Marks of a Worthy Walk - Philippians 3:1-3 (Mar 10) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

So good to be with you this morning.

My name is Pastor Miles.

My joy to open up God's word with you.

When I was saved, God did a number of transformative works in my life.

This is always how it goes.

The scriptures say we are a new creation, but one of the things that the Lord did in my life, and it was really important for this role that I have now, is He changed the kind of student I was.

I didn't always like studying.

That's a big part of being a pastor, is studying the scriptures and education.

But I was not at all a student growing up.

And coming to the Lord, this is one of the significant things that God would change.

Not that I at all became smart or intelligent.

The closer you are to me, the more you are saying amen right now.

But I did grow to really love education and to love studying.

But I remember before coming to Christ, I had really become a master at avoiding education, at being in school while learning as little as possible and doing as little work as possible.

I learned how to avoid the teacher's questions.

You know, when they ask the question and they've spent all this time laboring to teach you something, and then now it's time for application.

Have you understood and downloaded the thing that the teacher has taught?

And so they asked the question and they scanned the room.

I had learned how to not be called upon because chances were I had not learned what the teacher had taught.

And so I would avoid eye contact at all costs.

I would do everything in my power to make sure that the teacher never locked eyes with me and that I was never called upon.

Now, some of the students right now, they're taking notes, they're saying this is the most practical message I've ever heard.

And yet that was me.

Now, good teachers though, and there are many good teachers even in this room, they understand that they can see past that.

They look past that to make sure that every student is caught up to speed and has downloaded the information that they've spent time teaching.

And I believe that's exactly what God wants to do with us this morning through Paul.

Paul has been in Philippians fleshing out for us what it looks like when he says in Philippians 1, verse 27, to let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:27

And he's really fleshed that out, both with application of this is how you are to live if your life and walk is worthy, but but also here are some examples of people who have walked a worthy walk, who have lived a worthy life.

He's given us examples in Jesus.

And each of these lives, each of these models is really an example of a life that has got it.

And now this morning, what happens is through the Apostle Paul and really the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit with us this morning, God's eyes walk on us.

And his gaze is fixed on us.

And the question is asked of us are you exemplary?

Is your life worthy of the gospel?

Do you walk in a manner that is fitting of your citizenship?

God is taking us and he's looking at our hands and he's saying, Show me the calluses that develop on the hands that are working for me.

Show me that your life displays the marks of true belief.

This is so important.

No matter where you are with the Lord, this is so important for us to hear and experience that the Lord would look at us and ask us this question: Is our life fitting for honor?

Remember where Paul ended off in chapter 2, in verse 29, he said, Receive this man Epaphroditus and the Lord with all joy and honor such men.

There is a way that you can live.

There are marks that distinguish your life that make your life honorable.

So those who are then truly Christian, what they do is they try to make sure that in increasing degrees their lives display these marks, this honorable life, walking in a manner that is worthy.

And so I want you to understand that to embrace the marks, which we're Paul's going to point out in our lives this morning, is really a sign of our status as God's children.

But he also wants to look at us and cause us to reflect, to ask this question is this all, could it be that this is all just a mask?

Could it be that we really don't have genuine faith at all?

Could it be that even though maybe we've grown up in the church, even though we're here on a Sunday morning in the church, we actually do not bear the marks of saving faith.

Now understand this as we this morning look at the marks of true Christianity.

Satan is really active this morning.

Satan wants to do something in everybody's life right now.

If you're an unbeliever here, you know what Satan wants to do?

He wants you to be comfortable.

Throughout this whole sermon, he just wants you to kind of sit back, relax, and I'm okay, I don't need a sermon like this.

I'm definitely a Christian.

I for sure bear the marks of Christianity.

He wants to soothe you.

And for those who are Christian, who do bear these marks, what he wants to do is convince you, convince you that you don't actually, convince you that the Lord isn't actually working in your life.

The scripture says Satan prowls around like a lion.

He's seeking to destroy and to devour, and I am by faith believe that that's true this morning.

So we need prayer.

So let's turn to the Lord in prayer now and ask him to work in our midst.

God, we bow before you.

And God, this morning, on Time Change Sunday, God, I pray that more than ever that you would have our attentiveness, that you would have our focus, that you would have our heart.

God, we need your word.

Reminded of Jesus, who said that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, Lord.

This is life to us.

Lord, this is life and death for us to listen to all that you have to say to us this morning.

So, God, we bow in this place of humility, Lord.

Recognizing, God, that we need this.

We need to hear from you, asking you, Lord, to do a work in our midst.

God, to show us the work that you have been doing.

Show us the marks that are engraved on our life of a supernatural and profound work of salvation.

And God, I pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, through your word, Lord, that gives life, Lord, would you cause us to see these marks in ever-increasing growth in our life, Lord?

