs. I
know you love the Lord
But kind of show that by going and loving your brother your neighbor as yourself
That's what brotherly kindness is now the Bible says to love our neighbor as ourselves
But the Bible also teaches that as we therefore have opportunity let us do good into all men
But listen to this but especially to those of the household of faith
Meaning that God wants us to favor God's people
And we have a perfect opportunity here to be a blessing as Christians because we have a church filled with people with needs
So Paul just needs to look for someone
And it's like, who needs my encouragement today?
Who needs a meal?
And, you know, honestly, by the way,
Paul is actually a really good example of this,
in my opinion.
Because at our church, when the lady has a baby,
we typically do, like, meal trains,
and he always gets involved.
Like, I know that he gets involved.
Sorry to embarrass you like this.
But, like, I always know that Paul's gonna, like,
do something, even, you know, he's the same guy.
He's not married or anything.
But what is he doing?
He's expressing brotherly kindness to others.
Right?
Go with me if you will to Philippians chapter 2 Philippians chapter 2
How can we make sure that we never fall from our steadfastness that we stay in the will of God that we keep serving God?
I'll tell you how add brotherly kindness to your repertoire
Make sure you look for an opportunity to be a blessing to someone else and look
It's great to come to church and fellowship and just talk and laugh
I love doing those things, but the house of God is also to come to be a blessing to other people as well
You know before you go find your click after church after church service go find someone else's click and go click with them a little bit
Go encourage someone else
And look if you've added virtue to your faith if you've added knowledge to that if you've added temperance to that
If you've added all these other directives to that you can add brotherly kindness by being a blessing to someone else
Okay, look what it says in Philippians chapter 2
And verse number one, it says,
if there be therefore any consolation in Christ,
if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit,
if any bowels and mercies,
fulfill you my joy that be like-minded,
having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind,
let nothing be done through strife or vanglory,
but in lowliness of mind,
let each esteem other better than themselves.
Look not every man on his own things,
but every man also on the things of others.
Meaning,
esteem someone else's benefit over your own.
Inconvenience yourself for someone else's benefit.
That's what it's saying.
That's what brotherly kindness is.
Thank you, brother Paul.
If you do these things, you shall never fall.
And here's the last one.
Go to Colossians chapter three, if you would.
Colossians three.
What is charity?
Charity is simply love, and more specifically, unfaithful love, love that is without dissimulation.
So when you are growing in your Christian faith, when you're adding to your faith these
directives, it's important that you top it off with a cherry on top, and that is unfaigned
love, meaning you're real.
like the things that you're doing are out of a heart of love.
And you may think like, oh yeah, of course.
But you'd be surprised how many churches have fake love.
A lot of churches out there that have a lot of feigned love.
Pastors who have feigned love for their congregants.
Church members that have feigned love for their pastor.
Members that have feigned love for one another.
You go to some church and it's just like they talk about love
and all they talk about is love.
All I want to do is talk about the love of God,
but I'll tell you why they talk about it so much
because they're overcompensating for the fact
that they don't have love.
We want to make sure that we're real with our love.
That we have charity that we have unfaithing love in all matters now
Why is that important look at Colossians chapter 3 and verse 12 and again?
I believe that this is in chronological order and this would add this is what adds the cherry on top look at Colossians 3 verse 12
He says put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies
Kindness humanness of mine meekness longsuffering for bearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel
Against any even as Christ forgave you
So also do ye.
And above all these things put on charity.
And I want you to notice this, which
is the bond of perfectness.
You know why charities last?
Because it brings everything together.
It brings the virtue along with the knowledge,
with the temperance, with the endurance,
with the brotherly kindness, it adds everything together.
It's the bond of perfectness.
Because at the end of the day you do all things out of a heart that loves the Lord Jesus Christ and
That loves your neighbor has yourself
You know, oh, man. Are you sure this is a loving church folks? We wouldn't be able to function as a church if we weren't
This will be a circus
This would be a church of just like holier than now
Hyperspiritual with no brotherly kindness
whatsoever if we didn't have love and I could and obviously I'm biased because I'm the pastor here
But I honestly say from the bottom of my heart. I believe we have very loving people
They're striving to add to their faith that are striving to grow in unfaithful love
And if there's someone in here that doesn't by the end of this sermon they will
You know that one person is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm loving, yeah
And they're like I need to work on this love real quick
Love is important, charity is important, but let me tell you what's more important is unfaithful love
Unhypocritical love, love that's not simulated
Legitimate love, amen
What's the point here? Go back to 2nd Peter
Chapter 1
By the way, let me read to you from 1 Corinthians real quick verse 1 verse 4 says charity suffereth long and is kind
Charity envy if not charity vaunted the night itself is not puffed up does not behave itself unseemly seek it's not our own
It's not easily provoked think it's no evil
Rejoice it's not in iniquity, but rejoice it's in the truth bear with all things believe it's all things hope with all things endure with all
Things charity never faileth. It sounds to me like charity is involved in all of these directives
Look at 2nd Peter chapter 1. I
Hope today that you add to your faith these
Directives and you know what if you could just pick one out of these that you need to add
It's a success, but the goal would be to add all of these
Why well it says in verse 8 for if these things be in you and abound
They make you they each should neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ
But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see a far off and as for God
He was purged from his old sins folks. What's the message this morning? The message is simply this, you know
If you don't want to fall
You want to stay in this thing from the long haul
You want to succeed and prosper and achieve great things for God?
You want your children to succeed and prosper and serve the Lord all the days of their life?
add
to your faith
And be diligent about it or if you do these things ye shall never fall. Let's pray father. We thank you so much for your word
Thank you for the principles of the word of God that helps us to not just be functioning members of society
But just to live a life that's pleasing unto you and
Lord, it's true
You came to give life and life more abundantly and I pray that Lord as we're as your people that we would esteem
The principles of the word of God and that you would help us and enable us to obey these commandments Lord
and to add to our faith all the days of our life.
And we obviously understand that once we moved on from one directive to the next,
it doesn't mean we stopped working on the previous one,
but rather we added to the bulk of the work that we have.
And I pray that you'd strengthen us, help us,
and may we live lives that are pleasing unto you.
We pray the things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Big man song number 119 as our last song till the storm passes by, song number 119, song number 119, song number 119, song number 119.
face while the storm howls above me and there's no
hiding place the crash of the thunder crashes more
hear my cry keep me safe
This is over till the thunder settles the moor Till the clouds fall forever from the sky
Satan whispered, there is no need to try, for there's no end of sorrow, there's no hope I am by, but I know that one...
Wonderful singing, you are dismissed.