Amen, thank you brother, appreciate it.
We love Steve McGana.
They are very, very special to us and Steve and
my daughter, Jana, and Cameron John, who
is on the staff of the Memorial Road, or
actually Memorial Road Church Christ in
Oklahoma City
now, were kind of the three amigos when they
were growing up in Wichita Falls, but we love
them dearly and his dad and mom are very dear
to us as well.
I am honored that you've come today to be a
part of this class.
Anybody that knows me realizes that I'm a
Bible-oriented preacher, so if you've got
your Bibles, I hope you have them today,
because we're going to be looking at a passage of
scripture that is absolutely essential, I
believe, to our understanding of what spirituality
is really all about.
You know, there's a great deal of emphasis in
our world today on the theme of spirituality.
There's a desire on the part of people to
explore the spiritual realm, but I think there
are a lot of very confused concepts of what
spirituality really is all about.
For a majority of people in our touchy-feely
world, the idea of spirituality is something
that you feel.
It is something that is better felt than told.
It's almost a Gnostic concept of rising to a
greater level of spirituality that nobody
else really understands, and that's their idea
of spirituality.
As a result of that, those who are not oriented
toward Christian principles will turn to things
like mediums and spirit guides and New Age
mysticism and to astrology and the list could
go on and on and try to find what they hope is spirituality.
And even among churches of Christ, I think
there is a great deal of confusion in our
day and age in regard to the matter of what
spirituality really is.
There are those that believe that spirituality
somehow is a strictly individual matter, and
they shy away from and dislike the idea that it
could be in any way connected with an institutional
And I'm talking about the church, but yet at
the same time the apostle Paul would say,
to him be glory in the church both now and
forever, world without end, amen.
So you cannot separate spirituality from your
relationship with other brothers and sisters
in Christ.
It is very personal in the sense that we
develop our personal relationship with God, but it
also has a horizontal aspect to it as well as
the vertical.
And so I think we need to realize that aspect
of spirituality.
It is both personal and it is institutional.
We do not practice our spirituality in a vacuum.
We do not practice our spirituality in a
vacuum, but we are part of a community of
faith, and
that is the church.
The apostle Paul said, no man lives to himself,
no man dies to himself, whether we live, we
live to the Lord, whether we die, we die to the
Lord, whether we live therefore or die,
we are the Lord.
Romans 14:7 and 8.
And in that context, if you read carefully,
he's talking about mutual responsibilities
toward each other.
And so there is one other aspect of spirituality.
I think we all have to exercise responsibility
and conduct both towards those that are within
the church and those that are without the church.
All of that is involved in spirituality.
I had the privilege on Sunday at noon to go to
the dinner honoring Byron Nelson.
And that was one of the things that I
appreciated so much, and that is that in a very practical
way, Byron talked about the way he lived the
Christian life.
He didn't talk about it in terms of some other
worldly experience, but he was very down to
earth principles of how he had committed his
life to serve the Lord.
Even when he was on tour, on the golf tour,
that he would find a time to go to church
every Sunday.
That sounds like a minor thing.
And he said, well, that's kind of legalistic in
your thinking, but yet it wasn't.
He knew that he needed that spiritual
connection in order to be strong in his relationship
with the Lord.
In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus said, you are the
salt of the earth, you're the light
of the world.
In other words, we have a saving influence by
our lives, the way we live our lives in
our world.
We illuminate the darkness.
We have a saving influence in the decay of the world.
Well, how do we define spirituality?
Is it understood by feeling or by reason?
Is it determined existentially, by my personal
experience, or is it determined biblically?
Do we turn to the Word of God to decide what is
the nature of spirituality?
Folks, I think there's a simple answer to it.
Notice carefully what the Bible says.
Open your Bibles to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, a
passage that all of us are well
acquainted with, but yet it speaks volumes to
the idea of spirituality.
Listen carefully to what Paul said.
By the way, I'll be reading from the English
standard version of the Bible.
By the way, it's a relatively new translation.
I found it to be quite excellent, so if you're
looking for a good, accurate, and easy to
read translation of the Bible, it's really good.
But listen to Paul.
All scripture is breathed out by God, and it's
profitable for teaching, for reproof,
for correction, for training in righteousness,
that the man of God may be competent, completely
equipped for every good word.