That we might be more and more Lord, your children.

And less and less children of this world.

And so, God, we turn these things to you.

We ask for you to do a profound, miraculous work in our lives, God.

We pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.

We're looking at marks of true belief here, and I want to read the text for you.

Philippians chapter 3, verses 1 to 3.

Philippians 3:1–3

Look what Paul writes.

He says, Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.

Look out for the dogs.

Look out for the evildoers.

Look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

For we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.

Here we discover what are the marks of true belief.

And I want you to see the first one here in verse one.

I want you to see this, that when I have true belief, then my joy in Christ is my only strength.

My joy in Christ is my only strength.

The first thing Paul points to as an identifying mark of Christianity is our joy in the Lord.

And so look what he says there in verse one.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

Now many have read this verse and they're been confused.

It sounds kind of like Paul is wrapping up.

He says this word, finally.

And yet, as you likely know, this is really only halfway through the letter of Philippians.

And so some have said, you know, this is kind of like every preacher's problem, where they conclude and then keep preaching for 20 minutes.

Finally, in conclusion, here's my second of seven points.

Well, that's not what Paul's doing either.

Instead, what Paul is doing is he's really continuing from the previous verse.

He told the Philippians there in verse 29 to receive Epaphroditus, look at these words in verse chapter 2, in the Lord.

But not only are they to just receive Ephroditus with joy and to do that work in the Lord, Paul moves on again to say, rejoice in everything, rejoice in the Lord.

Your life is to be a constant placing your joy in the foundation that is God himself.

Now, another thing to take note of is that this is not a new command.

Time and time again, Paul has come back to this.

Rejoice in the Lord.

Time and time again, Paul has talked about how as Christians we are to be rejoicing in the Lord.

Our joy is to be placed in the Lord.

He just keeps saying it.

And Paul acknowledges this.

Notice what he says: to write the same things to you is no trouble to me.

Paul says this.

I don't mind saying this over and over and over and over and over again because it is so important that you get this.

In other words, Paul says this.

I don't mind repeating myself because there is a power in repetition.

There is a power in taking the most basic fundamental truths to Christianity and driving them deeper and deeper into your heart.

Susanna Wesley understood this.

She was the mother of John Wesley, who wrote many hymns that the church still sings today.

She was also the mother of 18 other children, which I don't know if you could imagine.

I certainly couldn't with three.

I love what John Wesley wrote about his mother, though.

He says this, I remember hearing my father say to my mother, How could you have patience to tell that blockhead the same thing 20 times over?

Now, some of you are hearing this, you know, this is Puritan mothering, calling your children blockheads, and I just give that to you as something practical for you to take home potentially today.

You may want to use that.

How could you have the patience to tell that blockhead the same thing 20 times over?

And to which Susanna Wesley replied to her husband, why, if I had told him but 19 times, I should have lost all my labor.

In fact, this this really gets to the heart of all great preaching.

Preaching for Paul, and still today, it is a ministry of reminder.

What preaching needs to do is it needs to stir our affections often for truths that we already actually know.

Because the reality is what we need to go deeper into our faith, what we need in order to be closer to God is not really to go wider in our knowledge, but really to go deeper in the actual things that we know already.

Notice then the command.

Paul says, rejoice in the Lord.

This is the heart of Christianity.

That as children of God, we we return to what we were originally created to be satisfied in.

This is why God created us.

In a world that is so full of things that we might possibly root our joy solely in, we are to find our joy in the Lord.

That God might be glorified as increasingly human beings who are abounding in multiplication, glorify him by declaring his supreme worth in the world.

That in all of this world filled with things, there is nothing so worthy as knowing God and walking with him.

This is why when Adam and Eve were created, we're told in Genesis chapter 2 that they looked at everything, and it says that it was a delight to their eyes, because in everything they saw, it pointed to the giver.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Every gift that was in creation pointed to how great the giver truly was.

This is why James says every gift comes from the Heavenly Father who is above.

The issue was, and you know this, that when Eve, Adam and Eve turned to the one thing in the garden that was not truly delightful, in that moment their nature became twisted and perverted so that they no longer rejoiced in the very thing that they were created to rejoice, and now they weakened themselves by seeking joy in things in which joy could not be found.

We see that so clearly in other people's lives sometimes, don't we?

We see the path that they're taking.

We're saying, listen, but you are never gonna find joy on that path, but we never look at our own path and say that.

And God is stopping us in our path this morning to say this.

There is only one place you can find joy.

There's only one place you can find satisfaction.

It is here.

Rejoice in the Lord.

And so the work of salvation, it really becomes God turning our eyes from these things that we have spent, each of us have spent our life looking to, thinking, maybe maybe if I just place my feet on the foundation of this worldly thing, whether it's relationships or materials or some other obsession that we have, maybe if I just plant my feet here, I truly will find happiness and joy and satisfaction.

