Better...At Integration

This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

Lord, if there's one thing we could say forever, that would be it.

For you're the Lord our God, that we belong to you.

You have authority over us, so what you say goes in our lives today.

We're not here to barter.

Love does not negotiate the terms that purchase its ransom.

And so we're not here to barter or negotiate or make deals or promises.

We're here to submit.

We're here to bow before you, our intellect, our appetites, and our affections before you, and say, You're the Lord our God.

You're the Lord.

You own me, and I affiliate with you.

I don't own you, I don't control you with your blood.

You purchased me for God.

So I am a bought man today.

And so uh, Lord, I just want to confess that you're the Lord our God.

And uh thank you for the privilege and the beauty of making such a covenantal statement today.

And so, Lord, because you bought us, you had something in mind.

So unfold even further today your intent for your people.

We pray from your word and by your spirit.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

And let me, uh, if you got a Bible, let me ask you to take it and open up to 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

Uh uh, 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row there.

I'm on page 965.

And before I go any further, let me just commend you for showing up at the 8:30 service on the spring forward Sunday.

Amen?

Uh it it it'll be the 11:30 service, it'll be densely populated today.

Uh the real Christians came to this service, amen.

So I'm sure you'll get extra credit for this.

Not really, but if it makes you feel better.

Uh and speaking of better, uh, we are in a series and we're just calling better, and we're looking at different things that we want to get better at.

Like last week we we talked about we want to get better at criticism.

And uh I I left here last Sunday and had to go to the emergency room.

One of our folks is in the hospital, uh, or actually the third service had a lady pass out.

Uh see what happens when you when you come to 8:30, you miss all this.

And so I'm at the hospital, and there's a lady standing there, and she said, I didn't get to hear the sermon, what was it about?

And another lady said, Oh, it was really good.

It was on criticism.

And the lady said, Oh, I'm really good at that.

And they said, No, not giving criticism, receiving criticism.

Oh, I don't like that.

Uh and so we're looking at different things.

And today I want to talk to you about getting better at integration.

Getting better at integration.

Uh, and I want to begin before I read the passage.

I want you to understand what I mean.

So I wanted to define two words.

I wanted to define inclusion and integration.

Inclusion is this, it's it means it's part of.

It's part of inclusion.

I think a lot of people, that's their kind of the concept of Christianity is it's a part of my life.

It's it's it's something, you know, it's a part of.

It's kind of like everything else, the little league and my kids' dance lessons or whatever.

My Christianity is a part of my life.

That's inclusion.

That's not what I'm talking about today.

What I'm talking about today is integration, which means it's inseparable from.

It's inseparable from.

Uh now, not giving you a definition.

Uh, let me give you a, because I'm a visual person, let me give you a visual picture.

Uh inclusion, it's like if this room were a swimming pool, and and we threw a beach ball into the swimming pool.

The beach ball is a part of the swimming pool, but I could very easily pick it up and kind of set it to the wayside and kind of go, you know what?

I don't want this to be in here anymore.

Uh, case in point, you're a Christian, and the Bible says, be not unequally yoked with non-believers.

And so, you, but you meet a guy and he's really fine, and you're kind of like, man, I'm just lonely and I'd like to be in a relationship.

You can pick up the you can take the ball and set it aside and kind of go, let's just spend time together and see how this goes.

Or your boss says, hey, I know this is wrong, but we got to kind of cook the books here to make this look better, or else we we could lose our jobs.

Inclusion says, I can take this and just kind of set it aside and then act like I want.

Uh that that's inclusion.

Let me give you a picture uh of integration.

Uh, years ago, uh I one of my first jobs was a lifeguard.

And as a lifeguard, I had, you know, sit there and watch over the pool, and we had day camp at the camp I worked at, and every year at day camp for a week, little kids would come and they would just nark on each other.

And there's this one kid, and he kind of looked around, and he would he would come to me and say, Oh, I think I think Tommy over there is peeing in the pool.

And I said the same thing every time.

I was not a good lifeguard.

I just said, What do you want me to do about it?

