The Christian Man in a Wicked Generation

Introduction: Amazement at God's Grace and Prayer for Help

0:03 The following message was delivered at the 1994 Trinity Baptist Church Men's Retreat. As we stood together singing that militant hymn,

0:17 and I asked myself the question, Lord, why should I, with three score years behind me, be found standing in a group of your servants and your children, singing your praises, when I ought to be roasting in hell or marking time to be sent there? May God help us that we never cease to be amazed at the grace of God. Let's pray and ask God to help us as we seek better to know what it is to be good soldiers of Christ in our generation.

1:03 Our Father, when we hear you ask us the question, who makes you to differ? We acknowledge. We acknowledge that it is grace, sovereign, distinguishing grace alone, that has made us to differ. Some of us tremble to think what we would be doing on a Saturday morning were it not for your grace.

1:31 We thank you that we are not in hell, that our cry is not mingling with that of the rich man pleading for a drop of water. We thank you that this, this day we are not enmeshed in the shackles of sin, seeking to find some fountain at which we could drink and fill the burning thirst of our souls, only to turn away in bitter disappointment with the parched lips of our souls reminding us that you and you alone are the fountain of life. Oh God, we thank you for the privilege of being here.

2:13 Thank you for meeting with us in the previous hour as we called upon you. Now Lord, give us to know in grace the fruit of our prayers and our expectations as we remind you of your word of promise. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. Oh Lord, fulfill that promise for preacher and listener alike we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Review of 'A Wicked Generation'

2:44 Amen. Amen. Now as a background to our study this morning, I want to read in your hearing one of the passages that will be crucial in our study and it's found in Ephesians chapter 4 and can you men hear me in the back comfortably? All right, good.

3:08 Ephesians chapter 4 and I shall read verses 17 through 24. Ephesians 4 beginning with verse 24. With verse 17. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk in the vanity of their mind being darkened in their understanding alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardening of their heart who being past feeling

3:50 gave themselves up to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness but you did not so learn Christ if so be that you heard him and were taught in him even as truth is in Jesus that you have put away as concerning your former manner of life the old man that waxes corrupt after the lust of deceit and that you are being renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man that after God has been created in righteousness

4:33 and holiness of truth our subject for the three plenary sessions of this very brief men's retreat has been announced as the Christian man in a wicked generation and for the sake of I think probably about it doesn't have you were not with us last night in our opening session but are here this morning let me take just a few minutes to review the main substance of what was addressed in our initial session last night I began by stating that if I were to carry your conscience in the handling of

5:17 this theme that I must first of all convince you from the Scriptures and from an accurate description of things as they are, that indeed our present generation of humanity in this country deserves the description, a wicked generation. I then proceeded to set before the men three propositions, and they were as follows. Proposition one, that in a general sense, every generation of mankind since the fall can be described as a wicked generation.

6:01 Proposition two, that in an intensified sense, some generations are more wicked than other generations. And then we looked at the biblical witness to the generation prior to the flood, the generation under the leadership of Manasseh, and the generation which crucified the Lord of glory. And then proposition number three, that there is abundant warrant to designate the present generation in our country as a peculiarly wicked generation.

6:41 And I then sought to focus your attention upon four categories, which validate this assertion. Our arrogant intellectual perversity, our shameless moral degeneracy, our violent social anarchy, and our grievous religious apostasy. And then we concluded our study with two lines of application, one to the unconverted, focusing upon Acts 2 in verse 4, in which Peter called upon his hearers to be saved from this crooked generation.

The Christian Man's Duty: The Negative Aspect (Do Not Conform)

7:26 And to you who are the children of God, I exhorted you to beware of the peculiar dangers of living in a wicked generation, and to understand and to seize the peculiar privileges of living in such a generation. Now, now in our session this morning, I will attempt to answer this question. What is the essence? What is the heart?

7:58 What is the bottom line? What is the irreducible minimum of the Christian man's duty in the midst of a wicked generation? In other words, I want to address with you and make an attempt, to extract from the word of God, that boiled down essence of the duty of a Christian man, whose heart is set upon pleasing God, in the real life circumstances of living in a wicked generation. And without being simplistic,

8:40 I do believe that this question can be answered under two basic headings. The first, the first is negative, and the second is positive. What am I to do? I have a heart given to me by the Spirit of God to honor God in my generation, to serve Him as I ought in my generation.

9:06 How am I to serve Him in this particularly wicked generation in which God has placed me? And I answer, under the first of these two major headings, the Christian man must not allow the wickedness of this generation to shape his thinking or his lifestyle in any area.

9:38 The Christian man must not allow the wickedness of this generation to shape his thinking or his lifestyle in any area. And now on the principle that at the mouth of two or three witnesses that everything is to be established, I want to bring forward three basic biblical witnesses to this principle. This is the negative aspect of our duty. And we turn first of all to Romans chapter 12.

Witness 1: Romans 12:1-2 (Do Not Be Fashioned by This World)

10:14 Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.

