The Christian's Role Identified

Personal Explanation and Prayer for God's Help

0:00 For the rest of you an explanation, I had fully intended to spend more time there and to get acquainted with more of you. I'm thankful for the many that I was able to meet and speak to during the eating time. And then I was especially desirous to go down with the children and to pitch the ball to them and then engage in an instant little game of softball for several reasons. Many of these children, all they know about Pastor Martin is that man that booms over Mommy and Daddy's cassette recorder.

0:37 And I'm desirous that I should get to know them in the light of what I am as a man, as a grandpa who likes to play with his grandchildren and a father who loves his children and has a special relationship with all the little ones in our own congregation, some of whom literally. We'll cry to Mommy and Daddy. They take them to the parking lot if they haven't had their hug and their kiss from Pastor for the day. And yet, for reasons that God alone knows, and I've embraced Romans 8.28, for some reason, a little movement that I'm not used to making, even though I exercise regularly and I have torn a muscle deep in my right calf, it hurts like a toothache, and I didn't want to scare the kids by hollering, and hobbling off the field, so I tried to go off rather quietly and slink away like a silent hero. But I want you kids to know that Pastor didn't run away from you because I didn't enjoy being with you. I wish I could have spent more time with you as well as time in getting better acquainted with some of the others of you. And so I felt I owed you that word of explanation.

1:52 It's so vital that children have a realistic view of God. What true Christianity is and what a man of God is, above all, what our Lord Jesus Christ is like. And he ought to be mirrored in every Christian man and woman, but particularly in the servants of Christ. And if anything was true of our Lord, it was that children not only tolerated him, they loved him and they felt at ease around him.

2:20 And frankly, I have little use for any man that claims to be spiritual or a man of God. With whom children do not feel comfortable. There's something grossly lacking in likeness to Christ. So though it may sound very unspiritual to some of you, I glory in what you may regard unspiritual, that I was seeking to give my time to the children to get better acquainted with them.

2:49 Well, with that explanation behind us, and I hope you children will be understanding, and it's nothing... It's nothing that won't heal in time, God willing.

2:59 It'll just be an irritant over the next few weeks and greatly curtail my regular exercise program. But apart from that, we'll come through it as we have many other similar pulled muscles. With the passing of the years, we're reminded that the outward man does indeed decay. But thank God the inward man is renewed day by day.

3:22 Well, let's pray and ask God to help us. I'm sure many of us, expending physical energy and having a full day, could naturally be weary. Let's ask the Lord who knows our frame and remembers that we are dust, to quicken our minds and hearts, that we may give careful attention to the word of God. Let us pray.

3:42 Our Father, our hearts are indeed full this night, as we reflect back on the hours of this day in which you gave us such a bright, clear, sunny, dry day, and our eyes were able to see the light of the Lord. and our eyes were able to see the light of the Lord. and our eyes were able to see the light of the Lord. You are able to drink in the brightness of the sun and the blueness of the sky and the greenness of the grass and the trees.

4:07 We thank you for the great variety and tastiness of the food we've been able to eat together. For the joy of speaking one to another about your dealings with us and our common joys in the Lord Jesus. Thank you for the opportunity to exercise, to laugh, to play. Oh, Lord, surely, You have given us all things richly to enjoy.

4:32 And we return thanks for these mercies. But we are reminded of the words of our Lord Jesus who said, Man shall not live by bread alone. And while bodily exercise is profitable for a little, it is your word upon which we must feed. And we must exercise ourselves unto godliness that has promised not only in this life, but in the life which is to come.

4:59 Help us then, our Father, as we would gird up our minds and hearts. Give us the strength of your spirit that we may profit from the preaching and teaching of the word of God this night. Hear our cry and bless us with your presence, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Recap: The Wicked Generation and the Biblical Christian

5:19 Now we come this evening to what is the third in our series of studies in the announced themes. The theme of this conference, which is The Christian's Role in a Wicked Generation. And in the opening two messages, I attempted to do just two things. In the first message, I sought to establish from the word of God that our generation is indeed one that is worthy of the designation a wicked generation.

6:02 And it is worthy of that dishonorable description because of its intellectual perversity, its moral degeneracy, its social anarchy, and its religious apostasy. And then last night, I sought to demonstrate what a biblical Christian is. If we're to talk about the Christian's role in a wicked generation, not only must we be convinced from the word of God that ours is a wicked generation, but we must be convinced as to what a real Christian is. And so we took the word of God in hand and we saw that a real Christian, one worthy of that name, first given to disciples at Antioch, as recorded in Acts 11 and verse 26, used again by Peter in 1 Peter 4 and verse 15, that a Christian is one who's been made painfully aware of the fact that he's a hell-deserving sinner. Secondly, a Christian is one who has heard and received as true the facts concerning God's only way of rescuing sinners, a way that centers in a unique person,

7:30 the God-man Christ, Jesus, and focuses upon his substitutionary work, living the life we did not live, dying the death we dare not die. Thirdly, a biblical Christian is one who has experienced God-wrought repentance and faith, Acts 20 and verse 21, and a biblical Christian is one who can validate his professed faith and repentance by the fruit of his life. For the scripture tells us, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed and the new has come. Now tonight, we take up the subject proper. What is the essence, the heart, or as it's in vogue to say in our day, what is the bottom line of a Christian's role in the midst, in the midst of a wicked generation? Well, as I've tried to gather the Bible's answer to that question, I want to propose that the answer of the word of God can be ranged under two major headings. One of them is negative, and one of them is positive.

The Christian's Role: Negatively - Do Not Be Conformed

8:53 And let me say in passing, I'm never ashamed to preach negative things. God's revelation comes in both negative, and positive statements. Take the Ten Commandments, for example. They begin negatively.

9:08 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. God could have said, you shall have me as your only God, but he chose to state it negatively. Thou shalt not make any graven images. And it isn't until the third commandment that we go positive.

9:23 Oh, that's still negative, isn't it? Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Fourth commandment, positive. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

9:32 Fifth commandment, honor thy father and thy mother. Then God goes back to the negative. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

9:39 Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet. If anyone has a problem with negative preaching, they've got a problem with God.

9:49 For no one can be true to the word of God who does not traffic in a due proportion of the negative. Now, anyone who's all negative is ignoring large portions of God's word. But I want to suggest that in answer to this question, a question of deep concern to every true Christian, what is my role in the midst of a wicked generation that the answer of Scripture is negative and positive? Negatively, the Christian must not allow the wickedness of this generation to shape his thinking or his patterns of life in any area.

