[PENSIVE MUSIC] God isn't really
something to worship. He's just waiting to
destroy all of us. I guess there's a god
out there somewhere. I hope there is a god. God isn't really
something to worship. God is everywhere. [CHEERING] Good morning. Good morning. Would you-- did you
bring a Bible with you? Way good thinking. Way to go. Turn to John chapter 17,
if you would do that. And I also want to
just thank our worship team and the New Beginnings
choir for what they did today. So uplifting. Thank you so very much for that. [APPLAUSE] I've had the privilege
of pastoring this church for almost 40 years. And [APPLAUSE] through
those 40 years, we have had some challenges. I've never been
afraid of a challenge. I don't look for them. But when they come, OK. Two weeks ago-- it's interesting
timing, we spoke about Satan. And we spoke about how one
of the things he wants to do is to take those who are
making an impact for the gospel and have them make less
of an impact, attack them. Then last week, we
spoke about the Church. We've been doing a
series on Bible doctrine. And we looked at the
essential church, and why the church is essential. And we even used
what Jesus said, when we remarked on what
Jesus said, the gates of hell will not prevail
against the Church. And it seems that
this last week, we have rattled the gates
of hell a little bit. You may be aware of a
group of unbelievers who have circulated a petition. They want to cancel church. They want to cancel our church. They want our
church to shut down. Not just our church, but
they have said other churches as well, church in general. That we shouldn't be
meeting at a time like this, because meeting together,
we're killing people. And so we should not meet. They want to cancel church,
even though the governor said we can have church and we
can follow the guidelines and have our percentages. And so we do that. A number of people that
are involved in this come from different backgrounds. Some are fallen away from
the faith altogether. One of them is a co-founder
of the Satanic Temple. And he wasn't a leader of this,
but he sort of heard about this and promoted it. So I mean, are we
really surprised that those who follow the devil
want to close down the church? I mean, that
shouldn't surprise us. And there are some people who
troll us on our media accounts. They just sort of
wait for any post, and then they want
to glom on and post something inflammatory. These are people
who hate the gospel. They hate gospel preaching. And Jesus said in John 3,
"This is the condemnation, that light has
come into the world and men have loved
darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." And he continues and says,
"For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does
not come to the light, lest his deeds
should be exposed." I just found it interesting
that a local news outlet thought it was newsworthy, honestly. Think of the headline,
Unbelievers Disagree with Church's Sermon. Really? That's a headline? They've never agreed
with a church's sermon. The same crowd that
sees religious freedom as killing people,
the same crowd thinks nothing about
allowing abortions, killing babies in the womb. That to them is a health issue,
it's a woman's personal choice issue. The minute you have church,
you're killing people. I just want you to hear it from
me, because I want you to know, it doesn't bother me. I mean, people look at me
with these forlorn looks, like how are you doing? Honestly, it's another
day at the office for me. I've had this for years,
and I'm not intimidated. But I just want you to know,
we will not be intimidated. Church, you can't cancel church. You cannot cancel Christmas. And I'm just very grateful
for your faithfulness and your commitment to Him, to
the Lord, and to this church, and to the leaders
of this church that prayerfully make decisions. We don't just make cavalier
choices to hurt people. We honestly,
prayerfully consider all the different
sensitivities people have, and we go from there. So I just wanted
you to hear that. And let's pray as we get
started in our study. Father, thank you
for the opportunity to represent you in
a world that does not care about the things of God. What a privilege to
be light in darkness. I pray that we would
be full of love, but full of boldness,
proclaiming truth, being unapologetic in our love for
you, in our stand for what is right and righteous. Fill us with your Spirit, Lord. Fill us with a sense of
joy during this season as we celebrate the
birth of our great God and Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's in His name we pray, Amen. John chapter 17. If you remember last week
in the gospel of Matthew, we noted that Jesus
made the statement that he was going to make a new
community, a community that he would call his Church. We discussed what that meant. The Church is a group
of people called out from the world to
gather together for the purposes of God. Today, we get to discover
what those purposes of God are exactly in the prayer
of Jesus in John 17. So let me tell you
where we are here, and let me tell you
why I've chosen John 17 and what's going on. In Matthew 16, Jesus