I mean, the chlorine will take care of it, son.

Just get back in the pool, but I don't want to get in there because I think he pee-peed in the pool.

And I would just see the kid being real still over there, and everybody else was flailing around like he's probably doing it right now, okay?

But there's nothing I can do about it.

That's integration.

I can't get a cup and get in the pool and go, here, I'm gonna separate this out so you all will feel safe.

There's no way to get that out of there.

And in the Bible, why do I tell you that?

Because the Bible says uh to us that we were created by God to live integrated lives, and we are called by God to live integrated lives.

And here's the best part: we are expected by God to live integrated lives.

And by that I mean that you want to get to the point where it's just, hey, I can't do anything about this.

I cannot help that situation.

This is my response to that.

It just kind of comes out of me.

So, what I want us to do this morning is I want us to read through these, uh, 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 1 to 6.

2 Corinthians 4:1–6

It's 165 words.

79 of them have two or three letters in them, which leaves only 86 words to really wrestle around, and they're not really big, profound words.

Why do I tell you that?

Because it redounds to the fact that the Bible is really not hard to understand as much as it is inconvenient in terms of the life that we prefer.

Let me say that again.

The Bible's not hard in terms of, oh, it I just can't understand it.

But it is inconvenient in terms of the life that we prefer to live.

And what I want you also to notice this morning is that the Bible's not here to sanction the life that you and I want to live as much as it is here to call us to the life we were created to live.

And so what I want to do is just kind of a different structure of the sermon this morning.

I want to just read through these uh uh uh 165 words, and then I just want to go back and point to groupings of these different words and just kind of say, hey, let's let's integrate this into not just our head, but into our heart, and let it find expression in our hands, okay?

This is 2 Corinthians chapter 4, starting in verse 1.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

He says, Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.

We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.

But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

And I just want to just kind of look at different phrases.

Like the first one I want to just draw your mind's attention to is that those four words, the mercy of God.

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, I want to just plead with you this morning to not sleep on mercy, to not sleep on mercy.

And you'll see in just a minute why.

Because if you forget mercy, then you introduce this unnecessary pressure on yourself, but just the mercy of God.

I want you to think about the mercy of God for a minute.

And I remember I'd been a Christian just a few months, and I heard something said in church.

Uh, I went to a church that had Sunday morning services, Sunday night services, Wednesday night.

They were serious about it.

And I couldn't keep up with everything that was said in all these sermons, but the one thing that really arrested me uh was the man stood up and he said, You need to understand the difference in grace and mercy.

Grace is God giving us uh what we don't deserve, and mercy is God withholding from us what we do deserve.

And I and I remember as 18 years old, my mind just kind of set up and said, Remember that.

Grace is God given us what we don't deserve, and we we get grace, but I'm asking you this morning, do you understand mercy?

Have you kind of grown sleepy to the reality of mercy in your life?

Because Paul says, Hey, I have this ministry by the mercy of God.

And I want to say to you and me today, everything you have, you have because of the mercy of God.

You have a relationship with God because God is merciful.

He could have still been God and not revealed himself to you, but he chose to exercise mercy and let you know him today.

And so don't sleep on the mercy of God.

Or maybe this will help us think about it.

You say, what do you mean?

Well, Titus chapter 3, uh verse 5, he says, it's not by works of righteousness which we have done.

Titus 3 · chapter mention

Uh that that's not why he saved us.

I I talked to a lady this week who's got a cancer diagnosis, and it's not good.

It's stage four.

They said, two weeks to two months.

Uh, and her daughter said, Can you talk to my mom?

And so I drive down and meet with her mom, and I just said, Hey, you know, there's two things I talk to people about that are in your state, your your situation.

You know, are you at peace with God and are you at peace with your fellow man?

And so we talked about being at peace with a fellow man.

She said, Yeah, I need to call this person, I need to call that person.

I said, What about God?

And she goes, Well, I don't know.

We've ever had really many problems.

I think we're good.

And I just had to lovingly say, You were born with a problem.

And she's like, it was a great conversation.

It wasn't conflictual at all.