10:37 The Christian must not allow the wickedness of this generation to shape his thinking or his pattern of life, or if you like the inward lifestyle, in any area. And I want you to study with me tonight three texts of Scripture which clearly teach this principle. At the mouth of two or three witnesses, God says, let every word be established. Well, we're going to look at three witnesses under the negative, and then subsequently three under the positive.

Witness 1: Romans 12:2a - Do Not Be Fashioned by This Age

11:18 Turn, please, to Romans chapter 12. And I trust that the familiarity of the words will not be a block to fresh light and understanding. Romans chapter 12,

11:33 verse 1, verses 1 and 2a.

11:38 I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. And be not fashioned according to this world or this age. Now, Paul has, opened up in the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans in a very systematic and comprehensive way the riches of God's grace to needy sinners in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The closest thing we have in the Bible to a systematic theology is the book of Romans. For after some general words of introduction, it starts out with man's need of God's salvation. And then God's provision of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, producing justification, sanctification, glorification. And then God's administration of that salvation in human history to the Jew first and then now to the Gentile nations summed up in that marvelous conclusion of chapter 11 of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things

13:07 to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. And then it's as though someone says, well, Paul, that's a marvelous exposition in a systematic and comprehensive way of the riches of God's grace. So what?

13:23 What is my response to this to be? And his answer is, I beseech you. I entreat you therefore, brethren, in the light of this dazzling panorama of God's amazing grace to present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God which is your spiritual service. In the light of your augmented understanding of the salvation you Romans already possess, now that you stand on higher ground and you see the farther reaches of that salvation, this should cause a fresh response of joyful abandonment of the totality of your redeemed humanity to God. Present your bodies a living sacrifice, mixing concepts that seem on the surface to be contradictory. A sacrifice was always slain and offered to God. He says, no.

14:27 Let your life, this new redeemed life in Christ, be offered up with renewed intelligent devotion to God which is your spiritual and your rational service. And then the first thing he says, if you're going to work out a life consistent with that devotion to God which is the response of your appreciation for His grace, you see the connection? Grace revealed. Then the response to grace, what's the first thing we must settle?

15:03 Look at the text. And be not fashioned according to this age. If you are going to work out an appropriate response of gratitude to the grace of God in Christ, you must determine that you will not be fashioned according to this world. Now this verse, the verb be not fashioned, for some of you who know a little Greek and a little English, it is a present passive imperative.

15:48 And the verb itself is the kind of verb you would use if you were describing what an artist were doing if he or she had placed a few apples and pears on a table and then a beautifully colored vase or vase, whatever you say out here in the West Coast. We ordinary people back in Connecticut, we said vase. It was the uppities in New York that said vase. So whether it's vase or vase, there on the table, you have a couple of apples and pears and a vase or vase.

16:24 And now as an artist, you want to paint a still life painting. Now what does the artist seek to do? The artist continually glances to the objects on the table and then on the canvas, he or she seeks to fashion on the canvas that which is conformed to the realities on the table. And if you were describing what the artist was doing, the artist was fashioning on canvas the images of those realities on the table, this is the word you would use.

17:03 Paul says, do not allow yourself to be fashioned according to the standards, to the mindset, to the perspectives, the goals, and everything that pertains to this present evil and wicked age. Don't let this wicked generation reproduce in you its thoughts leading to action. Actions that will be characterized, by the very things that make this a peculiarly wicked generation. Intellectual perversity.

17:47 Don't be fashioned according to this age that is filled with the wine of its own arrogance and drunk with it and thinks that it can understand God's world without God himself being factored in. Can understand God's special creature, man, without regarding him as having been made in the image of God. Don't let this world fashion you. Don't let it reproduce its own perverse mental activities in you.

18:22 Don't let it reproduce in you its moral degeneracy. Don't absorb its loose and low views of the dignity and the sanctity of human sexuality. The fixed and irreversible roles of male and female in identity, in sexual function, in domestic responsibility, in ecclesiastical function and position and office. Don't let this present age reproduce itself on the canvas of your heart and on the canvas of your life.

19:01 Don't be fashioned according to this present age. Don't let its social anarchy that despises authority, whether in the home, in the school, on the street with reference to duly constituted law enforcement officers with all of their own faults and problems or the military or the government instituted by God. Don't allow this age to paint you into its picture of religious apostasy in which no longer is there confidence in every word of God. Don't let it reproduce itself in you.

19:43 No longer a respect for the undiminished and the reconcilable warfare between truth and error, between salvation by grace and salvation by works. You see the implication is this present age will seek to reproduce itself in you and Paul says don't let it do it. Be not fashioned. Do not allow this present age as someone has to paraphrase this very verse.

20:17 Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. It will if you let it and my role as a Christian in this wicked generation is one in which I must be determined that the wickedness of this generation will not shape my thinking or my lifestyle in any area. The first text which clearly teaches it is Romans 12, 2 verse a or 2 part a. Now second text, 1 Peter chapter 1 and tonight I do want you to turn to the passages I quoted verbatim about 40 passages last night but tonight we are going to part for a little while longer on fewer passages. 1 Peter 1. Remember now what we are doing. We are not just having a Bible study willy-nilly.

Witness 2: 1 Peter 1:13-14 - Not According to Former Lusts

21:13 We are answering the question what is my role in a wicked generation. We have stated my role is negatively. I must not allow the wickedness of this generation to shape my thinking or my lifestyle in any area. Witness number one, Romans 12, 2a.

21:34 Witness number two, 1 Peter 1, 13 and 14. Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, 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, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance. And we stop the reading there. Now again, briefly, just a word about the setting.

22:09 Peter has written in the opening verses of this letter concerning the great privileges of the people of God. Privileges of God. Privileges that will come to consummation at the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Verse 5 of chapter 1.

22:28 Who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. The end of verse 7. At the revelation of Jesus Christ. He has been speaking of the marvelous privileges of the people of God.

22:48 And he has said that those privileges will come to their fullest expression and glorious consummation at the return of the Lord Jesus. In other words, all the glorious things we have now, the best is yet to come. And that being true, now he says, wherefore, girding up the loins of your mind, and he's using a figure of speech. If you and I were living in Palestinian days, and went out to have a ball game this afternoon, we wouldn't have put on shorts, or put on our putter pants.

23:26 We would have had on our long robe. But what we would have done is, we would have taken the loose flowing ends of the robes, and modestly pulled them up high enough so we wouldn't stumble over them when we ran to first base. And we would have tied them up around our sash, around our middle. That would have been called, I'm girding up of the loins, so when someone called us to a ball game, they would have come and said, line up!

23:54 And while you're lining up, gird up your loins. So all the men would have taken the long flowing robes, and they would have pulled them up and tied them up. Well Peter says, take all the loose ends of your mind. He recognized that every Christian by nature because of remaining sin is a scatterbrain.