10:22 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual, reasonable, or rational service. And do not be fashioned according to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may be able to see, and you may be able to see, you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now, as most of you know in this epistle, the Apostle Paul has opened up in great detail and in relatively

11:06 logical connections this marvelous reality of God's saving mercy to hell-deserving and helpless sinners set forth in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has demonstrated the manifold mercies of God to those who by nature deserve nothing but His wrath. And now he appeals to his readers on the basis of their minds and hearts feeling the fresh impregnation of the realities of God's mercy.

11:45 It is a bounding and amazing grace to sinners to commit themselves to this God who has conferred these mercies in a lifestyle of unreserved devotedness to God. The imagery of a living sacrifice is at its essence a call to a life of unreserved devotedness to God. When an act of unreserved devotedness to God is to be performed, it is a call to a life of unreserved devotedness to God. When an act of unreserved devotedness to God is to be performed, it is a call to a life of unreserved devotedness to God. When an animal was taken out from among the

12:18 flock and slain and offered up as an offering unto God, if it was anything else, it was an act of total, utter, unreserved presentation of that sacrifice to God. You didn't expect a hair to be returned. You didn't expect a tip of the ear of that lamb or that bullock to be returned. You didn't expect a tip of the ear of that lamb or that bullock to be returned. And here Paul takes that

12:49 imagery of the sacrifice that was presented to God, that which was given to God in utter, unreserved, and irrevocable dedication to Him and to His service. And he says that we are to present the totality of our redeemed humanity. You cannot present the body without presenting the heart. But lest we be deceived that we are presenting our heart, we cannot present the body without presenting our hearts and our souls, Paul wisely says, by the guidance of the Spirit, present your bodies, that is, the totality of your redeemed humanity, utterly, unreservedly, irrevocably given over to

13:31 God, which is your rational, which is your spiritual service. Then assuming that those who would have heard that appeal, based upon that amazing display of the mercy, of God, it's as though they ask, well, Paul, having, by the grace of God, come to that place where my disposition is indeed one of utter, unreserved, irrevocable consecration to God, how am I to work out that life of consecration in its particulars? And the answer comes in these words, first of all, the negative, and be not,

14:16 fashioned according to this world or this age. A present, passive, imperative. And the imagery is something like this. Here's a man who's an artist, or attempting to be one, and he sets his canvas, and he's going to do a still life work of art. So he takes his fruit and arranges it on the

14:47 table, and he's going to do a still life work of art. And he's going to do a still life work of art. He has a couple of apples, and a couple of pears, and a bowl, and he has a cluster of grapes, and he arranges them in the way that he wants to reproduce them on the canvas, and he opens up certain windows in shade so that the light comes upon those materials and items in just the precise way. And then he sits down with his palette, and what does he seek to do? He seeks to reproduce

15:15 upon the canvas what is there in the real item upon the table. He is seeking to put an impression upon the canvas that matches the realities that are there upon the table. And here the Apostle Paul says to the Roman Christians, do not let your life be a canvas upon which the world paints its concepts. The concepts of reality, of what is worthwhile, of what is worthy of your devotion, of what is right

15:56 and what is wrong, what is noble and what is ignoble, what is good and what is evil. Do not allow yourself to be the passive recipient of what this age will do if you allow it in painting upon the canvas of your soul your spirit. It will not be unflattering. It will be a light upon the canvas after which you will find your view.

16:22 You have to be able to see that it is a canvas, and this canvas is a canvas in of light and of light. It is a canvas, and it is a canvas in the light of Christ, and you cannot see it in the light of God. But the canvas will be a canvas of light and of light, and the light of God. The light of God, the light of God is not what does He want it to be. The light of God is the word of God and the

16:40 word of the Spirit. This is my favorite phrase. That's the same phrase that I use in my scripture, and it appears to be a devoted Christian. of a vase, or a vase, however you pronounce it, or it may be some kind of a mug or a jug, whatever it is, and when you pour in the plaster of Paris, it conforms to the contours of that mold. And what the Apostle is saying is this, the world has the contours of a mold as to what

17:11 it thinks a man is and a man ought to be, how a man ought to think about life, about death, about a wife, about sex, about work, about recreation, about money, about the use of time. The world has a well-fixed mold, and it will constantly attempt to turn you into liquid plaster of Paris and pour you into that mold. And he says, Do not. Allow this world, do not allow this present age to pour you into its mold, for its mold is marked

17:54 as we saw last night by intellectual perversity, by moral degeneracy, by social anarchy, and by religious apostasy. And those four pools of evil have a thousand streams that go out, and all of them are polluted from their source, and will, if allowed to do so, so influence us that we will not be the light and the salt that God has called us to be. So in answer to the question, what is the duty of a Christian man in a wicked generation,

Witness 2: 1 Peter 1:13-14 (Not Fashioning Yourselves According to Former Lusts)

18:34 my first heading of the answer is, the Christian man must not allow this world shape and mold his thinking or his actions in any area, Romans 12, 2a. Second witness is taken from 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. Wherefore, girding up the loins of your mind,

