After a Building Program: Primary Dangers

Introduction: A New Epoch and Primary Dangers

0:02 The following sermon was preached on the evening of January the 11th, 1981, when the Trinity Church was conducting its first Lord's Day services in the new building in Montville, New Jersey.

0:32 Last Lord's Day evening marked the close of the first 14 years of our church life. A period that I entitled last Lord's Day evening, the nomadic period of our church life. And during that time, we met in and used no fewer than nine different buildings for stated church meetings and functions, not counting the many buildings that had to be used for weddings and other functions. And so for those of you unfamiliar with our history, using the name of the church as a symbol of our church life, using the name of the church as a symbol of our church life, using the term the nomadic period of our church life is not poetic excess or an exaggeration for the sake of effect. It's simply a statement of fact. And on the occasion of that last service marking the end of our nomadic period, I set before you three categories of concern. I gave you a brief history of that nomadic period, and then the fundamental lesson, which God has taught us during that period, particularly the lessons concerning church life, the nature of the church, the priorities of the church, and the path of blessing for the church.

1:55 And then finally, some of the cardinal blessings received from the hand of God during that period of our nomadic life. The unity and peace, the significant growth, ministries that literally have touched, the ends of the earth, the provision of all of our needs, and then the crowning blessing of all, the manifest, felt presence of God in the midst of our life together. Now tonight, I wish to carry on from that conclusion of one period of our church life, and to direct your attention to the concerns as this new epoch of our church life opens, and to direct your attention to the concerns as this new epoch of our church life opens, opens, before us. And I want to speak to you tonight on the subject of the primary dangers which confront us as we enter this new epoch of church life. The primary dangers which confront us. Then God willing, two weeks from tonight, we'll address ourselves to the subject, the basic challenges and opportunities which confront us as we enter this next week.

3:11 Well then you say, what happens next Lord's Day? Well I don't know what the subject will be, because we will have the joy of having Pastor Blaise ministering morning and evening, and I'm not sure what his text or subject matter will be. I have confidence in the Lord that it will be to our edification. Now this motif is obviously a motif of warning and of challenge.

The Relevance of Deuteronomy 8 and How to Approach Warnings

3:36 The motif that is obviously set forth in the passage that was read, in your hearing, Deuteronomy chapter 8. And this passage has peculiar relevance, because it, along with the other sections immediately preceding and following it, were addressed to the people of God as one very significant period in their life was coming to a close, and a new period was opening before them. You will notice, in Deuteronomy chapter 9 and verse 1, that God specifically states, Hear, O Israel, thou art to pass over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than thyself. From a situation of forty years of wandering, they are to pass over the Jordan, they are to dispossess the nations in case, and they are to become a settled people. No longer will they be nomadic wanderers, having the existence of pilgrims in that sense, but they will become the settled dwellers in Canaan. Now while it would be a tragic mishandling of the word of God

5:05 to make a one-to-one parallel between their situation of transition and ours, it is nonetheless true that because human nature never changes, because God never changes, and because His ways with His people are fundamentally the same in every dispensation, it is proper to see in this motif that unfolds from the mind and hand of God in the transition period a framework by which we as a congregation ought to be able to govern. We ought to be able to govern. We ought to be able to govern. We ought to be able to govern.

5:41 We ought to be able to govern. We ought to be able to govern. to be regulated, the framework of warning and of challenge. And so tonight we give the first half of what really should be one message, but neither time nor my preparation would permit me to handle both subjects tonight. And so tonight we address ourselves to the primary dangers which confront us as we enter this new epoch of our church life. Now I want to say just a word about what I mean by primary dangers, then a word about how to approach such a subject, and then I will address myself to five of these primary dangers. Now I've used the word primary purposefully. All the sins and all of the failures of all of the people of God recorded in the Bible and in the history of the church.

6:35 Our sins and failures to which we as the Trinity Church are vulnerable. There is no sin ever committed by the people of God at any period in the history of the people of God of which we are not capable and to which we are not vulnerable. It is in the light of that very fact that the scripture warns us in such passages as 1 Corinthians 10, wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth. Take heed, lest he fall. And in the context, the apostle has recorded the sins of the congregation of Israel in the wilderness, sins of idolatry and sins of fornication. And he says to a New Testament church with all the privileges of the ministry of the apostle Paul, the apostle Peter, and the ministry of Apollos, he says to this church, take heed. Let anyone who thinks he's beyond such sins, let any church that thinks it is beyond such sins, take heed, lest it or he fall. And surely in the light of our Lord's warnings to the churches of the Revelation, as recorded in Revelation chapter 2 and 3, when such churches as the church at Ephesus have to be threatened with

7:59 the removal of their lampstand, unless they repent of the sin of losing their first love, how can we think that we are exempt from any such sins? But I want to address myself to those sins which are our primary dangers, given the peculiar history that we have as a church, and given the peculiar chemistry of our congregation in its present expression. So much about why I use the word primary. Now, I want to speak briefly about why I use the word primary. I want to speak briefly about the matter of how we should engage in such an exercise and to do so to our profit. If we consider the primary dangers that face us on the threshold of this new epoch of our church life, but consider them in the wrong way, they will only lead to despair or to a form of spiritual paralysis. There is a right way and a wrong way of considering the dangers that face us on the threshold of this new epoch of our church life. But consider the major dangers, and being Julia painted on the RIGHT way, by which way we can best describe them. If we simply

9:14 look at the dangers in the magnitude and horror of their reality, and at our own potential, and our own capacity to fall prey to them, it will either lead us, I say, to despair or to paralysis, or to something worse than either, a combination of both. And I would submit to you that the proper way to engage in such is first of all when the danger is articulated to confess our helplessness and vulnerability to that danger. The language of Jeremiah 10.23 is most appropriate at this point.

