Making Every Effort | How We Change

Well, Providence Family, it is a joy to see each one of you.

If you're a guest here, welcome.

We're honored that you have joined us.

If we haven't met, my name is Brian, and I have the opportunity to serve as one of the pastors.

If you have a Bible in your hand, turn with me to 2 Timothy.

If you don't, you want one, there's Bibles in the chairs right there in front of you.

If you're in this room or over in the harbor.

And um, and if you have the app already downloaded, and if you want to follow and see these notes uh yourself, you can find the notes to this sermon there on the app.

Um, even before we um look at this passage, which I think is gonna be incredibly pertinent to us, very practical for our life, I want to share just two family matters as it relates to our church family.

Uh, first of all, if you're a member at Providence, there's a members' meeting tonight at five o'clock.

And at that time, what we're gonna be thinking about and seeking to uh to um uh well really to decide is um uh is all tied to our five-year vision called multiply.

And one of those parts is to launch a second campus.

And so we're gonna be thinking about that and asking you to as well.

That'll be at five o'clock, and then at six o'clock tonight uh is uh what I believe to be really the time once a month when the church does its heaviest lifting.

Uh, I uh and um and I really do mean that.

Um, you know, God tells us that he opposes the proud and he gives grace to the humble.

And there's a language within the Bible of humility, and it's the language of prayer.

Prayer by itself, by default, saying, I can't, but you can.

You have the power, and we're calling upon you.

And so we do this once a month, where we call the whole church family to come to pray.

And we're gonna be praying for our hearts, we're gonna be praying for the needs in our life, we're gonna be praying for healing physically, emotionally, and spiritually within our church family.

We're gonna be praying for our nation, and we're gonna be asking God to give us the power to carry out the mission that He's called us to.

And so you call Providence home.

I hope that you will make it a priority to be here at six o'clock.

These are always nights to me that are very electric in the heart because I believe that things are moving when we do this.

And so would you uh would you would you join us um tonight and pray?

Father in heaven, we we know you hear us every time that we pray.

And we thank you that you have you have given each one of us access to be able to call upon you at any time through Jesus Christ to lay before you our burdens and our needs, and you promise to help us in our time of need.

Father, you know that many of us have had a really good week.

It felt light and whole and healthy.

Lord, you also know that many of us have had a very, very heavy week.

And it's been very difficult and dark and frightening.

And I thank you that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you can take the same text and you can encourage us no matter where you find us.

I pray, Father, that you would give hope to the hopeless today.

For those who will hear these words and imagine that they're not pertinent to their life.

I ask, Father, that you would help them to see that you have the power.

And that these words that are good and excellent and praiseworthy and noble, they're also good and excellent, praiseworthy, and noble in our own personal lives.

So would you remove the wall of hopelessness that keeps us from believing that this can take place in our life and that we can change in dramatic ways and experience life the way that you intended.

God, would you please speak through weakness and help us once again?

We call upon you humbly.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Well, we're in a series called How We Change.

We all want to change in life, our own personal life, because all of us live in that disheartening gap between who we are and who we really want to be.

Each one of us, because we experience that gap, and sometimes within that gap we feel a sense of shame, Jesus came to the earth, and when he did, among many things that he did, he exposed what he knew that we would do first when we feel like we have a problem and we need to change.

And he said, essentially, is human instinct is going to be to try to polish up the outside instead of fix the inside because we live in community, we care about what people think about us and people are watching.

And so many of us spend a tremendous amount of time trying to manipulate the externals of our life, adding layers of polish so that people can see a package that's been put together, and yet we look into the mirror and we know it's a very different story.

And so Jesus said emphatically over and over again the battle over your life is one in the heart.

So in this series on how we change, we're looking at the steps that the Bible tells us to take, that God meets us in those steps, and there he begins to use these steps not just to change the externals of our life, but our very heart.

And so we've been working through this little diagram that we put together, and what's not in the diagram is actually the very first step, and that is that we have to put our faith in Jesus Christ.

Each of these steps requires power that we do not have in ourselves.

But one of the most beautiful things about the gospel of Jesus Christ it says that when we put our faith in Christ, when we recognize we have a spiritual need, that we have a debt before God that we cannot pay, and we see in Christ not just the hope of glory, but what we see in Christ is the one who can take away that debt, that one who paid our price, that one who loves us more than anyone else.

What it says is that we are filled with the Holy Spirit.

Now, in Luke chapter four, three times over, it says that Jesus was filled with the Spirit, that it was the Spirit of God who was moving in Jesus to help him to teach and to do miracles.

And it's an amazing reality that the Son of God was filled by the Spirit of God to do his ministry.

But God, guys, he did some pretty amazing things.

And the Bible says that that same Holy Spirit lives within us.

And yet many of us we don't know how to actually draw on that power, even though the Spirit of God lives within us.

