“God, the Gospel and You”

And a Happy New Year to you!  I’m glad that you’re here and my honest prayer is, “I hope God stirs us up today.”  We all look a little bit too comfortable, maybe a little too needy.  That maybe our picture of God is just a little bit too small.  Can we live what we have sung to His glory?  We will allow Him to be our heart’s desire, as Lindsey played?  We want to talk this morning about God, the gospel and you.  God, the gospel and you.  So it is about God, it is about His gospel and about you.  And then there will be a combined bunch of you’s, [not lambs] me and you, and then it will be us.

So, 2007, a year of change?  There is somebody in the congregation, maybe now would be an appropriate time to do that,  this would be probably her 89^th New Year, because either today or sometime around today is her 90^th birthday.  What have you done with your New Years?  Have you have 90 yet?  Most of us haven’t.  There is a great lady in our church, Lucille Ross.  Ms. Ross, where are you?  Now, she wins the award for “Pack A Pew” today, too.  I’m gonna ask Ms. Ross and her family and friends to stand please.  [Applause] 

Joie and I have known the Ross family for some time because her son, Jerry, and his family were in our church in Lexington, and their children were in our youth group when I was a youth minister there and had hair and it wasn’t gray. [Laughter]  It was your kids’ fault that turned my hair gray [lots of laughter]. 

I’ve had a lot of New Years and so have you.  I’ve made a lot of New Year’s resolutions and so have you.  Some of them turned out really well.  Some of them were close to worthless….and sometimes each year, most of the time each year when the New Year comes along, we all think about some kind of change.  That’s why people who sell exercise equipment and sporting clothes always have a sale after the New Year, because they know we’re all gonna fool ourselves that we are gonna lose those 15 pounds we gained over Christmas in the next 2 weeks.  We exercise for 2 days and get sore as all get out and quit until the next New Year.

Trouble is, we do that with our soul also.  The most important part of us is the least part that we pay attention to, or the part that we pay attention to the least…and that is your inner life.  What is on the inside of you will end up dictating what you do on the outside, sooner or later.  Jesus said, “It is out of the heart that the mouth speaks.”  Things that are within us come out sooner or later.  So, as we look at God, the gospel and you, the Bible is going to challenge your view of yourself and your view of God.  Many of you have been in church for a long, long time.  You, like I, have settled ideas and thoughts about who God is, about what his church is, about what the Christian life is about, and, as a matter of fact, we get quite settled in that.  And, if somebody wants to disrupt that, the hair on the back of our neck might stand up, even if God is the One who is disrupting our view.  Because you see, we’ve known him long enough that we have the right to tell him what to be like and what to do, don’t we?  Maybe so.  Do you like it when your children that you have raised and taught manners and respect and what authority is tell you what to do?  What do we call that?  Sassing, rebellion, disobedience, acting like their daddy….things like that.  So, if 2007 is going to be a year of change, before we change our practice, I think that we are going to need to change our perspective and our proportion.  The point from which we see life and the shape of the things in life, so it’s a time first to be honest.

We are going to look at three questions now, we’re going to look, Lord willing, at these same three questions at the end of today.

First question:  What is your relationship to God presently? 

That’s a great question to ask in church.  We have some many hypocritical and masked responses to that because we’re in church.  We dare not be honest with ourselves, especially out loud with the one sitting next to us, and probably not even to God because there are some things about us He doesn’t know, right?  No.  God knows everything about you.  He knows what you’re thinking right now.   As a matter of fact, He knows what you’re gonna think before it gets in your mind.  He knows the motives of your heart.  He knows how the molecules of your body work.  He understands the syncope of your heart and your brain and your nerves as they work together.   There is not a thing about you that God does not know.  But how often does our mind think in such a way about God?  How often does our mind begin to grapple with the issues that this thing of Life, this whole thing we take for granted is something that Almighty God in his perfective, divine mind, decided what life was gonna be and made it.  He decided that in His image we would be made and what we would look like and how we would function and how this earth would work, and He’s the one who gave us life.  So, what is your present relationship to God?

