In Living the Christian Life

Introduction: A New Year's Sermon Series on Crucial Counsel

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, January 6th, 2008, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:14 May I urge you to turn with me in your Bibles to Paul's letter to the church at Colossae, the book of Colossians.

0:26 And while I will not be expounding these verses in detail, but making reference to them in the earlier part of the sermon, I do want us to get them before our minds in a fresh way. Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 through 4.

0:52 The word if, the little Greek word eon, also can be translated since, and this is one of the places where since would be more clear in what the Apostle is saying. Since then you were raised together with Christ. Seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.

1:26 For you died and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall you be seen. Then shall you be seen. Then shall you be seen.

1:40 Then shall you be seen. you also with him be manifested in glory. Let's again pray and ask the help of God in the preaching and hearing of his word. Our Father, we're so thankful that we stand in that great continuum of your people through the ages, that we have been able to take the words of men and women long since dead and put them in our mouths and minds as though they were our own, did we have the ability to put them together as they did.

2:21 We thank you that the work of your grace is the same in every generation. We thank you for the timelessness of your truth. Therefore, we come pleading that by the Holy Spirit, light would be given to us this day, that we may be able to see the light of the Lord. We thank you for the timelessness of your truth. And therefore, we come pleading that by the Holy Spirit, light would be given to us this day, that we may be able to embrace things that by the enabling power of the Spirit will be our companions throughout the days of the coming year, should you spare us and should you delay the coming of your dear Son. Speak to us then with clarity and power. We plead in Jesus' name. Amen.

3:05 Now those of you who have been among us for any length of time know, that I have almost always used the occasion of the first Lord's Day of the new calendar year to preach what could be called a New Year's sermon. In fact, there are several times when I have used that occasion to even bring a brief series of sermons focused upon aspects of God's truth particularly suitable to our entering into a new calendar. In the light of these facts, I believe I am right in assuming that many of you have come to this place today expecting and perhaps even desiring what you would call is a New Year's sermon. Well, I will not disappoint you. This is the first Lord's Day of the year of our Lord, 2008, and I purposed to preach in my original introduction that I wrote, preach a sermon, but as I labored to bring it to its final substance, it became evident to me

4:29 it would take me far too long to preach to you what is upon my heart in one sermon. So this is the first of what will be two or three sermons on a very, very unattractive, plain-Jane title, Crucial Council for the New Year. Again, those of you who have been around here for a long time know that one area in which I was short-changed remarkably as a preacher is the matter of coming up with clever, catchy sermon titles. I have precious little ability, but at least I'm honest.

5:09 It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears. It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears. It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears. It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears.

5:16 It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears. It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears. It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears. It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears.

5:18 It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears. It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears. It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears. It's a plain-Jane title, but I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your ears.

The Undergirding Biblical Principle: Fixing Your Mind on Things Above

5:20 aspects of biblical truth which I believe have a peculiar, we as a people have a peculiar need to refresh our understanding of them or to come to grips with them for the first time, particularly in the light of where we are as a congregation and where we are as men and women living in our nation and in this crazy world as we enter the year 2008. And so I want to preach to you two, possibly three sermons on what I am calling crucial counsel for the new year. And I want to begin, first of all, by setting before you what I'm calling the undergirding biblical principle which supports. And warrants the counsel that I will set before you. The undergirding biblical principle that supports, that warrants the counsel I will set before you. Each of the three words of counsel, the first of which we'll concentrate on this morning, but each of them will begin with these words.

6:36 At the beginning and throughout the coming year, fix your mind. You're going to hear those words three times with respect to these crucial counsels. Each one of the three words of counsel will begin with these words. At the beginning and throughout the coming year, fix your mind upon.

7:05 Now on what biblical basis am I counseling you to fix your mind upon this? Or that thing? Well, the basis is found in the passage that I read to you and read in your hearing from Colossians chapter 3.