makes the announcement, I'm going to build my Church. When we get to the
book of Acts, we see the birth of that Church. In Acts chapter 2, we see
the spread and the expansion of the Church around the
world, and the challenges that come with that. When we get to the epistles
of Paul and Peter and John, we get to all of
the instructions given to the Church,
how to form leaders, how to enact Church
discipline, how to engage in public worship, et cetera. We even have other names that
are given for the Church, names like the Body of Christ,
the Flock of God, the Pillar and Ground of
Truth, the Bride of Christ, the Household of God, the
Temple of the Holy Spirit. And then finally, we get to the
book of Revelation, which tells us the future of the church. And we see that awesome
picture of the church gathered around the throne of
God, with the angelic choirs, singing praises to Him. But in John chapter 17,
we get the original design or intention of the Church. It is the big picture. And it's the prayer
of Jesus Christ, one of my favorite
sections of the Bible. It's the most intimate
prayer on record, and the longest prayer
recorded of Jesus to His Father in heaven. And He prays for his followers,
not only his followers then, but we'll see next
time we gather that He prays for his
followers eventually, all those who will believe
in Jesus through the word of the original followers. So he is praying for His church. And it's noteworthy
to find out what He is praying for His church. Because as we go
through this prayer, we find that there are four
marks of a true Church, for characteristics. Every true Church
should be like this. Now, we're going to look at
two of the marks this week and two of the marks next week. Because I don't want to
go through this too fast. I want to really drill
down and make application. But you know, not
every group that gathers together and
calls itself a Church is a true Church. In Revelation chapters
2 and 3, there are some institutions that are
called the synagogue of Satan. Nobody would like
to be called that. Hey, what church do you go to? Oh, I go to Satan's synagogue. Oh, OK, great. The Synagogue of
Satan, even Jesus spoke to leaders who
were opposed to Him and opposed to His message. And Jesus called them
children of the devil. So just because you assemble
together and you call yourself something doesn't
mean you are that. So we want to discover what the
marks of every true Church is. I was reading a
study some time ago that said the most
important thing that a church can do to attract
people is to provide parking. The parking lot was number one. You want a successful church? Number one, parking lot. Number two on that
list, nursery. Parking lot number one, nursery. Now, you had to
read down the list pretty far to get to preaching
and worship and things like that. Number one, parking. Number two, nursery. I'm not saying those
things are not important. I laugh a little bit
because when we first started in this building,
we didn't have parking. We just had like 20 or
30 site parking spaces. And people parked
in neighborhoods and walked down the street
and it was quite comical. We didn't follow any
of that advice at all. But here's the deal. If Jesus said he's going to
build the church in Matthew 16, if he is the head of
the church, then he gets to say what is important
as being a characteristic. So we want to look at it. There are four, and I'm going
to go through two this week. Number one, every true Church
should demonstrate God's glory. Every true Church should
demonstrate God's glory. Let's begin in John 17. Let's read some of the verses. And there is a word
that is repeated more than any other
word in this section. You'll notice it as
we go through it. Verse 1, "Jesus
spoke these words, lifted His eyes to heaven
and said, 'Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your
Son also may glorify You. As You have given him
authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal
life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life,
that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom You have sent. I have glorified
You on the earth. I have finished the work
which You have given me to do. And now, oh Father, glorify
Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with
You before the world was.' " Go down to verse 9. "'I pray for them,' " them being
His disciples, His followers. "'I pray for them. I do not pray for the world,
but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours
and Yours are Mine. And I am glorified in them.' " Go down to verse 22. "'And the glory which You
gave Me, I have given them, that they may be one as We
are one.' " And then finally, down to verse 24. "'Father,
I desire that they also, whom You gave Me may
be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory
which You have given Me, for You loved me before the
foundation of the world." Eight times a word shows
up in one form or another, and that is the word
glory or glorified. And that's a term we
have heard, right? Most Christians know the
term glory, glory of God, glorifying God. The problem is, what
does it mean exactly? What is the glory of God? What does it mean
to glorify God? Basically, the Bible uses that