9:52 The prophet cries out, It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. The prophet felt something of his own helplessness and vulnerability and he cries out of that inner consciousness of helplessness and vulnerability.

10:14 It is not in man that walks to direct his steps. And so as these specific and primary dangers are set before you and your own conscience as it interacts with the Word and your knowledge of yourself and of this congregation say an amen to the reality of the danger, even as you hear it, let your heart have dealings with God confessing your helplessness and your vulnerability. But then secondly, such an exercise should cause us to cry to God for grace to avoid the very sins that are set before us. Surely our Lord has taught us this.

10:57 When ye pray, say, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it was in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Our Lord assumes that part of our daily consciousness is our helplessness and vulnerability in the presence of evil and therefore that we will cry to our Father in heaven for our daily bread.

11:36 For grace that we will not succumb to that evil. The prayer of Psalm 119 and verse 117 again is most appropriate. The psalmist cried out, Hold thou me up and I shall be safe. You see, his consciousness of vulnerability did not lead him to despair or to paralysis, but it led him to cry to God for grace to avoid the sins that he knew, left to himself he would commit.

12:10 And then thirdly, such an exercise ought to lead us to perpetual watchfulness lest we fall into these sins. Jesus said in Matthew 26, 41, Watch as well as pray that ye enter not into temptation. It is not enough for us to pray and to look off to the living God and to His Son for strength and grace, not to fall. But then we have the responsibility to do as we sang in the hymn, to watch as if everything depended upon our watchfulness and then to pray as if all depended upon the grace and power of God.

12:52 And that note of watchfulness comes through in the warning to the seven churches. Revelation 3 and verse 2. Watch and strengthen the things that remain but are ready to die. 2 Peter 3, 17.

13:06 Peter, admonishes the Christians to be watchful lest they fall from their own steadfastness. So then, as I set before you these primary dangers, may I urge you, even as they are being addressed, seek to discipline your mind and heart to be doing those three things concurrently. Saying, O Lord, that's true. I'm vulnerable.

13:31 We are vulnerable. O Lord, it is not in man who walks to direct his steps, and then be crying to God even as the Word is preached. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil and then determine to be watchful, to have the watchfulness that is as intense as though the whole future well-being of Trinity Church rested upon your shoulders alone. To be as watchful as though the whole future course of the church depended on what happens to you in the presence of these dangers.

Danger 1: Forgetfulness of God's Dealings

14:07 May God give us grace then so to approach these matters. What then are the specific and primary dangers that we face as we enter this new epoch of our church life? Well, let me suggest from the passage in Deuteronomy, the first primary danger that we face is the danger of forgetfulness. The danger of forgetfulness.

14:38 Will you turn, please, to Deuteronomy chapter 4. It's in this same basic section.

14:48 The children of Israel are about to close out this one strategic period of their lives and enter another. And God says in Deuteronomy 4.9, Only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently,

15:10 lest, thou forget, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes saw, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life, but make them known unto thy children and thy children's children. And then He begins to specify the things which they saw in the previous epoch of their dealings with God, which would never be possible. It would never be repeated in the history of the nation as it entered this new epoch of life under the sovereignty of God. But the fact that they passed out of one period and into another was no warrant to forget the specific dealings of God with them. God says, Take heed, lest you forget. And then He begins to enumerate the specific things that were the tokens and the manifest, the manifestations of God's grace and favor to His people. Well, that same note is sounded in the passage that was read in your hearing, Deuteronomy 8 and verse 2.

16:23 And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness. We are to avoid this danger of forgetfulness. Forgetfulness as it impinges first of all upon the specific events and dealings of God with us. The Deuteronomy 4.9 and following passage indicates that when God says don't forget, He's talking about specific events here in Deuteronomy 8.2. It's all summed up in the phrase all the way which the Lord thy God led thee. And included in that all the way were the specific dealings of God with His people.

17:14 Then not only are they summoned not to forget the specific events, but they are called upon not to forget the manner of God's dealings with them. Look at Deuteronomy 8.5. And thou shalt consider in thy heart in other words, don't forget not only what God did, but how He did it.

17:36 Thou shalt consider in thy heart that as a man chastened chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. Remember not only what God did, but the manner in which He did it. He did it as a loving Father. Discipline in training His Son to bring Him to maturity.

18:00 And later on in this chapter He says He did it as a covenant-keeping God. Verse 18. Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God for He it is that giveth thee power to get wealth. And then He mentions, I'm sorry, I thought it was verse 18, that He might fulfill the covenant made with thy fathers.