19:18 be sober, and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As children of obedience, now notice the negative, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance. Peter has just written concerning the Gospels, and he has just written concerning the Gospels, and he has just written concerning the Gospels, and he has just written concerning the Gospels, and he has just written concerning the great privileges of the people of God. He speaks of them as a people who have a living hope with

19:58 its tap roots in the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He tells us that the terminal point of that hope is this inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled, and is reserved in heaven for us, and that we are being kept by the power of God unto the enjoyment of the consummate blessings of salvation. And furthermore, while we presently are grieved with our trials, we rejoice, we love an unseen Christ, and are filled with joy unspeakable and full of

20:37 glory, because we now have the substance of the things which the prophets only saw dimly in their prophetic utterances, and many times their prophecies. And we have all of these privileges at this epoch in redemptive history. These things are ours in possession, and the best is yet to come in prospect and in the certainty of the power of God that will keep us to enjoy it. That's a summary of what Peter's been saying. Now he says, in the light of

21:13 this, you see a similar motif to the Apostle Paul. I beseech you by the mercies of God, Peter is saying, wherefore, in the light of all that is yours right now in Christ, and all that shall be yours in Christ, and in the light of the privilege of having these things in possession, not by prophecy and type and shadow, but in their substance in the gospel, gird up the loins of your mind. He likens the mind to a long-flowing, long-flowing robe. And he says, take all of the loose ends and gather them up at the waist and tie

21:57 them with a sash. In other words, he is calling us to conscious, intense, mental concentration. Strange thing, I would never think of likening my mind to a long-flowing robe. But the more you think about it, the more you see the sense in Peter's imagery. Left to itself, there'll be a

22:17 fold drifting off here and a fold there. And he says, take all of the loose ends and gather them up there and a fold here and a fold there. And if you try to make tracks at any speed at all, you're going to stumble and fall upon your face and scrape your nose. So Peter says, girding up the loins of your mind, be sober. Now, when the Bible calls to sobriety, it's not simply saying, don't get

22:42 yourself smashed on booze, though it does say that, be not drunk with wine. But what it's saying is, be spiritually sober. So, Peter says, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober. Now, when the Bible tells us what a sober man is in regard to physical realities, you see, if a man gets too much unabsorbed alcohol or, what's the word I want, unmetabolized alcohol gathering in his brain, it becomes a wall between him and reality. The man who is inebriated does not see things as they

23:13 really are. There are no pink elephants out there. And he is not what he may imagine himself to be. So Peter then, Moving from the imagery of the man who is intent on making tracks and making them quickly and safely, gathering up the loins of the mind, he says, be sober.

23:33 That is, have your mind and your heart fixed upon reality. Don't live in a never, never world of irresponsible fantasy. Be in touch with reality. The reality of who you are in Christ, who you are as a man with remaining sin, a man who carries around a tinderbox of the dried leaves of remaining sin, in the presence of which every temptation is like living sparks.

24:03 Be sober. Be in touch with the realities of who you are and what you are, and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you. At the revelation of Jesus Christ, that is, have your heart continually fixed upon the future. You see, we hear the term, so-and-so, so heavenly-minded, he's no earthly good.

24:29 I've never yet met such a person. But I've met thousands, and I live with one whose problem is that he's so earthly-minded, he's no heavenly good.

24:40 Peter says, set your mind. You are to set your hope perfectly. Perfectly. On the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

24:54 Now, picture this man. Here he has the loins of his mind girded up. He's not just meandering around in his bathrobe, hoping somehow he will happen to hit upon the right course as a Christian man. No.

25:10 He knows it's a serious thing to be a Christian in an ungodly world. He's girded up the loins of his mind. He is seeking to keep in touch with spiritual realities. His heart and his affections are set upon the age to come.

25:27 In the language of Colossians 3, he is seeking the things that are above where Christ is, from whence Christ shall come to receive him unto himself. And with those spiritual dispositions as a part of his overall posture, what is he to do? Verse 14.

25:47 Children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance. In other words, in that posture, there is a work of fashioning going on in your life. Same word that is used in Romans. You're not to fashion yourself according to your former lusts.

26:20 Which operated in the realm of ignorance. You see the place of the mind in all of this? You're to gird up the loins of your mind. You are to be sober, which is an activity of the mind.

26:38 You're to set your hope, which is an activity of the heart, the affections as well as of the mind. And as children of obedience, you are deliberately, you are consciously to reject anything that could be in any way described as fashioning yourself according to your former lusts, your former desires in the time of your ignorance. In other words, everything about you is to be fashioned by a totally different set of standards than the things by which you have been fashioned. Things by which you were fashioned in your unconverted days.

27:22 It is not that you are to pick and choose and throw out the grosser forms of influence that impinged upon you in your unconverted days. He says no. Not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance. And if any other text is a commentary upon those former lusts, it would be 1 John 2, 15 to 17.

27:52 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh, the desire to enjoy things, the lust of the eyes, the desire to have things, and the vain glory of life, the desire to be somebody in the eyes of my peers, is not of the world. The lust of the world is not of the Father, but is of the world.