word in two different ways. Number one, it's
something you see. Number two, it's
something you do. It's something visible. When God shows up, there's
some glorious manifestation sometimes. So it's something you see. Then it's something
you do to glorify God. So let's drill
down a little bit. Number one, God's glory refers
to a visible expression of God, a visible expression of God. It is the outward, wow that
brings the inward, woe. You know what I'm referring to? In Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah
gets a vision of God's glory. He said, "In the year
that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on the
throne, high and lifted up. The train of His robe
filled the temple. There were seraphim
around the throne. They were singing out to
one another, "'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. The whole Earth is
filled with His glory." Immediately Isaiah
said, "Woe is me." The wow of the vision led
him to the, woe is me. So it's the outward wow
that brings the inward woe. It's the visible
expression of God. Many times in the Old Testament,
we read, the glory of the Lord appeared. And so often when you
read, the glory of the Lord appeared, the reaction
of people on Earth is sort of like the four in
The Wizard of Oz, you know? They just sort of shake in their
boots, like oh, God showed up. And then this is Christmas time. So we talk about Luke
chapter 2 every year. And in Luke chapter 2,
we know the narrative. It says, "The angel of the Lord
stood before the shepherds. And the glory of the Lord
shone round about them, and they were very afraid." So number one, it's the
visible expression of God. There's another way it is used. Sometimes, it refers to the
valued attention toward God. That's what it means
to glorify God. The word is [GREEK],,
and that is a word that means to make renown,
or to make famous, or to form a good opinion of. So look how Jesus
uses it that way. Verse 4, "I have glorified
You on the earth." Go down to verse 6. "I have manifested
Your name to the men that You have given Me." Simply put, I have
pointed toward You, I have focused attention on You. I, the Son, have turned the
spotlight on You, Father. I have made You the center of
focus on the stage of history. And not only have I done that. I have passed that on as
a goal to My followers. So the purpose of the
Church is to glorify God. The purpose of the Church,
number one, is to glorify God. The church has many purposes. And this has been debated
throughout history. Some people will say, well,
the real purpose of the Church is fellowship, community. No, it's not. It actually is a purpose, but it
is not primary, it's secondary. Others will say,
well, the main purpose of the church is to
evangelize the world, because Jesus said,
go into all the world and preach the gospel. OK, that's important. We exist for that reason. But that's not the
primary reason. The primary reason is not going. The primary reason
is not growing. The primary reason
is glorifying God. We exist to bring glory, to
point focus, to make renown, to give attention to God. Every true Church
has a true North. It points in a direction. It should be
oriented toward God. I don't know if you know
what a catechism is. But if you were raised
in a traditional church, you do know what a catechism is. I grew up with one. It's a little
manual that is used to teach children faith in
God and how to follow Christ. So in the 1600s
in England, there was a catechism printed known
as, it's still used widely, the Westminster
Shorter Catechism. And the Westminster
Shorter Catechism was primarily a tool to teach
children the Christian faith. And the catechism begins with a
question followed by an answer. Here's the question. What is the chief end of man? What is the chief end of man? In other words, it's an
old English way of saying, why are we here? What is the purpose
of life as we know it? What is the chief end of man? Here's the answer. The chief end of man is to
glorify God and enjoy Him forever. It's a great answer. The chief end of man, the
reason I exist is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. So the first mark of
Jesus's true Church is to point to, give attention
to, to make renown God. OK, great. Glorify God. Now, that sounds good on paper. That sounds good
philosophically. OK, good. I should glorify God. But how do you do that exactly? I'm so glad you asked. Because Jesus gives us two ways. We glorify God by our
declaration, what we say, what comes out of our
mouth, we declare it, and we glorify God by our
demonstration, what we do. So I want you to see that. Go to verse 6. It's the declaration. "I have manifested Your name. I have made Your name great. I have revealed Your
character, Your name. I have made Your name great." You know, one thing
you realize about Jesus is, He always honored
the Father, always said the Father's
will should be done. That's part of our prayer
to Him in the Lord's Prayer. And He spoke about how
great the Father is. He always declared God,
always, always pointed to Him. How do we do that? How do we declare it? Well, I can think of a few ways. When we witness to somebody,
