Your Personal Life

The point: Out of faith and love, obey resolutely the word of Christ, understanding that attachment to His person and strict adherence to His words are inseparable.

Martin uses the dual meaning of 'cleave' (to separate, as with a meat cleaver, and to be attached, as in marriage) to emphasize that Barnabas's exhortation to 'cleave unto the Lord' means to be tenaciously attached.

With the purpose of heart, they would cleave unto the Lord. I love that exhortation. You know the word cleave is one of those words that can mean opposite things. You have a meat cleaver that separates meat and bone on a chopping table.

18:15 - 18:35 Read in full sermon

The point: Bring all of your thinking concerning all things into conformity to the wisdom of Christ.

He uses the imagery of wrestlers going for a takedown to illustrate the vigorous military imagery of 'casting down imaginations' and bringing every thought into captivity to Christ.

into conformity to the wisdom of Christ. Colossians two and verse three, has this very simple but amazing statement. In Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. In Jesus Christ and what the Scripture reveals about Him and what He reveals to us concerning every realm of created reality, all of our thinking must be brought in conformity to the wisdom that is hidden in Christ and is unfolded out of Christ as we shall see in the pages of Scripture. 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 5 has a very vigorous military imagery of the same thing. 2 Corinthians 10 and verse number 5. Casting d...

25:06 - 26:16 Read in full sermon

The point: Bring all of your behavior concerning all of life into conformity to the will of Christ.

Martin uses the term 'brainwashing' in a positive sense to describe the process of having one's mind cleansed of carnal thoughts and brought into obedience to Christ.

Those thoughts, casting them down and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Every thought active to the obedience of Christ. You say that sounds like brainwashing. Yes, it is.

26:41 - 27:07 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He clarifies that resolute obedience means bringing all thinking into conformity to Christ's wisdom and all behavior into conformity to His will, warning that a profession of…

He extends the parable of the two builders, describing the house built without a foundation as looking good in ordinary days but collapsing into rubble during a flood, symbolizing a sham profession of faith that will fail in the day of judgment.

a little piddling thing. The Lord says, no, every one, every one that comes to me, every one that comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you to whom he is like. He's like a man building a house who digged and went deep and laid a foundation upon the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been well-builted. But he that hears and does not, he hears.

32:04 - 32:37 Read in full sermon

Driving home: To claim that we have a heavenly birth and we are not marked by universal holiness.

Martin quotes John Owen on the two greatest 'undoing lies': thinking one can be in God's kingdom without new birth, and claiming heavenly birth without universal holiness, to underscore the necessity of holiness.

Under the eye of God before whose eye all things are naked and laid bare, and therefore every aspect of my heart and my life, all that makes me flesh and spirit, is to be pursuing energetically, deliberately universal holiness of life. John Owen said many things for which I am eternally grateful. And I'll never forget when I first read his statement. He said there are no greater undoing lies than these two lies that destroy the souls of men.

43:37 - 44:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Live a life so radically different from the world that others ask for the reason of your hope, and then tell them you find fullness in Christ.

He uses the metaphor of believers as 'salt of the earth' to illustrate that their radically different lives should have a checking, restraining influence on the putrefaction of society.

And God calls you to a radical separation from it. To the end that you and I may be what? You are the salt of the earth. That our lives are so radically different that they are sprinkled upon the putrefaction of society and they have a checking restraining influence on us.

51:38 - 52:00 Read in full sermon