And God says, you will never find it there.

It is all fin ice waiting to crack underneath your feet.

You will only find it as you plant your feet on the Lord.

There's only one who can truly sustain our pleasure.

This is why Paul says, look at what he says in verse 1, then at the end, he says, To write this is no trouble to me and is safe for you.

This idea of safety, it carries this idea of stability.

You think of walking on a path where your feet can find a firm place to plant in order that you might keep walking.

There's one place for stability, there's one place for strength, that is when your joy is in the Lord.

I mean, scripture is so clear on this.

Do you understand this this morning?

Scripture is so clear on this that to any degree that you seek joy outside the Lord, it is like injecting weakness into your veins.

You understand this?

Like to place your joy in the Lord is to have strength, but to seek it outside of the Lord is to all you do is inject weakness into your life.

All throughout the scriptures, they're so clear where strength is found.

Look at these verses with me, and they're gonna come up on the screen.

Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 10 says this: the joy of the Lord is our strength.

Nehemiah 8:10

Psalm 81, verse 1 says this: sing for joy to God our strength.

Psalms 81:1

Psalm 21, verse 1, O Lord, the king rejoices in your strength.

Psalms 21:1

The person who has the most strength in all of society, in all of culture, in all of the world, he rejoices in your strength.

He has no strength compared to you, O God.

Habakkuk 3, 18 to 19, I will rejoice in the Lord.

I will be joyful in God my Savior, the sovereign Lord is my strength.

Loved one, you can find strength nowhere else but to have your heart firmly fixed on the joy of the Lord.

Look for joy anywhere else.

And let me tell you this: you are weak.

You are living a life of weakness.

This is why I love what the Lord was doing in our men's ministry last week as many men gathered together to think about what Scripture says about true manliness.

And God was moving.

There is this sense of this weight.

You could sense it in the room.

You could definitely smell a lot of nacho cheese, which told you exactly where you were.

This was men's ministry night.

But you could sense that the spirit was moving in the lives of these men, giving us this understanding that there is no manhood without maturity, that there is no sainthood without sweat.

That there is no strength without joy in the Lord, that unless you are near to the Lord, you really have nothing.

And the men sense that and and and sense this call then to seek the Lord where he may be found.

And this morning, what the Lord is doing is begging us to ask ourselves this question again.

Do we really believe that our strength is found when we can make our heart happy solely in the Lord?

Do we really believe that?

We need the faith of Moses.

Look at what the writer of Hebrews says about Moses in chapter 11.

He says, by faith, when he was grown up, Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the listen, enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

We look at the joys of the world and consider them fleeting pleasures.

We look to the joy of the Lord and find there is strength.

Now, here's the proper response then in light of this.

The proper response then is for me to search my life and ask if there is any way that the Lord is calling me to deeper obedience in which I am unwilling to listen to him.

Because I start to realize that if there's anything, even if I don't even know it right now, there's this sense as a Christian that if there's anything in which I'm unwilling to follow the Lord, and what I'm doing is inviting weakness into my life.

If I truly believe that there can be joy found anywhere other than in the Lord.

Which leads to our next point.

Notice after that after Paul tells us that joy can only be found in the Lord, and that this joy will keep us safe.

Look at what he says in verse 2, and let me say this, I think, in the way that Paul wrote it.

He said this, look out.

I love it.

Time change Sunday, you gotta you need a little bit, some things like that.

You gotta look out, you know?

You just gotta scare people.

That's exactly what Paul, how Paul says it.

Look out.

There's something that is looking to rob you of this strength.

There's something that's looking to rob you of this joy.

The second thing that Paul wants us to understand is this that my faith in Christ is my only hope.

My faith in Christ is my only hope.

This idea of look out three times, Paul says it in verse 2 look out, look out, look out.

There is there is something that is dangerous to you in your midst, in your surrounding Christian, there is there is something, even in this very room, a spirit, an attitude, a false belief which is looking to rob you of this joy.

Now, Paul has a specific group in mind here, and we know because of the title that he gives him, look at what he says in verse 2, look out for the dogs.

Look out for the dogs.

Now, cultural sentiment on dogs has really changed profoundly in 2,000 years.

I don't know if any other word I can think of has changed as much as our feeling on dogs has changed.

And so I think even as Paul says look out for the dogs, there's probably some things that come to our mind that Paul isn't really talking about.

The first is this.

This might be, as you hear dog, you might think of this, you know, American Idol.

That's gonna be a no for me.

Dog.

Anyone think about that?

Slang, anyone use that word anymore?

Dog, no dog.

That's not what some of you are saying.

This is so ridiculous.

I should have stayed in bed this morning.

Well, Paul's not talking about friendship.