7:25 Paul asserted in chapter 2 and verse 12 of all the believers at Colossae, he says of them, having been buried with him in baptism, wherein you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him. From the dead and you being dead through your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he make alive together with him. In this particular text, Paul says that all of the true believers at Colossae have inwardly, spiritually, truly experienced that to which they bore witness in their baptism. In their baptism. In their baptism, they symbolically and sacramentally declared, I have entered into union with Christ in his death and in his burial. I have entered into union with Christ in the power of his resurrection.

8:32 And here now in chapter 3, he says, since then you were raised together with Christ. In other words, these. Words go back to what he's asserted in chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, that all true Christians in union with Christ have died with Christ. All true Christians in union with Christ have been raised with Christ.

9:00 Now he says that has tremendous practical implications. Since then you were raised together with Christ. And then he follows with two imperatives. Seek the things that are above.

9:13 Where Christ is seated on the right hand of God. The second imperative, verse 2, set your mind on the things that are above. Not on the things that are upon the earth. And then the reason with which he buttresses that imperative for you died.

9:37 And your life is hid with Christ in God. So Paul. So Paul on the basis of what every true believer has experienced is bold to say in the light of the fact that you have in union with Christ died to sin in union with Christ. You have been raised to newness of life.

10:01 Now seek the things that are above, which probably refers more to action. But then he goes behind the action. And then the second imperative is set your mind on the things that are above. And he uses a verb in the present imperative form.

10:23 It is a duty, a duty to be perpetually and continually engaged in to think, to form or to hold an opinion. Set your mind. Take your mental faculties consciously. Deliberately, deliberately, continually fix them on the things that are above.

10:48 Now what's the principle that I want to extract from that second imperative? It is simply this. As the people of God united to Christ, we have both the ability and the responsibility deliberately to focus our mental faculties upon. In specific, spiritual realities.

11:16 If the believers at Colossae had neither the duty nor the ability to do something with regard to their mental fixation, this imperative is illicit. He should never have given it. But on the basis of who and what they are in Christ, Paul has no scruples whatsoever, commanding, commanding them in the authority of Christ to consciously, continuously, deliberately to set their mind upon certain specific spiritual realities. And that's basically what I'm going to do in these crucial councils for the new year. These words of council, all of them begin with the words. At the beginning and throughout the new year. At the beginning and throughout the new year.

Counsel 1: Fix Your Mind Directly Upon Your Savior in Living the Christian Life

12:13 Seek to fix your mind upon. And then there will be three things. We take up just the first this morning. At the beginning of this new year.

12:24 And throughout this year, I'm counseling you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, to seek to fix your mind directly upon your Savior.

12:40 Well, you say, well, what a... truism.

12:44 What a banal, vapid, cliché. Fix your mind upon the Savior, of course. Everyone knows that's what we're to do, yes. But I am counseling you.

12:56 I'm exhorting you and urging you. I hope with a new dimension of understanding as to what that means, to fix your mind directly upon your Savior. And that in three specific ways. In three specific areas.

13:14 Area number one. Fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus in living the Christian life. Fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus in living the Christian life. And then we'll consider, secondly, fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus with respect to the major change in the leadership of this assembly in the new year.

13:41 And thirdly, fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus with respect to world events as they unfold in the coming year. First of all, then, fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus in living the Christian life. We're going to look at several texts which make this privilege and duty abundantly clear. The first is Hebrews chapter 12.

Biblical Basis for Fixing Your Mind on Jesus in Christian Living (Hebrews 12)

14:08 Turn with me, please, to that passage. I trust many of you will...

14:16 You'll remember, as we went through our public reading of the book of Hebrews, the great burden of the writer to the Hebrews was to encourage these oppressed and persecuted Jewish Christians not to go back, but to press on in persevering faith in their clinging to Christ and in their anticipation of the heavenly inheritance. And so at the end of chapter 10, he kind of summarizes the burden of the entire book. Verse 39, We are not of them that shrink back unto perdition, but of them that have faith unto the saving of the soul. It's either shrink back or cling to the saving of the soul. And then, to encourage them in chapter 11, he gives them all of these examples of men and women who throughout biblical history and even, post Old Testament history, were examples of those who cling, who continually clung to God's promises and they entered in to the promised inheritance. Now then, chapter 12, verse 1, Therefore, let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, all of these described in Hebrews 11, are witnesses, not...