And so he says in this passage that the
scripture is the manual for a training in righteousness.
We turn to the Word of God to see how God
defines spirituality, what God says is involved
in spirituality, and then we live out those
principles in our lives.
And so spirituality is defined then by scripture.
We only know what is spiritual by what the
scripture says.
It can't be determined existentially by my own
personal experience except how I live
out the Word of God in my life.
But it's not determined by how I feel.
It's not determined by whether I turn the
lights down on Sunday during the time of prayer.
It's not determined by saying I'm spiritual.
It is not determined by developing a spiritual
air in the way I walk, where it seems like
I float around in a cloud around other people.
That's not spirituality.
It is a matter of what the Bible says should
occupy our lives, the way we think and what
we do.
Listen to Paul in Romans 12:1 and 2, I appeal
to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies
of God, present your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which
is your
spiritual worship, or as one translation says,
your reasonable service, and it may be translated
that way.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that by testing you may discern the will of
God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
So it involves the reason.
It involves a matter of reading.
It doesn't just say a matter of the mind.
It becomes incorporated in our lives, and thus
will change the way we feel and a lot
of other things, but it deals, first of all,
with the changing of the mind.
And according to the reading of the scripture,
Paul stated quite emphatically that the lack
of spirituality in the church in Corinth was
directly connected with their lack of knowledge
of the Word of God.
In 1 Corinthians 3:1 through verse 3, he said,
but I, brothers, could not speak to
you or address you as spiritual people, but as
people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
Now notice what he says, I fed you with milk,
not solid food, for you were not ready for
it, and even now you are not yet ready, for you
are still of the flesh.
You see, their lack of spirituality was
directly connected to their lack of knowledge
of the
Word of God.
Some people may not practice what they know to
be right, but it's for sure that you cannot
practice what is right if you don't know what
is right.
And so you, first of all, must know what is right.
And then when you know it, you incorporate it
into your life.
In 1 Peter 1:23, through chapter 2, verse 2,
the same author, by the way, that
is the author of the text we're going to be
considering this morning, and we will get
to it.
We will in just a few moments.
Peter says, you have been born again, not a
perishable seed, but an imperishable through
the living and abiding Word of God.
For all flesh is like grass, and the glory of
man like the flower of the grass, the grass
withers and the flower falls, but the Word of
the Lord remains forever.
And this word is the good news that was
preached to you.
So put away all malice and all deceit and
hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like
newborn infants
long for the pure spiritual milk, that by that
you may grow up in your salvation.
Now, he's not saying that you ought to abide in
the milk of the word.
His analogy there is to a baby that is hungry
to have that milk.
Those of us that have raised children, little
babies, they'll let you know when they're hungry.
He said, have that same kind of attitude as
that infant.
They long for that spiritual milk, that word,
and we ought to long for that spiritual milk,
which is the Word of God in our lives.
Spirituality then is living with a biblical
worldview, in step with the expectations of
God revealed by the Holy Spirit in the Bible.
Now, that's what spirituality is.
It is living with a biblical worldview, in step
with the expectations of God revealed
by the Holy Spirit in the Bible.
Years ago, Brother E.W. McMillan wrote a
marvelous little book, and I was given a volume
of it
when I first started preaching.
It's called The Minister's Spiritual Life.
And in that little volume, Brother McMillan,
very beginning of it, gives a marvelous definition
of spirituality.
And here's what he said, he said, spirituality
is a quality of character which God requires.
Very simple.
That's what spirituality is.
Like God himself, it does not lend itself to
the limitations of a worded definition.
It is understood more by how it behaves, what
it will do or will not do, rather than being
defined by words.
Spirituality is greatly concerned about true
values, about right attitudes and motives.
That's how Brother McMillan defines
spirituality for those who would occupy pulpit
as ministers
of the gospel.
Now, there are several contrasting passages in
the New Testament that deal with spirituality.
You all know them.
If you don't know them, you might write them down.
We're not going to deal with all of them this
morning, but I want to list them for you.
And you ought to sit down and read them.
There are contrasting verses that talk about
what the spiritual is and what the carnal
is, what the fleshly man is, what the spiritual
man is.