24:11 Yeah, we're all scatterbrains because of remaining sin. He says, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober. It doesn't mean be somber in a sad sack. To be sober means you're in touch with reality.

24:24 A man is drunk, he can think he's Napoleon riding on a horse going out to conquer the world. And all he's doing is lying in the backseat of his car, snoring. Be sober doesn't mean somber, sad sack. It means be in touch with reality.

24:35 So gird up the loose ends of your mind, stay in touch with reality. Be sober. Be sober. Be sober.

24:43 Be sober. Be sober. Be sober. Be sober.

24:48 Be sober. Be sober. Be sober. Be sober.

24:52 Be sober. Be sober. Be sober. Keep in touch with reality.

24:57 Notice now. And set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. He says, Because the best is yet to come, constantly pull in your scatterbrain perspectives. Keep in touch with reality no matter what sufferings you may face and the sufferings that you may face this is particularly a letter to suffering Christians. It doesn't change the fact that suffering is only for a little time. The best is yet to come. That's reality. Pull in the loose ends of the garment of your mind and tie them up and fix your mind perfectly. That

25:42 is, fix it with steadiness, fix it with constancy on the hope that is to be realized when the Lord Jesus Christ will come again. Now, in that posture, what are we to do? Go find the nearest mountain, sit down and look up, wait for the Lord to come? No. Look at the next verse. As children of obedience, assuming that every true Christ will come, we will not be afraid of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not be afraid of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not be afraid of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not be afraid of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not be afraid of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not be afraid of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will not be afraid of the Lord Jesus Christ. We Christian can be described as a child of obedience. God bears no perpetually disobedient children. Never. He bears children who, when they are disobedient, he will chastise them.

26:32 For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. But the basic pattern of all God's true children is they are obedient. So he says, as obedient children, now look at the next verse. Not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance, whatever else you're going to do, while your heart is set upon the glorious consummation of redemption at the second coming of the Lord Jesus, this you must do. As children of obedience, determine that you will not fashion yourselves. According to the standards and dictates and pressures of your former lusts in the time of your ignorance. And if you have an older version, you'll notice the words the time are in italics. They're not in the original. A more literal rendering would be your former

27:36 lust in your ignorance. He says, what was your past life all about? He said, you lived the life according to your past life. So he said, you lived the life according to your past life.

27:46 According to the standards and dictates and pressures of your former lusts in the time of your ignorance. Your lusts, your appetites, your passions, your desires. And those desires were shaped by your ignorance of where it would take you to hell. Your ignorance of the bitterness for the way of the transgressor is hard.

28:03 Your ignorance of the wonder of God's grace and salvation in the Lord Jesus. Your ignorance of the joy of a life of communion with the living God through His Son and by the Holy Spirit. Your former life was marked by a life lived under the influence of lust. Lust that themselves were the outgrowth of spiritual ignorance.

28:28 Now, he says, while your heart is fixed on the coming of Christ, yearning for the consummation of your salvation as children of obedience, deliberately refuse to fashion yourself. Fashion yourself according to those former lusts. Now, it's the same root verb as you have in Romans 12 too.

28:56 Be not conformed. Same root word, but in a different form. Don't fashion yourself according to your former lusts in your ignorance. And what were those lusts?

29:14 Well, John answers us, doesn't he, in the book of 1 John. And all that is in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. He said you can sum up the trinity of the world's desires. Lust of the flesh, the desire to enjoy things, particularly sensual things.

29:43 The lust of the eyes, the desire to have things. And the pride of life, the desire to be somebody. That's the world's trinity. Before that trinity, the world bows and worships.

29:58 The trinity of pleasure, things, and influence, and name, popularity. And he says that was your lifestyle. But now, he said, as new creatures in Christ, as children of obedience, you do not fashion yourself. According to the dictates and directives of those lusts which were connected with the days of your spiritual ignorance,

30:31 you and I, in thought and action, must refuse consciously and deliberately to let our thinking or our lifestyle be molded by our former lusts connected with our days of spiritually. Witness number three, Ephesians chapter four.

Witness 3: Ephesians 4:17-20 - No Longer Walk as Gentiles

30:58 Remember now what we're doing? We're answering the question. What is the Christian's role in a wicked generation? Be not conformed to this age.

31:09 Not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust of your ignorance. Ephesians chapter four. Now again, just a word about the setting. In the opening three chapters, Paul gives one of the most wonderful treatments.

31:25 The first is the doctrine of salvation. And then the doctrine of the church. Bringing together, in theological language, soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, and ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church. And he brings the two into the most intimate connection.

31:45 And hear me now by an aside.

31:49 It's not enough that by God's grace we come to appreciate biblical soteriology. That God saves. God does all the saving. And he does a good job when he saves.

32:00 When people ask, are you Calvinists? I ask, what do you mean, am I a Calvinist? I want to know what they mean by the term. And if you mean by a Calvinist that I believe God does the saving, he does it on purpose, and he does a good job, then I'm a Calvinist.

32:24 That's the Bible doctrine of salvation. God saves. He does all the saving. He does it on purpose.

32:31 And he does a good job. When he starts, he completes. That's it.

32:38 Well, Paul, you see, moves from teaching those wonderful things in chapter 1 and in chapter 2 through verse 10, and then he moves right on into the fact that in doing this, God is forming something glorious called the church. His living temple, made up of Jews and Gentiles, brought together in one body, so that those who are the recipients of this sovereign salvation are found in God's living temple, indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And then he opens up how this was a peculiar stewardship given to him in chapter 3, verses 1 to 13, and then the prayer that he prays for the people of God. Then he turns in chapter 4 and verse 1 to exhorting. Up until now, he's not been telling, the Ephesians, to do anything but to worship with him. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, according as he chose us in him.

33:44 And he goes from election to redemption to the indwelling of the Spirit. Marvelous truth. But now he turns from what we have in Christ to what we ought to be and do in the light of what we have. He turns from the great...

34:01 The great indicatives that we heard last night to the imperatives. This is what God has done. The great indicatives. Now the imperatives.

34:10 Chapter 4, verse 1. I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith you were called. He says, now since God has done this marvelous work of calling you from spiritual death to life in sovereign, free, efficacious, His grace, called you into His one body where there is no middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile and God who broke it down in the cross will never erect it again in human history. It's broken down forever.

34:48 Never to be raised again. He says, now in the light of such a calling, walk worthily of that calling. Let your walk, your day-by-day experience in the home. Behind the sink, in the shop, on the highway, driving to work, in the school, on your date, in your courtship, in the intimacy of your married life, in every facet of your life.