There were tears shed.

And I just said, she said, I've I've basically been a good person my whole life.

And I had to lovingly tell her, you can't, see, we can construct a way of thinking about God that doesn't require mercy.

And I would ask you today, does the way you think about God, does it require God to be merciful to you?

Or are you just pretty much a good person where it just makes sense?

And she said, you know, and and and I'm not disrespecting the lady at all.

Great lady, but she's just been her whole life, she's lived with this sense of, well, you know, I'm basically a good person.

And I just said, hey, here's the reality.

If you can be good enough to get into heaven, then why is Jesus necessary?

He's not necessary at all.

But because Jesus is necessary, he's really indicted the cross, indicts all of us.

And so you're not going to get into heaven, you're not going to have any peace with God, thinking, hey, I'm fixing to die, but I think I've basically been good enough.

If anybody's been good enough at any time, then who needs mercy?

But because the Bible says, and hear this, beloved, because the Bible says, none of us have been good enough.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done has he saved us, but according to his mercy.

Because none of us have been good enough at any time.

All of us need mercy.

The Bible says it like this in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

He says, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is not at work, and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh.

Remember that?

Do you remember when you were that way?

Because it's easy to go to church so long, you kind of forget what it was like to be lost.

Does anybody remember?

And that's what I'm asking you.

Do you remember what it was like to be lost?

Because the Bible says, here's what it's like.

We said we lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind.

Remember when you just ruled by the desires of your body and your mind, whatever you thought and whatever you felt, that's what you did.

And look what the Bible says.

God's response to that says, and we by nature were children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

See, when you live at the mercy of your body and your mind, doing whatever your attention and your affections want to do, the word wrath, that's God's fixed and holy displeasure with sin.

Because God is a just God, He can't just wink at sin.

And so my concern, beloved, is that we have we've slept on mercy, we've just assumed mercy so long that we it no longer takes our breath away.

It's like, oh, okay, yeah, I get that.

The Bible says we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind, but God being rich in mercy.

Because of the great love with which He's loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sinned, He made us alive together with Christ.

And what I want you to see today this morning, he says, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins.

So if you're here today and you've you you've yet to come to this realization, you've yet to be made alive by this merciful God, I want you to know one simple truth that the God of the Bible loves you deeply, but he will not tolerate your sin.

And so when Paul says, hey, because of the mercy of God, I just want to sound an alarm to all of us just to say, hey, let's not lose sight of mercy.

The second thing that I want to draw your attention to is the next phrase is he says, We do not lose heart.

We do not lose heart.

I don't want to say a whole lot about this other than this.

Uh we don't lose heart because mercy reminds us that there's something bigger than us at work in us.

If you start, if this becomes math and instead of music, you will lose heart.

There will come a day where you'll just run out of physical energy and appetite for this.

And that's why you see people, they get about 62 to 65, and they start acting and talking like this.

Well, I've been in church my whole life.

And and I I always, I talked to a person this week, he said, Well, yeah, I grew up in church, I've been in church my whole life.

And that was his response to my question.

Hey, I see you about once every six Sundays.

What do you do the other five Sundays?

And he said, Well, I've been in church my whole life.

And I'm just staring because I'm thinking, what does that explain?

That let me love you.

That explains nothing.

And now, by the way, if you're visiting today, there's none of these people that go to this church that can tell you uh that, oh man, he requires us to be here every Sunday.

I'm such a bad pastor.

I told my people, hey, for spring break, which started on Friday, and people were shot out like they were out of a cannon, they got out of here.

I said, run and buck and jump and have fun.

So I'm not the guy that's like, oh, you should be there every time the doors are open.

Not at all.

But I do have a concern that the older we get, the less disciplined we become.

And we blame it on things like, well, you know, I've been in church my whole life.

Oh, okay.

I'm not I'm not sure what that's got to do with anything.

Really, because I I think it's a deeper epidemic, a deeper disease.

And the deeper disease is this the older we get, we just lose heart.

We just kind of flatten out into these vague universalists.