They contrast the two elements.
And I love the way the Holy Spirit through the
inspired writers does that.
He'll say, now, here's the way the ungodly man lived.
Here's the way the godly person lived.
And those contrasting passages are 1
Corinthians 3:1-4.
The second is Galatians 5:16-26.
We call that the works of the flesh, the fruit
of the spirit.
There is a distinct contrast between the two.
In Ephesians 4:17-32, write that verse down.
And in Colossians 3:1-17, we have parallel
passages where the apostle Paul talks
about putting off the old man and putting on
the new man.
He talks about the qualities of the old man.
He talks about the qualities of the new man.
And the fifth of those verses I want you to
write down is 2 Peter 1:5 through 12.
2 Peter 1:5 through verse 12.
Now, there are other speakers and teachers that
are dealing with some of these other
passages of scripture.
But I think if you read all of them, you get a
corporate picture of what being spiritual
is and what being un-spiritually.
And so I would encourage you to read all of
those verses of scripture.
Open your Bibles, though,-2 Peter 1.
Now we're getting down to the text.
2 Peter 1.
I can't deal with all of those other verses,
but I do want to deal with this passage that
we generally refer to as the listing of the
Christian graces.
That's what we have traditionally called it.
And really, what he's defining for us here is
how you can measure your spirituality.
If you want to be able to sit down and say, am
I a spiritual individual, then take a look
at what Peter has to say in 2 Peter 1.
Well, let's read beginning in verse 1 down
through verse number 12.
You have your Bibles.
Let's read it together.
Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus
Christ, to those who have obtained a faith
of equal standing with ours, by the
righteousness of our God in Savior Jesus
Christ, may grace
and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord.
His divine power has granted to us all things
that pertain to life and godliness through
the knowledge of him who called us to his own
glory and excellence, by which he has
granted to us his precious and very great
promises, so that through them you may become
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped
from the corruption that is in the world because
of sinful desires.
For this very reason, make every effort to
supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue
with knowledge, and knowledge with
self-control, and self-control with
steadfastness, and steadfastness
with godliness, and godliness with brotherly
affection, and brotherly affection with love.
For if these qualities are yours and are
increasing, they will keep you from being ineffective
or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
For whoever lacks these qualities is so
nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten
that he
was cleansed from his former sins.
Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent
to make your calling and election sure, so
that if you practice these qualities, you will
never fall, for in this way there will
be richly provided for you an entrance into the
eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ.
Now, what I want you to see is the emphasis of
this passage on what spirituality does.
If you read carefully 1 John, you will notice
throughout the book he talks about the fact
that if you walk with Jesus, if you abide in
Jesus, you walk like he walks.
If you're spiritual, you obey the commandments
of the Lord.
The Gnostics were telling him that day in age,
it has nothing to do with what you do
in the flesh.
It's just all this super knowledge that rises
above what you can get actually from the Word
of God.
It's a special insight that somebody else has
to initiate you into, and you rise to
a higher level of spirituality than everyone else.
Now, anything that you define, it's this sense,
this mystical sense of feeling.
Well, John says, wait a minute, the proof is in
the pudding.
What are you doing?
If you claim to be spiritual, but yet you're
not living like a spiritual person, you're
not spiritual.
And what the Apostle Peter is saying here is
identical to the same thing.
You want to know that you're calling an
election sure?
Then let me tell you how to measure it, to find
out whether your spirituality is what
it ought to be or not.
And Peter is not legalistically saying in this
passage, now you've got to keep these
things perfectly.
He uses the term increasing.
You're increasing in these qualities.
You're growing in these qualities.
Peter would say in 2 Peter 3:18, but grow in
the grace and knowledge of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ.
Are you growing in your relationship with the Lord?
And so let's take a look at the text this morning.
You might want to write these down.
I'm a point preacher.
So as a result of that, I give you simple
points to write down.
They're easy to follow.
So number one, let's look at the greeting.
That's the way he begins, is with the greeting.
Peter establishes his purpose and his authority.
His allegiance, he says, is to Jesus Christ,
for he is the Lord's bond slave.
He doesn't belong to any man.
He doesn't belong to any party.