15:46 primarily in the sense that they're watching us, but they bear their testimony to the blessedness of not turning back, but of clinging to the living God and to His Son in persevering faith. Since we have such a cloud of those who bear witness that this is not a fool's errand, it is worthwhile to suffer privation, it's worthwhile to even suffer martyrdom, for this can only chase us up, therefore, let us also, since we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Here the writer likens the Christian life to the running, of a race. A race has a beginning, it has its continuum, and it has its end point. And he says to these Hebrew Christians, you've entered the race.

16:58 You are now in mid-course. It's not a dash. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon.

17:05 And the great central thrust of this exhortation is run with patience, run with endurance the race set before us. Wherever...

17:16 Wherever you are in your Christian experience, you're in the race. God, by His grace, has brought you to the starting line. You are carrying on that race, looking toward the end, the consummation, which will be either your death or the return of Christ, and then the eternal inheritance. And He says, we must, since we have so many who've run before us, and they've broken the tape, and they've finished, and they've reached the course, and they now enjoy the reward, since we have so many bearing testimony to the blessedness, not of entering, continuing for a while, and falling by the wayside, and apostatizing, but we have witnesses to the blessedness of running with endurance. When your spiritual lungs are burning, and your spiritual legs feel like lead, and everything in you says, quit, no! I shall press on in spiritual endurance to win the prize. He said, let us run with patience the race set before us.

18:27 But if we're to do that, He says there is a precondition to running, and there is to be a mental fixation as we run. Look at the precondition. Verse 1, lay aside, every weight, every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily beset us, let us run. You can't run well in that race if you've got on your winter parka, your snow boots, and a backpack.

19:09 What in the world would you think of anyone in the upcoming Olympics if you saw on worldwide television some of the best athletes lining up at the start of a race encumbered with all kinds of bulky clothing? You'd say, what in the world is wrong with that person? Well, he says, let's get rid of the weights as well as sin that so easily besets us. And the commentators go all over the place.

19:37 What is the sin that so easily beset us? Is it what people call a besetting sin, a peculiarly aggravated sin with which I struggle? Is it unbelievable? Frankly, I don't know.

19:48 But one thing is clear.

19:51 To know in your conscience that this or that or the other is sin and not to deal with it radically is to fool yourself that you're serious about completing the race. Let us lay aside. That's something you must do. You say, I thought, no, with the Lord's help, yes.

20:13 Crying to Him for grace. But you are to lay aside every investment, every encumbrance, and the sin that so easily besets and be determined that you're going to run with patience the race that is set before us. But now notice what the fixation of the mind is to be. Looking unto Jesus.

20:36 And that verb for looking is not the simple, ordinary word for looking found in the New Testament. It's a word that means you look deliberately away from something in order to have a fixed and uninterrupted gaze upon something else. And so the writer to Hebrews says, having stripped away by ongoing, honest, thorough repentance, dealing honestly with sin, he that covers his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy. Having.

21:18 Layed aside sin, setting our face to the end of the race, determined by God's strength to run with patience, we are to have a fixation of the eyes of the mind upon Jesus. Looking away from anything else that would distract us and deter us and turn us aside, we are to have our minds fixed upon the Lord, Jesus Christ Himself. And notice here, he says, looking unto Jesus. He doesn't say, the Lord Jesus Christ, use His formal full title, but unto Jesus, the One who ran in our condition. Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, the One conceived in Mary's womb, when the second person of the Godhead, took to Himself a true and full humanity. And notice how he describes Jesus.

22:25 Looking away from all else and looking off unto Jesus, author and perfecter of faith.