Well, you know, God's a God of love, and in the end, I think everyone's gonna get in after all, and so I don't have to be as disciplined or whatever.

You've lost sight of mercy and you're losing heart, beloved.

You didn't earn this, it was given to you by a merciful God.

Thirdly, Paul says this.

He says that we do not lose heart, but we renounce disgraceful, underhanded ways.

We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.

That's the phrase I want to draw your attention to, thirdly, to tamper with God's word.

That word tamper can mean a lot of things.

Like when I say the word tamper, somebody just tell me what comes to your mind.

He says, We don't tamper with God's word.

That's a really weird-sounding word coming out of your mouth.

Did you use the word tamper this week?

Did anybody, you know, like, hey, I'm just gonna tamper around here and I'll be home in 10 minutes?

Your wife would be like, What are you doing?

So when I say the word tamper, what's the first thing that comes to your mind, Tommy Hammer?

Like breaking in somewhere.

I thought I'm glad you did that because I thought Watergate.

That's the first thing I thought.

I just, I mean, I don't know why, but I just thought, hmm, they're tampering with that.

Anybody else when I say the word tamper, what pops into your mind?

See, I can't do this in the other services.

I can do it in here because it's just us.

When I say the word tamper, James, what comes to your mind?

Trying to get around things.

Anybody in the section right here, in these two middle sections, you got a word?

Modify.

We're getting close.

You know what the word tamper?

It's a Greek word dila'o.

You know what it literally means?

Adulterate.

See, this is why you should just kind of integrate and think about these things because the Bible makes huge statements with little words like, hey, we don't tamper.

What does it mean to tamper uh uh with God's word, to adulterate?

It means basically this: Paul's saying, hey, I refuse to commit adultery with God's word.

I'm not gonna become intimate with something else and let that affect the way I see the Bible.

Let me say it again.

I'll give you a modern-day uh version of what I'm talking about.

He says, Hey, I'm not gonna become intimate with something else, and then I'm gonna come back and impose that view.

I'm not gonna read something on the internet by some skeptic like Richard Dawkins or somebody and kind of go, oh, okay, now God's got to prove himself to me all over again because this is this really made me think.

You you should have been thinking a long time ago.

But let me tell you, I give you a current right now today version of what it means to adulterate the word of God.

When Paul says, hey, we don't tamper with God's word, what he's saying is, I'm not gonna go see the shack and then take that one-dimensional view of God and impose it on the Bible.

Now, uh-oh, uh-oh.

Now we're fighting now.

Some of you are like, I took my wife to see.

I'm not saying don't go see the shack.

I'm not saying it's all bad or whatever.

I hear, listen to me carefully, because I can be responsible for what I say.

I can't be responsible for what you hear.

And sometimes, beloved, those two are not the same.

To adulterate, I'm not gonna go become intimate and be moved by the movie The Shack, and then come back and just impose this one-dimensional view upon God.

What do you mean?

Uh, it it am I say it's wrong?

No, but but if you're not careful, you see something like that, or you read a book like that, and then all of a sudden you insist that God be only gracious and loving and all-affirming.

Now, is God all those things?

Yes.

And he's so much more that it fills those things with a sense of wonder.

Like he's also, he is loving and he is affirming, and he is graceful.

He's not an older black woman that lives in this abandoned shack and talks in a gracious voice.

He's also the God that that said to his followers, hey, don't fear the one that can kill the body.

Fear the one that can kill both body and soul and then cast you into hell.

He's talking about himself.

Be careful that the longer you're around this, it doesn't just become sentiment.

The God of the Bible is a God of principle.

He's not moved by sentiment.

And so when he says, hey, we refuse to tamper with God's word, we refuse to adulterate, that's what he's talking about.

It's like, hey, I'm not gonna read the latest skeptical take on things and then bring that to the Bible and say, you know what, that that really upset me, that really unnerved me.

Uh I'm not going to read uh, what was the book?

They made movies with Tom Hanks in them.

Yeah, I'm not gonna read the division because hi people call me and make an appointment and throw the book on my desk.

What do you think about this?

I don't.

