Evangelism God's Way, Part 4

The Second Taproot: A Life Embodying Gospel Transformation

0:02 There are many of us gathered in this place this morning who are engaged in various ways in seeking to communicate the gospel to unsaved men and women. I'm personally confident that if we were to have an open meeting in which you, as the people of God in this place, were given an opportunity to share with the rest of your brothers and sisters some of those present gospel opportunities which you have, present gospel activities, such a meeting would be both enlightening and greatly encouraging. However, in addition to these ongoing personal evangelistic endeavors, most of you know we as a church will be involved in geographically structured, home-based, evangelistic Bible studies. In addition to the many organizational preparations for this endeavor, and in addition to some very earnest, focused seasons of prayer that God would bless this endeavor, I have been seeking in my responsibility in the ministry of the Word to bring a brief series of messages that I have entitled

1:27 Some Biblical Perspectives Concerning... God-Honoring, Spirit-Empowered Evangelistic Endeavors.

1:38 In setting these perspectives before you, I've chosen to use the analogy of a tree. A tree deeply and firmly rooted in rich, moist, nourishing soil. And as I began to open up the series, I began by identifying that soil as nothing but a seed. And as I began to open up the series, I began by identifying that soil as nothing but a seed.

2:02 And as I began to open up the series, I began by identifying that soil as nothing but a seed. more or less than the scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments. According to 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, it is God-breathed scripture that is able to make us thoroughly furnished unto every good work, including the good work of seeking to reach our own Jerusalem with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. First, having identified the soil as the word of God, the scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments, I then proceeded to begin to identify what I've called the taproots of any God-honoring, Spirit-empowered, evangelistic endeavor. And I identified the first taproot this way. I called it a biblical understanding and personal conviction. Concerning who and what people really are.

3:06 And then proceeded to demonstrate, I trust, to the convincing of your conscience from the scriptures, that if we are understanding and viewing people for who and what they really are, we will see them as uniquely created in the image of God, as really fallen and ruined in Adam. We see people as unerting, unbindable, asуждulable, and possibly elect in Christ, and as those who were in the loving mind and heart of Jesus, when he gave the church her evangelistic mandate. And as we see men and women in this biblically realistic way, and cry to God for a commensurate disposition of heart, then we, like our Lord Jesus, cannot see them for what they honestly are. without being moved with compassion for them. I trust to remember I sought to underscore that principle from Matthew 9 and verse 36 when it says when Jesus saw the multitudes that they were. He saw them for what they were and was moved with compassion for them.

4:26 And we have been summoned in the ministry of the word here from Pastor Jay as well that we're to love sinners as God loves a lost, rebellious, sin-sick world. The God who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Then last Lord's Day we began to look at tap root number two. If the first tap root is a biblical understanding and personal conviction concerning who and what people really are, the second tap root is what I have called living before the unsaved to whom we would communicate the gospel, a life that embodies and consistently displays the transforming power of the gospel. In other words, it is vital in God-honoring, spirit-empowered, evangelistic endeavors not only that we see people for who and what they are but that they see in us what we profess to be and what we say we are. We say that we are the objects of God's transforming grace, that we are new creatures in Christ, that we are united to Christ,

5:54 that we are forgiven, adopted, justified sinners, that we have a hope that will not be buried with us when our bodies are placed in a casket and put in the ground. And it is vital in our evangelistic endeavors that we live before the unsaved to whom we would bring the gospel in such a way that it is evident that we embody and consistently display the transforming power of the gospel. Now, before opening up that second taproot and demonstrating its scriptural substance, I gave a very necessary qualification and I want to simply repeat it, not demonstrate the validity of it, and the qualification was this. There is, and often is, a legitimate place for communicating the gospel to people before whom you have had and will not have opportunity to live out your life. There is a place, a legitimate place, for communicating the gospel to people before whom you've had little or no opportunity to display in your life the transforming power of the gospel. And I gave you a sampling of the biblical evidence of this and then even from personal experience.

7:20 However, in the kind of endeavor which is before us as a church, and in the endeavors most of us will have in following our legitimate callings in life, our gospel opportunities will grow out of providentially arranged interactions with sinners. And in those interactions, we must demonstrate to them that we, by the grace of God, have embodied the transforming power, the power of the gospel. Now, having stated the taproot, having given the qualification, we then turn to the scriptures to demonstrate the basis for that second taproot, and we looked at Matthew 5, 16, Philippians 2, 12-16, and briefly at 1 Peter 3, and verse 15. Now, having demonstrated the biblical basis for that second taproot, or the relationship, the rich soil in which this second taproot is embedded, what I desire to do this morning is to make some specific applications of that taproot. In other words, if the taproot of God-honoring, Spirit-empowered evangelistic endeavors

Manifesting Genuine Love for All Men

8:45 is living before the unsaved a life that embodies and consistently manifests the transforming power of the gospel, what are some of the areas which in the context of our Jerusalem ought particularly to be manifested in our lives as those who profess to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, every true Christian strives for what the old writers called a life of universal obedience. And I trust that's true of you. That is, it's an obedience to God's word that is not selective, that cordons off certain areas of life and says, Lord, don't touch me there, don't tell me what to do there. No, as the Psalmist said, I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way. Hate every false way in myself, in my life, in any patterns of my life. In other words, I am committed to a life of unity.