we share the gospel with them, we're declaring, God
is great, worthy to be believed in and followed. Whenever you train your
children in the things of God, you are declaring how great
God is to your children. You are in effect, glorifying
God with your kids. If you teach a
Sunday school class or you have a place
of instruction of new believers, disciples,
you are declaring God. You are glorifying Him. We also do that by worship. Whenever we sing,
like we just did, whenever we sing the
words, pointing to Him, we are declaring, God is
worthy, God is valuable. You know, worship
is the one exercise we do where God gets
all the attention. The focus is now off of us
and completely on to Him, if it's true worship. Now, it can be false worship
where you're there worshipping and you're looking around
to see who's looking at you, because, look how holy I am. My hands are raised
up right now, see? So well, that's not real. If it's real worship,
then all of the focus, all of the attention is on Him. And so the first reason we
exist and we meet together is to glorify our great God. You see, the church is the
only community on Earth where God is the star of the show. God isn't the star
of the show and a lot of other meeting places. At the Elks Club, God is
not the star of the show. At the Moose Lodge,
God is not number one. At the Chess and
Checker Association, it's not all about God, right? At the motorcycle
club, all of these are gatherings where God
is not at the center. But at church, every two
church has a true North, and that is to glorify God. And now, there's
another reason why it's important to meet together. Because when we
meet together, it allows us to magnify
God uniquely. Something happens when I am
part of a worshipping community. It reorients my life. It reorients my life. You know, I may come in forlorn. I may come in disparaged. I may come in angry. I may come in selfish. And then the songs start being
sung, and people around me are closing their eyes
or lifting their hands or bowing their heads
and worshipping. And it reorients me. I start thinking, yeah, It's
not really all about me. Really is all about Him. Yes, God is on the throne. Yes, He is in charge. Yes, He can handle this. Don Whitney, who wrote a book
on Spiritual Disciplines, wrote this. "There's an element of worship
and Christianity that cannot be experienced in private worship
or by watching worship. There are some
graces and blessings that God gives only in
the meeting together with other believers." Do you believe that? I know you believe that
because you're here. You know who else believed that? Martin Luther. Look what Luther wrote. He said, "At home,
in my own house, there's no warmth
or vigor in me. But in the church, when the
multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart
and it breaks its way through." Now, you know what they're
referring to in layman's terms? Positive peer pressure. We know what peer pressure is. It can be bad, but
it can be good. And in this case, it's good. It's positive peer pressure. Everybody's orienting
themselves toward God, putting the focus on Him. So it helps me, it
changes the way I think. And there's a great example
of this in Psalm 73. I'm just going to read a
couple of verses to you. Let me just tell
you the background. In Psalm 73, the author
is a guy named Asaph. Asaph is hot and
bothered about the world. Things are happening in his
world to get him really, really bummed out. So he begins by saying, "Truly
God is good to Israel to such as are pure in heart." Now, I think he started
that way because he felt like he had to say that. OK, I'm a worship leader. I need to say this, God
is good all the time. So he said it. But listen to what he
says right after that. "But as for me, my
feet almost stumbled, my steps had nearly
slipped, for I was envious of the
boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." And the psalm goes on where he
describes, God, I follow you and I love you. And my life seems so much
worse than unbelievers who seem to be prosperous
and at ease and not suffering like I'm suffering. I don't get that. I don't like that. So he's bothered about that. And he says this
down in verse 16, "When I thought to
understand this, it was too painful for me." Man, I'm bothered by the fact
that those unbelievers seem to have it made, while I go
through trial after trial after trial, and God's
supposed to love me. It was too painful
for me, until-- now there's a shift. "Until I went into
the sanctuary of God. Then, I understood their end." You know, I came
to church one day, and there were worshipers
there in that temple. And all of a sudden, when I
was envious of unbelievers, now in this place of worship,
my life is reoriented. I'm re-educated, and I
started thinking about the end of the life of an unbeliever. And I wasn't envious
of them any longer. They're going to be in
eternity without God. I understood their end. What happened to Asaph? He was in a crowd of
believers in a place where God is worshipped,
and he was reoriented. "Until I went into
the sanctuary." So we glorify God
by our declaration. We glorify God also by our
demonstration, what we do. So go back to verse 4