35:17 Let your lifestyle answer to the magnitude and wonder of your calling as a Christian. Then he gets specific. He doesn't just throw it out and say, now work it out on your own. In the first area, he addresses, he addresses his Christian unity.

35:34 That's the first thing he addresses is unity. And so he says, if you're going to have that, you need the graces of loneliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And then in that theme of unity, he opens up several other strands of marvelous truth. But we'll not look into them.

35:58 But then notice in verse 17, in the light of all of that call to unity in the midst of diversity, unity in the midst of God's blessing the church with pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, et cetera. I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, and here's a negative, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk. You are not to walk. Your lifestyle is not in any way to parallel those who are strangers to the grace of God.

36:42 He calls even these who are Gentiles by origin, no longer are they Gentiles. He's already said, you are now part of the commonwealth of Israel. You are the new Israel of God. You are partakers of the promises of God in Christ Jesus.

37:00 Don't walk like the pagans would be a saint. Don't walk like the pagans would be a saint. Don't walk like the pagans would be a saint. That's the synonym for Gentiles.

37:05 Don't walk as the pagans walk. And now I want you to notice carefully what he highlights about what governs the walk of pagans. What governs the lifestyle of the wicked generation in which we live? Notice what's emphasized.

37:21 Look at your Bibles. No longer walk as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. The word vanity literally means futility, something that's futile, good for nothing. I made a futile effort to catch the 737 when I got to the train station it had already left.

37:46 My effort was for naught. He says, no longer walk as the Gentiles in the futility of their mind. Whatever they set their mind to, because they rule out God, all of their efforts are futile. And their life is shamed.

38:04 Shaped by a mind whose efforts are futile. Further, being darkened in their understanding. They have a futile mind. They have a darkened understanding.

38:25 Their lifestyle is framed by an understanding that's shrouded in darkness. And when they look for the path of right, it's shrouded in darkness. The path of wisdom. It's shrouded in darkness.

38:39 What a horrible picture. But that's the picture. Read on. Alienated from the life of God because, the cause of their alienation from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them.

38:58 Their ignorance. Of who God really is. And who they are. And how they can know God.

39:04 And how their sins can be forgiven. And how they can be given the grace. To please God. Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.

39:15 But look, it's culpable ignorance. Because of the hardening of their heart. There is not only intellectual ignorance. There is moral perversity.

39:27 The hardness of the heart. And then they have a frighteningly seared sensitivity. Look at the next part. Who being past feelings.

39:39 Gave themselves up to work. Lasciviousness. Lewdness. To work all uncleanness with greediness.

39:51 Now that's the picture, he says, of the pagan. You were once such pagans. Now, he says, no longer walk as they walked. Let nothing about you be characterized by their likeness.

40:09 By their lifestyle. No longer walk as the Gentiles walk. In the vanity. In the futility of their mind.

40:19 With their darkened understanding. With their ignorance. With their hard heart. And their insensitive conscience.

40:29 Because he says in verse 20. You did not so learn Christ. He said, if you have been taught by Christ. And of Christ.

40:39 With the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Unto salvation. Christ never taught you. Come to me and get saved.

40:46 And then still live like a pagan. Come to me and be saved. And now learn of me. How every area of your life is to be lived according to my standard.

41:01 So that you will be salt and light to the pagan. You will not blend in and out. Like a sparkling diamond. Against the black velvet backdrop of a wicked generation.

41:18 What is our role? In a wicked generation. Our role is not to be conformed to this age. Our role as we have seen.

41:32 Is no longer to walk according to the former lust. In our ignorance. First Peter. It is.

41:41 No longer to walk. As the Gentiles walk. In the vanity of their mind. Now in summary.

41:51 Let me say that this is the broad category. Under which many other portions of the New Testament and old can be placed. Remember all those calls to put to death. The deeds of the flesh.

42:06 Romans 8.13. Colossians 3.5.

42:09 Those calls from our Lord Jesus. If thine eye offend thee. Cut it out. If thy hand offend thee.

42:16 Cut it off. Cast it from thee. All of those calls. To mortify.

42:21 To put off. To excise. Those members that offend. They all fit under this general heading.

42:29 That if we are to live as we ought in a wicked generation. We must determine by the grace of God. That we will not allow the wickedness of this generation. To shape our thinking.

42:44 Or our lifestyle. In any area. We are prepared to be radically and pervasively different in every facet of thought and life. That's why Paul could say in 2 Corinthians 7.1.

42:59 Having therefore these promises dearly beloved. Let us cleanse ourselves of all defilement. Of the flesh. The outward life.

43:08 And the spirit. The inner life. Perfecting holiness in the fear. Of God.

The Christian's Role: Positively - Be Transformed

43:15 Now that's our role. Negatively stated. Now, secondly, positively stated. How is this role stated positively?

43:26 Well, let me put it this way. The Christian is to seek to be transformed. In all of his thinking. And patterns of life.

43:38 In conformity. With the standards of God. The Christian is to seek to be transformed. seek to be transformed in all of his thinking and patterns of life in conformity with the standards of God. It's the flip side of the negative. Now let's go back to Romans chapter 12 and we'll see exactly how the apostle approached it this way. He started with the negative. I won't go back and give the context. I already did that. But now notice, once he says in verse 2 of Romans 12, be not fashioned according to this world, that's not enough. It's not enough that you refuse to let this world dictate what you're going to be and reproduce you on the canvas. That is not enough. There is a positive dimension, but be ye transformed. How?

44:40 By going to meetings and getting tinglys up and down your spine. That is in what my Bible says.

44:50 It says be transformed by the renewing of your mind. See how much place is given to this matter of ignorance, darkened understanding. Now in the positive area, we are to be transformed. How?

45:08 By the renewing of our minds. We may prove and we'll show that that verse again brings in our mental intellectual faculties that we may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Assuming a man is committed to the active resistance of conformity to this present age, Paul moves from the negative to the positive and he uses another present imperative passive.

45:43 Let yourselves be transformed.

45:47 Now you know what this word means? This word means to be changed as to form. And the best way I know to illustrate it is this. You kids know this. You've either seen it or you've learned it in school, that that cocoon that holds a caterpillar, when that caterpillar changes to a moth or to a butterfly,

46:15 it is metamorphosized, metamorphosized, however you would pronounce it. That's the Greek word here. Be transformed, changed in form from one thing to another. And as the caterpillar changes in form to the moth, so we are to change in form from that which was held in by the standards, the goals, the perspectives, the ambitions, the ideals of the world.

46:47 Break out of that cocoon. Fly in the air of the will of God, the good, the acceptable, and the perfect. Now that's what he calls us to. To be transformed. And how is this to be done?