9:54 A life of universal obedience. And while that is true of every true Christian, it is also true that in the providence of God, when we are placed in settings where the darkness is the most intense, our light in those areas of intense darkness must be all the brighter. There must be in us as the people of God an unusual carefulness, that in those areas in our Jerusalem, in our providential setting, which are the pimple on the end of the nose manifestations of sin, that we, by the grace of God, are different because of who we are and what we are in Christ. To state the matter in the negative way, what are the things which, if not manifesting the transforming power of the gospel in our settings, will greatly neutralize the effectiveness of our witness to the unsaved? Well, as time permits, I want to address three such areas with you this morning. I want to describe some specific features of a light that is embodying and consistently manifesting the transforming power of the gospel.

11:21 Area number one. It will be a life that manifests genuine love for all men. It will be a life that manifests genuine love for all men. By and large, our society is a loveless, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-seeking society.

11:48 As a result, some of the biblical descriptions of the unconverted, self-absorbed, self-seeking society are as current as the whiskers on the chin of you men were this morning before you shaved, and as current as this morning's sunrise. Because we are by and large a loveless, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-seeking society, the manifestations of lovelessness in our Jerusalem are not hard to see.

12:24 Such passages as the ones I want to read in your hearing, and you may turn to them with me. You'd think someone had walked through our communities, and observed them, and then wrote down what he had seen in Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3. As Paul is giving directives to the people of God how to live in a wicked society and to do so with love,

12:59 meekness and compassion. He says in verse 3, Titus 3, for we also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving all kinds of lusts and pleasures. Now, here's where we want to park. Living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. Living in the context of our lives was one of malice, of envy, hateful, and hating one another.

13:38 We live in the society where people quickly and without any... Any twinge of conscience give the physical signals of their antipathy one to another. And I'll not get more particular than that. Just cut someone off inadvertently and you know exactly what I mean.

13:57 You can see through the windows what their lips are saying, hateful and hating one another. Or Romans chapter 1 for another clear example. The apostle says that when people willfully...

14:14 Cast off the knowledge of God. This is what happens. Romans 1, 28. And as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not fitting.

14:28 Being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness. Now notice. Maliciousness. Full of envy. Murder. Strife. Deceit. Malignity. Whisperers.

14:44 Haters. Backbiters. Haters of God. Insolent. Haughty. Boastful. Inventors of evil things. Disobedient to parents.

14:55 You see the language of interpersonal relationships utterly devoid of the oil of love. Hateful. Haughty. Insolent. Boastful. Deceit. Whisperers. Backbiters.

15:16 Hateful. You'd think they were...

15:18 Describing what goes on in the cafeteria or the lunchroom at your office.

15:24 What happens when men cast off the knowledge of God and God gives them up? He not only gives them up to all forms of sexual perversion, as it says earlier in this chapter, but he gives them up to a loveless society. And the breakdown of what we would call common decency. Man to man and woman to woman.

15:46 Or Romans chapter 3. In this summary statement. Calling passages from all over the Old Testament, particularly from the Psalms. Summarizing universal sinfulness.

15:58 Notice how concrete he gets in verse 13. Their throat is an open sepulcher. What happens when you go to an open sepulcher? You smell the stench of rotting flesh.

16:12 He said their mouth. Their throat. The stench of rotting flesh comes out. They open their mouths and out comes...

16:20 Out comes that which is utterly loveless. The poison of snakes is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

16:34 You see how the emphasis falls upon loveless interpersonal relationships. All because of man's sin. Now by contrast, the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 13.10.

16:50 That love works no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. When our hearts have been transformed by the power of God. And the Holy Spirit has come to take up his dwelling in us.

17:08 What is the first fruit of the Spirit's indwelling? According to Galatians 5.22. The fruit of the Spirit is what?

17:18 Is love. Love. Love. Love.

17:20 Love. That works no ill to his neighbor. Notice he does not say love has gushy feelings towards one neighbor. No.

17:28 Love is known by what it does. And Paul emphasizes what it does not. Love works no ill to his neighbor. When our hearts are suffused with love.

17:40 We become sensitive to that which would make our neighbor uncomfortable. That which would make our neighbor demeaned in the eyes of us. That which would be abusive. And in its place we seek to do that which benefits our neighbor.

17:59 We seek to manifest that love to our neighbor as ourselves. Now what does our native self-love do with regard to ourselves? It means we are solicitous to be careful. To be concerned regarding anything that makes our lives more comfortable.

18:18 To make our lives. less stressful. Our native self-love means that we are concerned to do the things that please us. What is the second commandment? The first is, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And there is planted in the heart of every true believer a fundamental disposition that cuts the nerve of all of these sins that produce all of this ugliness at the horizontal level. And what I am saying is this, that in a society that is peculiarly marked by these sins of lovelessness, hateful, hating one another, maliciousness, envy, mouths full of cursing, bitterness, sharpness, sarcasm,

19:19 acrimony, bitterness, surely my brothers and sisters, if we are to have any compelling witness of the gospel, our lives must be a manifestation of genuine love for all men. And we won't need to have a little manual stuck in our pocket and turn to it and look up the alphabetical index to know what love should do in this and that situation. We will have within us that compulsion of the Spirit of God working in us so that we will seek to do that which is in the best interest of our neighbor. We will speak to him as we would want to be spoken to. We will respond to him as we would want others to respond to us. We will manifest a life of love to all men. Now it's in this very cesspool of acrimony and bitterness and envy that you and I in the language of the text we looked at last week, we are called upon to be lights in the world. What a beautiful

Love for Enemies and the Indictment of Lovelessness

20:34 thing is a love-governed, love-suffused light in the context of hatred and bitterness and insensitivity and self-centeredness and selfishness. And that love is even to be actively manifested to those who are actively opposing us and constituting themselves our enemies. For listen to the words of Jesus in Luke chapter 6 and verses 27 and 28. But I say unto you that here, love your enemies. Now notice, do good. Do good.