Now unfortunately, according to the relation
letter, there were times where he had moments
of weakness when the circumcision party came,
and he kind of disassociated himself with
the Gentiles.
He had moments of weakness, but what he is
saying is, I really belong to the Lord.
I don't belong to anybody else.
I'm the Lord's bond servant.
And then secondly, he presents his authority.
He says, it is apostolic.
He said, I am an apostle of the Lord, and thus
whatever he writes bears the apostolic
seal, having been thus empowered and directed
by the Holy Spirit, because later in the chapter,
he talks about the source of prophetic writing.
2 Peter 1:21, no prophecy was ever produced by
the will of men, but men spoke from God
as they were carried along with the Holy Spirit.
Now that applies to Old Testament scripture,
but it also applies to what the apostle Peter
talked about.
If you remember, the apostle Peter would say
later about Paul's writing, he said, there's
some things hard to understand of what Paul
wrote, which those that are unstable and those
that are unlearned will rest or twist as they
do also the other scriptures.
And so he says, the writings of the apostles
were just on the same level with the prophets
of the Old Testament.
In fact, in Ephesians 2, he said, the church
was built on the foundation of what?
The apostles and the prophets, with Jesus
Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
And so what Peter writes here is from the Holy
Spirit of God.
You remember, Jesus promised he would give them
the power to learn all truth in John
14, 15, and 16.
And so he's saying here, what I write bears
apostolic authority.
So you better listen to what I'm saying.
It's interesting, back in Acts 2, about the
first church, it said, they continued
steadfastly in the apostle's teaching.
That was the foundation of the church.
And so his authority is apostolic, and that's
whatever he writes is from the Holy Spirit.
And that's whatever he says bears the mark of
divine instruction.
And then he identifies his readers in the
introduction and gives the usual Roman and
Hebrew greeting, you know, rene and shalom,
grace and peace.
One was the greeting, the peace was the
greeting of the Jewish people, grace was the greeting
of the Roman people, or the Greek people.
And so he gives both, he's writing to all
elements of the church.
And he sends them greetings of grace and peace.
His readers are those, as he said, who have
obtained a faith of equal standing with ours
by the righteousness of our God in Savior Jesus Christ.
They all have the same standing.
Even the apostles, an every member of the
church, they all have the same standing.
Anybody know the nature of the ground at the
foot of the cross?
What is it?
It's all left.
As far as God is concerned, he's not concerned
about your pedigrees.
He's not concerned about a lot of other things.
He's more concerned about your relationship
with him.
That's what he's primarily concerned about.
A dear, dear friend of mine, Brother Roy Hanna,
died recently.
Roy had been a great faithful gospel preacher
for many years.
He was 83 years of age, had bypass surgery in
Oklahoma City, and his body just wouldn't
withstand the pressure, and Roy went on to be
the Lord.
But years ago, Roy had met with the elders in
Amarillo, Texas, about the possibility
of moving there to preach for the congregation
of the South Lawn Church.
They asked him, said, Brother Hanna, how many
degrees do you have?
If you know Roy, he did not have the college degrees.
He was a sharp, sharp man, a great student of
the Word of God, but he didn't have the
college education.
He said, Reverend, I've got 98.6 when I'm
normal, and I'm not in any way belittling education.
The Lord has blessed me with some, and there
are many more who have more than I have by
a long shot.
But what I'm trying to get you to see is
whether we are a doctor or whether we are an ordinary
member of the Church of the Lord, we're all in
the same standing with the Lord.
We're all on level ground.
Every single one of us are mere sinners saved
by the grace of God, and if we're not for
the righteousness of the Lord that has, through
His Son Jesus Christ, made us righteous, then
we wouldn't have a ghost of a chance of salvation.
And so you are my brother, you are my sister,
we are brothers and sisters in Christ.
He identifies his readers then as those who
share that common faith, but he also states
that grace and peace can only be multiplied
through the knowledge of God in our Savior
Jesus Christ.
Now somebody says, well, yeah, that's talking
about that superior knowledge, it's an experiential
knowledge, no, wait just a minute.
Go back to the book of Deuteronomy, will you please?
Go back to the book of Deuteronomy.
How was Israel to raise each generation to be
spiritual, dedicated people to God?