Well, I mean, this this really shook the foundations of my faith, and your faith wasn't very strong.

Dan Brown can write books that are just make made up nonsense, and somehow that just oh, that that really.

And because I love my people, I just say, be careful, you're adulterating the word of God.

You you read the Da Vinci Code more than you read the Bible, and all of a sudden the Bible is in a hole and it's got to prove itself to you, but it won't.

He says, we we refuse to tamper with God's word.

We read on, he says, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

I want just hear those four words fresh and anew this morning.

Those who are perishing.

This may come as news to many of us today, but while we're uh trying to make sure that the church meets all of our social needs and sings the songs that I want to sing and talks about the things I want to have talked about while we're all obsessing over all of that, people all around us are perishing.

I don't know if that's dawned on you.

But people that die in Fort Bend County without a life-altering relationship with Jesus, they die and they go to hell forever.

They perish.

Because that's what Jesus said.

Well, I don't know if I believe in a literal hell.

Well, you're wrong.

You should give your mental energy and attention to something else.

But people all around us are perishing.

And we seem to just kind of, okay, yeah, all right.

That that doesn't kind of cause you to just.

I stood in the hospital last night with a man who got the news from the neurosurgeon, yeah, there's nothing we can do.

Uh, your wife's probably never gonna get out of this vegetated state, and y'all probably gonna have to remove life care.

And the only hope in that hallway at Sugarland Methodist Hospital was the gospel.

And the family began to say there was weeping and there was rejoicing, and I was reminded, hey, this is what the Bible says, and we we mourn, but not as those without hope.

And her father and her children and her husband were like, Well, we know where she is, we're sad, and we didn't think this would happen today.

And the father looked at me and he said, and and this was my takeaway from from the hospital last night.

But the father said, You you you know what?

You get up in the morning and you Don't know if you're gonna go to bed that night.

Yes.

Absolutely.

And it's fresh on me because I yeah, this woman, she's gonna pass away later this morning.

Their family's gonna gather around her bed and they're gonna say their goodbyes and they're gonna unplug the machine.

And they're able to do that because they know that their mom's not gonna perish.

And I was just reminded, hey, this there's people there, and by the way, we're walking down the hallway crying, gathering the family, and there were other people sitting around with long faces.

And I just want to just remind you that there's people all around us that are perishing.

Let's not become so insular, so inward focused.

Hey, I just want to have people to go eat lunch with.

What about the people all around us that are perishing?

I'm concerned that our church is getting too big.

I don't know anybody anymore.

We want to reach people that are perishing.

We don't want to just sit around and drink coffee with the already convinced.

Then he says this, he explains it.

He says that if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

Verse 4.

In their case, the God of this world.

Hello.

The God of this world.

Notice it's little G, not big G.

And just just point to that to say, can we remember today that there's a spiritual dimension to lie?

We don't war against flesh and blood, but against principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places.

The God of this world.

The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers.

That's the next phrase I want to just draw your attention to and say, can we just integrate around this?

He's blinded the minds of unbelievers.

Notice what he does, he doesn't blind the eyes.

That's what we usually think.

No one ever says, Oh, my husband's blind.

He can't think.

My wife says that on occasion, but see how subtle the Bible is?

He blinds the minds of unbelievers.

You have a do you have anybody in your life that you're you're trying to explain the gospel to right now?

That you're you're you're you're you're you're you're just testifying to the reality of God and the gospel, and they look at you like you're crazy.

They just kind of shake their head like, and you amp up your efforts, and you're like, well, if I just use this illustration, if I just make this point, it's gonna make sense.

Hey, it's not their eyes, it's their mind that's been blinded.

They can't even think rightly about the gospel.

Their mind has been blinded.

And one of the ways that the God of this world blinds people is through their pseudo-intellect.

It's like, well, you know, I'm just uh my critical thinking requirements are way too high.

When you talk to somebody, I mean, when you understand that hey, Jesus says if you don't believe, you're gonna perish.

I mean, if it were just math, everybody would do it.

Everybody would say, yes, what do I have to do to be saved?