21:18 Do good. Don't sit around and say, well, I think I've got a nice fishy feeling to my enemy. Get up off your duff and do good to him. Let him know your love by your doing. Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you. Bless them that curse you. They speak in a way that is demeaning and hurtful and sarcastic and reflects this hateful, hating one another. You speak in a way that would be vindictive. You're conveying words of blessing. Bless them that curse you. Pray for them that despitefully use you. And then dropping down to verse 33 or verse 32. If you love them that love you, what credit is it to you? The old English, what thank have ye, is better rendered, what credit is that to you? If you only reciprocate love to those that love you, what credit is that

22:19 to you? Even sinners love you. If you only reciprocate love to those that love you, what credit is that to you? If you only love those that love them, among sinners there is a residue of common grace in which they will do that which we would say was the loving thing one to another because they are perfectly at home with one another's lifestyle, with one another's presuppositions and all the rest and like is drawn to like. What credit is it to you? If you only love those who sit with you in this place on the Lord's day, what credit is to you? If you only love those who sit with you in this place on the Lord's day, what credit is it to you? If you only love those who sit with you, what demonstration is it that there's anything supernatural at work in you when sinners love their own kind? And the Lord asked that question three times. Verse 31. Then in verse 32. If you love them that love

23:07 you, what credit is to you? For even sinners love those that love them. If you do good to them that do good to you, what credit is to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those of whom you hope to receive, what credit is to you? If you only love those who sit with you, what credit is to you? Even sinners, again, do so much but love your enemies and do them good. And you will be like your heavenly Father. Because when they get up tomorrow morning, the sun will shine on their heads as well as yours. And when it rains, the rain will fall upon their yard and cause the grass to grow as well as upon yours. You say that God is your Father, that you've entered in to the orbit of the dynamics of the world. And you say that God is your Father, that you've entered in to the of kingdom grace, that you are new creatures in Christ. Then manifest it and show the family

24:00 likeness. Be like your Father. And so the call to us, if we would validate the gospel that we communicate, saying that if you embrace this gospel, it will make you a new creation in Jesus Christ. And if they say, what in the world will that mean? You and I should be able to say, to some degree, it means you'll relate to people in love like you know I do. That's what it means. And without that, the indictment of 1 Corinthians 13, 1 and 2, smacks us straight between the eyeballs. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And the linguists and the commentators go round and round on what

25:00 precisely did Paul have in mind. Perhaps this is at least close to what he has in mind. I may speak eloquently of the truths of God, may speak them even with direct revelation. If I speak eloquently of the truths of God, may speak them even with direct revelation.

25:14 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, I speak revelatory data, and I speak it in supernatural ways, but have not love, I become sounding brass. I become like a piece of brass or a hunk of copper that someone is whacking on with a stick. Or like a clanging cymbal, like that neighbor's kid that thinks he's leading a parade band down 8th Avenue on Thanksgiving Day, and he's got the top of a metal garbage can. And he's got a spoon, and he's a-whacking away in a pow, pow, pow, pow. That ain't music, folks.

The Practical Qualities of Love

25:53 Whacking on your brass bar and banging with a spoon on the tin top of a garbage can, that's not music. You want the gospel to be music. Let it come out of a life suffused with the love of God. Let it come from a life that exudes that love. And what will that love look like? It's very interesting when Paul goes on to say, I'm not going to love you. I'm not going to love you. I'm not going to love you. And I'll describe it. Verses 4 to 7. Love suffers long. What's that mean? It means somebody's doing something that makes you suffer, and you put up with it for a long time. That office partner that just knows how to push your buttons. Love will enable you to let them push and push and push, and you don't blow your cork. Until they say, what in God's name makes you tick? I have been

26:49 after you to get under your skin. Get you riled up enough to blow your cork, and this has gone on for months. What in the world makes you tick? Now you tell them, this is what makes me tick. I have within me the very person of God, the Holy Spirit. In embracing the Lord Jesus as my Savior and my Lord, God has taken out my natively pugnacious heart, which would have ripped you up one side and down the other. Or said I to gut you in the middle of the night, and I would have ripped you up one side and down the other. I have been to the back room and cut your lights out. But there's something that works in me that enables me to suffer long. Love suffers long and is kind. Dear people, you have no idea what a life of gentle kindness is in manifesting the power of the gospel. Kindness. The kindness that looks

27:53 for little things that you can do. To indicate you're outside the orbit of your self-absorption. You see that someone else has got his or her arms filled with a stack of papers and other things and making his or her way to a door in the office complex, and you're going to open the door for them. Kindness. Kindness. See an old woman in the doctor's office struggling to get, you're up out of your seat, you help her with her coat. Kindness. Love is kind. Kind. Kind. Kind.