22:37 I believe what he's saying is this. You know why you're in the race? Because Jesus put you there. And if He put you there, you know what?

22:46 You're going to finish the race. He is author, and He is perfecter of faith. Therefore, your efforts are not to come to absolute frustration. You're not on a fool's errand.

23:01 You're running with endurance this race that will take you eventually into the presence of the living God in the new heavens, in the new earth. And as you live out the Christian life then, you are to have this fixation with the other. The eyes of your mind upon Jesus.

23:25 There is no other way for us to run with endurance if the fixation of the eyes of the mind is anywhere else. And in what particular aspect does He set forth the Lord Jesus as author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endures, endured not just some burning lungs and lead-weight legs, but endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him that endured such gainsaying of sinners against Himself that you wax not weary, fainting in your souls. He's saying that when our eyes are fixed upon Jesus, as He is revealed in the Scriptures, as He is revealed in terms of His unique work in commitment to save His people, this Jesus upon whom you are to fix your gaze in living the Christian life is the one who endured the cross, thought little of the shame, has now gone to the place of the reward of His obedience as the suffering, and servant. He's at the right hand of God. Consider Him.

24:54 Consider what He bore to procure your salvation. You've not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. It's interesting that He highlights in this Christian race that one of the great problems is this matter of dealing with sin. Sins that are so much a part of us that it seems like we'll die before we die.

25:19 We'll die before we die. We'll die before we die. We'll die before we die. We'll die before we die.

25:19 We'll die before we die. We'll die before we die. We can never deal with that sin. He said, you've not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

25:26 It's this gazing of the soul upon Jesus. Mental fixation, looking away from one thing unto another. Looking to Jesus particularly as author and perfecter of faith, as the great example of faith. He was confident that through the spirit and through the mockery and through the jeering and through the laceration of His back and the nails in His hands and the darkened heavens, there was joy before Him.

26:02 What joy! Of having all His redeemed gathered around Him. Who for the joy that was set before Him endured, pressed on, completed the race set out for Him. Dear people of God, that's what we must do.

Biblical Basis for Fixing Your Mind on Jesus in Christian Living (2 Corinthians 3 & 1 John 2)

26:21 And my urgent exhortation, my loving pastoral counsel is as we enter upon and move through this new year, seek to fix your mind directly upon your Savior. First of all, in living the Christian life. But then, a second text that underscores this aspect. 2 Corinthians chapter 3.

26:50 Just going to look at three key texts that point in the direction of this first subdivision fixing our minds upon the Lord Jesus in living the Christian life. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 18. The apostle has been contrasting the new covenant with the old. Moses has been introduced as the one who was able to go into the presence of God.

27:23 But when he came out there was a veil upon his face and now contrasting old and new covenant. Notice what he says in verse 18. But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory even as from the Lord the Spirit. The apostle sets before us this basic reality that when and while we contemplate Christ in the gospel we are beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

28:08 2 Corinthians 4.5 Now he says as we do contemplate Christ as revealed in the gospel Christ who is the image of God. Christ who reveals the glory of God. We are beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

28:31 God is doing something in us. But we all with unveiled face beholding are transformed. Beholding results in transforming. And the transforming work is effected by the Holy Spirit in the heart and mind and soul and character of the true believer who fixes his mind upon Jesus as revealed in the gospel as revealed in the scriptures contemplating him. Reading what the scriptures tell us about him. Following the track of his life as set forth in Matthew, Mark and Luke and John. Beholding we are beholding. We are being transformed into that same image from one stage of glory to another.

29:33 And the consummation of that transformation will be when we see him as he is. John tells us in 1 John 3 we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. No longer will it be seeing him as in a mirror. It will be seeing him face to face.

29:53 Face to face and the work of conformity to him will be radically augmented and brought to its consummation so that God's purpose in redemption that we should be conformed to the image of his son will be brought to its climactic fruition. But here and now with all of our indwelling sin, with a wicked world, with a seducing devil and with the powers of darkness unseen but real, as we have this fixation of mind upon Jesus the Holy Spirit is more and more by degrees conforming us into his likeness. But then we must add to that insight the truth of 1 John 2 in verse 6. He that says he abides in him ought himself so to walk, even as he walked. Or 1 Peter chapter 2.