28:21 And the world passes away, and the lusts thereof. So what is our duty, men? In a wicked generation, it is a duty in which our hearts are set upon the determination, not only will we not allow this world to paint on the canvas of our lives its perspectives, but also on the canvas of our lives. It is a duty in which our hearts are set upon the determination, not only will we not allow this world to paint on the canvas of our lives, not only will we not allow this world to paint on the canvas of our lives, be not conformed to this world, but Peter goes a step further and says,

28:54 I am not in my own life to fashion myself in any way according to the former lusts in the time of my ignorance. Now for some of us, that's going to be a very difficult discipline, because you began to have certain patterns of thought, because you began to have certain patterns of thought, about what a man is.

29:23 And those thoughts shaped your whole emerging identity through puberty and into early manhood and into mature manhood. And if they are closely examined, you will find that they were shaped and molded by the time of your ignorance, when your notions of what a man is were not drawn from the word of God under the tutelage of the Holy Ghost, when your notions of what a man is were not drawn from the word of God under the tutelage of the Holy Ghost, but they were drawn from a combination of the pressure of the advertising world, of society, of your peers, and of a host of other influences. But over them all, Peter says, the time of your ignorance,

30:06 when your mind was unenlightened with respect to the fact that God in God alone has a right to define what manhood is. God in God alone has a right to define what is our view, what our views ought to be, about ourselves, about his world, about marriage, about sex, about money, and the full spectrum of the things that constitute life as we live it. So brethren, if we are to be thoroughgoing Christian men in a wicked generation, we have to begin with this first principle, that we must be determined that we will not allow the wickedness of this generation

Witness 3: Ephesians 4:17-24 (No Longer Walk as the Gentiles Walk)

30:51 to shape our thought or practice in any area. Romans 12, 2a, 1 Peter 1, 13 and 14. And now the third witness that we bring to the stand is Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4.

31:17 Those of you familiar with this marvelous epistle will know that it is roughly, roughly divided into the first three chapters, setting forth, what we would call high and glorious doctrinal truths. The great sweep of God's salvation in Christ, from election in Christ to being sealed with the Spirit, is opened up beautifully in the first chapter, followed with the prayer for spiritual illumination. Chapter 2, the marvelous account of the conversion of the Ephesians in verses 1 to 10, and then how that conversion was operative,

31:58 in both Jew and Gentile manifesting that in the salvation of Christ, the middle wall of partition has been broken down. And that takes us to the end of chapter 2 and then chapter 3. Paul speaks of the fact that it was his unique privilege to make this truth patent and to make it openly known as an ongoing and ongoing deposit to the church, this glorious truth that the new humanity in Christ has neither Jew nor Christian, Greek, but now in Christ we are one new humanity. And then he prays that within that blessed reality, verses 14 to the end,

32:39 we might by the Holy Spirit be given a spiritual apprehension of that which lay behind all of the things God has done for us in his Son, namely the love of Christ that passes knowledge. Then in chapter 4 he begins to make a number of practices and practical applications of that glorious truth. Having told us what we are in Christ, he now tells us what we ought to do in the light of what we are. Some of the theologians like to express it this way, and I think it's helpful.

33:14 God's indicatives, that is, his statements of what we are and have, are the basis of God's imperatives, what we are to do and what we are to be. And this is why, men, if you come out of a church situation that despises doctrine, I urge you seriously to consider whether you ought to remain there. Because doctrine, rightly understood, is nothing but the setting forth of what God has revealed of the great indicatives. Doctrine is the statement of what is what God has done.

33:51 And based upon the great indicatives are the grand imperatives, what we are to be and to do, in the light of what God has declared and God has done. So chapter 4 begins with the words, I therefore, in the light of these realities, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling wherewith you were called. And the first area of emphasis is the area of unity. Now the second area of emphasis is found here in verse 17.

34:25 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk, now notice the emphasis, in the vanity of their mind. Intellectual perversity again. You see the emphasis? The vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart.

35:04 Who, being past feeling, gave themselves up to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness, but you did not so learn Christ. And now for our purposes in this head, under this heading, notice the emphasis, the negative. Do not any longer walk as the Gentiles walk. And Paul says that their walk is dictated by a futile mindset.

35:39 They walk in the vanity or the futility of their mind. It is framed by a darkened understanding, being darkened in their understanding. It is a walk devoid of the life of God because it is a walk of willful ignorance of reality, perverse hardness of heart, and a frightening seared sensitivity leading to an abandonment to sin. Now that is not a very pretty picture, but that is exactly what you and I were

36:20 before the Lord in grace laid hold of us. And now those whom he has not been pleased to touch, among whom are those whom he will yet in grace rescue from such a state, the apostle says no longer walk as they walk and as you once walked. Now in the Bible, walk speaks of a steady, determined course of life and action. We are no longer to walk, that is, everything that now needs to be done, that makes up my steady, determined course of life, is to be utterly antithetical