18:24 Yes, verse 18, that He may establish His covenant which He swear unto thy fathers. In other words, God says remember, not in some general vague sense, but as you reflect upon your past history, remember the specific manifestations of God's dealings with you. Then remember the manner of His dealings with you as a loving, principled Father, as a covenant-keeping God. And then He says thirdly, remember the specific lessons and ends of His dealings with you.

19:00 Back to verse 2 of chapter 8. All the way which the Lord thy God led thee, that, here's the purpose, that He might humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger. You see, there was a divine purpose in all of the divine activity of God as a Father and a covenant-keeping God.

19:30 And God says don't forget those purposes. Don't forget the lessons and the ends for which God dealt with you in the way that He did. Well, you see, the principle is clear enough in the passage. And certainly, its appropriateness for us as a congregation should be evident.

19:50 It is God who has led us out of that 14-year period of nomadic life. It is God who has brought us to this hour tonight. It is God who will never again bring us by that path which many of us have come down each step of the way. And it would be, it would be wrong for us out of some kind of carnal nostalgia to long for those old paths.

20:17 No, no. The purposes of God go onward. But God has not called us out of those paths to forget them. He has not led us into a new path to forget the God who...

20:33 But as with the children of Israel, we should reflect upon the specific events of God's dealings with us. We should reflect upon the manner of His dealings with us. We should constantly reflect upon the lessons and ends of His dealings with us. And those of us who have been a part of these things have a solemn responsibility not to forget.

21:00 But it doesn't stop there. We have a responsibility to pass that legacy on to our children and to our children's children. We cannot expect them to relive that. That history.

21:16 Many of them, think of it, will know nothing about meeting in school buildings. They will know nothing about the trials connected with the purchase of this land, the various permissions needed for construction and the prostration. They'll know nothing of that. All they'll remember is those lovely light-colored walls that when consciousness dawned upon them, they found themselves in the nursery and a little later on in a Sunday school room and then hopefully on into phase two.

21:47 That's all they'll know. But there's a wonderful word of instruction in Psalm 78 that speaks to all of us in terms of our responsibility. Psalm 78, verse 1. Give ear, O my people, to my law.

22:09 Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard in the past. Heard and known.

22:21 And our fathers have told us we will not hide them from their children. Telling to the generation to come the praises of Jehovah and His strength, but not in the abstract. Notice the last phrase.

22:41 Which He hath done.

22:44 There's the great responsibility that is incumbent upon us. And it's only as those of us who have passed through that former period, and stand on the threshold of the new period, it is only as we who have been a part of that history treasure it up in our minds and in our hearts.

23:10 Remembering the manner in which He has done it as a loving Father and a faithful covenant God and the great ends for which He did it to teach us that we should not live by bread alone. Churches do not live by church buildings alone. We lived for, oh, fourteen years without a proper church building and we're not yet in a proper church building as such. We're in a social hall worshiping tonight.

23:37 God has sought to teach us that. He has sought to humble us by our disappointments. He has humbled us by our frustrations. Well, God expects those of us who've been a part of that history not to forget.

23:53 And one of the surest ways to jog your own memory is to sit your own child or your grandchild or someone else's child on your knee and tell him the mighty works of God that we have witnessed. Both faithfulness of God. Tell him, tell them how God took a little group of some forty or fifty people and called them into a life of determination that they would obey the Scriptures in every area as God gave them light and strength. Tell them how God forged them into a place of faith.

24:30 How people determined that they would worship in the simplicity of Biblical and New Testament worship without all the carnal trappings of professional ecclesiastical machinery. Tell them how that group of people did a foolish thing and took on missionary commitments before they had any building of their own. Tell those specifics of God's mighty works. Boast of God's faithfulness.

25:01 That God brought such a people into land and buildings at this present time representing an expenditure of over $600,000 with no indebtedness to a soul on the outside of the church family. Tell them what God did in causing some of His people with joy to empty out savings accounts and get rid of precious jewelry. Both of what God did in giving a willing spirit. Tell these things to your children and to your children's children.

Danger 2: Pride in Possessions and Accomplishments

25:39 Oh, may God help us to be conscious of the danger of forgetfulness. But then there is a second great danger and it's on the very surface of this passage in Deuteronomy. And it's the danger of pride. That vicious, wicked sin.

26:02 Rarely confessed by any. But the people of God.

26:08 That sin in which the heart swells with a desire to share God's glory as the giver of every good and perfect gift and as the end of all of His gifts. Well, in Deuteronomy chapter 8, God was very conscious of this danger. Now notice. Though the hearts of the children of Israel were susceptible to pride in the wilderness, God knew that...

26:36 That the temptation would be nowhere near as intense in the wilderness as it would be when they became settled in the land. Notice the language beginning with verse 11. Beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God in not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I command you this day. Lest when you have eaten and art full and hast built goodly homes.

27:04 Something they never had before. Only had. Now they're going to have homes. Goodly homes.

27:10 And dwell therein. And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied, then thy heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God. You see what he's saying? The very blessings which the new epoch, the new epoch, the new epoch of their life as the people of God would bring, God says, could become their curse.