30:56 Christ suffered for you, leaving an example that you should follow his steps. Now I want you to see the difference in the emphasis of 2 Corinthians 3.18 and 1 John 2.6 and 1 Peter 2.22.

31:09 The emphasis of Paul's statement in Corinthians is while we are beholding God by the Spirit is doing the work of transforming. He is operating upon our own spirits, giving us more and more the fashion of Christ himself in our attitude, our lookout, our perspective, etc. But now the emphasis of John and of Peter is we are to be consciously imitating our Lord. Not only is there an unconscious but real and powerful effectual work of the Spirit, but But there is to be a deliberate, conscious endeavor of the believer. He that says he abides in Him ought to walk as he walked. When I see the Lord Jesus patient in the midst of being reviled, I am to say, O God, in this situation and that, where I know what it is to be reviled, where I know what it is to be slashed by someone's sarcasm and other means of verbal abuse, Lord Jesus, You were as a lamb led to the slaughter and You were dumb before Your enemies. You did not open Your mouth.

32:34 Pilate marveled, Lord Jesus, help me. I am committed to imitate You. When you see the Lord Jesus thoughtful, hanging on a cross, bearing the sins of all of His people, if ever self-preoccupation, would be legitimate, it's there. But he sees his mother, and he says to John, Behold your mother.

33:02 Woman, behold your son. And you say, O Lord Jesus, I am so self-preoccupied so quickly, so easily. Give me grace to imitate You in Your other orientation, Your selfless perspective. Lord Jesus, help me.

Application: Repudiate the Tyranny of Communication Technology

33:22 And as you, track the life of the Lord Jesus, and see the virtues of His perfect love to His Father, and His perfect love to fellow man, you say, Lord Jesus, I need to make corrections there. I need to make corrections here. I am seeking to walk as You walk. So, with these three simple texts, Hebrews 12, 2 Corinthians 3.18, 1 John 2, 2, 6, I say to you, my brothers and sisters, fix your mind upon the Lord Himself in living the Christian life. Now, I've gone from exposition, and now I'm going to go to application. Under this first sub-point, if we're to fix our minds directly upon the Savior in living the Christian life, then you and I must, must, must, must, make time to read and to meditate deeply upon the Word of God.

34:39 You say, Pastor, I thought you were going to give us something new. No, nothing new. Because until the Holy Spirit comes back and rewrites Psalm 1, there'll never be anything new that works. Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law doth he meditate day and night.

35:08 He shall be like a tree planted, shall bring forth fruit in his season. And dear people, until you come to the place where all of the excuse-making, all of the rationalizing, and all of the rest is swept aside, and you say, Lord Jesus, I cannot have fixation of the eyes of my mind upon you without spending time in your Word. Not just reading a passage to sadden my conscience, but time to assimilate the Scriptures. I must make time to read and to meditate deeply upon the Word. I must make time to engage my Lord in real earnest heart prayer, communing with Him in that peculiar dimension of communion that God has given us when we pray. And, if we're going to do that, if we're going to do that, it's my growing conviction as an older man that you and I must repudiate the tyranny of communicating technology.

36:34 You will never, and I can say it even louder if I didn't think I'd bust this PA system,

36:45 you will never know what it is to have any pattern of fixing your mind upon Jesus unless you repudiate. And by repudiate, I mean you're dead set against the tyranny of communication technology. Now let me say in the plainest terms possible, I understand my Bible, that all of God's gifts are good in themselves. And I'm thankful that when I want to communicate with my mother, I don't need to walk or ride a horse to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

37:26 I can pick up the phone. I'm thankful that when we want to communicate to extended family in Michigan, Dorothy can sit at the computer, send an email, and within five minutes we get a response. I'm thankful when Pastor Jeff and Shehzad were in Pakistan in those critical days after Arif and Kathy's home going. We could keep in daily communication.