47:04 By the renewing of our minds. That is, our thinking about all of life must be, by degrees, wrenched away from the patterns in which they thought, when we were sinners and must be locked in to the patterns of thought in which we think God's thoughts after Him. If we're to be transformed, it starts in the Christian's mind when something he did in his unconverted days, he says, wait a minute, that is not a God-centered activity. I could not ask God's blessing upon that activity. I would not want the Lord Jesus at my elbow in that transaction of business when I know I've not been perfectly honest with my client. I wouldn't want the Lord Jesus looking in the window of the car on that date in terms of what I'm doing with my girlfriend or my boyfriend. It starts in the mind.

48:13 You begin to think that God's concerned with what I do on my date. God's concerned, God's concerned with how I conduct my business transaction. God is there at my elbow when I make out my 1040 income tax form and sign it saying to the best of my knowledge this represents the facts of my financial dealings.

48:38 It starts in your head when you begin to think that in every single area, whether I eat or drink or whatsoever I do, I'm to do all to the glory of God. I am to be transformed in my life beginning with the renewing of my mind. My mind must be renewed in its thoughts about life and death and the use of time and money and things and boy-girl relationships and goals and business standards and relationships. What I am as a woman, as a wife, as a mother, what I am as a son, a daughter, brother, sister, every area of life, my mind must be transformed.

49:31 And what will be the result? Look at the text. In order that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And this word prove means to prove by testing and then approve of it when it tests out positively.

49:52 I recently had a new experience in our little local post office. I went down to buy some stamps and I handed the man a twenty dollar bill. And rather than just put it in the drawer, he stuck it in a little machine and then he pulled it out again. And that little machine is a money tester to see whether it's counterfeit or genuine.

50:16 What he did with my twenty dollar bill is he put it to the test and when it was approved, I don't know what happened if it was a bogus thing, whether it would have shot me, shot a pellet at me, or whether it would have screamed at me, counterfeiter, I don't know. I don't know. I'd like to take in a counterfeit if I could do it and not get in trouble to see what the little machine would do. But I imagine it buzzes or bleeps or lights up or is connected with the local police station.

50:44 And I don't know what it would do, but he put it in there and put it to the test. And when it came out approved, then he showed his approval by putting it in the, in the cash drawer and handing me my stamps. Now that's how you would have described what that man did if you were living in Paul's day. That you may approve after putting something to the test and proving it.

51:12 He said, you will in this way prove in your experience as your mind weighs and evaluates what you're doing, why you're doing it, how you're doing it. And you say, yes, that is according to God's will as revealed in the scriptures and approving it. Then you do putting it to the test and proving it. Then you approve it and incorporate it in your life.

51:39 And what is the result? Your life becomes marked as a life of doing the will of God. And it's described in three ways. It is the good, the acceptable, and the perfect.

51:54 The will of God is the good. It is the morally right. It is the acceptable. It is acceptable to God.

52:01 And it is the perfect. It is the complete. It is that to which God has called us. Not sinless perfection, but it means wholeness.

52:13 My actions then have a wholeness to them because I'm now doing what I was made to do to glorify God. What a marvelous thing to think that here and now, with sin around me and a wicked generation pressuring me that I as a man, a woman, a boy or a girl can do in my generation. And there's not enough wickedness to stop me. Even if the generation should become so wicked as to throw me into a prison like they threw Paul, I can do the will of God with my hands in stocks.

52:56 For what is the will of God in everything? Give thanks. Pray without ceasing. And there Paul and Silas were praying and praising God at midnight, doing the will of God in jail, caked with their own blood and their hands and their feet in stocks.

53:15 And it's as though God looked down out of heaven and said, you know, this makes me so pleased, I'm going to shake the place up.

53:24 And God shook the place up. And you know the subsequent story. Here is the positive, the Christian, is to seek to be transformed in all of this thinking and patterns of life in conformity with the standards of God. That's the first witness.

Witness 2 (Positive): Philippians 2:14-16 - Shine as Lights

53:44 Second witness, Philippians chapter 2.

53:48 I hope you don't find this tedious, rooting around in the word of God like this. If you do, I'm sorry, I've got nothing else to give you. I've got no tricks. I've got no band in the back room waiting to come out and entertain you with Christian rock or anything else.

54:04 You're not getting, I'm blessed I am anyway. All right, Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2. Seriously, here's the context of our verses.

54:17 Verse 12, So then, my beloved, he has just given them a call to unity again. Unity after the pattern of Christ who didn't seek his own but sought the things of others. Whenever there's disunity in any church, somebody's been seeking to have his own way.

54:34 Only by pride cometh contention. Says Solomon, Paul understood that and he said, if you're going to have unity there at Philippi, do nothing through faction or vain glory but in lowliness of mind, each count other better than himself, not looking each of you on his own things but on the things of others and then he gives Christ as the great example. Now he's going to come with another general exhortation. So then, my beloved, even as you've obeyed not only in my presence only but now much more in my absence, those who say, ah, your religion only works when that hot shot preacher's around, he said, prove them wrong.

55:13 Sure you obeyed when I was there encouraging you, praying for you, setting an example for you. Shut the mouths of your enemies who say you're following a man. You've got a man's religion. Your attachment to a man, he said, prove them wrong.

55:28 As you obeyed when I was with you, much more now in my absence, continue to obey. Work out your obedience. Own salvation with fear and trembling, with dead seriousness about the issues at stake. But don't be discouraged for it's God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

55:49 There's the general call to a life of obedience, a life of serious, earnest application to living the Christian life in the confidence that the strength and the motivation and power to live the Christian life come from God. You see that in the text? You work it out, but all the while you work it out, be convinced God is working in you to will and to work. You see, but Paul doesn't like to deal in generalities.

56:17 That could float by us and just look so pretty, you know? Sort of like a banner floating by. Oop, in that light. Paul said, now I want to get specific.

56:27 So he gets specific. Verse 14. Do all things. Listen to this, children.

56:33 All things. Do all things. Everything. Everything.

56:37 Everything. Everything. Everything. Everything.

56:37 Everything. All things are called upon to do that is within the will of God. Do all things without murmurings and questionings. The word murmurings, a good contemporary synonym would be grousing.

56:54 It's the word used of ancient Israel. They murmured. This guy Moses brought us out of the desert and he's going to kill us.

57:02 This guy Moses. All he does is give us manna. Oh yeah, it's got all the vitamin, minerals you need to keep you alive in the wilderness and God sends it down out of heaven every day but we're sick and tired of this stuff. And they murmured.

57:14 We want flesh. And God gave them flesh until it came out their nostrils.