Friendship's a great thing.

Paul's not also talking about this.

He's not talking about this kind of dog.

Did we get that picture?

Did we get the second picture there?

Yeah, that that's nice, eh, isn't it?

Last week, baby pictures, this week puppy pictures.

We're just trying to get you to come next week, see what's gonna be on the screen.

Paul's not talking about that kind of dog either.

We can take that picture down, otherwise.

No one's gonna listen to me.

They're all gonna watch that cute puppy.

The kind of dog Paul's talking about is more of like imagine a ravenous, stray dog.

Kind of like a like I'm talking like Lion King hyena sort of thing.

Dogs were not pets, they were menaces.

In fact, the term dog was really a derogatory term that Jewish people who really became Judaizers had taken to refer to outsiders.

That's what a dog was.

They were an outsider.

They weren't welcome in the town, they weren't pets, but they would roam into town looking for scrap food.

They were dangerous to the community, and they were to be shooed away from any real community.

In fact, one definition, one dictionary defining the term dogs at this time has this definition: the most despicable, insolent, and miserable of all creatures.

And so if you have a dog at home, I want you to go home right after this message and grab their face and look into their eyes and say, you are despicable and insolent.

Now I've met some of your dogs, and it's a pretty fitting, I'm just kidding.

Now the Jews, they commonly, you can you can look through at the Jewish writings and they commonly referred to Gentiles as dogs.

And what these Judaizers had done is they had drawn a circle and they had said, unless you do a number of uh external physical things, you cannot come into this circle that is called the Jewish people.

They had all these things you had to do in order to get into the circle.

One of them was that you needed to be circumcised.

In other words, that your life needed to follow all of these external laws that weren't even actually in scripture.

They had been created by the Pharisees, all these Pharisaical laws.

And the Judaizers stood in the circle and they lined their life up so that they could be in the circle, but they looked at the Gentiles and said, You can't come in because you don't have all these external works.

You're not a Jew.

You don't live like one.

They kind of made this list and they said, This is what it means to be a child of God, this is what it means to be a Jewish person.

And they labeled those who who didn't do that as dogs.

Now I want you to understand that anytime that you and I kind of come up with this system that makes us feel like we're a child of God, that is not what God has said we need to do in order to be a child of God, you and I actually become evildoers.

This is why what Paul says in the second lookout phrase is so relevant.

He says, look out for the evildoers.

By acting this way, by holding the people who really could be God's people at an arm's length through a system of works, righteousness, they had become evildoers.

Well, we need to ask the question, how come?

Like, like how come that's not just like an innocent person who's, you know, kind of just misunderstood?

How come if I try to gain righteousness, if I try to gain righteous standing through works, how come I'm an evildoer?

Well, you need to understand that ever since the beginning, God has been clear what actually marks off his people.

What is it that makes his people true children of God?

And since the beginning, he has been clear that it is faith alone.

You remember Abraham?

You remember when Abraham was circumcised, the father of the Jews?

What did it say?

We just studied it.

Well, I guess not just, it was like a year and a half ago, but we studied it in Genesis.

It says that Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteousness.

And so what made Abraham a child of God?

It was not the fact that he was circumcised, it was the fact that he had faith that led to that work.

It was his belief.

It was faith alone.

This is why Paul in Romans 9 he says, not all that were of Israel were children of the promise.

He says that some of them were children of the flesh.

Even though they had Israelite parents, even though like ethnically they were Jewish people, they were not children of the promise because they had no faith in the promise.

They were just children of the flesh.

So that even within Israel, there was a smaller circle of true Israelites who were marked off by faith.

This has always been how it has been for God's people.

God's people have been those who have placed their faith in the promise that God has made.

Now, if this is what God says about his children, that his children are to be marked off by faith, and you and I come along and say, hold up, God, there's a few other things.

If I'm gonna be a child of you, there's a few other things I got to get in in line.

So let me tell you what else I need.

I also need insert blank.

I also need works righteousness.

I also need circumcision.

Whatever it is, if if you do anything to add to what God has said will mark off his people, you actually insert yourself in the place of God and you make yourself an enemy of the kingdom.

Dave Locke and I are in the process of planning a trip to Romania.

We want to visit a church out there that we've supported throughout the history of our church, but but we just want to see if there's any ways that we can support them more.

We love church planting, we love missions, we want to be out there and be with them and see what the Lord is doing and how we can stand alongside them.

And while we're out there, train some leaders and preach at the church.

And so we're in the stages right now of planning a trip out there, and and you know when you plan a trip, you've got to get make sure all your documents are in check.

Make sure that when you're at the airport, you're gonna be able to prove your citizenship.

Now, what would you say to me if I showed up to the airport and and as proof for my citizenship, I just brought a hockey stick and a big jug of maple syrup.