37:53 And I have thanked God for many of these modern communication technologies and the benefits they have brought to me. The benefits they've brought to untold multitudes. A surgeon is in the midst of a delicate operation. He sees something.

38:12 He's never seen before. He can have an assistant immediately contact another expert physician and surgeon in that area and get...

38:22 Dear people, I am not saying let's all become Amish. Alright? I don't know how to make it any plainer. I'm thankful that many of these communication technologies are being harnessed for the furtherance of the Gospel.

38:44 There's a devil who knows what he can do not only to damn people with that technology and he's damning them by the millions,

38:58 but what he can do to cripple Christians from running with vigorous endurance the race set before us because the fixation of their mind is not upon Jesus. It is being constantly taken up with the tyranny of communicating technology, cell phone obsession, messaging, YouTube, MySpace, blogging,

39:34 wanting to know what nonsense this person or that person is spewing out with half a thought at the end of a keyboard,

39:52 earbuds glued in the ears, MP3 players, iPods, iPhones, TV obsession, video, DVDs, CDs, all of this stuff doing what? Bombarding the mind. Not just with wretched, wicked stuff, but with banal, useless stuff that keeps the mind from being fixed upon Jesus.

40:27 And if you're honest, you'll say, hey, the old man ain't overstating the case.

40:34 I have to fight not to go to the sports section in the star ledger in the morning.

40:47 Today's the Lord's Day. But I know the Giants are playing in the first round of the playoffs. And I will have to fight not to want to turn on the radio to find out who won.

41:03 So am I calling you a bunch of rotten sinners because I know where I would be if I did not stand up and say, no way will I be tyrannized by all that's out there even if I'm not. Even good stuff on the internet. You know my interest in things medical.

41:24 I've resisted with iron will the temptation to say, Dorothy, Google me up prostate surgery and to know that I could see what they did to me step by step and cut by cut and stitch by stitch. But I say no.

41:41 No! I don't have time for that. If I'm going to know my Savior better, if I'm going to bask in His presence, if His words are going to be precious to me,

41:58 you're hearing me? Some of you, you're not hearing me. You're inwardly saying, ah, there he goes. He's on his hobby horse.

42:08 What do I have to gain by pleading with you to break the tyranny of communication technology? I'm only wanting you to get to heaven and to run well on the way. That's my motive.

42:25 Nothing more. Nothing less.

42:30 Got to become readers of our Bibles. We've got to start saturating our minds with all the good books that are available to us that will help us to know our Savior better, to understand His ways more accurately. Dear people, you're not going to make it in this increasingly degenerate, God-abandoned society by just little dribs and drabs of your Bible. You're going to be wreckage along the way sooner or later.

43:05 Can't do it. I feel pressures upon my soul in this area. I never felt as a young Christian nine-tenths of the stuff wasn't there to pull at my soul.

43:21 Wasn't there. You had access to a four-party telephone line. That was it. Until my father negotiated with the phone company when they wanted to put up a new pole on our corner.

43:34 He said, on one condition, give us a single-line phone.

43:41 No portable radio. No iPods. No CDs. No television.

43:49 All of that stuff. Clamoring. And I haven't talked about the sordid, wicked, the pure, grossly, coarse, banal stuff. Once in a while, I will sit down for half an hour and take in three or four minutes of prime-time sitcom television and I am absolutely appalled that any believer would watch that under any circumstance.

44:22 I'm asking you, my fellow believer, are you ready this morning to say, in the name of God and in the strength of Christ, I am prepared to say, I repute this tyranny. And if it means you've got to throw some stuff away, make yourself accountable to someone or someones because you won't realize how addicted you are, until you try to withdraw. And you're going to find out you're an addict.