But they don't.

Why?

Because the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers.

Why does he do this?

What is he afraid that they're going to see?

Look at what the Bible says.

He says in verse 4, in their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers.

Why?

To keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Who's that a reference to?

See, this is not facts.

This is not information.

This is not a pathway.

This is a person.

Hear it again.

He says the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers.

Why?

To keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.

Who it's not a what?

Who is the image of God?

He's blinded their minds because he doesn't want them to see Jesus.

So sitting in a living room with family members this past week with a sweet older woman that I've come to love very dearly.

She's kind of salty and just oh, just textured and beautiful.

I just say, hey, no, no.

None of you are getting in because you you're good.

Your goodness isn't gonna get you there.

Why?

Because I want them to see Jesus.

Because I realize that there's a spiritual entity at work in this world.

And he blinds the minds of unbelievers.

Why?

So they can't see Jesus.

And then Paul goes on and says this.

He says he's blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Verse 5, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord.

But just that just that little gathering of words, but Jesus Christ is Lord.

What we proclaim is not ourselves.

What we proclaim is not ourselves.

Can churches all over America stop talking so much about themselves?

Can pastors in America just take their name off the building?

Can we just stop the obsession with ourselves?

Here's why we're obsessed with ourselves, because Jesus is no longer Lord.

That's why we have the only thing left then, once he leaves the building, the only thing left is ourselves.

And so we don't profess Jesus is Lord.

Lots of, we profess this: lots of God is love, God is forgiveness, Jesus is merciful, he's compassionate, he's all the adjectives that make us feel better about the verbs we love.

But what about the noun Lord?

What about just the the the bold confession that Jesus is Lord?

So what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus as the Lord.

Jesus as I belong to you.

You rule over me, you own me.

Because see, here's the let's practice a little implicational thinking this morning, beloved.

Let's kind of spool out.

Because it's bigger than just, man, it's spring break, lighten up, okay?

No, I think it's bigger because the God of this world has blinded our minds.

I mean, I mean, he's affected the way we think about this to some degree.

Because, see, here's the thing.

I think it redounds to the fact that it's why not much evangelism goes on anymore.

It's why that most people over the age of 50 never share their faith.

I read that statistic the other day, and I just want to put my head on my desk and just sob.

The people who've known God the longest and should know better, they just check out and kind of go, ah, you know, I I invited him.

See, here's the question: if he's not Lord to us, then how can we proclaim him as Lord to them?

I continue to see people who profess a great love for God and yet they live totally separated lives, especially in the area of their sexual ethic and morality.

Oh, I love Jesus.

Oh, God's really important to me.

Okay.

Great.

All right.

It's apply that to your morals.

Well, you know, you know, a man's gonna be a man.

I I didn't I I what what what page is that on?

I didn't see that.

So is Jesus Lord or do you just need him to be Savior?

You just need him to get you, to save you from perishing, but after that, leave you alone when it comes to the life you want to live.

Because you see, I I I beloved, here's my concern.

I'll just put it out on the table.

We'll be done this morning.

You still with me?

Uh I'll just put it out on the table that we have so jammed it up with our morality that we can't we can't stand our own hypocrisy.

We're not gonna say to anybody, Jesus is Lord.

I proclaim not myself, but Jesus is Lord.

No, we proclaim ourselves, we know ourselves, and we can't say to anybody Jesus is Lord because he's not Lord of us.

He's not Lord of us.

I mean, the Bible lays it out.

Talk to people this week.

Oh man, my faith is very important.

Okay, maybe you could stop having kids out of wedlock.

And let's just face it, that makes me a judgmental jerk in this culture.

I'm just trying to get my head around this.

Bible says this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 2, for you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 4:2

Through the Lord Jesus.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.

People who cannot demonstrate the Lordship of God over their morality.

The Bible says, hey, that's people who don't know God.

The fact that we know God is demonstrated not with our words or our bumper stickers, but but that but that our sexual ethic redounds to the fact that Jesus is Lord.

That no one transgressor wrong is a brother in this matter because the Lord is an avenger in all these things.