And so the very first step that we talked about, which is the center of the diagram, is how do we walk by the Spirit?

Because the Spirit has the power over each of these different parts of the wheel.

As we're walking by the Spirit, he tells us to interject truth in our life by reading the Bible.

And of course, truth is critical to life.

And God's word is truth, and truth is critical because truth establishes reality.

It helps us know what's up and what's down.

Interestingly, many of us, when we open the Bible, in fact, all of us, there's parts of it we just simply don't believe.

Or it's hard to believe.

And so after we read the Bible, he tells us the next step in our growth process is that we have to pray for belief.

Some of us today are gonna hear what I have to say, and you're gonna imagine within your heart that sounds good and right, but I don't know if that would be pertinent in my life.

I don't know if I believe that that can happen for me.

So we have to pray for belief.

And one of the first things we need to believe is what God has said about who we are.

You see, there's all kinds of voices that we hear all week long about who we are.

And whichever voice we listen to, well, that becomes our identity.

And identity is critically important to our life and to our change.

And the reason is because identity shapes and motivates our behaviors.

And so if we will believe God, and what he's saying is the truest thing about us, and if we will take that on as our identity, well, that new identity has corresponding behaviors where there's certain behaviors that are out of step with that identity, we have to turn away from those, he calls those sin, and there's certain behaviors that are in step with our new identity, and he tells us to pursue those things, and he calls that obedience.

Over and over through life, this process, we work this journey over and over again.

But what's interesting, and where we come to today, is this is never to be done in isolation.

Our growth and transformation with the Holy Spirit is a community project that we need to pursue community with other believers.

You see, early in the Bible, in fact, at the very beginning of the Bible, it says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And among all the things that he created, he created a man and a woman.

And interestingly, it says that he created us in his image.

Now he created fish and birds and animals and trees and all kinds of things.

And yet there's only one thing that he created in his image, and it was humanity.

What that means is that we have this unique, this really unique relational capacity.

You see, God is relational, he loves, he remembers, he speaks, he hears, he emotes, he feels.

And we created his image are able to do all those things because we have that unique relational capacity.

And for a time in the garden, in that relational place, there was perfect peace until mankind sinned against God.

And once they sinned against God, and we sinned against God, there was an experience that people had never experienced up until that point, and that is shame.

And they had to figure out what to do with that shame.

And what they did with that shame is they hid.

They hid behind bushes, and then not only from God, but even from each other.

Interestingly, we've been hiding ever since.

Every single one of us, because we are an image bearer of God and fallen, every single one of us live in that tension point between wanting to be known and having a lot to hide.

And into this darkness, God made a promise.

He said, One day I'm going to send the Savior to the world, a son that will be born of a woman.

He's gonna do something so definitive.

He's gonna remove your shame so that you can experience life in relationship with me and each other.

You don't have to hide anymore.

In the fullness of time, God Almighty sent this special son, his son, the Christ, the promised one, gave him the name Jesus.

Christ comes to the earth, and what does he do?

He shows us how to live a relational life.

He's not hiding behind bushes, he's saying, This is who I am.

He's transparent and honest in all of his ways.

He lives among us, and then he went without any sin of himself, and he went to a cross, and there he died for our sin.

He paid the penalty of our sin.

He was buried in a grave and then he rose from the dead, and he rose from the dead.

He extended imitation.

He says, If you'll believe in me, I will forgive you, I will give you my righteousness, I will fill you with my spirit, I will take away your shame, your shame, I will adopt you into my family where you don't have to hide any longer.

And early in the Bible, I'm sorry, early in the New Testament after this, in the book of Acts, there was a man, his name was Paul.

And Paul was one of these believers.

He wasn't always that way, but Jesus confronted him on a road, he became a believer, his life completely changed.

And after decades of faithful ministry and mission work trying to get the gospel to the ends of the earth, he's arrested and imprisoned for the fifth and final time.

He's condemned as a criminal of Rome, sentenced to die by removing his head.

He's chained to the floor.

He tells us he's chained to the floor.

Chapter 4, verse 6 says he knows the time of his departure is close.

It's near.

And in the moments that he has left in that uncomfortable place, instead of sitting in the corner and expressing self-pity, he writes one last letter.

He's written lots of letters.

They're in the New Testament.

Most of them are to churches.

Romans is a letter to the church of Rome.

First to second, well, there's lots of them.

There's lots of letters, and they're written to churches.

This one is not written to a church.

2 Timothy is written to Timothy, his son in the faith.

He's been mentoring him.

He's the pastor of a church in a city called Ephesus.

And 2 Timothy is an exchange of a baton.

He knows that he's going to die.

He's holding out the baton.

He's passing it to Timothy.

And at the moment of exchange, Timothy doesn't want to extend his hand.

He's seen the impact of what this baton has brought to Paul.