28:27 You have a society almost devoid of kindness. Love is kind. Love suffers long. Read on. Love envies not. Love wants not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly. Love knows how to keep its place. Does not behave against the scheme of things. Aske moneo. It does not act against the accepted pattern. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. Aske moneo. It doesn't draw attention to itself by being odd and different, just for being odd and different's sake. Does not behave itself unseemly. Seeks not its own. It's other-oriented. It's other-centered. Is not provoked. Is not

29:23 provoked. Doesn't keep a ledger book of evil. That's what it means. Takes not account of evil.

29:29 Doesn't keep a ledger book of what people do that's evil. Against me. You want to know what this love is? You read this. You ask God, by His grace and by His power, to work this in you. How in the world can we live this kind of love-suffused life? Galatians 5.22. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Therefore, I need to be filled with the Spirit continually. I need to say, O Lord, fill me afresh this day with Your Holy Spirit, that He may produce in me that. That's the dominant, primary fruit of this kind of love. But then you do more than pray.

30:12 I hope you will, in the light of what we've been hearing today, and what was the final virtue? Love. And then you consciously work in every situation, asking yourself, what would love do, and what should love do? And then you do it. You feel a little bit awkward at first. That's all right. Try it. You'll like it. And the sense of a good conscience when you say, Lord, I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. And so, God continue to fill me with the Spirit continually. Every man that knows me will speak away from the abstinence, from falsehood, from false opinions. I will tell you, I've been find нов kinda to you. Next thing I want you to know, when there's love, restrain yourself and put yourself in your own comfort.

30:41 Trust and love the Lord. When you said, Lord, Lord, I want to have love and I'm going to do it. You're going to do it. I will not have to tell you to question and ask or jump and drop or commit. That's the reality. God will still send a forgetful voice to come to me when I'll get too excited about it. I will tell the Lord, Lord, I miss you. I'll not have to tell you to talk to me when I'm getting tired of your such şek How to love.

Manifesting Prevailing Joy and Cheerfulness

31:02 Dear brothers and sisters, if we are to have any lasting impact in any evangelistic endeavors with those with whom we have any measure of interaction over the long haul, we will have such an impact only so far as we live a life that manifests this kind of love. But then secondly, this second taproot will not only be a life that manifests genuine love for all men, but it will be a life that manifests a prevailing joy and cheerfulness. It will be a life that manifests a prevailing joy and cheerfulness. Now I didn't say an uninterrupted joy and cheerfulness. You know who know me know I choose my words carefully. And I had a different word, but I whited it out.

32:00 I wasn't pleased with it. I'm not going to tell you what my other word was. You can tell me what you think it was when you come to the door, but that's the word I wanted. A life that manifests a prevailing joy and cheerfulness prevailing that which dominates that which is the pattern.

32:18 And what I'm saying is this, if we would communicate the gospel effectively to those who have opportunity to see who and what we are. What we are. We must have a life that manifests a prevailing joy and cheerfulness. One need not be an unusually perceptive person to be persuaded that not only do we live in great measure in a loveless society, but we also live in a joyless society.

32:51 Go anywhere where people in the world mingle and pass by and look at their faces. Brawn. Uptight. No light in the eyes.

33:02 No sparkle in the eyes. And the text that has haunted me as I've reflected upon this is found tucked away in Isaiah 3 and verse 9. Isaiah 3 and verse 9. In the midst of enumerating the sins of God's people.

33:26 Verse 8, Jerusalem is ruined, Judah's fallen, because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eye. Now notice, the show of their countenance does witness against them a better rendering. The look of their faces testifies against them. The look of their faces testifies against them.

33:51 They declare their sin as Sodom. They hide it not. Here are people who are brazen sinners, and God says one of the fruits of their brazen sinfulness, you see it in their faces. The look of their faces testifies against them.

34:13 While believing the devil's lie that joy can be found in the unbridled indulgence of their appetites and lusts, in the unrestrained accumulation of things, in the marginalizing of God and His Word and His worship, the look of their faces testifies against them. The hollowness, the emptiness. And now in the providence of God, He's put us in such a context of people with their joyless souls being mirrored in their joyless faces. And if you and I have come into the orbit of God's saving grace, what is to be a dominant, prevailing characteristic of every one of us? Romans 14 and verse 17. As Paul draws near to the end of dealing with the subject of Christian liberty, where he's been dealing with eating and drinking, he says in verse 17 these profound words. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking.

35:20 The kingdom of God does not consist in what you put into your belly and what you don't. What you imbibe or don't imbibe in dealing with these issues where I've touched upon eating and drinking, listen, there are greater issues at stake than merely eating and drinking. The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he that herein, that is, living his life in a context of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, he that herein serves Christ, is well pleasing to God.

36:03 And look at the last phrase. Look at it. And approved of men. Even sinners are attracted to someone who is living a life of real, substantial joy.

36:24 Again, Galatians 5.22. The fruit of the Spirit is love. What's the next one?

36:30 Joy. Second in order. Love. Joy.

36:35 In place of chronic, self-centered indifference to others, there is love. In place of a sour, empty, joyless existence, there is joy in the Holy Spirit. It may surprise some of you to know that joy is mentioned 62 times in the New Testament. And the verb rejoice in its various forms more than 40 times in the New Testament.