57:19 Sometimes people say, Pastor, you're preaching as coarse at times. Well, I hope no more coarse than God. God says, if flesh came out their nostrils. That's gross, you kids say.

57:29 That's right, it is gross. But that's what God gave them for their grousing. God gave them gross numbers of quail for their grousing.

57:41 So, don't grouse.

57:44 Don't grouse. Do all things without grousing and this word questionings, disputings, means primarily without a cynical spirit, particularly questioning God.

57:57 You're out there on a ball field trying as a Christian man to relate to some kids and you pull a muscle. First thing you must not do. You don't question. Why, God?

58:07 You just say, all things come from God. I don't have a clue, Lord, why you did it, but I know you did it. Hallelujah. That's what he's talking about.

58:15 I had to apply that text to me today.

58:22 Take your torn calf muscle without questioning. God got a right to tear your calf muscle? Sure he does. He got a right to break my leg.

58:32 He got a right to let my head get bashed in. Take me home to heaven. God's got a right to do anything he wants.

58:41 Teach your form, say to the thing that formed it, what are you doing with me, God? God doesn't answer to you or me. Do everything then, in the will of God, without grousing, and grumbling, I got it so hard, I got it so difficult. Why God this, or why God that?

58:58 Do everything without murmuring and questionings. Do everything in your life as one who is living out what you profess to believe, that God is on his throne, he's working all things after the counsel of his own will, he's working all things together for my good, that I may be made like Christ. That's your theology, isn't it? Isn't that what you profess to believe?

59:23 Well, let's just start living that way. So do all things without murmurings and disputing, but what's the purpose? Look at this. In order, in order that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom, and a better rendering would be, not whom, ye are seen, passive, for you Greek students, it's a middle voice, but that verb in the middle has an active sense, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.

60:07 This is an amazing passage. He says, you want to know your role in a crooked and perverse generation? And here he uses that word, skolios, from which we get skoliosis, crooked, and then he uses a verb which means twisted to the point of breaking. He says, that generation was crooked and twisted to the point of breaking.

60:32 That's our generation. Everything's breaking, crumbling all around us. And he says, do you want to fulfill your role in a wicked generation? This is how you do it, in the day-by-day, nitty-gritty details of everyday life, in the home, in the school, in the shop, in your social relationships with the lady across the back fence, with the man, above you in the office who's a sour, crotchety, unreasonable old goat.

61:04 In everything, do all things without murmurings and questionings that you may become children of God without blemish. No large zit on the face of your spiritual image. That's what he's saying. You see, you see someone with a boil on his ear or a boil on his elbow.

61:34 Or as I remember as a kid having a serious case of acne, I'd get some unusually large pimples and I felt everywhere I went, the whole world was looking at my pimples. That's why I never make fun or am careless with a teenager who's got a bad case of acne. I know the pain of it, the social pain of it. I was convinced when I went out of the house, everybody in the world was looking at my latest big zit.

61:59 Paul says that you may be blameless, harmless children of God without spiritual zits. That's what he wants you to be. He wants you to be blameless. No just cause to say, if that's Christianity, why bother?

62:23 He laughs at the double meaning jokes like the rest of us. I've gone in the locker and seen him thumbing through the playboy's mouth. Playboy magazine like the rest of the guys. It's a blemish and you don't shine as a light.

62:41 You blend in with the dark, crooked and perverse generation. You can gossip on the phone and pass on the neighborhood trash like everyone else. You are not a child of God without blemish. It doesn't mean sinless, but it means with no pronounced, discernible, ugly, contradiction of what you claim to be as a child of God.

63:10 Blameless, harmless. That's the word used by our Lord in Matthew 10. Be wise as serpents, harmless as doves.

63:22 People will sense your goodwill and your gentleness. Blameless and harmless without blemish in the midst of this scolios, this crooked and this twisted to the point of breaking generation. Now notice, among whom not you ought to shine, among whom you may shine, among whom as luminaries in the dark, as the burnings,

64:02 you cannot help against the dark backdrop of a crooked and a twisted to the point of breaking generation. Now what are you and I to do? What's our role? Is it to band together and march on Washington and tell the president what to do?

64:24 No, that's not our role.

64:29 No apostle ever sent a letter to the churches telling the Christians to get together and organize a march on Rome to the imperial palace and tell the reigning Caesar to stop slavery, stop abortion, stop infanticide, stop temple prostitution, the ills of the first century Roman world make some of our ills look like kid stuff. There's not one indication that one apostle ever tried to organize the Christians to make a frontal attack upon any specific evil. What they told them was, where you are in the will of God, do everything without murmuring and disputing that you may become children of God. Children of God with no large disfiguring spiritual zits. No just clause for people to point the finger and say, if that's Christianity, why bother? Blameless, harmless, people of goodwill.

65:37 People may take advantage of you. People may run roughshod over you. And because you love, you're vulnerable and they'll hurt. That's all right.

65:44 You're going to be gentle as a dove. And such a person, whether people will acknowledge it or not, that person shines forth as the brilliant, dazzling luminary of a star in a dark night fifty miles from the nearest city. And you can see the stars down to the horizon. What a privilege to be a Christian.

66:10 The darker the night, the more brilliant does the star sparkle and burn and shine. That's my role.

66:20 That's my role. That's my role. Let me give you a little example of how it works. You get on an airplane.

66:29 You've got a long trip all the way from London to Karachi. For those of you who don't know, Karachi is in Pakistan.

66:43 It's a long plane ride. And you've got a companion that you're going to be laboring with who's going to be your translator. You have a lot of material you want to go over. And as you're getting on the plane, it's near Christmas time in Manchester and there are a lot of Pakistanis going back to visit their relatives.

66:58 So they're coming on by the droves. Families of four, five, six, seven, eight. And as they're packing them in, packing them in, and packing them in, it's evident one family is going to be broken up.

67:10 So my friend and I are sitting there and we said, look, it'd be a shame if that family be broken up. Probably a Muslim family would spit on us if they knew we were Christians. So we said, would you like to be able to keep your seats together as a family? He said, oh, we'd love that.

67:25 I said, we'll speak to the steward.

67:27 So we went to the stewardess and said, look, we're traveling together but we're not family. We'll have time to talk later. Let that family take our seats. He said, he looked at us and wondered if we came from another planet.

67:42 So kind of you. I said, no, no, it's fine. I'm good. Now, it doesn't always happen this way but them that honor me will I honor.

67:51 You know what God did? We stood around, we waited, everybody got seated. Still no seats for us. We're just about to take off and the stewardess says, I'm room up here in the business class section.

68:06 So we took the long plane ride in the luxury of business section. Nice wide seats, real linen cloths, fettled, over our tables.