44:57 You can't go through a day without blogging this or blogging that or checking out on MySpace and YouTube and someone else's blog, this blog, that blog, everybody's blog. Anybody, under any circumstances, with anything to say, can throw it out into cyberspace and get a hearing around the world. Don't you see, believer, your Savior is there in the pages of His Word saying, come and meet with me. Come let me show you my beauty.

45:38 Come let me show you my grace. Come let me show you my heart.

45:46 What's some stupid, ignorant, half-converted person sending out his blog? What has he or she got to offer when Christ Himself is here in His book waiting to show His face to you? I hope I am, folks. I'm very conscious.

46:14 I don't have a lot more time. And if this thing is not reckoned with at the deepest level in the rank and file of Trinity Church, it's the beginning of the end.

46:28 I don't care what kind of preaching you hear. You go from the best preaching in the world anywhere.

46:37 Plunk yourself down in front of your computer screen and spend two and three hours after this, that, and the other. It will bleed away any benefit from the best of preaching.

46:55 You've got to determine that you're going to repudiate the tyranny of communication technology.

Counsel 2: Fix Your Mind Upon the Lord Jesus Regarding Church Leadership Transition

47:08 Well then,

47:11 I want to touch much more briefly on the second area of this first council of fixing your mind on the Lord Jesus. Fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus directly as your Savior in living the Christian life. Secondly, fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus with respect to the major change in the leadership of this assembly in the new year. Now, most of you here understand what I mean when I talk about the change in the leadership.

47:51 Two years ago, this coming this month, I announced to you as a congregation my intention to wind down my forty, will be forty-six years of labor to come this July among you and to relocate to Michigan, not to retire, but to give myself to other forms, of ministry in God's will, hopefully, writing, conference ministry, a ministry of encouragement to younger pastors that God has given me as my spiritual sons and Timothys in a number of places.

48:30 And as you, the people of God, prayed and we prayed, God in his wonderful providence has worked so that in July of this past year you extended an almost unanimous call to Pastor Dave Chansky to come and labor with the other two elders in the oversight of this assembly and then on August the 2nd he wrote to the church saying, I accept your call to me to become one of the pastors at Trinity as it was expressed in your congregational vote of July 1 and your letter of July 12. I'm humbled and sobered to anticipate this move to a very different sphere from the one in which I presently labor. I feel something of what the Apostle Paul expressed when he wrote, quote, in weakness and fear and much trembling, end quote. At the same time I look forward with faith in anticipation of the privilege of laboring in the church there and alongside your present elders. Then he went on to say how thankful he was for the manner in which we went about this and how God has worked not only here but there in Minneapolis to see the hand of God in the matter and then his purpose and reasons for aiming at relocating after his son finishes his last year of high school there in Minneapolis. Now, this is a

49:59 major change for you and obviously for me. Forty-five, forty-six years I've been here in North Jersey laboring in the midst of what is now known as Trinity Baptist Church. And what I'm saying to you this morning is this, that if ever, if ever you as a people, if ever I as an individual were determined to fix our minds upon the Lord Jesus and the sufficiency of his grace, it is in a time of major transition such as the one that we face. We've got to remember that Christ's gifts to his church are not Christ to his church. Christ alone is Christ to his church. He is the Lord, the life, the focus of the love and the faith of his people. And as I urge you to fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus in everything connected with this major change in leadership, I'm thinking of Christ particularly as he is described in Ephesians chapter 5.

Christ's Unchanging Commitment to His Church (Ephesians 5 & Joshua 1)

51:19 There when the apostle is giving directions to husbands as to how they are to love their wives, he says they are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. And then he focuses in a more dominant way upon the expression of Christ's love in giving himself up for the church. But then he alludes to another dimension of Christ's love for his church later on in the passage. And he says in verse 29, no man ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it even as Christ also the church because we are members of his body.