I left my passport at home.

I said, listen, I'm a Canadian, look at what I got.

Like, I know what it means to be Canadian.

Well, I would obviously be denied.

Like, you don't get to say what proves your citizenship.

The government of Canada gets to do that.

You you live in submission to them.

You you you have to bring the proof that they say is valid.

And so long as I would stand in that at that airport pressing with this hockey stick and this jug of syrups, and you know it's a ridiculous illustration, but you get the point, I would actually become an enemy to say, no, no, no, no, listen.

You gotta listen to my way.

I'm a Canadian citizen because I have these things.

And yet many of us do the exact same thing with God.

God says, the only thing that can make you a child of me is faith.

And we say, but but God, look at how look at my prayer life.

Look at my prayer life, look at how I read, look at how I showed up to church this morning.

Look at how I've loved other people.

Look at how I've done this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing.

That's what, like God, that is what makes me worthy of your love, worthy of of salvation, worthy of eternal life.

And God says, No, that if you add anything to faith, you have actually made yourself an evildoer.

This is why something like circumcision, which was a gift given to Israel to mark them off from the nations, it was beautiful in its own right, it became a mockery.

So that Paul says in verse 2 that he says, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.

Because they've done this act apart from faith.

And works apart from faith just becomes a mutilation of the gospel.

You recognize that?

If you are seeking salvation by works, by anything other than faith, you are actually making a mockery of the gospel.

God has come down to earth in human flesh, and his name was Jesus Christ, and he said, There is one way.

There is one way to eternal life.

And Christian, will you stand in front of God and say, Listen, but I know another.

I know another way.

There's only one hope.

There's only one way to be a child of God through faith.

And so what Paul has done then, if the Pharisees have drawn one circle, Paul then has drawn another circle and he has he has labeled the circle in Christ.

And he has invited all who have faith to come into the circle.

I love what Paul does here.

Like, Paul is such an epitome of meekness not being weakness.

Paul is humble, but he's unwilling to let these Judaizers call the Gentiles dogs, and so he turns it around on them.

They're the dogs, they're the evildoers, they're the mockery.

There's only one hope, and that hope is that you are in Christ.

And so what Paul says next is so filled with meaning, while these people, by their works, they mutilate the flesh.

Look at verse 3.

For we are the circumcision.

For we are the circumcision.

See, by faith, the Christian receives a new identity, not by works, but by faith.

Paul says this, we are the circumcision.

Which leads to our third point.

Third mark of true belief.

My identity in Christ is my only boast.

My identity in Christ is my only boast.

We're looking into the mirror of God's word.

We're seeing what it looks like to be a child of God.

We're seeing what it looks like to truly be in Christ.

And Paul says this, for we are the circumcision.

But but look at a mark here.

Look at what that looks like then.

He says this, who worship by the Spirit of God.

Who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus.

Do you know what it looks like to be a Christian?

Do you know what your life, the path that your life follows when you truly are in Christ?

It follows this path of worship that can be led by none other than the Spirit of God Himself.

Here's how you know you're in Christ.

The worship that you offer to God, it's not done in your own strength.

It's not like you mustering up whatever kind of strength you can muster up to worship God.

You actually sense in your life that you are led by the Spirit of God consistently to this place where you are drawn deeper and deeper into worship.

Can I talk?

This is so important.

Here is the experience of the Christian, of the child of God.

You are led in your life by the Holy Spirit to a place of deeper worship, not by yourself, but by the Spirit of God.

Can I ask you something, Christian?

Do you sense that in your life?

Do you sense the leading of the Holy Spirit into deeper and deeper worship in your life?

Paul's saying this, that to have our to be in Christ is to have a life led by spirit-led worship.

Spirit-filled worship.

Paul talks about this aspect in other places in scripture of Christianity.

He talks about this in Romans 8 verse 14.

Romans 8:14

Look what he says.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

You see, the the children of God know that they are children of God because they are led by the Spirit in their life.

And Paul is telling us here exactly what we are led to.

We are led to a place of deeper and deeper worship.

What does it mean to be led?

Well, I think here in Romans 8, the idea is very much of like a horse who has the reins, the whatever.

I'm not a horse, I've never ridden a horse, so.

Rope, the rope things?

The rope, horse riders help me out here.

Stirrups or something like that?

I don't know.

You know what I'm talking about.

They're led by their master.

They go, in other words, the Christian goes where the Holy Spirit leads him in his life, and the Holy Spirit always leads him to the worship and the, Paul says, glory of Jesus Christ.

Now here's the catch.

I think this is such a fitting illustration that Paul's saying here that it's sort of being like in the reins of your master.

Is that that, you know, a horse who is pulling a carriage can fight against his master's will.

He can push against the rope the wrong way.

But only so far.