in our Lord's Prayer. "I have glorified
You on the earth. I have finished the work which
You have given Me to do." Now, look at that
verse with your eyes. There are two sentences in it. And this is what we call an
appositional statement, where you have one statement
made, a phrase or a sentence followed
by another one that is parallel to the first
but explains the first. So the first statement, I've
glorified You on the earth. Well, how did You do
that exactly, Lord Jesus? Here's the second statement,
I have finished the work which You have given me to do. So now let me ask
you the question, how do you glorify God? By finishing the work
He's given us to do. I've glorified You on the earth. I finished the work which
You have given me to do. You know that God has a task for
you that only you can fulfill? God has an assignment that
only you can accomplish, so that the goal of your
life is not just heaven. Now, heaven's awesome, and
you're going to go there. But don't think that, OK, the
goal is just to get to heaven. I have to live through
another day, another week. I just want to go to heaven. I'm glad you do, and you will. But do you realize,
if heaven were the only goal for your life,
you know what would happen? The moment you gave your life
to Christ, you'd keel over dead. Let's get him to heaven quick,
before he can mess up again. But you're here for a while. Why? Because God wants
you to do something. He has a task for you. And the great joy
of your life can be to discover why God
put you here uniquely. Somebody once said, the two
greatest days of your life are the day you were
born, and the day you discovered what
you were born for. What were you born for? What is your great task, that
God has uniquely carved out for only you to fulfill? I'll put it to you this way. If you live to glorify God,
you'll die having no regrets. If you make that your life's
goal, I'm going to glorify God, you'll never regret that. You'll never get to
the end of your life, go, oh, I should have done
this, I could have done that. If you live to glorify God,
you will die with no regrets. So number one, a true Church
demonstrates God's glory. Second, a true Church
communicates God's truth. Now, go down to verse
6 again, and let's read this in a few verses. "I have manifested
Your name to the men You have given to
me out of the world. They were Yours. You gave them to Me. And they have kept Your word." I said to them what You
told me to say to them. They listen to that, and
they're obeying that. They've kept Your word. "Now, they have known that all
things which You have given Me are from You, for I have
given to them the words which You have given Me. And they have received them. And they have known surely
that I came forth from You, and they have believed
that You sent me." Let me unpack that. Jesus gave to His
followers words of truth that the Father gave to Him. His followers listened to those
words, listened to His sermons, listened to His conversations,
all the things He revealed for 3 and 1/2 years,
and they received that truth, they believed that truth. And eventually, they wrote
down that truth for you and I. It's called the New
Testament, the words of God. So then, true
believers are those who receive God's
communicated truth, which happens to be the
business of the Church, to communicate God's truth. So the most important
things about the Church are not the parking
lot and the nursery. They may be important, but
they're not the most important. The most important
things of the Church are worship and the word,
worship and the word. You know, people
will grade churches. They'll go to a
church and then they may take a little
Yelp survey and grade what they like and dislike. But usually, when
we grade churches, we grade on what they do for me. Do they make me feel good? Are they friendly to me? Do they have programs
for me, et cetera? That's how we grade it. When God grades churches,
He has two simple questions, do they glorify Me, and
do they preach My word? Do they glorify Me? Do they preach My word? That's part of the
Great Commission. Matthew 28, some of
the last words Jesus said to His followers. "Make disciples of
all nations," listen, "teaching them to observe all
that I have commanded you." Now, the disciples heard that. And as we keep reading
on, they did that. In Acts chapter 2, when
the Church was born, they made that a priority,
teaching people, teaching the truth, communicating
God's revealed truth, the words of God. And so we have a
summary statement of the activity of the Church
in the book of Acts in chapter 2 verse 42 that says this. "They continued
steadfastly," or another translation, "They devoted
themselves wholeheartedly." They continued steadfastly
in the Apostles' doctrine, fellowship, breaking of
bread, and prayers, those four activities. They devoted
themselves constantly, the Apostles' doctrine,
fellowship, breaking bread, prayer. First on their list was
the Apostles' doctrine. That's noteworthy,
because that would not be first on a lot
of people's list. A lot of people
list say the church should be, number one, love. That's important, but it's
not at the top of that list. Or number one, missions. That's important, but it's