He's tired, he's fatigued, he's frightened, he's discouraged in life.

And so this letter is peculiarly direct.

Paul is concerned, and the reason is because he knows he's about to die.

So he's speaking about non-negotiables.

And in this letter, he speaks about Christ and he speaks about the authority of the Bible and he speaks about the gospel.

He speaks about the importance of maintaining a clear conscience, about being unashamed to be associated with Jesus Christ in this world that doesn't understand Jesus.

He speaks about the importance of being strengthened and learning how to be strengthened by the grace of Christ.

He speaks about remembering Jesus Christ.

He speaks about false teachers.

And in our passage, he speaks about the importance of pursuing community so that we can grow up in our faith.

Look what it says in verse 19 in chapter 2.

But God's firm foundation stands bearing this seal.

The Lord knows those who are his, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.

Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use and some for dishonorable.

Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call in the Lord from a pure heart.

Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.

You know that they breed chorals.

So three things that I want you to see with these few verses.

The first is that God has connected us together to grow to maturity.

He's connected us together to grow to maturity.

Now, some of you are experiencing a life right now where your life feels shaken.

I can tell you, admittedly, that this has been a heavy week for me, but my life is not shaken.

Some of you, your life is shaken.

And if your life is shaken, you happen to be in good company because Timothy's life was shaken.

His mentor and father in the faith was about to be executed for his faith in Jesus Christ.

And Timothy was a pastor, a public leader in Ephesus, a Roman city, in an empire that was persecuting known Christians.

His church was facing factions and false teaching, and his heart was filled with fear, he was weary, he was discouraged.

His world was shaken.

And so Paul in verse 19, he wants to remind him of what isn't shaken.

That we're built on a foundation that is unshakable, that is firm.

And so notice what he says in verse 19.

He starts and he says, God's firm foundation stands.

If you're in Christ, your foundation, it may feel like it's shaking, but in Christ it is not.

It is firm.

In Ephesians chapter 2, we learn about this foundation.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

In Ephesians chapter 2, it says that Christ is the cornerstone.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

In ancient buildings, a cornerstone was laid first.

It was the most expensive stone.

It was the most important stone.

Its dimensions determined the dimensions of the building that would be built.

Everything was built on that stone.

In Ephesians, it says Christ Himself, His work, His life, death, and resurrection is the cornerstone of our life that we're supposed to build on.

And it says, upon Christ is a foundation.

The foundation is the gospel that was proclaimed by the apostles and by the prophets.

Interestingly, in this metaphor of a foundation, that says that there's some seals.

It says it bears a seal.

In other words, what it means is there's some inscriptions that are in this foundation that Paul is trying to remind Timothy of some truths about what it means to build your life upon Christ, that when it feels like your life is shaken, he says, Let me tell you why it's not.

And it reminds them of two.

The first, he says, is the Lord knows who are his.

When we are forgetful of who we are, forgetful of our identity, forgetful that we are saved.

Some of us we've been living in such a way that we forget.

Do I even have a relationship with Christ?

When you're forgetful, he says, You're not forgotten.

When we are doubtful, he holds us fast.

In John chapter 10, he says that the good shepherd, he holds us in his hands.

John 10 · chapter mention

And he says, I don't let anyone who has been born again leave my hands.

Your whole world may be shaken, but his hands are not.

He knows you, he sees you.

He remembers you.

The second inscription is equally encouraging.

He says, Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.

You say, Well, what is that about?

This is what it's about.

Is that because of Christ Jesus and his foundation that we rest upon, when we are sinful and when we stumble, we are not abandoned.

But he gives us the ability to repent.

And as we repent and turn to God, our sins are wiped out, and times refreshing can come from the Lord.

And all this is possible because of the death and resurrection of Christ.

So he's looking at Timothy, whose whole world is shaken, and he says, Let me remind you of something.

You are remembered.

You will hold fast because he is holding you fast.

So we have a cornerstone, and then he says, There's a foundation on the cornerstone, and interestingly he says, and then there is a great house that is built on that foundation.

The house is the church, and we read about this great house in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 5.

1 Peter 2:5

He says, You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house.

You're a stone, you're not a house, you're a stone.

One stone sitting by itself, no one goes and goes, What a great house.

No, we go, what a stone.

You're a stone.

So am I.

We were dead stones and now we're alive.

We were dead in our sins and transgressions, but in Christ we're now alive, but we are not a house.

To be a house, you have to be connected with other stones who've been made alive.

Individually, we are stone.

Collectively, we are a house.

And what a house the church is.

Designed by God the Father, purchased by the blood of Jesus, empowered by the Spirit of God to be a greenhouse for our growth and to be a lighthouse of truth for the world.

And we can look at all this and go, wow, that's a spectacular thing we're a part of.

