Voice of the Nazarene 8-2-26

From North Central Ohio, we share with you the Voice of the Mazarine, a week-by-week venture into the Word of God sponsored by the New Stars Ohio Church of the Mazouri.

We join our pastor, Reverend Ray Listown, and the Voice of the Nazarene.

That's something we can do, is to add.

God always multiplies.

He talks about that in verse 2.

But we can add.

And he said, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge.

And to knowledge, temperance, and to temperance, patience, and to patience godliness.

And to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, but he that lacketh these things.

Verse 1 tells us that Simon Peter a servant, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to whom?

To them that have obtained like precious faith.

Written to the church.

This is written to Christians.

And so from that standpoint, I'm talking to you this morning as believers.

For by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves.

It's a gift of God.

Not of works, lest any man should boast.

How many of you here know the Lord in a personal way?

Can you raise your hand?

Good.

Well, this is addressed to you.

It's written for you.

And it's meant for you.

And he says in verse 2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

You ought to circle that little word knowledge.

It's listed 12 times in this brief book.

Twelve times Jesus restates this word for a very special reason.

And in verse 3, he continues according as his divine power.

If you ever circle anything, that's the two words to circle.

I can't make it on my power.

I've tried.

I've tried to work off the energy of others and couldn't get it on.

But his divine power.

According to his divine power, he hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.

Everything you need, he's furnishing.

Through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

What is pulling the world apart is not pulling us apart.

And verse 5 says, And beside this.

After he got through saying all of that, he said, and beside this.

Now he gives us seven things.

He tells us what these seven things are.

He spells them out.

And God says, These seven things make you what I'm looking for.

This is who I want you to be if you'll add these seven things.

It's so critical that he's putting special emphasis to all you who are believers and Christians, special emphasis on them.

And he said, I'm going to require that you do it with all diligence.

This is God's priority one.

Do these seven things.

And we're going to read about them and we'll go through them.

And it's a serious call to continuous spiritual growth.

I mean, this is a recipe for growth.

He said, beside this giving all diligence, can I ask you a simple question?

Have you ever done for God with all that you were?

Not just a part of you, but you give God a hundred percent.

You poured yourself into it all diligence.

You say, Well, Pastor, I think God ought to be happy with anything.

I do.

I'm doing better than so-and-so.

At least I'm doing more than most.

But that's not the standard.

And God is saying priority one for everyday life is giving all diligence.

And may I remind you that before you put your feet on the floor in the morning, give God your priority, seeking what He's brought up.

Now I was at a church here a while back, I'll not tell where, but I was at a church here a while back, and and uh I was seated there and I looked up and I noticed a 60-some-year-old person come into the building.

I couldn't believe it.

They were carrying a little baby doll.

And they were rocking that baby doll.

No life in it, but they seemed to think it was.

And uh their mentality was probably locked in, I would guess, at about a three or four-year-old level.

Fully functioning adult body, but just a child.

They had grown up physically, but they never arrived.

They were unable to add anything else that was needed to make them to function as a human being.

They'd never ride a bike, never drive a car, never attend school, yet they had a fully functioning body.

And there's no question they were born, but that's as far as they got.

And yet I've seen it around the church, too.

I mean, they were adult size, but just a child.

Fell to mature, still carrying baby toys around.

I'm not knocking anybody, I'm just talking to you for a moment, if it's okay.

I mean, you can't build a church on them because they've never got any further than just the baby bed, the crib, and spilt milk and uh milk formulas and changing of diapers, and everybody's got to kind of lead them around by the hand.

They're not running a race, they're still in the crawling stage.

You want to hand them a steak and they need a bottle.

They're in a baby, and there's no question they've been born.

But he speaks here about this precious faith, but that's as far as they ever got.

They never added anything, they never matured.

They're still where they were when they first got into the kingdom.

And this is addressed to believers, and he said, these seven things don't save you, but they're your priority one.

So you'll mature and become fruitful.

Anybody here want to mature?

You want to become fruitful in your Christian life?

You want more than just kind of getting into the kingdom?

Well, he's saying you're needing to add to your salvation, number one, virtue.

Integrity, of course.

That's inner strength.

It's a rightness, a correction, and you can't hide virtue.

So have has virtue been added to your salvation, to your faith, to your starting point?

That inner strength, that excellency, that quality of person.

People that have quality.

Pastor never has to worry about them.

They'll never be a part of a church split.

They'll never organize some kind of a secret Bible study that is dealing with false doctrine behind the leadership's back.

They're not like that.

They've got integrity, they've got virtue.