There’s a simple way to find out.  How much time do you spend listening to Him?  How much time do you spend talking to Him?  How much time do you spending thinking about Him.  I can tell you this.  Joie knows how my relationship with her is based on how much time I spend talking with her, how much time I spend listening to her, and how much time I spend thinking about her.  Now, gentlemen, help me out here just for a minute.  If you don’t spend any time with your wife listening to her, if you don’t spend time with your wife talking to her, if she realizes by your actions and your talking and your time you haven’t spent any time thinking about her, would she rate your relationship as good?  You better duck!  No….she’s is not going to and just what about the other way around? Ladies?  How much time do you spend listening to your husband, talking to your husband, thinking about him?  You see, when we don’t do those things we know our relationship is on the rocks.  So, what is your relationship to God presently?  Do you listen to Him much?  How do you listen to God?  You simply open His book and read it.  He has spoken to us, he reveals himself to us, we have a way to listen to God that is very plain and simple, that anybody can do that, but how much time do you spend doing that?  How much time do you spend praying or just simply talking to God?   You know prayer, as J.I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom say in their new book on prayer, “It’s like Jesus called us his friends and it’s like walking down a path with a friend.”  That real relationship.  Yes there are times it feels like a duty but our practice is to turn duty to delight.

So, will we in 2007, and especially today at its beginning, at least the first Lord’s Day, will we be honest about our relationship with God?  What is He to you?  Is He someone to get you out of trouble?  Is he someone that is your means to a moral superiority over the rest of the world so that you can look down your nose at those sinners in the world that act like you don’t?  What is God to you?  Is he someone to get you out of a financial pinch?  Is he is someone to bow before and give your life to and sacrifice your whole self to?

Second question:  Where in this life presently do you need help?

Do you have any needy areas?  What about relationships?  All your relationships intact presently or do you have one that’s just really wearing you out and you don’t know if it’s your fault or their fault, or both your faults?  Do you need help?  Have you learned how to cry out to God for help in relationships since that’s what He specializes in?  What about sin?  You got a sin problem?  It’s always fun to talk about sin and look at you!  Of all things the church doesn’t know how to handle in our day, especially, which totally blows me away, is that we don’t know how to talk about sin…. or sinners.  Sinners are the people out there , sin is something we hide.  We’re to confess and forsake our sins that we might have mercy.  We act as if sin is some strange thing in this earthly life….wrong?  Yes, but ever since the fall it is not strange, it is part of life, it is part of you.  We are held captive by sin as we will see.  And so, of all things, if we have a real relationship with God we need to talk about sin, and all of us have some sort of sin issue in our life.  And when we do that, then God will enable us better to deal with those we might call sinners from a gospel perspective instead of a prideful one.  We’ll come back to that.  But, where in life do you need help?  Your job?  Personal growth?  Is your growth track as a Christian the way you want it to be?

Third question:  In what ways do you need to change?

Maybe I should ask it this way….Do you need to change?  Is there anything about you that needs to change?  Now if you will pray really hard for about 3 weeks, and you’ll get humbled before God and you’ll let Him soften your spirit and you’ll let Him take away all your defenses and you could really be humble before Him, then take that question to your spouse 3 weeks later and say, “Honey, are there ways in which I need to change?”  Because if you went home and asked your spouse that today, could you take a truthful answer?  Do you like it when somebody tells you you need to change and where you need to change?  I don’t.  So, in what ways do you need to change?  In attitude?  In action?  Are you addicted to something in your life you cannot quit that has control  over you?  You need to change a relationship?  You’re in a bad one, you need to get out and don’t know how, or don’t want to?  What about your money?  You need to change in how you handle it or handles you? 

Well, those are all important things, but I’m not sure that we can deal with any of them if we have the wrong proportion and the wrong perspective in life, so let’s clear our view. Let’s look at clearing your view of God and you.  Alright?  This is what we want to think about, so….take your Bible and turn to the Book of Job, Chapter 38.  Now, if you want to look in the pew Bible, and I would encourage you to do that, it’s on page 443.  That’s the blue book in the pew in front of you.  I don’t know what page that’s on in your Bible, personally, but I do the pew Bible.  Job is just before the big book of Psalms so it’s close to the middle of your book. I’m gonna make you work this morning because you need to work.  Sometimes I think about putting the words on the screen and sometimes I will.  But, my dear friend, you need to know what God says, not what Tony says, and you need to look at your own Bible and these words with your own eyes, and begin to grapple with the fact that God has spoken.  If God has spoken, what are we gonna do with it?  Clearing our view of God and us, or your view of God and you.  We want to deal just a bit with proportion and perspective.  Perspective is the point from which you see life; proportion is the size things are in life.  I think you can just grasp that; I can’t think of a better way to explain it. But, Job had things out of proportion.  Job’s life was very confusing and mixed up.  Everything went wrong in Job’s life.  He had been a righteous man; he had obeyed God; he had followed God and he got a little fed up with this and he began asking for an audience with God.  “God, there are some things I need to talk with you about; I want an audience with you.”  He asked and he asked and he asked, and God finally gave him his answer in what we find is here in Chapter 38, is when God gives Job and audience, but he doesn’t allow Job to speak. God speaks to Job.  God always has the first word.