68:18 Now, you see, we didn't do it hoping to get bumped to business class.

68:23 Just trying to be a Christian and the seating, the plane,

68:29 soft, light. All these notions of grandiose schemes that change the world. It's nonsense. If everyone who says and is a child of God would say, I am determined by the grace of God to take seriously what the Holy Spirit says, I'm going to do all that I know to be the will of God if the will of God for me today is my kids' poopy diapers get washed at eight and all the ironing gets done at nine and then the dirty floors get scrubbed at ten.

69:06 And the world tells me I'm a fool for giving my life to this, but I believe herein I honor God. And I go to the poopy diapers and to the messy clothes and to the other tasks. I'm going to do all that I know for me. I wish God that I might do my kids' poopy diapers with joy.

69:31 Iron my hubby's shirts with joy. Go to my other tasks with joy. I tell you, such a woman is a bright, shining, sparkling star in the firmament of this crooked and perverse universe. She shines.

69:55 When she has a husband who's seeking to love her as Christ loves the church and nurture her, it's his delight to call her at lunchtime and say, Honey, how did your morning chores go? How was your quiet time? I'm thinking of you. I miss you.

70:09 I love you. I appreciate you. And oh, she says, Lord, what a privilege to be a Christian wife. And happy marriages.

70:20 When I tell people most of my opportunities to witness on airplanes in particular come when I tell people I've been married for going on for 36 years and it gets better and better all the time. And they look at me. I had one stewardess. She got cynical.

70:34 She said, Ah, come off it, man. People don't live that way anymore. I said, Lady. I said, In your world they may not, but in mine they do.

70:44 I said, There's been one woman in my heart, in my arms, and in my bed. At that time, it was 20 some odd years. And I said, You think what you will, but that's reality. And I said, God's been good to me.

70:57 Shines lights. What would happen if all of us as Christians, by the grace of God, said, I'm determined to be transformed in all my thinking and patterns of life in conformity with the standards of God? Well, one other text very quickly, because I do want to bring two very simple words of application in closing. Go to 1 Peter 1 again.

Witness 3 (Positive): 1 Peter 1:15-16 - Be Holy as God is Holy

71:24 For Peter not only gave the negative, but he gave the positive as well. Look at it. 1 Peter 1. After he says to these believers, Set your hope perfectly on the grace to be brought to you as children of obedience.

71:42 Verse 14. Not, there's the negative, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lust in the time of your ignorance. But here's the positive. But like as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves holy in all manner of living, because it is written, Ye shall be holy, for I am holy.

72:06 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1. See what he is saying?

72:11 He's saying, Don't be fashioned by your former lust, but be utterly committed to a life of holiness. And what's the standard of that holiness? Notice, God Himself. Be ye yourselves holy, like as He who called you is holy.

72:35 How holy is God! He is the essence of holiness. Every part of His being is holiness. When we speak of God, it's so difficult.

72:47 But some have said that holiness is the very heart of all of the attributes of God. He is a God of holy love and holy wrath and holy mercy, holy omnipotence, holy omniscience. All that He is, He is a God of light, and in Him is no darkness. And what is to be our standard in seeking to be conformed to God?

73:17 It is to be God Himself. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 5.48, Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. Can we attain that in this life?

73:30 No! But it is to be our goal nonetheless. You say, Well, if you can't attain it, why have it as your goal? Isn't that playing games?

73:37 No. My goal is to love my wife with the love wherewith Christ loved the church. You think I've attained it? If you don't believe me, ask her.

73:48 She'll tell you. But that's my goal! So I know I'll never attain it. I know I'll come far closer to it having it as my goal than if I accept it a lesser goal.

74:02 There's the standard. What's the extent of it? Look at the text. Be holy as He is holy.

74:10 Is that just some kind of a general notion? No. It says, Be ye yourselves holy in all manner of living, in every facet of your life. You are to ask yourself, if God is the standard of holiness in this area, what reflects the character of God?

74:33 What will reflect likeness to God? Is He the God of truth? Then I must not lie or tell half the truth in a business deal to gain a buck. I'm to be holy in all my business deal.

74:47 I'm to be holy in all of my personal deal. I'm never to twist the truth to put myself in a better light before the eyes of another. In every relationship, God is holy. I am to be holy in all manner of living.

75:06 All manner of conversation does not mean just speech, but all manner of living. If you have the older version, which says conversation, then what's the rationale for it? Verse 16, Because it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy. The God whose children we are calls us to bear the family likeness in every single relationship and circumstance.

75:37 Unless by an accident or by surgery I should have the basic features of my face changed, from my infancy to my grave, I bear the likeness of my parents. Now I bore it in a different way when I was younger and they called me Sonny. My name was Sonny till I was 21. And I used to be amazed how perfect strangers could walk up and know my name.

76:03 They'd say, Hi Sonny, how you doing? How'd that guy know my name? Well, I was a little older and I realized that they didn't know my name, but they called all little boys Sonny. I bear the likeness of my parents.

76:17 I bear those features differently now. They tell me, and from pictures, the older I get, the more my features become more and more my father's. So when I was younger, I looked more like my mother. But it's only right that I should bear the family likeness because I have their genes determining the shape of my nose and the facial structure.

76:41 God says all my children bear my likeness. And I want them to bear it in every single relationship. Be holy. In all living.

76:52 And the reason is, I am holy. And you're my children. And I want you to reflect my likeness. In that crooked and perverse generation, I want them to know what I'm like.

77:05 Though they put down the knowledge that they have of me through general revelation and though they won't read their Bibles, they can't avoid you in the supermarket. So when you get extra change that didn't come to you, you reflect the God of truth by saying, I'm sorry, ma'am. You gave me $3.23 too much.

77:23 And they look at you like you're crazy. And they say, why did you do that? And you say, because I'm a Christian. And my God and my father is an honest God.

77:31 And I want to be like him. That's what he's talking about. You see, this is why you can't have a three-day seminar on how to impact all of the Northwest with the gospel. It's nonsense.

77:38 God will impact this area. It's nonsense. It's nonsense. It's nonsense.

77:43 It's nonsense. It's nonsense. It's nonsense. It's nonsense.

77:48 It's nonsense. It's nonsense. It's nonsense. It's nonsense.

77:52 It's nonsense. It's nonsense. God will impact this area of your country with the gospel when the group of people sitting here to a new degree say, we are determined. We are determined by the grace of God to be holy as God is holy and to be holy because he is holy and to shine his lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and in every relationship be determined to be like God no matter what the cost is.