And as we told you beforehand, and we solemnly warned you, for God has not called us to impurity, but in holiness.

There's a word we don't talk about much anymore.

Holiness.

Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

Now, why is this fresh on me?

Because I had to say to a man who I love deeply.

Hey man, you you you can't seem to reconcile your your faith and your morality.

Well, that's just your opinion.

And we we disagree on that.

No, no, the Bible says that hey hey, if you disregard this, you're not disregarding me, but God.

Well, yeah, I don't know about that.

Well, clearly.

And I just want to say, can we just, as God's people, if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, I'm not talking to you right now.

You you can't live this.

You don't you don't have the Holy Spirit inside of you.

But but can we just get back to proclaiming Jesus is Lord?

And start with ourselves and just maybe asking ourselves today, is there any area in my life over which Jesus is not Lord?

And lastly, Paul says this.

He says in verse 6, for God.

You've got to circle those two words with a red crayon.

For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

For God who said, Hear this, tell me if this sounds familiar.

Let light shine out of darkness.

See, God doesn't do it the way we do it.

We shine light into darkness.

And that's what we should do.

We should testify and give testimony to the reality of God and the gospel.

We shine light into darkness.

But God, Paul's reminded himself and everybody that reads him.

He's reminding us today that for God, for God, it's so easy to focus on what he does.

We forget who he is.

God is God today, and only God can do what God can do.

Which is why we don't peddle the gospel.

We don't peddle the word of God for profit.

We don't, we don't adulterate the Bible.

We renounce secret and shameful ways.

Why?

Because only God can make light shine out of darkness.

We shine light into darkness, but only God, and we do that believing that the only hope is the merciful God of the universe and all this planet and the seven new planets they discovered a couple weeks ago.

He he's Lord of all those as well.

And if we could tap a microphone, if we could get into the Hubble telescope and listen somehow, get a microphone out there, it would come redounding back.

Jesus is Lord of this too.

And this God causes light to shine out of darkness.

Why do I keep saying that?

It ought to sound faintly familiar to you.

Well, I don't know.

You said it four times now.

I guess that's faintly familiar.

No.

See, the problem with us believers is that we think way too small.

We don't step back and see the big picture.

So when you read in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, which is written, thousands of years after Genesis, you should hear Genesis.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

And God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, you say, What do you mean?

Think creation, beloved.

Remember how this all got started?

Let me read it to you.

Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 to 3.

Genesis 1:1–3

He said, This in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water.

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

Paul comes along hundreds and thousands of years later and says to New Testament believers and says to you and I on this first Sunday of spring break in 2017, hey, for God.

Don't forget who God is and what only God can do.

Keep shining light into darkness, but don't take the responsibility of conversion on yourself.

For God, who has said, let light shine out of darkness.

You say, Well, that's wonderful.

Okay, so what if I'm not there yet?

What if I'm just checking all this out?

What do I do?

I'll tell you what you do, and I'll be done this morning.

You for being done this morning?

Oh like, whatever.

We are not going to talk to you when you're done.

So just be done.

Here's what you do.

See, the Bible all fits together.

It's not pieces and it's not a puzzle, it's a pitcher.

It's not pieces and it's not a puzzle, it's a pitcher.

God says, let light shine out of darkness.

This is 2 Peter chapter 1, verses 19 to 21.

2 Peter 1:19–21

We'll be done this morning.

If you're here and you're like, you know what, I don't believe yet, what do I do?

The Bible says to you, just pay attention.

What do you mean?

He says, We have the prophetic word, the Bible, more fully confirmed, to which you would do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

He says, Hey, you do well to pay attention as to a light shining in a dark place.

You would do well if you're here today and you've yet to come to faith.

And and you say, Hey, it's not effort.

God will reveal himself to you.

But you would do well to find you a church, and you're more than welcome for this to be that place where you hear the Bible taught.

They don't adulterate, they don't tamper with it, they renounce all these secret and shameful ways.

We don't give away puppies to get people to come.

No, no.

But you gotta know first of all that the Bible doesn't come from man.