Christ's Joy and the Believer's Happiness

37:05 And our Lord Jesus makes plain that one of the great ends, not the great end, but one of the great ends of His gracious, redemptive activity, culminating in the gift of the Holy Spirit, is to produce His joy in His people. Look at John 15 and verse 11. These things have I spoken unto you. What things?

37:33 He's been telling them about the coming of the Holy Spirit. About His union with them as the branch and vine are united. Privileges that will come to their full flowering when He goes back to the right hand of the Father and sends the other Comforter. And He says, these things have I spoken unto you in order that my joy may be in you and your joy may be made full.

38:01 And they didn't stop and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, Lord Jesus. We didn't know you were joyful. If it's your joy that's going to be in us and ours, we don't want to be full of that. You see the point?

38:18 When the Lord said that my joy may be in you, this would excite them. You mean we can have the kind of joy that we have seen in our Savior? That we can have the kind of joy that has been manifested in His life in the midst of all the bitter opposition of the scribes and the Pharisees? Amidst all of the allegations?

38:41 He's full of the devil. He's in league with the devil. Even His relatives thought He had a breakdown and was out at His tree because He was teaching and preaching and wasn't stopping to eat. They thought, and the terrific, horrible treatment that will be associated.

38:58 He said, my joy in you and that yours might be full. Our Lord was a joyful man. This idea, well, the Bible never says that Jesus laughed. I don't mean to be irreverent.

39:11 The Bible never says He burped. The Bible never says He scratched His ear when it itched. The Bible never says He sneezed. You see, that argument means nothing.

39:24 The Bible does not give us a detailed description of every single action of Jesus. But it's enough that when He says, these things I've spoken of you, that my joy might be in you and your joy full. Then we know He was a joyful man. Chapter 17 and verse 13.

39:44 But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy made full in themselves. One man has described this joy as holy cheerfulness. And here I want to quote from Octavius Winslow's marvelous little book called The Sympathy of Christ. And it's not dealing with Christ feeling sympathetic when people are hurting.

40:09 It's dealing with the fact that Christ has in His holy emotions. Has in His holy emotional life emotions akin to ours. Christ's sympathy with all of our human emotions. That's the thesis of the book.

40:23 Let me read this quote. I hope I read it in such a way that it doesn't sound red. It's a frequently quoted remark of one of the church fathers that Christ was often seen to weep but never once to smile. We doubt both the correctness and the wisdom of the statement.

40:39 Our Lord was a man of joy. As well as a man of sorrow. He must in the fathomless depths of His holy soul have been as intimately acquainted with gladness as with grief. With the emotion of joy as with the feeling of sorrow.

40:55 And can we picture Him to our mind thus rejoicing in spirit. The oil of gladness poured upon Him without measure. And insinuating itself into the innermost depths of His being without a gleam. A smile of joy lighting up that benign, placid and expressive countenance.

41:16 Which much more than others must have been a perfect index of His soul's hidden, varied and profound emotions. Impossible. A portrait of Christ with nothing but shadows. Shadows of grief and sorrow darkening the entire picture.

41:34 Would be lacking in one of its most essential and lifelike features. That of purity. That of pure and deep joy never found a home in the Savior's breast. We cannot then for a moment credit.

41:46 That His heart was the seat of grief unmitigated. Of sorrow unmixed. That from the heart breathed no sounds but woe. That from that fount of sensibility welled up no emotions.

41:59 But found their utterance in sighs and groans and tears. Is far, very far from our conception of the Savior. And that when the emotion of joy did for a moment glow in the human soul of Christ. There was no corresponding glow.

42:14 Lighting up and illuminating every feature of that wonderful countenance. And for a while clothing it with the warm sunshine and radiance of a holy smile. This we cannot believe. And you see He's taking His clue from Luke 10-21.

42:31 In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit. And He's saying. It's unthinkable. That rejoicing in spirit.

42:38 There was no registering of the state of His soul upon His countenance. It's unthinkable. It would be inhuman. And in Christ all that is purely human.

42:49 Found its fullest and most balanced expression. Again is the statement of Christ joyless expression wise? We do not think so. It gives a long distorted gloomy portrait of His holy religion.

43:03 The religion of Christ is the religion of joy. Christ came to take away our sins. To roll off our curse. To unbind our chains.

43:11 To open our prison house. To cancel our debt. In a word. To give us the oil of joy for mourning.

43:17 The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Is not this joy? Where can we find a joy so real? So deep?

43:25 So pure? So lasting? There is every element of joy. Deep.

43:30 Ecstatic. Satisfying. Sanctifying joy. In the gospel of Christ.

43:34 Now get hold of this. The believer in Jesus is essentially a happy man. The child of God is from necessity. A joyful man.

43:44 His sins are forgiven. His soul is justified. His person is adopted. His trials are blessings.

43:51 His conflicts are victories. His death is immortality. His future is a heaven of inconceivable. Unthought of.

43:58 Untold and endless blessedness. With such a God. Such a savior. Such a hope.

44:05 Is he not? Ought he not to be a joyful man? I get the goose bumps and almost want to dance reading someone else's words. How can we help but be joyful?

Joy as a Witness and Strength

44:19 The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. But righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. I say these things that my joy may be in you. And that your joy may be found.

44:35 And then my mind went back to the book of Nehemiah. Remember Nehemiah's experience? Here's a case where a man's sad face was a vital link in the deliverance of God's people. You remember?