27:44 It was God who was giving them that land and all that was connected with it. But he says, I recognize the terrible potential of your heart that it will be lifted up with pride on the occasion of the very gifts that I give you, not to turn your heart away from me, but to cause you to love me the giver all the more. But I know the perversity of the human heart, that it will turn aside from the giver and attach itself to the gifts. And so God warns them of the danger of pride, pride in what they possess in the goodness of God, and then according to verse 17, pride in how they came to possess it.

28:26 Look at verse 17. And lest thou say in thy heart, My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth. Well, you see, it was only by forgetting their history that they could say that. When they crossed over the Jordan, what was the first great city to meet them?

28:50 It was the city of Jericho. Those walls down, they just marched around. And God in that first great conquest was saying, Listen, as you come into the land, I am the God who gives you this land, and what I do with Jericho, though I may use your sword and your military might in the other, your victories, this is the bottom line. I give you this land.

29:30 And so they were tempted to pride in terms of what they possessed and in how they came to possess it. And so there was the double sin of glorying in the gift at the expense of the giver and misconstruing the origin of those gifts. Now you see the application to us, do you not? It was pretty hard to have pride in certain aspects, aspects of our church life when we were meeting over in that junior high school.

30:02 I mean, there wasn't much you could do to take a person by the arm and say, I want you to come to church with me and see the lovely place we meet. Stage props all over the place, graffiti on the chairs, paint floating down on your head if you sat in the wrong place. And I have seen what's happened when people who've been helped by the tape ministry and when they knew something of how God had caused in the language of the Bible, our vines to spill over the wall and to extend the ministry of this assembly to the ends of the earth. And they came expecting to see some ornate cathedral or something that would at least approach, something that could be called a proper house of worship. And I've watched their faces when I've driven up to the little building in Runnymede Road. And then I've heard them mumble and stumble and swallow their words while they tried to be polite and yet at the same time, express their great disappointment. Well, it's kind of hard to be proud of those things.

31:06 But you see, the danger is much more real now, isn't it? Anyone with a sense of aesthetics drives by on the outside, sees the lovely parking lot, well lighted tonight, and sees the appointments that eventually will make this interior lovely and hopefully phase two. And oh, how subtly we could begin to set our affection upon the gift and forget the giver and to have our hearts lifted up with pride and then to have pride in terms of how it came to us. Ohh, I was a part of that.

31:47 Whoa, look back and remember how we trembled when we thought of what it would cost to raise the building and said, How can we do it? Some of us remember when one of our men who is a businessman came and met with the board and sat down. and said, look, on paper, we're never going to be able to build that building. Here are our assets.

32:07 This is what we get towards the building fund. But this is what inflation is doing. And every month, we don't begin construction. A building gets further and further away from us.

32:18 Some of us remember very vividly that from the standpoint of statistics, we should not be sitting here tonight, let alone sitting here without debt. But here we are.

32:31 Now, how come our wealth did not get us this? It was the work of God's mighty power in the hearts of men. And may God have mercy upon us if we ever forget that. Oh, how real is the danger of pride.

32:50 May our boast and our glory be not in the gifts, but in the giver. Let him that glorieth glory in this, in that he knoweth me, that I am the Lord. Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. What have you?

Danger 3: Carelessness and Drifting from Truth and Love

33:08 That you did not receive. May God make us watchful with respect to the sin of pride. But then there is a third great danger that we face as we enter this new epoch of church life. Not only the danger of forgetfulness and of pride, but the danger of carelessness.

33:30 The danger of carelessness.

33:35 Now, this is not a matter directly addressed in the Deuteronomy passage, but obviously it breathes throughout the very atmosphere of that passage. The warnings, in a sense, could all be summed up under the heading of spiritual carelessness. Once there is a sense of being settled, it is easy to become careless. You see, there was a sense in which, when in the wilderness, you knew that if God didn't send the manna, you starved to death.

34:09 There was a lot more pressure on you to make sure that you behaved yourself and kept in right relationship with that God. But when you can sit back and look out at fields that are full of crops coming to ripened harvest time, even though you are as much dependent upon God, and God could send a hailstorm or enemies to destroy them, it's a lot easier to assume that all is well because of what you see. Likewise, with us as a congregation, when we knew we were dependent upon, from the human side, the whims of the Board of Education as to whether or not we'd have a place to meet, there's a pressure on us to walk a straight line before God. Is there not? Lest we grieve and quench His Spirit to walk carefully and humbly before God. But oh, how easy it would be, knowing that by the grace of God we hold the title to the building. And soon we'll hold the title to all of the land.

35:11 To grow careless and to have that subtle erosion of our sense of spiritual watchfulness, which is not only the price of political liberty, but of spiritual liberty and blessing as well. It's bound up in such a word as that which is given to us in Hebrews 2 and verse 1. Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should drift away from them. Now notice, the warning is not against an open repudiation of things.

35:55 That comes later. There are warnings about those who willfully sin, who trample underfoot the blood of Christ and count it an unholy thing. That's a warning. Against a willful, resolute turning away from Christ and the Gospel.