And it's something in them that's a steadiness in the storms of life.

I want to tell you something.

You won't be around very long, but your family's gonna be hit by a storm.

You won't last forever, but what you won't deal with some real issues in your own personal life.

It could be health, it could be finances, it could be relational, but you're gonna hit the storms of life.

Charles Williams was pastoring in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

He had a little lady in his church, and she hardly had anything of value to her name.

She couldn't hardly rub two dimes together.

She loved God, she loved her pastor, she loved her church.

Her husband had abandoned her.

The children didn't seem to have much interest in her.

And she would come to church Sunday after Sunday wearing one or two dresses.

That's all she had.

Pastor knew that she had stretched her funds to almost the breaking limit.

And he received a call, it was from a nurse at the local hospital.

Is this Pastor Williams?

Yes, it is.

He said, She said, we've got a lady here from your church, and she's just found that she's got stage four cancer.

She'd like to have a visit.

If you could find it to work out in your schedule, she'd like for you to stop by.

William said, Ray, he said, when I stepped into a room, her face broke into a sunshine smile and said, Welcome, Pastor.

It's so nice of you to come and visit with me.

They just informed me a little bit ago that I've only got a week left.

I must be the luckiest person in the world.

I'm about to leave this veil of tears.

I'm about to leave my loneliness.

I've paid my last month of rent.

I'll never have to worry about the water ever being turned off or the electric going out.

She said, Pastor, God is so good.

I'm about to go home and I want you to preach my funeral.

And William said, I stood there in her presence, looking into eyes that would soon lose sight within a week.

Looked into a face that I'll soon place in a coffin.

And I, William said, I said to her, What would you like for me to say at your funeral?

She looked up and she smiled great big and she said, You know, if everything you've been preaching is true, I'm going to be without pain.

So don't make the service sad.

Make them to feel glad.

Tell them, I've seen my last sunset.

There's no more darkness.

There's only the bright light.

I'm going home.

And I thought about this spirit of steadiness in the storm of life.

That's what we call virtue.

May I just say this service this morning could be the last service some folk will ever be in.

None of us have a guarantee of tomorrow.

None of us here know whether or not we'll ever see another sunrise.

We need to get things settled with God and find that inner strength the little saint down there in West Virginia had.

That's what I want.

That's what I want for you as well.

You can't fake it.

What do you do when life puts a bear hug on you?

I hope everything goes good.

I hope life treats you well.

But the whole fact of the matter is there's storms and there's going to be difficulties, and we don't know what's around the next horizon, and God's doing all things well, but I want you to know we need that inner strength that little lady had.

Notice she added to her faith virtue.

But then it goes on and said, add to virtue, not to your faith.

Now, you're to add on to this virtue because you're growing, you've got the virtue.

Now add to virtue, she said, or he says here, knowledge.

There's that word again, that word knowledge.

And it's not talking about general knowledge, it's talking about practical knowledge, understanding, applicational knowledge.

And he's talking here also about intimacy, knowing, a knowledge of God, knowing God, knowing God for really who he is in relationship and not for what you can get out of God.

Have you ever had relatives that show up and they only show up when they want to get something out of you?

If you don't, I can hook you up.

I don't want you to feel left out.

I've been pastoring here December will make 35 years.

I cannot tell you, I don't have enough fingers, toes, to begin to tell you how many people coming up north, passing this church on their way into Beiris or leaving Beirus thought this would be a great church to stop and con the pastor.

Bum some money off of him.

Now, I've met a few with real needs, but the majority have been just professionals.

Hitting different churches, seeing how much they can get.

I'm thinking one, and he came in and he said, I'm in work clothes.

I just got off my job.

I got a call from the hospital.

My daughter's been rushed to Cleveland and and I don't have any gas money.

Can can have you got any gas money so I can get up?

I said, Well, what hospital is she in?

Well, he said, it's on my notes out there in the car.

Well, I said, Go get your notes.

I'll I'll call up there and we'll find out what room.

I don't want you to drive up there and not know what room.

And I'd hate for you to go up there and you don't know which hospital.

Of course, he burned rubber getting out of the parking lot.

He just stopped by to con me a little.

The minute they don't get what they want, they're gone.

They don't want you, they want what they can get from you.

And many times.

That's the way we treat God.

Only in the jams of life we really put the pressure on God.

Here's what I and we treat God like some kind of a sugar daddy to get what we want.

When's the last time you just said, God, I want to be with you?

Nothing is any more thrilling than to have your child climb up on your lap and say, Daddy, I just want to be with you.

Unless, of course, it's the grandkid and you can give them back.