37:02 to everything that marked my steady course of life when I was in my state of spiritual ignorance and in my state of spiritual death. What am I to do in a wicked generation? I am to be determined that God, by the appropriate means of his own appointment, will increasingly give me spiritual understanding to see those things in my present walk that are a carryover from that which I left when I was converted by the grace of God, that I might increasingly understand the patterns of thought,

37:45 the ways of speech, the mannerisms, the framework in which I interact with people, in every facet of my life, every part of it was shaped and molded by this darkened understanding, this alienation from the life of God, this culpable ignorance, this hardness of heart, and now we are called to a radical departure from anything that is related to that lifestyle. How is a Christian man to live in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation? I say these three texts of Scripture

38:28 surely establish the case that he is to live as a man who is consciously refusing to have his thinking and his actions shaped by the thinking and the acting of the wicked generation in which he lives. Now I am just expounding now, not implying, but now there is the flip side and that is the positive. God begins with a negative and therefore I am never embarrassed to be negative in my preaching. I have long since given up any sense of embarrassment with being negative so long as I am being biblically balanced in my preaching.

The Christian Man's Duty: The Positive Aspect (Be Transformed)

39:11 And in these three passages the Holy Ghost puts the negative first for the simple reason that if you don't take the negative seriously you are just playing head games to think you are taking the positive seriously. If you are not willing to say no to what you once were in every area of your life you will never be serious in saying yes to what God says you ought to be in every area of your life. Now let's look at the positive side and it is this. Here is my second heading.

Witness 1: Romans 12:2b (Be Transformed by the Renewing of Your Mind)

39:42 The Christian man is to seek to be transformed in all his thinking and patterns of life in conformity with the standards of God. The Christian man some of you taking notes is to be transformed in all his thinking and patterns of life in conformity with the standards of God. And here again I bring forward three witnesses. Two of them are the last half of the passages in Romans and Peter and one is a passage that I read in your hearing last night.

40:27 Let's start again with Romans chapter 12. No sooner does the apostle on the basis of this fresh display of the mercy of God call the believers to utter unreserved irrevocable consecration to God give them the negative be not fashioned according to this world but that he now introduces the positive. But be ye continually the sense of the verb is not a once for all experience it is a constant pattern of spiritual experience

41:09 be continually transformed now notice how by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Now what does he call us to? Well using another present imperative passive verb he says you are to be transformed literally changed in form. When the caterpillar changes into the butterfly we call that process the process of metamorphosis

41:53 and that's simply a transliteration of the Greek word here. We're to be metamorphosized formed that's the imperative we are to be transformed that's what we are called to but how are we to be transformed? Look at the text be transformed by here's the instrumentality the renewing of your mind that is our thinking about all of life is to be wrenched away from the categories and perspectives

42:38 of this present age he says don't be conformed to this present age but be metamorphosized be transformed and here is the method here's the instrumentality of that transformation a constant work of renewing in your new the thing with he doesn't say your heart isn't that interesting doesn't say your soul doesn't say your feelings doesn't say your emotions he says your noggin your thinker this thing between your ears with which we conceptualize this thing with which

43:22 we look out and interpret what we perceive to be reality there's to be this metamorphosis of what we are in the totality of our redeemed humanity by the instrumentality of a constant renewing of our thinking we have got to think God's thoughts after him in every facet of what makes up our lives we must think God's thoughts after him with respect to what is a man what is a man what is a husband what is a father

44:04 how is one to use his time his money how is one to relate to things how is one to relate to his superiors and his inferiors everything that makes up life is to come under the renewing influence or the influence of a progressively renewed mind you're not to assume that because God in mercy has wrenched you out of the mass of the gentiles who are under the dominion of sin in that orbit of spiritual ignorance and molded and fashioned by the world you're not to assume because he's rescued you

44:49 out of that you just sort of do what comes naturally and if there's something obviously that is akin to the old lifestyle such as thievery or blasphemy or uncleanness or adultery or some other gross sin you reject it otherwise you just sort of do what comes naturally my friend you've made next to no progress as a Christian if that's your thinking we must apply all of our faculties and in particular the faculties of our minds to be transformed in the totality of the function of that mind with respect to all aspects of reality to what end look at it

45:34 in order that here's the end in view that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God and the thought of these words in the original is this that you and I may prove by testing and then approve in our hearts the will of God and the will of God is that which is characterized by these three things the will of God and the will of God is that which is characterized by these three things it is the good the morally right it is acceptable unto God and it is perfect that is it is whole we are brought to redemptive wholeness of life as opposed

46:18 to the tragedy of the fragmentation of life in the state of sin now that's your duty in a wicked generation to dare to believe that by the renewing of your mind in the use of the means of God's appointment you can in every area of life prove by testing and then approve in your experience the very will of God for you in the midst of that wicked generation and be marked as a man in whom the good the acceptable and the perfect is the norm

47:02 of his life

Witness 2: Philippians 2:14-15 (Do All Things Without Murmuring)

47:06 the second witness it tells us that the Christian man is to seek to be transformed in all of his thinking and patterns of life in conformity with the standards of God is Philippians chapter 2 Philippians chapter 2 after exhorting the Philippians to be sure that their obedience would not wane now that the apostle left them because if that were so then people would say ha ha Paul said look you've obeyed in my presence but now much more in my absence to make it evident that your supreme attachment is to Jesus Christ let your obedience

47:50 be more careful and more intense work out your own salvation with fear and trembling that is with a full engagement of all of your faculties you see again men no room here for blase part time Christianity there is no such thing except in hell.