not on the top of the list. Or teaching your family,
that's important, but not on the top of the list. The Apostles' doctrine is
on the top of the list. They were devoted to doctrine. They devoted themselves
to the Apostles' doctrine. Honestly, how many Christians
that are devoted to doctrine? You may want a fun little
exercise this week. Go up to a Christian you
know and say, quick question. Are you devoted to doctrine? You'll get some strange
looks, guaranteed, and maybe even
stranger requests, or excuse me, responses. Are you devoted to doctrine? Now, why is doctrine the first
of the list in Acts chapter 2? It's simple, because the word
of God teaches us how to love, teaches us how to pray,
teaches us how to worship, teaches us how to do missions,
teaches us how to serve people, teaches us how to
raise our kids. So then the
preaching of the word is central to the very
definition of the Church. This is why, when
missionaries generally go into an area that has been
unreached with the gospel, the first thing they do is
get a translation of the Bible in the language of those people. They'll spend years doing it. They want to take and
get a written copy in the language of the local
people of the New Testament, in the very least, a
gospel, because they want to communicate
the truth and show them what the Bible says about life. Now, if you've
ever come to church here for more than
a few times, you notice that we have a
pretty predictable pattern. And you've gotten used
to it, and most of you've come to love it. But you know, it's
possible to come and think things like, well,
every time I come, it's sort of the same gig, sing
some songs, guy gets up there, opens a book, talks,
and talks, and talks about what that book says. And you do that every week. Couldn't you just change
it up a little bit? Couldn't we have a
puppet show one week? I don't know, a raffle,
an interpretive dance. Short answer, no if you
want to stay Biblical. And we want to stay Biblical. When Paul spoke to Timothy-- OK, let's give God
glory for that. [APPLAUSE] The last letter
that Paul gave to Timothy, the very last thing he
wrote was 2 Timothy. And this is what he said, "I
charge you, Timothy, before God and before Jesus
Christ, who will judge the living in the
dead, preach the word." That was his last command
to him, preach the word. That's what we need,
preach the word. Don't preach to me your opinion. Don't give me some
little aphorism that can be tweeted later
because it sounds cool. Preach the word,
be instant or ready in season and out of
season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all long
suffering and teaching. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine. So preach the word. Now, when we do that,
when the word is preached, when God is glorified and
when the word is preached and we listen to it
and we receive it, something happens to us. First thing that
happens to us is joy. Truth produces joy. Truth produces happiness. I want you to see how Jesus
correlates joy and truth. Look at verse 13. "But now, I come to
You," that is in prayer, "and these things I
speak in the world, that they may have My joy
fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Your
word, and the world has hated them because
they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." So Jesus spoke truth
to his disciples in sermons, in
conversations with the lost, in conversations with people
from all walks of life. The disciples for 3 and 1/2
years listened to those words, and it produced joy in them. Even though the
world around them hated them, hounded them,
hassled them, they were joyful. So let's apply that. How can a person have joy
in a world that hates God? How can a person have joy in
a world that hates Christians? How can a person have joy in
a world that is falling apart? Answer, God's word produces joy. God's word produces happiness. It's filled with
promise after promise to sustain you in the
worst times of life. Last week, we noted how
mental health in our country and other countries in the world
is suffering over the last 10 months due to the lock down. There are several
studies on this. We shared some of them with you. We talked about how
depression is on the rise, suicides are on the rise,
all because of isolation. What I didn't tell you is
the flip side of that truth. Numbers of studies
have been done showing that going to
church on a regular basis is good for one's mental health. A new poll suggests that though
mental health has tanked, it has tanked with the
exception of one group. And guess who that group is? Y'all, regular churchgoers. The Gallup organization
put out an article entitled Americans'
Mental Health Ratings Sink to a New Low. And they're talking about
the last 10 months of lock down around the world and in
our country, in particular. The article says,
"Americans' assessment of their mental health is worse
than it has been at any point in the last two decades." In the last 20 years,
right now, we're at the lowest level
of mental health. And it says this. "Those who seldom or never
attend religious services have the lowest ratings, whereas