Then he said, add to your knowledge temperance.

This is self-control, one of the fruits of the spirit.

That means abstinence from the lust of the world.

It's a person who controls their appetite.

I don't care whether you've been born again or not, if you don't get to the place where you're learning how to handle appetites and drives and desires, you're going to be in trouble.

Remind me, preach this next service never use it again.

This is a quiet crowd.

This is a single person who lives in a sexually promiscuous society, but still remains a virgin to their marriage.

This is a spouse who's going to love and respect in spite of the fact they've been disappointed and hurt.

This is a person who's going to stay calm and not react even in a traffic jam.

It's called temperance.

Somebody said, watch with scrutiny of the man whose will has been crossed, whose hopes have been dashed, and whose dreams have died, and the spirit they show at that point will determine the character of that man.

What happens when you get ticked off?

Did you ever get ticked off?

Did your mouth off?

How many of you?

Okay, don't, don't, don't vote.

Do you know it's even a sin to gripe?

It's a sin to be unkind.

The scripture says, let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.

I wonder if God would just as soon we swore as to say unkind things.

Both are horrible sins.

Do you know that God destroyed many of the children of Israel because they griped?

I wonder what would happen if God was to kill off Christians who griped all the time.

Would there be any of us left?

God says, stop it.

Do you react with your hands?

Do you lose control?

God says, add to this self-control.

Now, how many have kids?

You can vote on that.

Did you know they're God's little spies?

If we could get to them before you got to them and ask them, does mommy and daddy ever get unkind at the other churches?

Maybe that's why God said in verse 3, I'm going to give you divine power, because God is saying, with everything that I want in your life, I can give you the power to reach that and to do that and to live on that level.

Then he said, add patience.

Patience.

Many translations use the word here, perseverance.

I don't know which translation you have, but it carries the idea of endurance and not turned aside under the tests and the trials of life.

You don't get turned aside by them.

You're going to press your way through.

Patience is slightly different from the patience mentioned over here in Galatians 5 when it talks about the fruit of the Spirit.

It's patience caused by people.

But here it's perseverance dealing with trials that comes with tough circumstances and difficult situations.

We can get hit with tough stuff.

I mean, none of us know if our spouse could wind up in a nursing home.

I've tried that.

I put it on for trial for about eight and a half years.

None of us know when the kid may be in a car wreck or suddenly somebody is dealing with malignancy.

Does it throw a wrench in our life?

He said, Have perseverance, have patience.

That's one of the toughies.

When's the last time you asked God for patience and said, I want it now?

Well, God knows what you need and he knows when you need it.

And then he says, add to that godliness.

That's the word for godlike or Christ-like.

It's used both ways.

That is saying, whenever you see Ray LaSelle, do you see Jesus?

When they see me, do they see Jesus?

Do they see Jesus in your life?

Godlikeness.

And then he said, add brotherly kindness.

And that's a practical one.

Every child of God is called to be a great friend.

Who are you kind to?

The world wants friends that they can use.

And I'll do for you, and then you owe me.

No, that's not brotherly kindness, that's favor swapping.

Brotherly kindness means we're in the same family.

We're brothers.

And we're gonna work together just because we're brotherly.

And then he said, add charity.

Let's get to that one.

I should have started with this one.

We'd been out and having a cup of coffee by now.

Charity.

That's the word for love.

And this love exists in spite of differences.

We may not agree, but we're gonna love.

I want to tell you something.

America needs charity.

We're as divided right now as during the Civil War, folk.

It's frightening.

You can't even, you can't even discuss anything.

You can't say boo, and somebody wants to boo you.

The fruit of the Spirit is love.

That's the very first one.

The Bible tells us that if we don't have this charity, we're simply nothing.

And it doesn't start with charity, it starts back there with virtue and then it goes on to knowledge.

And now it's built up to charity.

For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful.

Notice those words they make you.

These are the building blocks for the storms of life.

Then comes verse 9, the most frightening verse nearly to a Christian.

But if he lacketh these things, he's blind.

You can't navigate through life successfully without these seven things.

Of this maturity because he wants you to remain blind.

Think about a blind person trying to navigate sightlessly through this world.

Add to your faith.

Add to your faith.

Has God said anything to you this morning about what you need to be adding to your faith?

Where are you lacking?

Would you like to leave here different than when you came?

Down in the southwestern part of Illinois is some of the most fertile cropland in all of the country.

It's rich.

You'd almost think you were up here in Celeryville.

The black loam, the soil, the crops.