44:53 Nehemiah. Ezra. Nehemiah. Esther.

44:57 Before we get to Job. Nehemiah chapter 2. This is very significant. Wonderful how the Bible illustrates.

45:06 Itself. Verse 1. Nehemiah 2.1.

45:11 And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been before times sad in his presence. Nehemiah was a happy, joyful, true son of Israel. He said, I've never been sad in his presence before.

45:34 Now did he ever have anything in his life? Anything in his life that would have tended to get him under? Put him in the pits? Well, probably.

45:43 But this is the man who later on said in chapter 8. Stop your weeping and wailing, folks. For the joy of the Lord is your strength. Is your stronghold.

45:52 This was a man who knew what it was to rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice. Long before Paul wrote of it in Philippians. He said, I have not been before times sad.

46:04 Now, the king said unto him, Why is your countenance sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrowous heart. Then I was sore afraid, and I said to the king, etc. You see, the king noticed that sadness was foreign to the prevailing spirit and countenance of Nehemiah.

46:26 His prevailing joy registered in his face. And the king knew it. And when he saw another face, he said, This face has come from a different state of heart. You are a man who ordinarily must have a happy heart, because you appear in my presence with my wine cup with a happy face.

46:49 You see the principle? Sadness upon our countenance ought to be the exception, folks. There are times when it will be of necessity the exception. But the prevailing joy and cheerfulness ought to register in our countenances.

47:08 And David understood this when after his terrible sin and his year of a backslidden state, and his crying to God for full restoration in Psalm 51, you remember what he prayed in verses 12 and 13? Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Then will sinners be converted unto you. He recognized that sinners don't want a God who makes people sad with his salvation.

47:42 The world is full of dispirited, discouraged, joyless people. And if we do not manifest not a plastic artificial joy, but one that wells up from the present consciousness of who we are in Christ, what we have in Christ, what we've got in the future, because of Christ, they'll look at us and say, look, I've got enough problems without having your religion. Is it going to make me gloomy like you? I've got enough problems. Who needs it?

48:13 Isn't that the way you'd reason? It's all right for people to reason that way. It's the truth. And so I'm saying, dear people, in spite of the problems, and I'm not speaking to you like someone who's been wrapped up by God in a cocoon without deep and crushing trials, but I believe you can testify you've seen a supernatural joy in this old man through it all.

48:44 Nothing I could crank up, nothing I could work up, but that which is poured in by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Dear people, we need to cry to God. Oh Lord, as the fruit of the Spirit is love, fill me with your Spirit that I may know new measures of His joy. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy!

49:15 And then, not only pray that God would fill us with the Spirit, the Spirit who produces joy, but then do those things that are calculated under God with the blessing of the Spirit to produce that joy. Get up in the morning and think who you are! Not what you're going to have to face here or there, but who you are. I awake this morning a son or daughter of the King.

49:42 I awake this morning with all my sins forever pardoned. I awake this morning with the Savior at the right hand of the Father interceding for me. I awake this morning with the promise that all things in my life are going to work together for good. I awake with the present confidence that He will never leave me nor forsake me, that He is with me to the end of the age.

50:08 I awake with the confidence that I have a future that is secure in Jesus Christ. And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I need fear no evil. He will be with me. And when my body's laid in the ground, it's just awaiting to shout when He returns and I'll be raised.

50:27 And the harvest, the whole harvest of which Christ was the firstfruits, will be gathered. If that doesn't give you tapping feet in your soul, nothing will. And that's why the devil wants to keep us from thinking upon those changeless things and commodities that are yours in Jesus Christ. Then there's no manufacturing of a plastic fake grin on the face.

50:50 This is the state of the heart. This is where the Spirit works. He doesn't work in the muscles of your face. He works in the tables of the heart.

50:59 The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy in here. And when it's in here, then it cannot help but show itself here. The show of their faces witnesses, in this case, not against us, but for us. Now, most of you wouldn't think of Martin Luther as a particularly joyful man.

Conscientious Conformity to Ethical Norms

51:22 But I got tickled pink reading his comments in his commentary on Galatians on the fruit of the Spirit. Listen to Martin Luther. This is the voice of the bridegroom and the bride. It means joyful thoughts about Christ, wholesome exhortations, happy songs, praise and thanksgiving, with which godly people exhort, arouse, and refresh one another.

51:46 Therefore God is repelled by sorrow of spirit. He hates sorrowful teaching and sorrowful thoughts and words, and takes pleasure in happiness. For he came to refresh us, not to sadden us. Hence the prophets, apostles, and Christ himself always urge, indeed command, that we rejoice and exult.

52:07 Zechariah 9.9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Zion. O daughter of Jerusalem.

52:15 Lo, your King comes to you. And often in the Psalms, be glad in the Lord. Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord always. And Christ says, Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

52:26 When this is a joy of the Spirit, not of the flesh, the heart rejoices inwardly through faith in Christ, because it knows for a certainty that he is our Savior and High Priest. And outwardly it demonstrates this joy in its words and in its actions. That's Martin Luther. Well then thirdly, if we're going to have this taproot fleshed out into reality, it will mean that we not only manifest the genuine love for all men, manifest the prevailing joy and cheerfulness, but thirdly, it will mean a life of conscientious conformity to the ethical norms of the Word of God. It will mean a conscientious conformity to the ethical norms of the Word of God. Now by ethical norms, I simply mean this, the specific directives for the conduct of the child of God in all his various relationships and circumstances. By ethical norms, I mean nothing more or less than the specific directives for the conduct of the child of God in all of his various relationships and circumstances.