48:12 You work out with fear and trembling, not the fear and trembling of the criminal who's looking over his shoulder everywhere he goes, wondering if someone will recognize him from the posters in the local post office and tell the police and be apprehended. No, it's the fear and trembling of the man so desirous of pleasing his master and so grieved at the thought that he might displease him that there is an internal spirit of fear and trembling that leads him to depend upon the strength and grace of another. That's the sense of the fear and trembling. And we do so in the confidence that we're not on our own.

48:52 It is God who is constantly working in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. I need never fear that my earnest working out will ever outstrip His effective working in. When? When I am enabled to will what is pleasing to God, God had gone before and worked on my willer.

49:15 And when I'm able to do what is pleasing to God, God went before and gave me the strength for I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. Well, there's the general directive, but now look at the specific. Do all things without murmuring and questioning. Do all things...

49:39 To put it in current Americanese, do all things without grousing and grumping. Do all things without grousing and grumping. That is, you do all things that fall to you in the will of God cheerfully. To what end?

49:59 In order that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish, among the people of God. Among whom you are seen as light in the world. Now, just park here for a couple of minutes with me.

50:21 The first specific application of verse 14 is verse 14. In working out their salvation, everything they do is to be done without grousing and complaining, without having a cantankerous, disputatious spirit. And what end does Paul have in view? That they will be known?

50:42 That they will be known as just well-mannered, nice guys? No. In order that you may become blameless, no just cause to lay blame upon you as one who professes to be a Christian, who says you have a sovereign God who orders all the details of your life, even the foreman you have, even the job load for that particular week, even the sickness that has come into the family and thrown all of the family's schedule into a cockpit, even in the midst of that, you say you serve a God who is ordering all things together for your good, then surely for you to be grousing and complaining is a denial of what you say is reality.

51:24 And if you want to be blameless, that is, no just cause for anyone to point the finger at gross inconsistency, do all things without murmuring and disputing, that you may be blameless, that you may be harmless. The word Jesus uses in Matthew 10, 16, you are to be wise, you are to be wise as servants, harmless as doves. You are to be known as a man who does not have ill will, who seeks the harm of no one. Children of God without blemish.

51:56 Children of God who when you look upon them you don't say, oh Lord, I hope that guy doesn't open his mouth and tell people he's a Christian because there is that gross, glaring, moral and ethical blot. He's known to have a hot, temper. He's known to be touchy, can't take a joke, try to rib him and he's as sensitive as the sole of the foot.

52:23 That's what he's saying. You must seek to be children of God without blemish. And in this condition, he says, you shine forth as luminaries in the midst, look at the language now, of a crooked and perverse generation.

52:46 It is only as we are positively transformed in such details that our response to the things that cause grousing and complaining among men in the world find us free of those characteristics that we shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. In other words, if Paul focuses on quote, such a little thing, as whether or not we grouse and complain when we can't get our way, when we're frustrated, when our plans go awry, surely, by touching on such a piddling little aspect of life, he's including

53:30 all the greater issues. You're to respond to a busted bit in a job in the shop in the way that is thoroughly Christian can be a block upon my testimony? What about the fact that everybody knows me to be a hothead and a blabbermouth? You see, by focusing upon what we would say as a little piddling aspect of a Christian's character and his response to things, Paul is surely including all of the greater things and saying that right down to the way you respond to a busted bit in the drill press,

Witness 3: 1 Peter 1:15-16 (Be Holy in All Manner of Living)

54:14 be blameless, be harmless, be a thoroughgoing Christian in every facet of your life. And then the final witness is 1 Peter 1, 15 and 16.

54:31 Remember now what we're seeking to establish, the positive principle that Christian is not only consciously to refuse to be molded by the world, he is to seek to be transformed in all of his thinking and patterns of life in conformity with the standards of God. Romans 12, 2b, Philippians 2, 14 and 15, now 1 Peter 1 again. We saw the negative and I'll not go back to set the general context and flow of thought. I hope you can remember back about 25 minutes ago when we did that. But having given

55:08 the negative in verse 14 as children of obedience not fashioning yourselves according to your former lust in the time of your ignorance, that's not enough. There must not only be a concentrated engagement of all of our faculties and in particular our minds that we may recognize and reject everything that pertains to the lifestyle when we were in the time of our ignorance, but we are with equal engagement of all of our souls to be committed to this positive directive, but like as he who called you is holy,

55:52 be yourselves also holy. Now notice this phrase, in all manner of living because it is written you shall be holy for I am holy. Now brethren, that's the standard God has set before us. Like as he who called you is holy, is God holy in only half of his being? Two-thirds

56:29 of his being holy in his mind and in his affections but not in his will. No God is holiness in every facet of his glorious ineffable essence. He is called the Holy One of Israel. And he is holy through and through in the entirety of his glorious being. Now like

56:58 as he who called you is holy, so be ye holy. Now notice in all manner of living we are not only to have holy desires when we pray and holy expressions of devotion when we pray and holy acknowledgements of attachment to Christ when we sing his praise and gather with his people, but he says we are to be holy in all manner of living in the entirety, in the totality of what makes up life for you and for me. Nothing but holiness

57:43 through and through is to be the passionate commitment of our hearts because it is written, ye shall be holy for I am.