Application: Not Optional, Not Impossible

78:23 Well, I hope I've proved from the scriptures that the basis or the basic response to the question, what is the Christian's role in a wicked society is, negatively, he's not to be conformed in thought or practice to the ways of this wicked generation. We must consciously, constantly, deliberately, resolutely refuse to be conformed to this age. Refuse to be fashioned by the former lust in our ignorance. Refuse it.

78:57 Refuse it. But positively, we must seek to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. We must seek to be blameless, harmless, without blemish, shining as luminaries in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. We must seek to be holy as he is holy.

79:19 And what are my two very brief closing words of application? They are just these. Response to this call to the Christian's role is not optional. Response to this call to the Christian's role is not optional.

79:37 You can't sit here tonight and say, well, I'm a Christian, I've been listening, but I mean really, that's for super saints. I'm just content to be sort of an ordinary, plain James saint. I'm just content to be an ordinary Joe saint. No, no, my friend, listen.

79:53 If your heart's response to what you've heard tonight has not been, oh God, by your grace, help me to be that, you have reason to question whether you're a Christian. For my Bible says in Hebrews 12, 14, follow after peace with all men and the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. And in the structure of that text, the emphasis without which, the which refers not to both the peace and the holiness, but in number and gender, that relative pronoun refers to the holiness. Follow after peace with all men, yes, and the holiness, the sanctification, without which sanctification, being diligently pursued, no man shall see the Lord. My friend, if you want to go to heaven and treat this as optional, I get news for you, you're on your way to hell, for only the pure in heart shall see God. This standard is not optional. This is what we are called to, as children of obedience.

81:07 Peter assumes that when they hear this, they're going to obey, because they are children of obedience through the new birth. And that's my first point of application. Response to this call to the Christian's role is not optional. And my second is this, compliance with this call is not impossible.

81:28 Compliance with this call is not impossible. Why? Philippians 4, 13, I can do all things. Wait a minute, Paul, you sound like a braggart.

81:41 You can do all things? Yes, all things in the will of God, demanded by the word of God. And before you accuse me, let me finish my statement. Paul would say, I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

82:00 I can do Him, who strengthens me. You say, Pastor Martin, that standard is so high. I ask you one question. Have I made it higher than the Bible?

82:14 Have I gone beyond the Scripture? Or have I handled the word of God responsibly? Have I carried your conscience in opening up these passages that I wasn't reading something into them, but extracting out of them what God put into them? Though we cannot attain this standard perfectly, we can attain it really by the power of the Holy Spirit, because I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

82:43 Philippians 2, the passage we looked at earlier, it is God who works in you to will and to work. And you'll never know the measure of His willing and working until you say, Oh God, I take that standard seriously, but it seems so far beyond me. Oh God, work in me as never before, to will and to work. And you'll be amazed how much more grace God will give.

83:08 And then you have a marvelous passage like Hebrews 13, 20 and 21. And with this passage we close tonight as I read it and make but one or two comments upon it. Hebrews 13, 20 and 21. 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, make you perfect, complete, whole in everything, 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. The writer to the Hebrews had called these believers to some very, very difficult things. But now he says at the end, pointing then to their great provision, God of peace, whose power raised that God, make you complete in every good thing to do His will, working by His own grace and power in us the very thing that pleases Him. And He does it through the Lord Jesus Christ.

84:33 And He gets all the glory. I am what I am by the grace of God. What is the Christian's role in a wicked society? I know if we would have hung out a shingle and advertised that we were going to talk about some grandiose scheme to get Christians organized from the Pacific over to the Mississippi River and we're going to march on something and we're going to protest about something, it's amazing how Christians get all stirred up.

85:06 Because it's a lot easier to go and organize a march than to go before the pile of dirty clothes and unironed shirts and fussy kids after being up half the night with a kid with a croup and say, Oh God, help me today to do these things without murmuring and disputing. A lot easier to organize a march than attack that pile of irony without murmuring and disputing. A lot easier to be secretary or treasurer of some organized effort for some grandiose Christian scheme to change things. And to be a man that goes home and sits down with his son and says, Son, you come into that age where girls are no longer yuck. They're beginning to be mmmm and before long they're going to be yummy. And son, you and your daddy need to have a good talk about what's happening. You're beginning to feel things in your body, beginning to notice things with your eyes.

86:19 And you become a faithful father who takes the book of Proverbs and gives your son a biblical sex education so he doesn't pick up smut in the street. A lot easier to go off with your briefcase and be the hot shot secretary, treasurer of the big organization who's going to march on Washington. Nonsense. Paul and Peter and John never called the people of God to that.

86:47 What's your role? Your role is to say, by the grace of God, I'm not going to let this world mold me. I'm not going to let this world paint my life on the canvas. It's going to be the brush of God's grace by the power of the Holy Ghost that paints on the canvas a life transformed by the renewing of the mind.

87:10 A life that shines as light in the midst of darkness. That pursues holiness as He is holy at any cost. Will you pray tomorrow I want to apply these things to three very specific areas where I feel they're crucially needed. Pray that God will help us, guide me in my preparation.

87:34 If I've missed taking what ought to be emphasized, God will deal with me between now and tomorrow and I'll change my messages. Dear people, I'm not here just to fill up the time. Life's too short. And I believe God has been with us and guided us.

87:52 May He give us ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to us in these days. Let's pray. Our Father, we're so thankful that once again You've answered our prayers. We've pleaded with You that Your Spirit would come and bless us in our gathering tonight.

88:13 Thank You for these dear people who after a long day have come and the little ones have sat and listened. O God, how we pray that You would even now be drawing many of these dear boys and girls to Yourself, giving them such a hunger for the pure teaching of the Word that they'll never, never, never have a taste for the claptrap and the shallow nonsense that goes forth in the name of youth evangelism. O God, give them a hunger that they may be like a Samuel who early says, Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. Make them like young Josiah who discover the book of Your law and love it and share it with others.

88:57 Make them like Timothy who from a babe knowing the Scriptures grew up to be a mighty man of God. Lord, raise up such from these dear boys and girls. Bless these young mothers and fathers who are bullied and pummeled by the world into thinking they're fools for even having children. O Lord, bless them in their noble task of seeking to rear a godly seed in this wicked and perverse generation.

89:24 Give them, we pray, the grace and the fortitude needed to stand against all the pressure of the world, and to be molded by the Scriptures in all that they're thinking. Thank You for the gray-haired men and women among us who have walked with You for many years. May they become increasingly like the Lord Jesus and set a standard for the younger among us that it is possible to grow old gracefully in Christ, not to become cynical and sour and bitter and narrow-spirited. O Lord, give this assembly and the other assemblies represented here monuments of old-age grace, people who ripen beautifully before You pluck them and transplant them in the court above. O God, hear our prayer and receive our thanks for Your presence with us, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.