53:48 What the old writers called, as I mentioned earlier, a life of universal obedience. Someone questioned a Puritan at one time and said, Sir, why do you live such a precise life? Why do you live such a precise life? Everywhere you turn, you're thinking, what does God want me to do?

54:08 What does God's Word say how I should conduct myself, how I should react? Why do you live such a precise life? You know what his answer was? Because, Sir, I serve a precise God.

54:22 You see, God is not generic in His ethical norms. He doesn't say, Hey husbands, love your wives and whatever you think that means, do it. No. He tells us how to love them.

54:36 As Christ loved, Christ gave, Christ nourishes, cherishes as His own body. Wives, do what you ought to do with your husbands. Trust the Lord to teach you. No.

54:50 Wives, be in submission to your own husbands as unto the Lord, for as the church... These are the specific ethical norms.

54:58 Children do this. Parents do this. Servants do this. Masters do this.

55:03 God has not given us just some broad stroke generics of ethical norms. And what I am saying is that if we would have a compelling witness to the unconverted with whom we have opportunity for some sustained interaction, this second taproot, a life that has internalized and is manifesting the transforming power of the Gospel, will be a life of conscientious conformity to these ethical norms of the Word of God. It will not only be a life of love to all men, a life of prevailing joy and cheerfulness, but a life marked by conscientious conformity to the ethical norms of the Word of God. And I want to identify very quickly just a broad flyover several areas that in a peculiar way must be matters of concern to us if we are to have a compelling, biting witness in the context of our Jerusalem, of our generation. You remember the words of Luther, some of you have heard them, that where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is tested. And this is paraphrasing Luther.

56:24 You may be brave and puff out your chest and rattle your sword, anywhere on the battlefield where the battle is not raging, that's just brave cowardice. It's where the battle is raging, where the opposing armies are engaged, there the loyalty of the soldier is tested. Well, in a similar way, we may be relatively conscientious in our conformity to the ethical norms of Scripture. However, there are peculiar areas where those norms are being viciously attacked and where many of our fellow citizens are being sucked into the vortex of that rejection of biblical norms.

Ethical Norms for Marriage and Family

57:05 And in those areas particularly, we must manifest our conscientious conformity to the ethical norms of Scripture. For example, when Paul writes to Titus to give him specific directions about how the Cretan Christians are to conduct themselves, he quotes from one of the Cretan writers in Titus 1.12. One of themselves, a prophet of their own said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle, lazy gluttons.

57:46 This testimony is true for which cause reprove them sharply that they may be sound in faith. What were some of the prevailing sins of the Cretans? Liars, evil beasts, apparently this matter again of a ravenous disposition, and lazy gluttony. Now, if you are going to have any testimony in Crete, what must be several of the areas where there is unusual conscientiousness to the ethical norms of the Bible?

58:24 It must be precisely at those points where Cretans are notorious for their sins. And so with us, and I want to very quickly, and that's all I can do, touch on five areas where by God's grace, dear fellow church members, brothers and sisters in Christ, we must manifest conscientious conformity to the ethical norms of the word of God. Number one, in the matter of the ethical norms for marriage and the family, I don't need to stand up here and tell you of the tremendous breakdown of marriage, the tremendous breakdown of family life. And if ever we're going to have compelling, conscious, dripping witness to the unconverted, the way we husbands relate to our wives must be something that blows the mind of the unconverted. I can remember one time years ago on an airplane flying down from Boston to New York or Newark, and I engaged a stewardess in conversation. And in the course of that, I had occasion to tell her, so-and-so, had only been married 25 years, that was a long time ago, because I remembered the date. I said, for 25 years, there's been one woman in my eyes and in my heart and in my bed.

59:47 Nobody lives that way anymore. I said, ma'am, by the grace of God, that's the way I live. That was the cynical attitude. Nobody lives that way.

59:57 Many, many times, as people have observed my wife and me, particularly in the last six years, with all the interaction with the medical community, and saw the relationship, they'd make inquiry and they'd comment upon it. And it gave opportunities to say, this is because of the grace of God. This is what the gospel has done to give us this kind of relationship that exudes mutual concern and love and sensitivity and tenderness. I can remember when my son was a little boy, I used to take him with me when I'd go on hospital visits.

60:37 And I'd go to the desk and tell the gal there, this is before you had to be as afraid of things as you do today. I'd say, my son's going to sit there in the waiting room with a book. Just keep an eye on him. I said, he'll be fine.

60:50 I'd come downstairs after 20 minutes or so. He sat right there with his book and he didn't go anywhere. I said, no. And gave opportunity to speak of why this is so.

61:01 Dear people, you have no idea what taking conscientiously and seeking to implement in the power of God, the ethical norms for marriage and the home, the training, the discipline of our children, teaching politeness, decency, all of those things, what that means, light in the midst of darkness. Don't slough off in your commitment to a meticulous concern for domestic godliness. Secondly, in the matter of moral purity, I don't need to tell you. You hear it enough that we live in a veritable Sodom, a veritable cesspool of moral degeneracy, shameless, coarse, glut of uncleanness from every direction. Apparently that was true at Ephesus and Paul could write in Ephesians 5, 3, but fornication and all uncleanness, let it not even be named among you as become saints, nor filthiness, nor foolish talking or jesting which are not befitting. And then he goes on to say, for know this of a surety, no fornicator, unclean person shall inherit the kingdom. And then he picks up the theme of light.