57:58 The standard is God himself. That's why Jesus could say in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, 5.48, ye shall be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect. The extent of the standard in all manner of living and what is to be the underlying motive, look at verse 17 and if you call on him as Father who without respect of persons judges according to each man's work, past the time of your sojourning in fear knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things such as silver and gold from your vain manner of life, handed down from

58:42 your fathers, but with precious blood. What's the motive? It's this twisted or this strand, many stranded motive in which the God who has adopted us and has called us into the family and called us to family likeness is the very God before whom we shall one day stand and face him as an impartial judge. But blessed be his name, he's the very God who has redeemed us at the price of the blood of his own dear son. And Peter assumes

59:24 that in the heart of every Christian, a contemplation of being judged by an impartial God and by a redeeming God is all the motive we'll need to desire with all our hearts to be like that God. Now if you can hear such a God say, be holy as I am holy, be holy in all manner of living because you will stand before me and face me as an impartial judge. And I remind you that I'm the God who gave my son to redeem the likes of you at the price of the blood of incarnate deity. If those

60:08 things don't move you to be ready men to say of every nook and cranny of your life, I want it to be stand unto the Lord. Then I sincerely doubt if the power of the gospel has ever terminated upon your heart. So there is our duty in the midst of an intensely wicked generation. The negative, we must not allow the wickedness of this generation to shape the patterns of our thought and of our lives positively. We must

Application 1: Response is Not Optional

60:49 seek to be transformed in all of our patterns of thinking and living in conformity with the standards of God. Now I want to close this study with two very pointed, basic applications. I've spent the time in seeking to persuade your judgment from the scriptures. And may I say by way of an aside, don't let anyone else play with your conscience unless he persuades your judgment from your Bibles.

61:24 And you see it with your own eyes in your Bibles. I don't care how persuasive the man may be. Have no use for any ministry. It goes after your conduct without seeking to persuade your judgment as to what God has said.

61:42 And that's why I've labored. I hope it hasn't been pedantic. I've thrown myself into it, but it's meant you've had to think. But you see the place given to thinking in being the man you ought to be? My two

61:56 final applications. Number one, response to this call to the Christian man's responsibility in a wicked generation is not optional. Response to this call to a Christian man's duty in a wicked generation is not optional.

62:22 For what is it but the call to a life of practical holiness? In Hebrews 12, 14 says, follow after peace with all men. And the verb used there in the imperative is the verb dioko. The very verb used to describe what Saul of Tarsus was doing when he persecuted the church, fixed his sights upon Christians, tracked them down, with zeal and with a burning passion. God

62:53 says, fix your eyes upon a life of sanctification, a life lived in consecration unto God and away from the world, a life conformed by the norms of God. Fix your eyes upon it and track it down with the zeal of a blind persecutor. Persecute, track down, pursue holiness without which no man, shall see the Lord.

63:23 The ground of our seeing Him in joy and in perfection is not in us. The ground of our acceptance before God now and even in the day when we stand before Him is Christ and Christ's righteousness alone. But all who have truly had that righteousness imputed to them are a people who have been transformed by the power of God and given a heart to be holy. And therefore God says, pursue the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.

64:03 You may be sitting here and be saying as I've been opening up these scriptures, but Pastor Martin, that standard is so all-embracing. That doesn't give me even room for three minutes in a day when I can suspend thoughts of God in what pleases God. It means in everything from the time I put my stinky feet on the floor in the morning and stagger into the bathroom and do my thing and go down and get my coffee and take my shower throughout the entire day to what I read in my break time and how I relate to my boss and how I speak to my wife and relate to my kids and what I do in the bedroom when the door is shut until I drift

64:48 off into sleep. I must think of everything every moment as under the eye of God. That doesn't leave me any room. My friend, if you want room, you'll have plenty of it because the essence of hell is to be cast out from the presence of God. You want three minutes of your day

65:06 without Him, God will give you an eternity without it. That's no burdensome thing to the true child of God. His burden is that all too often try as He may and pray as He does. He looks back and says a whole patch of an afternoon went by and though I did not indulge in any gross sin I had no conscious thoughts of my God and it breaks his heart. It grieves him.