Look at Deuteronomy 6, beginning with verse
one, now this is the commandment,
the statutes, and the rules the Lord your God
commanded me to teach you that you should
do them in the land to which you are going to
possess it, that you may fear the Lord
your God.
You and your son's son, by keeping all these
statutes and his commandments
which I command you all the days of your life,
and that your days may be long.
Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do
them, that things may go well with you,
and you may multiply greatly as the Lord the
God of your fathers has promised you in a
land falling with milk and honey.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, and with all
your might.
And these words that I command you today shall
be on your heart.
In other words, it wasn't just the reason.
It entered through the reason, through the
mind, but it was to permeate every fiber of
the being of the people of Israel.
The Word of God wasn't merely on the page, but
rather it was to penetrate the heart.
And the problem with many of the Jews was, it
never left the page.
And folks, the problem with many of us in the
church is, the Word of God never leaves
the page and has truly incorporated the fullest
sense into our lives.
That's our problem.
It's not the fact the Word of God is inadequate.
The problem is what we have done with the Word
of God.
And the problem with Israel was what they had
not done with the Word of God.
Notice carefully what else he says, though.
Are you to keep it to yourselves?
He said, You shall teach them diligently to
your children, and shall talk of them when
you sit in the house, and when you walk by the
way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand,
and they shall be as frontlets between
your eyes, and you shall write them on the
doorposts of your house and on your gate.
How was Israel to be a spiritual people?
It could not be accomplished separate and apart
from the knowledge of the will of God.
Secondly, there is a reminder.
He reminds them, first of all, of God's provision.
He says, His divine power has granted us all
things that pertain to life and godliness
through the knowledge of Him who called us to
His own glory and excellence, by which
He has granted to us His precious and very
great promises, so that through them you may
be partakers of the divine nature.
Notice carefully their spirituality.
Through the knowledge of the will of God, you
become a partaker of the divine nature
and escape the corruption that is in the world
because of sinful desires.
That's what spirituality is.
It's walking to the sound of a different
drummer, the beat of a different drummer.
It's walking to the beat of God's drums in
accordance with His will.
And then again, after He talks about our
spiritual provision, He talks about our motivation,
He says, for this very reason, make every
effort to.
So He goes ahead and He says, now all of these
things I'm going to talk to you about, the
marks of spirituality, go back to your
appreciation of what God has done for you and
how He's
transformed your life with the gospel.
And because of that, here's what you are today.
Here's how you define spirituality.
Because of these wonderful promises that are
granted to us through the gospel, forgiveness,
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the
eternal hope, we have been blessed with the
privilege of being like God and to live above
the wickedness of the world.
And it is an honor to live a godly life.
And the reason it is, is because of what God's
done for me.
That's why it's a joy and an honor to live a
spiritual life.
It should not be a burden, but a privilege to
live godly, spiritually minded lives.
And I want you to know, yes, I know we struggle.
We all struggle.
But folks, I want you to know that somebody won
the victory for me on Calvary 2,000 years ago.
The Bible talks about being more than
conquerors, and the Bible talks about being victorious
over sin.
And so many times we get mired down in our
weaknesses, and we concentrate on those, and
we ought to be concentrating on our victory
that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Boy, I'll tell you what, when that's motivating
you, whatever God wants you to do and be,
that's what you're going to do.
Not because you have to earn your salvation,
but because of what God has already done for
But I want you to know it still takes effort,
and that's what he says.
He says, for this reason, make every effort.
It takes diligence.
He'll talk about that twice in this section of scripture.
Number three, he gives us the standard, the
measuring stick.
How do I know that I'm a spiritual person?
Verses eight and nine.
I'm going to go to the end of it first and come
back to the quality.
Look at verses eight and nine.
For if these qualities are yours and what,
increasing and abound, they will keep you
from being ineffective or unfruitful in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For whoever lacks these qualities is so
nearsighted that he's blind.
That person doesn't even know whether he's
spiritual or not.
He may think he is, but if he has forgotten
what God requires, what he's done, if he's
nearsighted, he's myopic spiritually, he can't
really see.
It's not how I perceive as far as my intuition
is concerned, it's what I perceive to be
actually right according to God's will.
What does God say is spirituality?