Ethical Norms for Moral Purity

62:21 You were once darkness, you are now light. Live as light. And what's the context? The context is live as light in the matter of the ethical norms for morals, for sexual purity.

62:34 Don't let the world take the keen edge off your commitment to sexual purity. What you laugh at in a joke, in a moment of weakness, you may indulge in your own life. What you look at voluntarily in a movie and get your emotions identified with is the first step to get you to do what they're doing. See what I'm saying?

63:05 When you can watch a storyline that grabs your emotions and before long you're sympathetic with the setup for what's going to be a fornicating relationship, an adulterous relationship. When you allow your emotions to do anything other but recoil in horror and say no, God hates adultery. God hates fornication. Adulterers and fornicators go to hell.

63:28 That's what Paul says in Ephesians. Know this of a surety. No fornicator, no unclean person shall have any inheritance. You break down the emotional aversion and it isn't long before there's a moral weakness in that very area.

63:44 The devil knows what he's doing. He knows how to soften you up. If he came to you and said, hey, you know what? A year from now I'm going to get you.

63:55 You'd laugh and say no way. Then there's the erosion. You'll be called a prude by a lot of Christian people. One man called me sick when he found out years ago when we got Time Magazine and I said at a conference, a pastor's conference, I had my wife censor my Time Magazine.

64:20 We're talking about years ago. He said that man's sick. He may think me sick, but an awful lot of people and an awful lot of preachers are nothing but junk by the wayside because they weren't sick enough. The erosion.

64:38 What you think about with approbation you can do with pleasure. God help us, dear people. All our witness go down the tubes. One indiscreet glance.

Ethical Norms for Money and Self-Control

64:53 One injudicious step. In the matter of moral purity, sexual purity, in the matter of money and things, Colossians 3.5 says, that his people are idolaters and have no inheritance in the kingdom. Hebrews 13.5, be free from the love of money, the love of things. Content with such things as you have. We have a society that's bought the lie. One more thing.

65:16 One more gadget. One more electronic digit and gadget and rest and I'll be fulfilled. And I've got to go from my color TV to my 25 inch screen TV and now to my flat plasma TV. It's always escalating, escalating and a whole society is bought into it.

65:36 It's drunk with stuff. Be sober. Let people know. Your life does not consist in getting the latest gadget.

65:48 Your life does not consist in having the latest this, that or the other. You have fountains of joy and satisfaction that can't be cranked out by Taiwan or China or any place else. Let people see you live a simple life but in the midst of it, joy and contentment and that is I can't figure it out. I'm grabbing for this and that and this to get my little drops of joy.

66:15 And then I grab it for this, that and the other and they got a joy that I know nothing of. And then in the matter of self-control and self-denial, in the issues of food and drinking, the drunkard and the glutton are put together in Proverbs 23.4 Titus 1.12 speaks of the Cretans as being lazy gluttons.

66:42 Dear people, I don't need to quote the statistics. We have a national epidemic from kids on up to old age with all of the horrible attended fruits of that epidemic. Drunkenness, gluttony and the obesity that follows. We as the people of God need to be meticulous in our concern that our patterns of life write down to these issues so that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we do to the glory of God.

Conclusion: Manifesting the Gospel's Power

67:21 What we imbibe, what we ingest, how much and in what circumstances reflects we're committed to a meticulous life lived to the glory of God. Well, here's the second taproot. That of a God honoring. I'm sorry, if we're to have God honoring spirit-empowered evangelistic endeavors, a life that embodies and consistently manifests the transforming power of the Gospel.

67:54 What is the way that we get these things? I've tried to point you outside of yourself to the grace and power of Christ mediated through the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Few things will drive us more quickly to the new levels of pleading with God for grace to live consistent lives than to get more aggressively involved in trying to win sinners. Because you know, you open your mouth they're going to watch your life in a new way.

68:24 And they have every right to. You tell me you're bringing me a Gospel that is the very dunamis, the very power of God unto salvation. A Gospel that not only promises forgiveness of sins and the status of justification, adoption, reconciliation, and all these marvelous blessings, but one in which Jesus Christ says, Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. One that promises liberation from the dominion of sin.

68:54 Then show it. Manifest it. Let people know. So that people can say of us, You are Christ's epistle.

69:05 Written not with ink, but with the Spirit of God. Paul could say that of the Corinthians. You are our epistle, known and read of all men. May God grant that by His grace as we launch into this more intense and concentrated endeavor, there will not only be in our lives that taproot of looking upon our fellow sinners for who and what they really are and feeling toward them as we ought, but by the grace of God, lives that manifest, the power of that gospel.

69:44 Let's pray. Our Father, we confess that to carry with us and upon us the name of Your Son is a solemn responsibility, and we are ashamed when we have carried it at times so poorly, when we have reflected so inaccurately the power and the grace of that salvation. We pray that You would forgive us and cleanse us, fill us anew with Your Holy Spirit, and create in us new measures of those graces which will validate before the eyes of men the power of that gospel that we seek to convey to them. Hear our prayer and answer us for Jesus' sake.