36:14 But that's not the warning in Hebrews 2.1. It is the warning of drifting. Now you see the imagery, don't you?

36:21 Some of you have been out in a boat, in a situation where you had a rather strong current on a river, or where there were strong tidal flows, and you pick up anchor, and you don't feel that you're moving at all, and you drift off into a sleep, or you're so busy, casting out and reeling in and casting out. Before long, you don't know where you are. You've lost all your bearings. What's happened?

36:45 You've drifted away from your point of reference. You've just drifted. That's all. Just drifted.

36:51 And people drift to destruction.

36:55 And so the writer to Hebrews says, We must do what? Give earnest heed, lest we drift. There's the warning against carelessness. And this is a very real.

37:09 danger to us. Should we have a jaundiced eye with respect to God's gifts? No. Should we wish we were back in rented buildings and at the mercy of the whims of a board of education?

37:23 No. God has new purposes and new conquests for the gospel through this congregation. But our dangers likewise are new. And there is this danger to carelessness that stands before us.

37:37 And we need by the grace of God to be aware of it. Let me apply it specifically in one or two areas. We need to beware of carelessness with respect to our tenacious clinging to the truth of the Word of God. When we had no building of our own, people would ask the question and say, Well, why in the world do you go to a rented building to an outfit that has no real class in terms of what churches are supposed to have?

38:05 And your answer was, Because there I receive the truth. And when you were asked what truth you were able to give a reason of the hope that was in you. There was a sense that the only rationale for your identification with this congregation was your knowledge of and commitment to the truth. Oh, how easy it would be to have that eroded through carelessness.

38:30 It'll be a lot more respectable once we get the rug down and the curtains up to be found here than in some other place. It'll be more respectable to be identified Identified with a church that has a proper building. A lot more respectable, you see. And with that respectability can come the spirit of carelessness.

38:53 God help us if we become careless with respect to an intelligent, tenacious clinging to the truth, lest we become careless with respect to a fervent, and I use the word in its highest, loftiest connotation of fervent and passionate love to the Son of God. Oh, when I think of Revelation chapter 2, I shudder. There's that Ephesian church born in the fire of persecution. Read about it in Acts chapter 19.

39:29 There's that church that was such a delight to the apostle that in his letter with six chapters, there is not one explicit rebuke given.

39:41 That church which even after some years the Lord Jesus could say as He does in Revelation 2, I know your works. And He speaks of their zeal for purity. They are disciplining heretics who show up in their ranks. They are zealous, abounding in works.

39:59 But He says, I have somewhat against thee. Thou hast left thy first love. And when all has been said about the first love and all has been written, as one friend of mine says, you know what it means to lose your first love? It means exactly what it seems to me.

40:19 It means to lose your first love. That love that characterizes in the language of Jeremiah the day of our espousals to Christ, when our eyes were first opened and we came to the discovery that Jesus Christ was perfectly suited to us in all of our sin, and when the Holy Spirit opened our eyes and turned our hearts, and we were enabled to embrace the Lord Jesus, we felt there was not enough time in every day to serve Him, not enough words in the tongue to speak of Him, not enough hours to seek His face and to serve Him. We have mercy upon us if we lose that first love. It is the pulse and the life of true religion. And though every Christian, is always in danger of losing it, there is something about the more settled, respectable situation into which we have begun to enter, and which will even be intensified, God willing, when phase two goes up, and we then meet in a proper, quote, sanctuary for worship. Oh, may God ever keep before us the danger of carelessness, this drifting away from that tenacious, clinging to the truth,

41:44 from a fervent and passionate love to Christ. And thirdly, that carelessness that will lead us to a spirit of indifference to the call of a lost and a dying world. May God help us if we ever get comfortable. We should always feel a sense of holy frustration, wondering where shall we expend our energies?

42:12 Where shall we give up? Where shall we give up? Where shall we give up? Where shall we give up?

42:14 Where shall we give up? Where shall we give up? Where shall we give up our money? What causes shall we be involved in?

Danger 4: Smugness and Self-Satisfaction

42:17 It shouldn't be a matter of looking around for them. It should be the embarrassment of the pressure of need upon our hearts. Beware not only of forgetfulness and of pride, but of carelessness. And then the fourth area of danger that is very peculiar to us at this time is the danger of smugness.

42:43 Now, you won't find the word smugness in the Bible. I don't think you will. The dictionary definition of smugness is to be narrowly contented with our own accomplishments dash self-satisfied. Most of us are disgusted in the presence of smug people because you sense around a smug person that he feels there's nothing he can learn from you, nothing he can receive from you, and it's very demeaning.

43:11 You're in the presence of a smug person and you always feel small. And you feel, what good am I? Do I know everything? If you don't think he does, ask him.

43:21 He'll tell you. He's glad to tell you. Smug people. Narrowly contented with their own accomplishments, self-satisfied.

43:31 Well, you see, it was hard for us to be smug when we had no building, a little place on Runnymede Road where we tried to carry on a number of ministries for which it was hopelessly inadequate. It was difficult to be narrowly contented with our accomplishments and self-satisfied. In that situation. But oh, how easy it will be, particularly now that we've entered this situation.