He says the key then is not just to possess the
knowledge of the Word of God or claim
that we know God or tell others that we are
spiritual, but to prove it by ever increasing
measurable qualities in our lives.
Nearsightedness is not something we say we have
or sometimes better than our air that
we assume, but it is action, displaying the
fruit of the Spirit or the fruit of spirituality
in our lives.
Number four, the supplement.
I love the rendering of the English Standard Version.
It says supplement in your faith.
If you look at the word, that's very interesting.
The word Bollinger gives is to furnish or to
supply besides abundantly.
In other words, you take one quality and then
you supply something else in it.
So it's just kind of a building up, it's kind
of like a spiritual avalanche.
You start off with something small or one item
and then you add something else and you
add something else and you add something else.
You supplement every single one of these
qualities and they eventually become the whole.
Really, that's what Paul was talking about in
Galatians 5 when he said, the fruit singular
of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness and temperance.
Spirituality begins with complete trust in God.
He starts off by saying supplement your faith
with virtues.
So it gives us two at the very beginning of
these qualities that are to mark the child
of God.
In Ephesians 6:16, Paul talks about the shield
of faith by which we'll be able
to extinguish the flaming missiles of the evil one.
And John said, our victory over the world is
our faith.
And so it begins then with the solid foundation
of our trust, complete trust in God.
Faith is confidence and trust in and submission
to what God wants for our lives.
William Barkland made a marvelous statement in
his little commentary in regard to this.
He said, for Peter, faith is the conviction
that what Jesus Christ says is true, the utter
certainty that we commit ourselves to his
promises and launch ourselves on his demands.
That's fantastic because that's really what
faith and trust really is.
That trust we manifested and supplemented with
a desire for the pursuit of complete excellence.
And the word virtue there means excellence in
every way.
Are going to be satisfied with mediocrity.
It's called enemy danger or persecution.
And there are all kinds of examples of that in
the Bible.
Think about Abraham in the Old Testament.
What did God say to him?
You take your son, the only one, and you take
him up and you offer him.
I don't know exactly what went through
Abraham's mind.
But the Hebrew writer tells me, Hebrews 11, he
took him and he sacrificed him as far as
he was concerned his son was dead because God
wanted it done.
That was the kind of man that he was.
I think about Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
And I like the Hebrew names better than I do
the Pagan names.
And so I think about them.
The king said, well, here's the Danes, partake
of all the Danes, and they said, no, no, we'll
not do that.
They lived on the lentils and the water and
they wound up in better shape than the other
guys who were drinking the wine and all the
fine, rich foods from the king's table.
And then he says, and to this virtue, with this
pursuit of excellence, you supply that
or supplement that with knowledge.
We need to know what is right and what is wrong.
But we need to know it not only in theory, but
also in practice.
Anytime I teach a Bible class, one of the
things I always try to do, or preach a sermon,
is to say, now here's what the word says, how
do we apply that in our lives?
I got a Bible study formed several years ago
that had a point down at the bottom of, well,
it didn't have this point.
I added it in.
And that was, how do I intend to put this into
practice today?
Anytime you read the Word of God, you read it
from the standpoint of, how can I put this
into practice in my life today?
Not tomorrow, not next week, but how some way,
one way, that I can put this into practice
in my life today.
And so it's not some mystical knowledge, such
as advocated by the Gnostics, but an effective
practical knowledge that comes from spending
time in the Word of God and applying it in
my daily life.
Brethren, the one thing that I am convinced
would make the Church of Jesus Christ stronger
than anything else is a return on the part of
members to be active students of the word
of God.
I remember hearing a story years ago about over
in Tennessee, they were having a trial,
and there was an old gentleman that was a
member of the Church of Christ, and he sat
in town square every day, and they couldn't
find a Bible to swear in a witness on the sand.
So they said, well, go get Uncle Billy, he
said, if he's got enough Bible in his head,
we can put the guy's right hand on his head and
swear him in by that.
In my home congregation, we used to have about
40 guys who sat in the Amen corner, and all
of them were, well, some of them were barbers,
and others were school teachers, and others,
all kinds of occupations, but they knew the Bible.