He says in verse 3 to Job…we’ll just start at verse 2:

 “Who is this that darkens counsel by word without knowledge? [That’s his question to Job.] Dress for action like a man.  I will question you, and you make it known to me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Tell me, if you have understanding.  Who determined its measurements--surely you know!  [God is being a little sarcastic with Job]  Or, who stretched the line upon it?  On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone?  When the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy?

Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst out from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther and here shall your proud waves be stayed?’”

[Every time you go to the beach you ought to think of that verse, because you can look at the sign and see if the tide is going in or if the tide is coming out….going out or coming in?  How’s that?  That would be better, wouldn’t it?  It’s gonna stop at a certain point, why?  Because that is just the way things are.  No!  Because God said that is the way life is going to be.  The ocean will come to this point, her proud waves will stop there, that’s it!  Job, hey, where were you when I decided all of this?  Where were You?  Do you want an audience with God?]

It continues on for a couple of chapters and Job then is ready to respond to God in Chapter 42, the last chapter of the book.

          “Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

Is that the God you serve?  Job learned that kind of the hard way.

Verse 3: Job is answering back with things that he had asked God.

“Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?  Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, [Job said], which I did not know.   ‘Hear and I will speak;  I will question you and you make it known to me.   [Job said,] I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.  Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

In our culture at least, the average human heart is way too prideful to repent.  We see ourselves proportionately so large.  And the larger we see ourselves, the smaller God becomes.  And the smaller God becomes, the weaker he is to help us in our relationships, in our sicknesses, in our jobs and with our sins.  The greater we get in our own perspective, the less we need God, the more unwilling we are to bow before a sovereign God who made all of life and say, “God, you are in control.”  And the more confusing life gets, the more made up answers we give ourselves, because we have life out of perspective.  We see it from our perspective outward instead of God’s perspective, and proportion is way out of whack.  We are big and God is small.  God is not the center of our life, we are the center of life.  So, how do we clear that view?  Look in the New Testament at Mark Chapter 12.  [It’s on page 848 in your pew Bible.]

When God says anything we are to sit up and take notice.  When someone asks the Son of God what’s the most important thing God ever said, you are to doubly sit up and take notice.  In Mark Chapter 12 we have just that. 

          Mark Chapter 12, Verse 28:[Page 848 in the pew Bible]

“And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he, [that is Jesus], answered them well, asked him, ‘Which commandment is the most important of all?’ Jesus answered,

“The most important is:  ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second it this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Now here we have the Son of God asked a question by a human being.  He says, “Which of the commandments of God, of all the words that God has spoken, which ones are the most important, over which they are over all of God’s words these are the most important things, and since they are God’s words, therefore, they are the most important words ever spoken. 

Perspective…..proportion…. Do you love God that way, and do you love your neighbor as yourself?  That’s perspective and proportion.  I begin to look at a verse like that and say, “O God, I know what my heart loves, I know what my soul loves, I know what I do with my might and my strength, but God, is it YOU, is it YOU?  And if not, why not?  Heaven knows, Lord, I don’t love my neighbor as myself.  I haven’t said “Hello” to them in 6 months.  Wow!  What is this verse essentially telling us?  It’s telling us two basic things:

It tells us that God reveals Himself to us or that He speaks.  The way you know anything about God is because God has dis-covered himself to you.  I have to believe that God gets utterly fed up with us deciding what He is like.  You don’t like it when somebody thinks about you and decides ‘this is the kind of person you are.’  You don’t know anything about me.  You don’t know what I’m thinking, you don’t know what my motives are unless I reveal that to you and tell you.  That’s the same way it is with God.  So, we don’t get to think, “You, know God, He would be really, really nice. And, you know, God, He will overlook all sins and God would take anybody that comes to Him in any way they want to, and God would make my life easy, and God would do this, and God would do that.”  No wonder the Bible is so confusing to us.  It’s a strange story of human reality and God’s intervention.  But, the Bible says, “Hear, O Israel.”   If you haven’t heard what God has said about Himself, you truly don’t know God.  We need to hear Him speak.  He reveals Himself and what He reveals about Himself is that he reigns over all things.  “Hear, O Israel, the LORD Your God the LORD is one.”  One is a description of Him in many ways.  One of the significant things is that he is only One, there is none like Him, He is above all other things, He rules and He reigns.  God is God and we have shrunk Him down so small that He has little impact on our lives and we have kind of candy-coated a gospel that makes us nice people and lets the world go to Hell and we forget that Jesus entered the world to transform our lives and to transform the lives of other people.  Why did He do that?  We have to get our proportion and our perspective right, we have to see that God reveals Himself, and that God reigns, and we have to see that we rebelled.