44:01 Smugness finds perhaps its most scathing exposure again in the book of the Revelation chapter 3 when Jesus says to the church of the Laodiceans, Thou sayest thou art rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. There's smugness. Narrowly contented. Narrowly contented with their own accomplishments.

44:27 Jesus describes them in Revelation 3 and verse 17. What is lukewarmness? Our Lord expounds the answer to that question. Because thou sayest, I'm rich, have gotten riches, have need of nothing.

44:44 Smugness. Trees of knowledge and zeal and usefulness. Content. Accepting the status quo.

44:57 Now that will be a real danger for some of us with regard to phase one. But I'd remind you that's all this is, is phase one. Our goal is under God to see this thing filled up so quickly that we just of necessity have to have phase two built. To have the downstairs room crawling with kids and have to drop some little partitions to level off those walls and bring out some folding doors to turn this into more Sunday school rooms and still be able to push the doors back to have our family suppers.

45:31 To have the inconvenience of crowds and waiting lines at the toilets. That's what we long for. That's what we long for. We haven't entered this to have a nice little comfortable cozed church fellowship.

45:51 God have mercy upon us if in any way that's our perspective. Getting adjusted to growing classes and the growing pains that will come with it. That will come with the administration of larger Sunday school facilities and classes. That will mean burdens and hours of thinking things through and praying and consultation.

46:15 Blessings and inconveniences. Those of us who are parents would never go back to the state where our houses were bereft of children simply because of all the problems our kids have caused us. I don't understand those people. The wife that Linda Sanders interviewed or who handed in a questionnaire.

46:36 Do you remember the... Some of you heard of that.

46:40 I think it was 70% of people who had parented children and were children in their teens said if they had to do all over again they wouldn't have children. What terrible selfishness. Terrible selfishness. What they were saying is the pain, the inconvenience, the demands upon self life that came with being parents weren't worth it.

47:03 And in our hedonistic age, Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. But surely that's not our attitude. It's obviously not the attitude of you who are young parents of real physical children. It's evident that you have the perspective that children are the heritage of the Lord.

47:21 Well, what is true in our homes and in our domestic circles should be true in this assembly. May God ever give us the spirit of Philippians 3. This expresses the opposite of smugness. Look at it.

47:34 In Philippians 3, if any man could have rested on his oars, if any man could have felt that, well, I've pressed on and attained about as much as there is to attain, it was the great Apostle Paul. But he says in Philippians 3.12, Not that I've already obtained or am already made perfect, but I press on. Now notice his great goal.

47:59 If so be that I may lay hold on that. For which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. I love that language. He said, I'll be content with nothing less in my experience than that which God purposed when in grace He laid hold of me.

48:20 I press on, he says, to lay hold of everything for which God in Christ laid hold of me. I press toward the goal. And he says this perspective, though it has a particular reference, to other matters, surely the principle is broad. Let us therefore as many as are perfect or mature be thus minded.

48:44 Here is the mark of true maturity, the absence of smugness, a sense of corporate yearning that God will very soon get evident that we'll have to call CBA and tell them to get out those plans and we're ready to work them over and go ahead with phase two.

49:03 Why? Do we want to build some kind of a dynasty? God knows that's not the motive of our hearts. But that we may see the kingdom of Christ advancing.

49:13 That we may see God molding our sons and our daughters by the teaching ministry that goes on in the classrooms. That as the work of the academy and the tape ministry and then our own witness in this community goes forward, we may have the blessed inconvenience of raw 20th century pagans with all of the baggage that they bring. Into the church when they come out of paganism. Into the Christian faith.

49:43 And it means that some of you will not have as many cozy evenings sitting around just listening to lovely music together. You're going to have to put your arm around some of these converted pagans who don't have a clue about the norms of the Bible for any area of life. And you will have to become nursing mothers. You will have to become compassionates.

50:07 If we had 50 elders of those,

Danger 5: Ingratitude for God's Gifts

50:26 there must be the determination that you will exercise whatever gift and opportunities God has given to you for the benefit of the body of Christ in this place. And then finally, there is the great danger of ingratitude. The danger of ingratitude. We've all seen ingratitude.

50:49 You see the little kid dancing a jig on Christmas morning when he gets that toy that he's wanted and oh, he's all hugs and kisses with mommy and daddy. Can't thank him enough for getting his...

51:02 Two weeks later, he doesn't even look at the thing. And he doesn't even look at you with a gleam in his eye when he looks at the thing. Ingratitude. Once the novelty's gone, all sense of gratitude is gone as well.

51:19 Well, it's very interesting that the sin of ingratitude is put in three settings in the New Testament which make it appear... It's one of the most ugly sins imaginable.

51:30 Look at it in Luke 6.35 where our Lord mentions the sin of ingratitude.

51:41 Luke 6.35 Love your enemies, do them good, lend never despairing, and your reward shall be great, and you shall be sons of the Most High. That is, you will be living as the sons and daughters of God. Now notice.

51:58 For He is kind, toward the unthankful and evil. Isn't that interesting? He describes non-Christians in this two-fold category. They are the unthankful and the evil.