52:04 And here he says Christ's love is shown not only in the once for all giving up of himself to the death of the cross to save his church but in his continuous relentless loving sensitive love by which he nourishes and cherishes his church. He not only rescues it from hell and will perfect it in his moral likeness but he tenderly lovingly nourishes and cherishes his church. And we believe that that's the Christ who has nourished and cherished his church here over these many years and in the prospect of his will removing me out of direct interaction in the life and ministry of this church. Christ has not ceased to be committed to nourish and to cherish this church and that ought to be the perspective of our hearts. Lord Jesus nothing of your loving nourishing cherishing and cherishing commitment is in any way altered when the old man goes to Michigan. Not one bit.

53:23 In fact it will continue to be evidenced and manifested in new dimensions under the new leadership. And then a second passage that though it does not directly refer to Christ it contains a principle that illustrates the way Christ deals with his church. And it's found in the book of Joshua. Joshua chapter one.

53:54 Now it came to pass after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord that the Lord spoke unto Joshua the son of Nun Moses minister saying Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise and go over this Jordan you and all this people unto the land which I give them even to the children of Israel.

54:24 Dr. A.W. Tozer man of beloved memory with great spiritual insight.

54:31 I read a sermon of his as a very young Christian on this text and he said these words and they've lived with me for decades. Here were his words. When God says Moses my servant is dead therefore go and occupy the land of Canaan. His point was this nothing of a man of God nothing of God dies when a man of God dies.

55:04 Nothing of God dies when a man of God dies. Moses my servant is dead but I was Moses God and I am your God Joshua now therefore prove my power and move forward and lead the people into the land of promise. Well I want to take Tozer's words and change them a bit. Nothing of God dies when a man of God dies.

55:37 I say nothing of Christ leaves when a servant of God leaves.

55:47 Christ promised presence to me and to my wife will be our portion when we relocate to Michigan with all the unknowns before me thankful at least I know I'm going to hang my hat and sleep at night. In fact God wonderfully answered your prayers and ours and helped us to get everything that needed to be done out in the condominium so the carpenters come in and do what needs to be done that I have a nice study in the lower level of the condominium but nothing nothing of Christ's promised presence to Trinity Church goes with Albert N. Martin nothing you have him and all of the promises of God that are yes and amen in him and for the way the way for you to validate anything that's been biblical in my ministry in this coming transition is to demonstrate you had no idolatrous attachment to or evaluation of Albert N. Martin's place in the life of Trinity Church I hope there will be some appreciation of whatever my contribution has been and I hope the word of God will live on in many of your lives but it would be no honor to me for you to think for a moment that anything of Christ goes with me

Conclusion and Prayer

57:15 nothing of Christ leaves his church when the servant of God leaves that church and my exhortation and counsel to you as the people of God is fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus with respect to the major changes in the leadership of this assembly in the coming year pray with faith and expectation that God yet has many new and wonderful things to do in you among you and through you to the progress of the gospel well I hope to get to the third fixing your mind on the Lord Jesus with respect to world events as they unfold but I think I've said enough time is gone let's pray Father we thank you for your word we thank you for the loving exhortations to have this fixation of mind upon our Savior and Lord I do pray for your precious people in this place that for those who have allowed

58:45 themselves to become tyrannized by modern technology whose progress in grace is minimal if progress at all because they've allowed themselves to be ensnared oh come today and set them free for you have said whom the sun sets free is free indeed we pray that you would write upon our hearts our great privilege of constantly looking off and looking away unto Jesus author and perfecter of faith that we may find in gazing upon him that work of the spirit making us more and more into his likeness and that we may have renewed determination by his power to imitate him and to and then Lord we ask that you would wonderfully go before us as a people in these coming months in the things that pertain to the transition in leadership we pray that you would work out all the details for Pastor Chansky and his family as they put their house on the market as they plan their move guide them in the purchase of a home here go before Dorothy

60:14 and me and all of the things related to the sale of our home and the relocation and the unfolding of your purposes our father how we thank you we thank you for every circumstance that presses us more closely to your breast and makes us feel how much we need you grant that that may be our experience in the days to come seal then your word to our hearts and be with us through the remainder of this day we ask in Jesus name amen