Don’t turn to Genesis 3, but all Genesis 3 tells us about in these 2 verses, 8 and 9, is that when God came back to the Garden one day as He had many times before, Adam and Eve hid themselves.  They were not looking for God, but God was looking for them and has never changed since then.  We are not out running around looking for God. C.S. Lewis said, thinking of it that way in my own life, C.S. Lewis’s life, would be like saying “the mouse was looking for the cat.”  We think we are, but we are not because every time we run into the presence of a Holy God, something happens within our heart, Zshhoooom, we are shunned away from that.  It makes us uncomfortable, and we, O, Heaven forbid that we should ever be uncomfortable, so we run away from Him.

Romans Chapter 3, you need to turn there.  [Page 949 in your pew Bible]

And you’ve got to stay with the whole argument here.  Romans Chapter 3:9….Do not leave me, do not check out because you don’t like what the Bible says.  I mean this is a very weak illustration, but the teachers that told me more things I didn’t like than other teachers, and the coaches that told me more things about myself and my playing that I didn’t like than other coaches are the coaches and the teachers that I remembered best because they improved me.  They told me where I was lazy and where I did this wrong and how I could improve this.  And God is not going to let you go through this life unscathed without Him pointing out to you where you are wrong, and the day will come, if by His Grace you meet Him, that you will be eternally grateful for God for pointing out to you where you are wrong because He’s the only one who can make it right. 

Romans Chapter 3 describes humanity since the day that Adam and Eve, the father and mother that God created first rebelled against God and hid from Him.  We’ve been doing the same thing ever since.

Romans Chapter 3, Verse 9:

          “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all.  Why? For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under the power of sin.” 

Let me stop  there for just a minute ….just, just a minute.  Is this world a nice place to live?  That’s what is dangerous about LaGrange.  LaGrange overall is a nice place to live.  I remember when I moved here from South Florida.  Man, if the light turned pink moving to light green and you weren’t on your accelerator, people were blowing their horns and waving in a very funny way at you! [laughter]  I move to town here, was going down the road and somebody blew their horn at me and I’m going..”Oh…what’d I do wrong?”    “Hi, Pastor, how ya doin?”  Life was slow, smooth and comfortable.  We don’t have a lot of poor people around here.  Our minority rate is still ridiculously low.  Everywhere you go you see white people.  You see well-to-do people.  Problems are so covered up because we live in such nice homes in nice places.  It’s very not much realistic to the real world….places like the Sudan….places like inner city New York….places like Iraq.  You know the truth of the matter is, all in all, this world is not a nice place to live.  Everybody is gonna die.  That doesn’t get me real excited.  And I would say I’ve been in the funeral home more than any of you in this room.  Every single one of us is gonna die.  That really gets you excited about tomorrow, doesn’t it?  Makes you want to get up and read the paper and make sure your name is not in the obituaries.

Well, we rebelled.  We are under the power of sin.  That’s why this world is in the shape it’s in.  So why should we be afraid?  Just to be honest about sin. It’s as if the church stands on some moral platform and we look down on the sinners of the world…we call them sinners….that’s just crazy.  When are we gonna get the perspective that God is a Holy and Almighty God… we are saved by His grace…as a free gift.  He came to us when we were running from Him and the only thing we’re too into the world, is not condemning them to Hell, they are already condemned, we are taking, moving like Jesus did into their lives to say “There is a God of grace and glory and wonder who loves you and if you will but come to Him, He will save you.”  There is a difference in us looking down our nose….what nose do we have to look down?  None! We gotta get realistic about sin and sinners and sinfulness is because any good honest pagan doesn’t mind being called a sinner because they know that’s what they are.  People get offended at that, then they’ve got to deal with God, not you or me.  I don’t label people that and neither do you.  But we’ve got to be honest about who God is and this is what God says about us.  He says we’ve charged that all both Jews and Greeks are under the power of sin as it is written, none is righteous, no not one.  No one understands, no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.

You know compared to some people, you or I might be pretty good.  Compared to God we do no good at all.  Oh….we need to realize that sin is what Jesus confronted without any shame or fear and we need to realize that sinners are who Jesus came to save, without any shame or fear. 