52:17 One of the primary marks of evil men is their ingratitude to God. They soak in His gifts, but they return nothing of gratitude from their hearts. And that's precisely what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1 and verse 21. That's the second.

52:33 It's the third text that underscores the ugliness of ingratitude. Because that, speaking of the heathen who have no revelation but the revelation of God in what we call natural revelation, the revelation of God in creation, because that knowing God, they glorified Him, not His God, neither gave thanks.

52:58 Some of you have wrestled with the naughty question, should I encourage my children to pray even though I have no reason to believe they're sinning? Yes, you better. You better encourage them to pray or they add sin to sin.

53:11 They're to give thanks. You say God doesn't hear their prayer unless it's offered up through Christ. That's right. So in a sense, it's a bad good work.

53:21 It has no merit before God, but it will add the sin of ingratitude to all the other sins. God holds men responsible to give thanks to Him. And when they do not, it's an aggravation of their sin. Neither.

53:38 Neither gave thanks and then turned to 2 Timothy 3 and verse 2 where Paul is describing the aggravated manifestations of sin that will mark the last days. Know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. 2 Timothy 3 Men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful. Unthankful.

54:09 Amidst all of these sins, unthankful. Oh, dear people of God, we saw last week how much we have to give thanks to God for. During our period of nomadic life as a church, how we can thank God for all that He did for us. But how much more now should we thank Him for what He has given to us?

54:38 Adequate Sunday school facilities, large and safer nursery facilities, no time limit on our fellowship, Pastor Dixon notwithstanding.

54:49 Some of you laugh because you were around this morning when he spooked you by coming by and saying with a serious face, five minutes to one, five minutes to one.

55:01 At one o'clock I said it to one brother who grabbed me by the shirt and drew his fist back and feigned that he was going to hit me. At least I think he was feigning.

55:12 But how thankful to God we should be. That we have, seriously, the privilege now of not having that kind of pressure upon us. Adequate, safe parking, room for expansion, no indebtedness to outside institutions, and on and on we could go. Oh, dear people of God, may God not indict us with the sin of ingratitude, but may it be our joy daily to give thanks to God.

55:40 Every time we drive through that driveway, not just the first two weeks, but when the novelty, come on, is the gift any less great? Of course not. And there is, as it were, the constant fingerprint of the goodness of God over all of this. And someone was mentioning in the elders' meeting last night concerning a certain brother that the more they interacted with him, he's no one in our congregation, the thing that struck them, among other things, was his constant thankfulness.

56:12 He saw something in everything for which to give God thanks. And that ought to characterize all of us. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord is the language of the psalmist. The language of the Word of God is forget not all His benefits.

A Word to Unbelievers: The Crowning Sin of Ingratitude

56:31 And I do at this point in conclusion want to bring a word to you who are not Christians. In a sense, this is your crowning sin, the sin of ingratitude. Here you are, a creature of God, endowed with life from God, sustained in that life by God, why are you not raving mad, locked up or chained or in a straitjacket in an institution tonight? Multitudes are.

56:58 But you sit here in sanity of mind. You're not on the verge of death with a terminal illness when there are teenagers and little children as well as middle-aged and older people who are. How good God has been to you to give you life, sustain your life, preserve your life, than to put some of you under the guise of a man. Why are you not raving mad, to hear the sound of the gospel from your infancy, to surround you with praying people, with real Christians who are concerned?

57:27 And above all, He brings to you in the preaching of the Word week by week, day by day at your family altar, He brings you His crowning gift, His own beloved Son. And He sets Him before you and says, Here in my Son is an able and a willing Savior for the neediest of sinners, embraced, embrace my Son, accept the gift of life in my Son. And you know what you do? In the cursed ingratitude of your impenitent heart, you turn away from that gift and despise it as some unclean thing.

58:05 Shame upon you, sinner, young man, old man, young woman, older woman, boy, girl, teenager. Shame upon you for your ingratitude. And what a wonderful thing it would be and it's been the prayer of many of us that God would crown our first day in this building not only with His presence and He has granted us that, not only with joy in the Holy Ghost and He's granted us that, but with saving mercy to some sinner. Oh, are you the one who is the answer to our prayers?

58:40 Are you the one who this night will see the folly of that ingratitude and say, Oh God, I'm done with it. I see my wretched sin of ingratitude and I do embrace Your beloved Son. Oh, that God would crown the labors of this day by bringing you to embrace the salvation that is in Christ. And for us as God's people, with this warning before us, may we be sober.

Responding to the Dangers: Confession, Prayer, and Watchfulness

59:14 These are real. These are primary dangers to us as we pass out, out of our nomadic life into this new epoch of church life. What should we do in the light of these dangers? Let us with one heart confess our vulnerability and our helplessness and say, Oh God, churches more virile, churches more stable than we've ever been have fallen before these sins.

59:44 Oh Lord, it is not in us to direct our steps. Hold us up and we shall be safe. Confess our helplessness and vulnerability. Cry to God that we may avoid these sins.