He can only resist to a certain degree until he feels the pressure of his master pulling him back to the way that is right.

This is what it means to live life in the Holy Spirit.

That the Holy Spirit leads you in worship, and whenever you get off path, you feel the power and presence of the Holy Spirit pulling you back.

Now, practically, what does that mean?

Like what does that practically look like in your life?

To know that you are led by the Holy Spirit and to know that whenever you get off path, the Spirit is going to draw you back to the path that leads you into deeper worship.

I want to get really practical here because I want you to know if your life is led by the Spirit of God, because this is really important.

If you're a child of God, do you recognize this?

Your life is led, Paul says.

It's led into deeper worship by the Spirit of God.

So how do we practically know the Spirit is leading us?

First is this when you go off path, whenever you start walking in a way that is not right, the first thing that the Spirit of God will do is convict your conscience about it.

Your conscience is enlightened as a child of God by the Holy Spirit, so that when you go off path, you know what the first thing that happens is you feel that it's wrong.

And some of you are in this place right now where you're walking in a path you know is not right.

And the Holy Spirit is like, like, it's like you're up at night sometimes.

You just know it's wrong.

You even tell people, like, I know I'm not, I know what I'm doing is not right.

And the Holy Spirit in his love is just, he's so uh he's so unwilling to let go of you.

I'm gonna keep convicting them.

I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna keep driving at their conscience.

So they're so uneasy.

They know what is right, they know what they need to do, and so I'm just I'm staying with them.

I'm pulling them through their conscience back onto the path that they need to be on.

And you need to know like this is a sign of God's grace in your life.

If your conscience is pricked to get back to the path that you know that is right, that is a sign of God's grace.

We don't always listen to our conscience.

Sometimes we feel we don't have the power to follow, the power to do what we know is right.

And so the Spirit has so many other instruments, and we couldn't even list them all now.

But but one of the other things the Spirit will do is when our conscience isn't enough to pull us back to the path that is right, you know what he'll often do?

He will deliver a word through, maybe it's a brother or sister in Christ, maybe it is a serve, a servant who's preaching the word.

He will deliver a word for us at the proper time that we needed to hear.

Hasn't that happened so many times in your life?

Haven't you shown up so many times to church in your life and just been like, man, the thing that I needed to hear for whatever reason, like God spoke this morning.

And I just have this like profound understanding this morning that that when you preach, you really become a mouthpiece for God, and God will do things.

Whenever you open up his word and preach his word, God will do things that you could never even imagine.

Like, I I feel that sometimes like I'm up here, like I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm just preaching God's word and I'm tristening to the spirit, and the spirit's gonna use it.

And people come up and they're like, the spirit moved.

Like, were you talking specifically to me?

I certainly wasn't, but the spirit was.

And I don't know what stuff is happening in your life.

I don't know what dark thoughts you had coming in this morning, but praise God that I don't need to, because God loves you, and the Holy Spirit is here to speak to you so profoundly, with a word that you need to draw you back to the path.

The Spirit, going right off course, leads us by our conscience, leads us by often a word, but but another way that he leads us is through discipline.

And reminded of Proverbs 3, verses 11 to 12.

Proverbs 3:11–12

It says, The Lord reproves him whom he loves and disciplines his children as the father, a son in whom he delights.

And God is so he loves you so greatly that he is willing to put you in the furnace at times.

And he's willing to reprove you and to discipline you, to get you on the path that you need to go because you are his beloved child.

Now listen, here's where you need to fear.

I think so many of us find ourselves, maybe even now, on that path where like the Lord is leading us back to what is right, and if that's you, you need to respond right now to the Lord and say, God, I'm getting there.

I'm going right now.

Like I need to be on the right path.

But here's where you need to fear.

If if you have never felt that, like if you just feel like you can go any way you want to go and God will not stop you in your tracks, that's where you need to fear.

That means you're not being led by the Spirit of God.

You see, the horse that is in the field roaming free is the horse that will never make it to the master's house.

There are many.

There are many who never have any sense of conviction in their life.

They never sense any sort of hearing of God's word, but their conscience is rarely pricked to lead them into deeper worship, and that is the place of true fear.

If that's you, you'll never experience true life.

You can only find it through faith, through being led into this life of worship.

Well, maybe that's how the spirit leads his children when we're walking wayward.

But what does it then look like when we are on the path for the Spirit to lead us?

How, like, practically, again, I want to know practically what does it look like in my life to be led by the Spirit into deeper and deeper worship and to glory in Christ Jesus?

Because Paul is saying this is what it means to be a child of God.

Well, let me give you maybe three practical ways.

There's many again we could talk about, but let me give you three.

First is this you long to worship God through the reading of his word.

That's really important.

Uh, you know, the way I phrase that, I'm trying to be really sensitive here to where you're at with the Lord.