frequent attenders rank highest in excellent mental health." Now, I'm going to be risky here. I'm going to take a little risk. I'm going to divide the
whole world into two groups. We have on one side,
people of the world. And we have over here,
people of the word. People of the world,
people of the word. People of the world who
don't have the word of God, the promises of God, the truths
of God, the scripture of God. People of the word who
do have the truth of God, the scriptures of God,
the promise of God. People of the world
are happy when happy things happen to them. When the happenings are
happy, they're happy. Oh, I'm so happy because you
just did something nice to me and made me happy. There's happy happenings
around me, so I'm happy. But it's up and down, up and
down, up and down, up and down. Right now, it's really,
really, really, really down. People of the word
have a fixed point. They're reoriented
to glorifying God, they're shaped by
the word of God, and they have a joy
whether things are up or things are down. Amen. David wrote this
in Psalm 119:1-2. He said, "Happy are the people
who follow the law of the Lord. Happy are those who obey His
decrees and search for Him with all their hearts." Down in verse 35 of that
psalm, "make me walk along the path of Your
commands, for that is where my happiness is found." So truth produces
happiness, produces joy. There's a second upshot of
this, and that is, truth produces holiness. Look at verse 15. We're going to close on this. "I do not pray that You should
take them, my followers out of the world, but that
You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world,
just as I am not of the world." Here it is. "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent me into
the world, I have also sent them into the world. And for their sakes,
I sanctify myself, that they also may be
sanctified by the truth." The word sanctify is a
word that means, make holy. It's the word [SPEAKING GREEK],,
and it means to be holy, to be different,
or to be separate. The scriptures make you clean. This is the best bar
of soap I know of. This will clean you
up like nothing else. Jesus said to his
followers, now you are clean because of the word
that I have spoken to you. That's how you get clean. Psalm 119:9, "How shall a
young man cleanse his way? By taking heed
according to your word." Now, let me just press
this a little bit. That's true, especially as we
gather together to hear it. Now, why? Why do you keep saying,
gathering together? Because that was Jesus'
intention when He said, I'm going to build my
church, Matthew 16. But here's why. When we're together
hearing truth, there is a public
accountability. I'm hearing the
same thing you're hearing I saw you in the room
when that truth went out. It's a public responsibility,
a public affirmation. Again, it is positive
peer pressure. Tim Keller wrote
this, "Sanctification can happen on the spot. As we sit under a
gospel preaching and engage in corporate
worship, there are times when the Holy Spirit
takes the scripture read, the prayers spoken, the chorus
sung, or the truth preached, and presses it right to
the point of our need, and not merely informs
our Christian walk, but heals us in that moment." This is the value of
hearing truth together. So why do we exist? What is the purpose
of the Church? What did Jesus have
in mind when he said, I'm going to build my Church? We're a group that
demonstrates God's glory, and we're a group that
communicates God's truth. What does that mean
to you personally? Number one, learn
to glorify God. Here's a simple
question as you leave. What if, from this day
forward, from right now on-- OK, this is the line. We put it down. And now, we're going to walk
on the other side of that line. And what if from
now on, everything we said and did and planned
went through the filter of, does this glorify God? Would we Tweet the same way? Would we text the same way? Would we talk the same way? Would we whisper to our wives
and husbands the same way? Would we plan our
lives the same way? Probably not, if we lived
for the glory of God, if our goal was to
make God famous. And then the follow up, learning
to respond to God's word, learning to respond to something
that produces joy and holiness. You want to really be happy
and filled with purpose? Be shaped by the word of God. Father, thank You for Your word. Thank You for the opportunity
to hear it week in and week out, to study it not only in our
quiet time alone, but also in our corporate time like this. And we who are
sitting next to others realize that there is
that public affirmation and public accountability,
that positive peer pressure that is set up. I pray that we would be
Your people, who are all about giving You glory and all
about communicating Your truth, not just communicating
it to others, but as we hear it,
being shaped by it. For we ask it in
Jesus' name, Amen. We hope you enjoyed this special
service from Calvary Church. We'd love to know how
this message impacted you. Email us at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder, you can
support this ministry with a financial gift at
calvarynm.church/give. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church. [PENSIVE MUSIC]