God reveals and reigns, we rebelled and God redeems.

You don’t need to turn to John 3:16, you know that, I hope.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,

that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

You can look at Romans 3:23, you’re already there.  Who came to the world? God did!  Why?  WHY?  Why would He enter a world that looked at God and said, “Buzz off!”  They had a perfect environment, they said “No, I want to be my own God.”  God redeems because he loves, that’s why.

Romans 3:23, I think, is the heart of the gospel.  In verse 23 we’re picking up in the middle of context, but it explains itself. He says:

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” 

That’s everybody on the face of the globe, we’re riding in the same boat…no one is better than somebody else.

“But all those who would put their faith in Christ, [Verse 24], are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.”

Let me just go through that real quick, highlighting the three most important words:  We are JUSTIFIED  When someone recognizes that they are sinners in the presence of God, and they come to Him and bow before the crucified and risen Lord and say, “Would you save me?” He immediately pronounces them ‘In Christ, justified.” You stand before God as if you have no sin whatsoever, not because of a single work that you have done.  All by the free grace of God through the work of the gospel of Christ.  That’s clearing our view of God and seeing the gospel.

The second word there, after the word justified, is the word REDEMPTION.   Justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption….that’s how it’s a gift.  Redeemed means that you and I were slaves to sin.  Jesus entered the slave market and purchased us with the price of his own life and blood.  He took our sins on Him, He died on the cross and that was the price he paid so you and I could have our sins forgiven.  Still sinners, Yes, but sinners justified by grace, and now God’s children.  We are not saved by our moral goodness.

Then the third word, Verse 25, “Whom God put forward as a PROPITIATION. When Jesus hung on the cross He did more than pay for our sins.  He took our judgment.  That’s what the word, propitiation, means.  On Christ, God poured out His wrath that my sin deserved on me, Jesus took that and therefore, “He was put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.”  By faith, you can receive Christ and have eternal life, all by the work of God.  And it’s not because you’ve come to God, it’s because he’s come to you. 

Jesus said in John 6:44,

 “No man comes to me except the Father, who has sent me, draw him.”

1 John 4:10 says,

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son as a propitiation for our sins.”

Now, let’s get our perspective clear.  All God asks for now is a reasoned response.  Luke 9:23 [Page 867 in your pew Bible]  Luke 9:23:  These are the words of Jesus talking to followers of Him, getting their perspective clear, letting them know who He is and then asking for a reasoned response.

          “And He, [that is Jesus] said to all, [that’s all of us, too…that’s every one of you in this room] If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

That’s an awful lot!  What right does he have to ask such a thing?  If he is not God the Son and the Son of God, he has no right to ask that, but He is.  And since He asks that, and since He is who He says He is, then we have no right not to give it.  It’s only a reasoned response.

Romans Chapter 12 [Page 947] you know these verses, many of you do, Romans Chapter 12: Verses 1 and 2…. After more education of the church, understanding the gospel in a deeper level, the same thing is asked, just with different words.
Romans Chapter 12:1:

          “I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God,”[what   mercies? The wonderful mercies that though He made us and we sinned against our maker, He had already decided from before the foundation of the world that His Son would become flesh and would come of God’s own choosing and would save God’s people by His grace alone, not by any of our merit.  This thing that’s beyond our mind goes to the praise of God, and therefore he says,]  “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, Holy and   acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Does that describe your type of Christian living?  I’m not talking about anything weird and neither is God.  He’s talking about looking at your life from the perspective of God -that He made all things; from the proportion of God, that you are a speck of dust before Him, into whom He’s breathed life, but rebelled against me, whom He saved.  And now he says, “Just give me your life….give me your all…trust me with that relationship….trust me with that sin problem….trust me with your money….trust me with your marriage.  Why don’t you trust me…I am trustable and, most of all, trust me with your eternal soul.  Bend your knee, bow to my Son, confess Him as Lord and then give your body as a living sacrifice.”