And they sat right down at the front when the
preacher was preaching, how would you
like to preach every Sunday, and 40 guys that
you know are grounded in the Word of God are
sitting down there, they sat together, didn't
sit with their wives, they sat together in
a body of men, about 40 of them every Sunday.
And one Sunday the preacher forgot, his mind
went blank, he couldn't take it, Hebrews 10,
27, not for a second, the assembling of
ourselves together, and Damos Boran, who was
Maxie Boran's
uncle, was sitting down there, and Damos was a
barber, and he was kind of rough, you know,
he'd talk like that all the time, and Wayne
Smethers was a preacher, and he said, couldn't
you think how it started, you know, he said,
Damos started for him, he said, not for a
second, the assembling of ourselves together,
and he quoted the verse for him.
Folks, we need to get back to that kind of
knowledge, the Word of God.
I'm not talking about just knowing the facts,
but I'm talking about allowing the word to
absolutely permeate our lives and direct every
aspect of our being.
Paul said concerning Timothy that from
childhood you have known the sacred writings
which are
able to make you wise into salvation through
faith, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And then he says, and to knowledge,
self-control, Titus 2:11 and 12, for the grace
of God has
appeared, bringing salvation for all people,
training us to renounce ungodliness
and worldly passion and to live self-controlled
and upright in Godly life.
Again, think about Daniel, Hananiah, Michiel, Nazariah.
William Barclay defined this as the realism of
the Christian ethic, the realism of the
Christian ethic.
It's not some, you know, thing out there in the
air that somebody says, well, maybe it's
something you catch.
It's not something you catch, it's something
you read about and apply in your life.
And then he says, and with that self-control
you are to supplement that with steadfastness.
We're talking about endurance in the midst of
opposition and persecution.
The word patience is used in some translations,
but I appreciated what one linguist made the statement.
He said patience really doesn't really give the
full impact of what that word means because
it carries the idea of being under stress and opposition.
You see, it's easy to be patient when things
are going well, right?
But he's talking here about being under
persecution, being in the midst of opposition.
It is a commitment to stand by our convictions
no matter what the cost might be.
It's doing right and standing for right when
it's convenient and when it's inconvenient.
If you're the only one in a group of thousand
people and something is wrong, you're going
to be willing to stand up and say, that's not right.
Have that kind of courage.
In Timothy 4 and verse 2 says, preachers are to
preach in season and what?
Out of season.
One old gospel preacher said, that means when
they like it and when they don't like it.
When it's convenient and when it's inconvenient.
That's how you're to preach.
And Paul said to all of us, be steadfast,
unmovable, always abounding in the work of
the Lord. Why?
Because you know that your labor in the Lord is
not in vain.
And then instead fastness to fly back with godliness.
We are to have a commitment like Enoch who
walked with God.
We are to have a commitment like Samuel to
listen to God.
We are to have a commitment like Abraham to be
a friend of God.
We are to have a commitment like David to be a
man after God's own heart.
It is loving God with one's heart and soul and
mind and strength, all of it.
And then he says, in godliness you are to
supply with brotherly affection.
The genuineness of my claim to godliness, now
get this, because I think this is so important.
Here's what Peter says.
The genuineness of my claim to Godliness is
determined by how I feel about the church.
And my brothers and my sisters in Christ.
The same author, Peter would say in 1 Peter
2:17, honor all men.
Love Brotherhood.
You're special to me.
You're my family.
There are a lot of sad situations in our world
where kids are raised in dysfunctional homes
and where they don't have any real connection
with family.
But you know what I love about the church is
I've got fathers and I've got mothers
and I've got brothers and I've got sisters.
I've got a great big family.
And I'm not ashamed to say to you this morning,
I love the church of Christ.
I love it with every fiber of my being.
Forty-one years ago I dedicated my life to
preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And my love for the church has not waned one
minute during that period of time.
Oh yes, there have been some people that
haven't always been Christian in the way they acted.
But folks, I love the divine institution that
my Lord planned and died for so long ago.
Galatians 6 and verse 10 says, as you have
therefore opportunity to do good to all men,
especially, especially under the household of
faith, a sense of haughtiness and spiritual
superiority cannot occupy the same territory
with God in it.
That's why in Philippians 2:3 the apostle Paul
says, do nothing out of this empty conceit
or vain glory, but with this humility of mind.