Application 2: Compliance is Not Impossible

65:37 He longs that this standard will be worked out in his life. Our response to this call is not optional and thank God I can close on this final note of application in this hour. Compliance with this call is not impossible. Come pliance with this call is not impossible. Now notice

66:01 I didn't say perfect compliance. I said compliance. Compliance. That is, it is not impossible to take Romans 12 and to see it being worked out in my life where I am refusing to be molded by this present age. To let this present age

66:22 paint on the canvas of my perception of reality what I ought to be and do it is not impossible to refuse that and to be transformed by the renewing of my mind. Compliance with this call is not impossible. Why? Listen to Philippians 4.13

66:44 I can do all things. Poor Paul you sure have changed your mind from what you said in Romans 7 the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do. Oh wretched man that I am. I know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing.

67:08 Well the same Paul said I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can face the reality of my remaining sin as really as I faced it and recorded it in Romans 7 and not let it send me into a tailspin of spiritual dejection and discouragement and roll over and play dead. I can face the reality of my remaining sin and in the anticipation of my full deliverance I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord and I can press on in the strength of Christ to do the will of Christ.

67:52 Then you have that marvelous statement in Hebrews 13 20 and 21 some would call it a benediction others would call it a prayer. Now the God of peace who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant even our Lord Jesus Christ make you perfect complete in every good thing to do his will working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be the glory forever and ever amen.

68:28 Unto the God who is able to make you perfect in every good thing to do working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight it's not well pleasing in his sight because it comes before him in total perfection viewed nakedly no no God's eye can discern enough imperfection in the holiest thought and action we have ever thought or performed God's eye can see enough sin in it to damn us to hell. But when that deed comes out of a heart overwhelmed with gratitude for the mercy of God in Christ

69:12 a heart that wants to please God out of gratitude for what Christ has done and a mind that is determined to think after the patterns of God so that it is not blind obedience impulsed by warm devotion but an empty head but it is the obedience of an enlightened mind driven by the affection of love and gratitude that very act of obedience is presented to God through the fragrance of the mediation of the Lord Jesus and it is well pleasing to God. And then of course Philippians 2 12 and

69:57 13 work out your salvation with fear and trembling why it is God who is present tense continually at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure no my brethren the standard is high yes the heart of every true Christian is committed to it this call to our role is not optional and thank God compliance with this call is not impossible Rabbi Duncan as he was affectionately called he wasn't a rabbi he was a scot

70:41 but he was a man to whom God had given a very unusual mind as well as an unusually sensitive heart and in that unusual mind was a passion and a thirst for languages they say the man would just absorb languages and also the kind of mind that whenever he contemplated anything particularly spiritual and biblical truths his biographer who was his pastor for thirty years said he was never satisfied until he had plumbed the depths of the given aspect of God's truth as deep as the human mind could take it with an open bible then he sought to trace it up this high

71:25 as the mind could go with the light of the bible and then he wanted to come out of the depths and out of the heights and expressed that the heart the essence of that truth in a simple little pity or sententious statement and this is one of them contemplating all all that the Bible teaches about the kinds of things we've been dealing with in this hour, that the child of God is committed to a life of total consecration, to have his mind renewed in every area with respect to performing and doing the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God, seeking to be holy as He is holy, while at the same time reckoning with the ugly and horrible realities

72:08 of remaining sin in the influence of a seducing world. Rabbi Duncan said this, Nobody's perfect.

72:19 This is the hypocrite's couch. It is the believer's bed of thorns.

72:30 Nobody's perfect! That's right. Is that your couch on which you lie? To keep you from whole-souled engagement in seeking to be holy as He is holy?

72:45 Or is it your bed of thorns that though your heart is set upon that totally unholy, that total renewal of your mind, that rejection of all that pertains to the times of your ignorance, and while you cry to God for grace and depend upon Christ and supplies of the Spirit, you know that your best acts are pitiful at best.

73:12 Nobody's perfect. It is the true believer's bed of thorns.

73:19 Which is it to you? God grant that if it's not your bed of thorns, men, face the fact you've probably a stranger to grace.

73:31 That grace is the only place it can be found in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Closing Prayer

73:42 Our Father, we thank you again for your holy word. Thank you as we did at the beginning of this hour that we are found in this place. Oh God, we're in amazement to ourselves. For some of us can remember a time when to be in a meeting like this would have been sheer boredom.

74:03 It would have galled us to our socks. But Lord, we've actually delighted to be here. Our hearts have found joy in even thinking about you and your word. Oh Lord, we thank you for your grace to the likes of us.

74:22 Seal this word to the heart of every Christian man in this place. That we will be done with all piddling about in the Christian life. And that we may begin to manifest that engagement of our whole life and the whole being of which our Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely worthy. And for those who sit here, the more the word has been preached, the more they've had reason to question whether or not the root of the matter is in them.

74:52 Lord, may they not squelch those holy doubts produced by the word. But may they cherish them and seek your face until they know of a surety that they are new men in Christ Jesus. Thank you again for being with us through the hours of this morning. You bless us as shortly we will go to our lunch.

75:17 Oh God, how quickly the enemy would come like the fowls of the air to pluck up the word. May our conversation be seasoned with the salt of grace. May our interaction be more than surface. Give us the grace to be open and vulnerable one to another.

75:36 And then bless our remaining sessions that much good will be done in all of our hearts to the glory of your name through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.