Because I'm talking about desire here.

I'm not saying like, have you have like over the last 30 days you have this perfect track record of reading the scripture every day?

But I'm talking, I'm asking this: do you know where the well is?

Do you know where you can draw water that leads to eternal life?

Do you worship God through his word?

Are you like Jesus, who in the desert, led by the Spirit, declared that man cannot live by bread alone, but must live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

That to hear God is life.

There's no life without God's word.

Does that describe you right now?

This is what happens in the life of a true child of God.

You come to increasingly know that your only hope is in the very words of God.

This is how you know that you're a child.

You love spiritual milk.

This is what Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 2.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

He says, like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up in salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

And if you don't know that the Lord is good, if you're not really his child, of course you're not gonna long for pure spiritual milk.

And so the question for us is this do you long to worship God through his word?

This is so important for us.

That we worship God through the reading of his word.

This is like I have a time on my calendar.

You can open up my calendar app.

Well, no, you can't, that's like an invasion of privacy.

But if you were to open up my calendar app, you would see every morning there is this block called personal worship.

Because my time in the word, like it's not just this intellectual endeavor that I'm on to pull out the concordances and the dictionaries and to understand what God's word actually says.

There's all sorts of liberal scholars who know way more than you and me about what God's word says, but they have no life.

The most important thing is do you worship?

Do you worship through his word?

Now, this doesn't mean that you're always in this place of elevation, but it means that you you know where life is found.

And there are days where you like you crawl to God's word and you read it, and maybe you like you don't sense that you get much from it, but you're here, you're like, God, I I know this is it.

I know this is where living water is found.

I know this is eternal food.

Here's a second practical way we're led to worship by the Spirit.

We're we're led in prayer.

Paul says in Romans 8 that the Spirit leads us to cry out, Ah the Father, to depend on him.

So that in Romans 8, if you are a child of God, that it says that even when you don't know what to pray for, you pray and you say, God, I don't know, but the Holy Spirit is with you.

And and in in ways that you can't understand, he interprets your prayer and intercedes on your behalf to God.

The Spirit is leading you.

You to this dependence on God for prayer.

Just like a child does not often know what he or she actually needs, so you turn to God constantly, and you don't know how your life should go, but you're kind of in this prayerful submission to God.

God, lead me.

Accomplish your will in my midst.

Here's one last way that you know the Spirit is leading you to worship.

And that is by reflecting on the way that you engage in corporate worship.

The way that you engage in worshiping the Lord when we gather on a Sunday morning.

Christian, do you know why we gather this morning?

There's many secondary reasons as to why we gather.

But there is one primary reason.

And that is because God deserves your worship.

God deserves your worship.

God deserves to be praised.

And so we gather on Sunday mornings as the people of God with this understanding of like, I'm not just here because I need it, I'm here because God deserves it.

I'm here because God deserves praise.

And so we sit under his word and we we give God this attentiveness because we're saying, God, you're you're worthy to be listened to right now.

My attention is yours right now, God.

Like you have all of me, and no matter what you call me to do, God, I'm giving you the worship of my life to say, wherever you call me, I'm going.

Speak, Lord, I'm listening to you.

And we gather together and we sing because we're singing in this praise that God is worthy of our worship.

It's such a fitting way to say, God, you are so worthy of worship.

But can we talk about these things for a moment?

Can we talk about the fact that there are many?

I'm talking like in this room, okay, I'm not going to look at anyone in particular right now, but there are many who look grumpy when they worship.

Like you just kind of stand there.

It's like, it's like, I want to shake you and say, Are you alive?

Is anybody in there?

And I've said that before, not as anybody in there.

That's kind of rude, but I said, you know, how come when you worship, you're so like stoics, like arms crossed, grumpy?

It's kind of weird, isn't it?

And the response is, well, you know, I'm I'm worshiping in my heart.

I'm just not like an outward person.

And I don't know that I really have a category for that.

I I can't make sense of any area of life where someone says they enjoy something without looking like they enjoy it.

Isn't that true?

Like, listen, the Leafs are gonna win the Stanley Cup this year, right?

And so I'm gonna have a lot of Leafs fans to my house, and we're gonna watch the games together.

And I'm sorry, sends and halves fans, you're not gonna be there, but you've chosen your own life.

And so I'm gonna have a lot of Leafs fans.

You know, we're gonna be sitting on the couch watching the game together, and when Austin Matthews scores in game seven and we slay the dragon that is the Boston Bruins, I'm gonna be standing up and cheering and fist pumping, running around the room.

I'm gonna be so happy.

Now, if you're a Leafs fan and you're there and you're like, you know, in that moment you're like this, you know, you're grouchy, you're grumpy, I'm gonna turn around and say, what's your problem?