You consider other people as better than yourself.
Now did Jesus say you'd become great, Jimmy,
and you'd become the servant of everybody?
The one thing that I see about the apostles of
our Lord is their willingness to serve.
And repeatedly, as they would begin their
letters, they'd talk about a bondservant.
I'm a bondslayer.
I'm a slave.
I belong to Jesus.
We need that kind of humility in our
relationship with one another.
And then to brotherly affection, finally he
says you supply that with love, agape, a love
of the will, not of the emotion.
Somebody says, well, I just can't love him.
Oh, yes, you can, because love is a command in
the Bible, folks.
Do you ever think about that?
Love biblically is not a feeling.
Love biblically is a command.
Agape love is this.
It is a love that rises above the petty
dislikes of what we feel are threats from
another and
decides, decides to act for and wish for the
very best in someone else.
Is that harder to do with some people than it
is with others?
You better believe it, but that's what my Lord expects.
And if I want to make my calling and my
election sure, I've got to practice it.
I love Philip's translation.
He says, this love of which I speak, 1
Corinthians 13, this love of which I speak is
slow to
lose patience.
It looks for ways of being constructive.
It is not possessive.
It is neither anxious to impress, nor does it
cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
Love has good manners and does not pursue
selfish advantage.
It is not touchy.
It does not keep account of evil or gloat over
the wickedness of other people.
On the contrary, it's glad with all good men
when truth prevails.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to
its trust, no fading of its hope.
It outlasts anything.
In fact, it is the one thing that still stands
when all else is false.
That's why in Colossians 3, Paul is actually
listing the things you put off, the things
you put on.
You put on love, which mines it all together in
perfect unity.
Well, then, 50 talks about the benefits.
Here are the benefits.
Establishment, security, and entrance.
Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent
to make your calling and election sure.
For if you practice these things, you will
never fall.
For in this way, there will be richly provided
for you an entrance in the eternal kingdom
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
He says, you want to be secure in your
spirituality, here's how you do it.
You don't want to fall, here's how you do it.
And then finally, he gives the reminder.
I love this.
If I were to put it in my terminology, here's
what Peter says.
He says, hey, I already know you know this
stuff, but I'm going to tell you anyway.
Now that's what he says.
You know, sometimes we're wanting something
unique and preaching, oh, I wish the preacher
preached on something different.
Peter said, you don't need anything different.
He said, you haven't even learned this yet.
He says, you think you know it, you're secure
in all these things, you still need to hear it.
He said, if you heard this thing a thousand
times, I'm still going to tell you again.
Brother Bill Gibson, a dear friend of mine,
preached in Benito, Oklahoma during his last
days of ministry.
He used to say, Les, don't ever take for
granted the brethren know anything.
Re-plow the ground.
Peter says, therefore, I intend always to
remind you of these qualities, though you
know them and are established in the truth that
you have.
Folks, a marvelous passage of scripture, and I
hope and pray that our thoughts we've shared
today have inspired you to get back in the Word
of God and to see what God expects of
you and to say, with God's help, I'm going to
be the kind of man, the kind of woman that
God wants me to be and to be an influence in
the world of darkness and influence in
the world of spiritual decay.
Thank you very much.
I hope you enjoy the lesson.
Thank you, brother.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
I had a young friend years ago who gave me a
copy of the Gospel of Mark, a preview, and
I'd forgotten all about it.
I thought that was going to be difficult
because I'd heard they'd lost funding, and I
was in
Mar-d'-Else one day, and I ran across this
thing, and it's fantastic.
It is a great, great translation Bible.
It is, as they say, their purpose is more of a
word-for-word, literal type of approach
to translation as opposed to a
meaning-for-meaning translation, and the text
that was the basis
of their translation was the Revised Standard
in 1971, but they followed the same principles
of the American Standard Version in 1981 in the
English version of 1885.
Oh, you're welcome.
Thank you.
What was your name again?
The Minister of Spiritual Life.
It's an old volume, but it's a marvelous good book.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you, notice.
Thank you for coming.
That was so good.
I almost did eight years.
Oh, thank you.
I appreciate it.
These are the available books?
I may be.
I think I will be.