Number of years ago, a little couple had met together and fallen in love, and they pooled everything they had and borrowed what they didn't have and went to the bank and talked the banker into a contract and bought a small crop farm.

They began to, with great dreams of a tremendous future, to add on more acreage and build bigger barns and to buy newer equipment and to become a real successful farmer.

But it never got that for.

They struggled.

The crops didn't turn out well.

Scraggly.

It was either too much rain or not enough moisture.

And the crops would burn.

They tried hard.

He worked morning till night.

He used old equipment, drove old cars.

There were months they didn't think they could make the payment to the bank.

They were continually getting notes that you're behind on the mortgage.

You depended on a good crop and then didn't have the good crop and have to race in and try to work a little side job.

And she did house cleaning, trying to keep from losing the farm.

They did without.

They sacrificed.

They put their boy into college and then for lack of resources had to withdraw him from the school.

And finally, the man, bent with age and struggling with many, many long hours, said to his little wife, We can't make the payment this time.

We just can't make this farm produce.

We've got to let it go back to the bank.

And they moved into town and got a little rental to spend their final years.

New owner bought the land, bought the farm from the bank there at the auction.

Time passed, and the little old couple said to his wife, said, Let's take a drive out in the country and go by the old home place.

And he heard her sniff and wipe her nose and her tears with a handkerchief as they drove.

When they came inside of the farmhouse and the farm, they couldn't believe the house was all painted.

The barns were painted.

The crops filled the acreage.

He pulled up and he just sat there spellbound.

He couldn't believe it.

How are they growing this crop on the land that we struggled with?

Pulled into the driveway and they got out of the car and just stood there looking at corn that stood way above their head.

The door opened on the house, and the new owner came out and asked who they were and why they'd stopped, and can I do something for you?

And the man said, I spent my life on this farm trying to make it go.

Couldn't get the crops to produce.

Finally lost it to the bank.

What in the world are you doing to make this thing produce?

Oh, he said, I I had I had a I had him take a soil sample.

And I found in the soil sample that in this area of southwestern Illinois, there's only one mineral that's missing.

Without it, you can't grow a great crop.

He said, we uh we had about everything else.

We had the nitrogen and the phosphorus, we had the calcium, we had uh magnesium and sulfur and carbon, but we lacked potassium.

We found from the soil sample that if we'd add so much potassium, we could grow the greatest crops in all of the nation.

And that one thing that was lacking is what we added, and it's made all the difference.

And there was a silence.

The new owner looked around and he saw tears sliding down the face of the old man as he had slipped his arms around his little gray-haired wife, and he whispered to think.

Success or failure rolled on just one thing.

We lacked one thing.

It cost us our boys' college.

It cost us retirement.

We lost the farm.

Only one thing.

If we'd only known we lacked that one thing, life could have been so different.

And before you leave the house this morning, may I say there's seven things listed here, and God is saying you'd better give all diligence to go after all of them.

After you've added to your faith virtue, you better go after knowledge.

And after knowledge, you better have temperance.

And he enumerates those.

If you miss one, just think you can be a great Christian, but if you lack in brotherly kindness, you rub everybody wrong.

You go through life like a rasp.

And you don't have friends, and people don't want to be around you because you lack brotherly kindness.

Can you imagine if you lack that element called self-control?

And you can't handle your appetites and your drives, and those things are always twisting your mind and tempting you and maneuvering you out of victory.

Can you imagine lacking patience?

And when things don't go well, suddenly you blow off the handle and you destroy your testimony.

Why, he was a brotherly sort of a guy.

He seemed like uh seemed like he had a lot of things going, but he just couldn't stick to any one thing.

He was from here, he was to there.

And I'm asking you in closing, I want you to think very seriously.

I know many of you know all about this thing of salvation.

You made a great start.

But where have you gone from there?

Did you ever add to your faith?

Virtue and build strength of character till you became trustworthy.

People knew where you were.

If I could say anything about my dad, my dad never left me a dime.

But he left me one thing.

He was a man of his word.

And he wouldn't lie for you, and he wouldn't steal for you.

He had virtue.

What about temperance?

Is there an area this morning I'm asking that you lack in?

And would you say, God, I need you to add.

Would you help me to add this to my faith?

I want to have the testimony.

I don't want my witness destroyed because of a temper tantrum, or because of a lack of patience, or because I rubbed everybody wrong.

God, take me to where I've never been.

Add to my salvation, my faith, these qualities.

Thanks for being a part of the Voice of the Nazarene.

Visit us every Sunday at 9 a.m.

with BNC's Pastor Ray Listalle.

For more information regarding BNC, visit busyrusNazarine.org.