59:59 That's why one of our great concerns is that we shall see an increase in the midweek service. Not because we keep statistics and we want to feed our egos. In a sense, that's the barometer of how much we as a congregation really feel our danger when we gather together, not primarily, to sing praises to God and to hear the Word of God, but to cry to God that He would have mercy upon us, that He would use us, that He would clothe us with His power, that He would make us as a congregation to be useful in the work of the gospel in our generation. Our prayer meetings are not a time of carnal, spiritual, navel-gazing. And they never will be that while some of us have life and breath to come together and turn inward upon ourselves. They are seasons to turn our eyes that are white unto harvest and to cry to God to send forth laborers to bless the laborers who have gone forth, to cry to Him that He would come upon us and meet us and use us as His people.

61:17 And then, may this meditation be a summons to watchfulness. May God help each of us to feel the weight of responsibility the weight of responsibility that we'd feel if our reaction to these dangers determined the future course of Trinity Church. Until each individual has something of that weight upon his soul, we're in a terribly dangerous position. You've heard the statement, everybody's work is nobody's work unless you assign it to someone to done get done.

61:50 Well, that's true in the church. Oh, yeah, somebody will do the watching, but I don't need to do it. There are enough spiritual people. You've got some of those old gray-haired seasoned saints.

61:59 They'll do it!

62:01 That's the attitude that spells spiritual disaster. It's when we as a congregation feel the pressure of these things upon our hearts that under the blessing of the Spirit of God and looking unto Christ, the author, and thank God, the finisher of our faith, I would be a fanatic and a fool to the highest degree to dare to make any predictions as to what God will do. But as Paul could have some sanctification and sanctified judgment as he viewed providence in God's dealings, I think it is proper to say God has not brought us here as a terminal point, a cul-de-sac, a dead end. No, no.

62:42 God has brought us here that there might be a whole new dimension of the penetration of the gospel into our own Jerusalem in Judea. And in the providence of God, God has graciously done that and it means that all of us must be watchful, must be prayerful, and we must look to Christ who is, thank God, not only the author but the finisher of our faith. What a wonderful thing to know. He is committed as a covenant God to accomplish everything that He purposes for this assembly.

63:15 That's my consolation. That's the consolation of my fellow elders. That's the consolation of your deacons. That's the consolation I trust of everyone who has any spiritual sense, whatever, and may it become a growing conviction God willing, as I said, two weeks from now, if the Lord spares us and brings us together, we'll consider some of the specific challenges and opportunities that are before us.

The Value of Warnings and Conclusion

63:40 I hope you've not found this consideration of the dangers, oppressive and negative. We often get accused, ah, church always talking about sin. Now, unless there's been something entirely different going on in you that's been going on in me, I don't feel oppressed. I feel encouraged that God cares for me.

63:59 God cares enough about me to warn me. I never get mad at a man who says, hey, you're going such and such a place. Well, listen, three miles down the road, watch out, there's a big pothole. I've dropped a tie rod there two weeks ago.

64:10 Be careful. I don't get mad at the guy and say, who in the world are you to warn me?

64:15 Don't you know that that can warp me psychologically?

64:19 Why, when I drive down that road, I always have such a nice smile on my face and now I've got to be looking for that pothole.

64:26 Well, I don't want to indulge carnal humor. It'd be very easy at this point. But you see, you see the point, don't you? There's something fishy when people say, I don't like to be warned.

64:36 You must love potholes and drop tie rods.

64:41 You have more regard for your car than you do for your soul? More regard for your bucket of bolts than for the church of Christ? Then, my friend, you better embrace the warnings and take them to heart and say, thank God, because when David celebrates the blessings of the Word of God in Psalm 19, he puts at the top of the list, moreover, by them, is thy servant warned. And in the keeping of them, there is great reward.

65:10 The reward of grace as we heed the warnings of grace. May God help us so to do. Let us pray.

65:28 Our Father,

65:30 we have directed our thoughts, you have directed our thoughts through the Scriptures to very weighty matters tonight. And we confess from the darkness and the depths of our being a sense of our weakness and vulnerability to each of these five dangers and to a host of others. But we thank you that with the Psalmist we may confess our eyes are ever to the Lord. He will pluck my feet out of the net.

66:04 O Lord, we cry with David, hold us up, and we shall be safe. Baptize our hearts with a sense of individual responsibility. O Lord, deliver any from the hanging on spirit that simply grabs the coattails of the spiritual endeavors of another. O may each of us, by your grace, Holy Father, receive into our hearts the warnings, give you no rest with our prayers that we may be kept from these sins, and then by the Spirit enter anew life of intense and constant watchfulness, independence upon the Lord Jesus, that we may be kept from those sins. We pray for those who are yet strangers to grace. O God, answer our prayer that this day would be the day when some pass out of death and into life. Seal your word to our hearts.

67:12 Thank you for the visitors amongst us. We pray that your lanes be filled out of your perfect knowledge of their needs. Even though these have been more intimate family concerns, grant that there may be something that will find lodgment in their hearts and result in their blessing and edification. Hear our cry and be pleased to meet with us as we gather to the table of our Lord Jesus to remember again the fountainhead from which all our blessings flow.

67:44 Hear our cry and be content Hear our cry and receive our thanks, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.