You gotta stop saying, well, the Bible's just a book written by men.

No, no.

Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

Secondly, you gotta get your head around the fact that the Bible was in was divinely inspired.

Which is why I highly recommend Secret Church.

Did he say it started at 5:30, went to 11?

Yes, there'll be breaks and snacks, but beyond then your mind will snap.

It'll be so overwhelming.

Overwhelmingly good.

He says, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

What he's saying is that God used men to record the Bible, but God is its divine author.

And if you don't believe that, look at me.

Then why should you pay attention to it?

It's a light shining in a dark place.

The human heart, the natural state of the human heart is darkness.

And a merciful God comes along and he shines light in your heart because the God of this age has blinded your mind.

You can't think rightly about the truth.

But when that light comes on in your heart and light shines out of darkness, all of a sudden you can see clearly.

And that's the intent of the God of mercy.

And this is what I'm calling us as believers.

Let's just be integrated.

Let's just take some of these things and just kind of, hey, what does that look like with my life integrated into my life?

Not just included, where I could just pull it up and out of the pool and go, hey, that's it.

Go over there.

I don't want that to be a part right now.

No, I can't help myself.

It's like the little kid that peed in the pool.

We cannot, we're incapable of separating this from the water.

And so this is just going to become one with.

That's the way the Bible says that you and I as believers, if you confess to be a Christian today, we're created to live.

Let's pray together.

Let's just take a moment and think about what God said to us through his word this morning.

You do well to pay attention to it, he says.

There's a light shining in a dark place.

Regardless of how dark your heart is.

If you're the biggest unbeliever, you're like, hey, nobody believes this less than I do.

Your only hope is that God is merciful, and He is.

And then one day this merciful God would cause this light to kind of shine in the darkness of your heart.

And it would become something that you could not not pay attention to.

It would become a voice that you could not not hear.

And so if you've ever in your life had a nanosecond of what if this is really true?

That's just that little flickering light in there.

And God who's merciful is kind of saying, hey, don't sleep on this.

Don't sleep on mercy.

So we're just going to take a moment and think about what we heard.

And just ask God, hey, what out of all these little phrases we walk through, what which one do I just need to begin to think?

You know what?

I need to integrate that.

I need that to be inseparable from me, who I am, and how I live.

Let's give them, let's give ourselves a moment to think about that.

God, we're grateful this morning that you're rich in mercy.

You don't just have some mercy.

The Bible says you're rich in that.

And so I pray for anybody in this room that is kind of just thinks, you know what, I've done so much, there's no way.

No, there's a way.

And mercy is the way.

Because your mercy triumphs over judgment.

You long, the Bible tells us that you long to show mercy to people.

And so let us be staggered, God, when we come across somebody that seems just militant against the gospel, against Christianity.

They've just never tasted mercy, God.

Let us be their first taste of mercy and let it be a savoring reality for them.

Lord, we want to live integrated lives.

We want to be at the point where we're just inseparable from this.

It's not that we we we we we want to and choose to.

We can't help ourselves.

Or better said, let us be incorporated into the truth of your word today.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said.

Amen.

If you're our guest today, let me say thanks for being a part of our church, our part of our service.

If you're in town visiting family, uh anytime you're in town, you're welcome.

And if you live here and you're looking, you're kind of exploring, looking around, uh, we'd love to answer any questions you may have.

So we'll be available down front, myself and some of our staff and elders.

If you have any questions, we can pray with you about anything.

Uh we just ask three things here at Grand Parkway.

Every time we come, we ask the three things of ourselves and we ask those of you.

That's do what everything you're supposed to do, say everything you're supposed to say, give everything you're supposed to give.

Okay?

If you have any questions, we'll be available down front.

Stand your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

Your God so believes in integration that he's always allowed himself to be identified with his followers, which is why the Bible refers to the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

Depart now.

And live your lives as the God in light of, with the understanding of, that he is the Lord your God.

You belong to him, and he belongs to you.

He's not ashamed to be called your God.

So do not be ashamed to be called his people.

In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you dismissed.