Well…..it’s time to be honest.  What is your present relationship with God? We have really shrunk God down.  It’s a hard day for God.  He can’t speak because He might offend someone.  He can’t help because He’s so small.  How often do you talk to Him? If your friends treated you the way you treat God, would you count them as friends?  I’m only saying those things to STIR YOU UP, because we need STIRRED UP.  We as a church and you as an individual have got to come to grips with the real perspective and proportion of life.   From this day forward till Judgment, what is your life going to be like?  See… one of the things that happens when life shrinks is we forget we are responsible, not just for things, but to someone.  Everyone of us, God is going to hold us accountable for our works, and….wait a minute…I thought I was saved by grace.  You are!  But God doesn’t save you by grace and say, ZShooooooom….”Go fly, you’re free as a bird now, do whatever you want.”  What? He saved us, he paid for us with the life of His Son and he has no ownership over us now?  All He did was recreate us so that we could be made in the image of our Creator so that now we could live as He fully intended for us to live, in perfection.  And we battle with sin until Jesus does take us home, but until that time, He wants a reasoned response, which is…presentation of our lives as living sacrifice and He wants the reasoned outcome, which is the transformation of life, so 2007…a year of change?

I hope it’s a change in your perspective and how you see life.  I hope that we will get off our moral high-horses and quit looking for people that are worse than us, and complaining about how bad the world is.  The world is bad, and so are you, and so am I - when it comes to relationship with God.  And the greatest thing that ever happened to me was when the light of God shown into my soul and I saw its blackness.  ‘Cause I really thought Tony Rose was a pretty good kid.  I’d always been told that. But, compared to God I was not.  And then, even after my salvation I thought, you know, I’m pretty impressive as a Christian.  I’m regular with my quiet times, I share my faith, I’m disciplined.  I don’t watch dirty movies, I don’t tell dirty jokes.  I can remember the day I quit cussing.  I have not willfully said a curse word in anger or frustration since I was a sophomore in college.  That, my friend, is self control. You know what that is? That is a sin….if I’m prideful that I can do that.  My self-control won’t get me to Heaven.  Jesus will.  We’ve got to recognize that we are helpless and hopeless without God.  We have got to quit looking at the world and say, “Man this world is going to Hell in a hand basket.”  Whatever that means… .I never have figured out what that meant!  And we ought to look at these dear ones as people created in the image of God, held captive under sin, and just realize they’re doing what comes natural and don’t try to make them like us.  We can’t make ‘em anything.  Give ‘em the Gospel of a Lord who was unafraid to talk with sinners, who came to confront their sin and call it what it was, but tell ‘em about Himself and say, “I will save you if you will come to me.”  We aren’t here for morally reforming people.  We are here for giving them new life through the gospel. Jesus will take care of the moral reformation.  Some of us think we’re in control.  We’ve got God down so small, we’re in control , we’ve got an answer from God for everything.  We like being right.  We like telling people where they’re wrong.  Leave that to God.  What’s your relationship with God?  Do you bow before His Son?  Do you recognize the very air you breathe is His gift?  What is your relationship to God presently?  Where in life do you need help?  Listen to this and think about it.  Some of you in this building have a serious sin problem.  But you are afraid to ask for help in the church because the church is more concerned about morality than the grace of a Holy and Living God.  We are…do we…wait a minute …now don’t let me lose you.  Some of you think I’ve gone off the deep end.  Are we aiming to be moral people?  YES!  Not so we can go to Heaven, but so that what’s inside of us, the life of Christ, begins to bear fruit so I will be loving and joyful and I will be faithful, and I will be gentle and meek and have self control.  But that’s God’s life in me, that’s not me.  I don’t want to be a Pharisee.  And so, where of all places, should someone be able to come up and say, “Man, I’ve got a problem with the Internet and I need help.”  Or, “I have got a problem with gambling,” or “I’ve got a problem cheating’ on my spouse.”  What kind of world do you live in?  Do you think those things aren’t happening?  I read a list just yesterday of things a pastor, who had planted a church out in a very pagan area in Seattle, that his new Christian people come up and ask him about.  We would gasp!  These are lost people just wanting to know how to love Jesus.  Can we help our own?   Some of us, in our relationship with God, are addicted to excuses.  Something happened to us 25 years ago in the church and we are never going to give ourselves away to the church again.  God would just say, “Grow up!”   Some of us are addicted to things…we’ve got to have our things, we’re addicted to sports.  I think of our teenagers today and the strange and weird world they are growing up in, and we have allowed them and taught them, especially in our school system, to be so in tune with their inner world and how they feel and how they perceive life.  They’re so in touch with themselves and then they make a quantum leap out of themselves into the Cyberworld that they don’t know how to live in the real world, and we need to help them understand that there’s a connection to that.  Where in life to you need help?

Third, In what ways do you need to change?

Fourth, What will you do right now?

Tonight, I would invite you to come back. We’ll worship at 6:30, and I hope to be able to help you honestly look at your life, make a very practical list, and say “God, I want to get my proportion and my perspective in life right.”