Like, aren't you, aren't you happy right now?

You know, I'm I'm I'm happy in my heart.

I'm gonna say you're really weird.

Like you are really weird, and you're not invited to the next game.

That just doesn't make sense.

And yet, how come when it comes to worship, some of us who are like so ecstatic in these other areas of life, we come to worship and we're just like hands in our pockets, shoulders are shrugged, not really engaged with what's going on, kind of sit like we're we're we're afraid, we're we're more afraid of the person beside us and what they might think about our voice.

Like, let's just, we all got ugly voices, okay?

Than we are of giving God worship.

And you say, well, I'm you know, it's my I'm worshiping in my heart.

And let me just say this tell you gotta tell your heart to tell your face that you're happy.

Some of you guys need to do some preaching.

What about the way that we listen to God's word?

What about the way that we like like physically listen to God's word?

Like there, there are some, listen, this is one of the things I'm like, if I can maybe, maybe it'd be good just to stoke some fear of man.

I don't know, that's probably not what you should do as a preacher, but do you know I can see everybody?

This is one of the things that shocked me when I started preaching.

Like, oh, you you know, if you're in, you're I can see you.

And there are many, Sunday after Sunday, like it's just slouching, the word of God's not open, there's not this attentiveness, there's this sleepiness, like there are there are some people logging REM sleep on a Sunday morning.

And then this this should be cause for serious concern.

Like, how come when I sit under God's word, how come there's just no, I just don't care?

How come I'm not in this place of like where I'm so hungry and ready to hear, God, what do you have for me this week?

And how can I be transformed by the power of the word?

It's because there's not this heart.

There's only one reason, isn't there?

I mean, I'm talking, there's one-off Sundays, of course, where we come, we're tired, and maybe we're distracted, but man, this this like this this constant distraction, this constant, I don't really care about what God's word says.

It's because we just don't really care about worship.

What's our response then?

What is our response when we don't feel led to glorify Jesus through the power of the Spirit leading us to worship?

What if we look at our life, we look at verse 3, we see we see that the circumcision, the true people of God are those who worship the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh?

What if we look at ourselves and we see the varying degrees to which you and I are lacking in that?

What do we do?

There's only one place to turn.

Paul's pointing to us it to us here.

It's to God.

Listen, if you want a life of worship, it's right here in the text.

God is so clear, it's right here.

Where do we cultivate a life of worship?

Look at it, brother and sister in Christ, loved one, look at it, who worship by the Spirit of God.

Nothing else can draw you into a life of worship but this humble submission, turning to the Spirit right now and saying, God, lead me.

Lead me in my life to a deeper place of worship.

And lovely, let me ask you this question right now.

What's stopping you from doing this in this moment?

Wherever you are.

Maybe you're like right now, like you just have the sense of, I don't even know if I'm a Christian.

Like, I don't know if I've I've looked back on my life and I just don't know if I see any of these real marks.

And nothing's stopping you right now from turning to Him and saying, Spirit, lead me to worship.

Lead me, I don't know where, I don't know what to do, but lead me, God.

Lead me to a life of deeper worship.

And maybe you're here and you're and you're just sensing this that these marks are here, but they're faint, and and you want the Spirit to engrave them deeper on your life.

What do you do?

Worship can only be found in one place in the Spirit of God.

Jesus is accumulating for his people, for for his uh for heaven, a people who worship by spirit and truth.

And so turn to him now.

And let's do it together.

Let's pray to the Lord, and maybe you'll pray pray with me now.

Father, we turn to you.

And God, we long.

Lord, we long to be your people and for you to be our God.

And we long to live this life of worship because, Lord, we recognize that what Paul says is so true that there's only one place where joy can be found, and that is in the Lord.

It's so simple.

It's so simple, but God, it's so hard because our life just constantly displays that we look all these other places.

God, sometimes we just shake our head in disbelief.

Why do why can't we just get it?

Why can't we just turn to the Lord and give everything to Him?

And God, I pray that this moment right now, by your Spirit, there would be this sense of conviction, Lord, of just I want to go deeper.

I want to go deep.

I want to know you more.

I want to worship you more.

I want to live for you.

And I pray in this moment, Lord, in our heart, in the heart of our hearts, we would turn to you and say, God, there's only one way to go deeper.

It is to submit to the Spirit of God to say, Spirit, lead me.

I submit to you.

My ways are your ways.

My life is your life.

Lead me to this place of worship.

And God is an opportunity for us to respond to the way that you want to lead us.

Lord, we we stand to worship you now.

And God, uh this is this is us praying to collect collectively together as a church to say, God, you are so worthy of this worship.

Lord, the Spirit has led us here.

Has led us to this moment to be able to declare, God, that you are so worthy.

Lord, thank you.

And we praise you.

And we pray this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ.

Amen.