But Paul wants to show us that we have a real need in spite of the fact that the church is a pretty remarkable thing.

And so he uses a metaphor to show our personal need to grow up.

And this is the metaphor, it's in verse 20.

He says, In a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use and some for dishonorable.

And so, just like our houses, their houses, in most of our houses, we have two kinds of a similar thing.

For example, at our house, we have a drawer.

You open it up, and you can find some plastic forks.

And you come over here, though, and you open this one up and you can find metal forks.

They look like silver, but they're not, they just look silver.

And depending on the honorable nature of what we're doing, we open one or the other.

We have cups.

We got some old football cups, plastic, they're chit, they're fallen, so there's you you know what I'm talking about.

And then we have some glass cups.

You can drink out of both of them.

But depending on who comes over, the honorability of who's coming over.

We pull from one and not the other.

We have brushes in our house.

We have toothbrushes, we have hairbrushes, we have toilet brushes.

It's really important to keep those distinct.

They had buckets, they didn't have indoor bathrooms.

They went to the bathroom in one bucket and they drew water from the well from another bucket.

In other words, There's a same thing, but there's two different kinds of those things, and those things are used depending on the honorability of the situation.

And we say, What's the point of this metaphor?

Here's the point.

He's not talking about the stuff in our house, he's talking about the people in this house.

That we have two kinds of similar things flowing out of us.

We have a mouth that speaks words.

The Bible says with those words, we glorify God.

We walk out of this room and we curse people made in the image of God.

Showing that we need to grow up.

We have hands, and the hands can do things, and those hands can be used to either heal or help or hurt.

And because we continue to hurt people, it shows that we need to grow.

Our mind has thoughts, but there's two different kinds of thoughts.

There's thoughts that are true, and there's thoughts that are that are false, showing that we need to grow in that area of our life.

Our heart can love, and our love can be in Christ as the first love, or our first love can be something infinitely inferior.

And so, as beautiful and glorious as the local church actually is, there's a lot of stuff that shows that we need to grow.

And so let me encourage us to commit to grow together, to honor the name of Christ.

I realize, friends, the church can be a mess.

I mean, at this church, I'm one of the pastors, so it's gotta be a little bit of a mess.

And you're here, so it's gotta be a little bit of a mess.

Think about it.

Wants to kill the church.

People outside the church misunderstand the church.

People inside the church mistreat the church.

Of course she's broken.

Of course she's a little bit of a mess.

But I say commit to her because we do not honor Jesus' sacrifice to bring us together by living in isolation.

The church is where we find God's family on the earth.

And so let me ask you some questions.

These are just probing questions, really one long question.

I ask myself this, sometimes I ask you this.

If everyone at Providence gathered as frequently as you gather, if everyone encouraged with truth, other people within this church as often as you encourage people with the truth, if everyone served as often as you served, if everyone served and taught and cared and considered for our children at Providence as often as you consider and care for and teach the children of Providence, if everyone gave as you give, open the doors for others as you open the doors, how healthy would Providence be?

You see, this church is only so loving as a critical mass of people exercise love.

It's only welcoming so long as enough people are welcoming.

The church is simply an extrapolation of our own character, magnified by everybody else.

And so commit to this place.

Or if you have a local church, commit to that place and help it grow.

One tiny redemptive step forward.

Hebrews says, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day drawing near.

The second thing I want you to see here is that God has called us together to flee all that defiles the soul.

He has called us, it's very important to see both of these things.

He's called us to flee what defiles the soul, but not in isolation.

He's called us to do this together.

You see, Paul knew the value of the soul.

Most important thing is the glory of God.

And the Bible represents the glory of God as a metaphor of light.

He says, the light of the glory of God.

Light, like light beams that come through.

Now, why is the soul so important then?

Well, the soul is so important because the soul is the window through which we can see that light.

But you know what you can do with a window?

You can board it up.

And the soul can be boarded up so that we don't feel the weight of God and see the light of God by boards called sin.

And as a result of that, he says in verse 21 if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, and ready for every good work.

Now I have said and taught many, many times here that we are saved by grace through faith.

It's not of ourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works, so that no man can boast, which means you can't clean yourself up to get to heaven.

But notice what this says if anyone cleanses himself, so there is a cleansing work that we're supposed to do.

So how do we how do we think through this?

And how we think about it is in order to get into the kingdom, it needed the heavy lifting that only Jesus could lift.

He's the one who did the cleansing work.

He lived without sin.

He died for our sin.

He was buried in a grave.

He rose from the dead, he's the one who did the heavy lifting, allowing us to be forgiven of our sin.

But once we put our faith in Jesus Christ and are forgiven, have a relationship with him that cannot be severed, we continue to struggle with sin.

And when we struggle with sin, it doesn't sever the relationship, but it definitely interrupts it.

And all of a sudden, if we are defiled, we become less useful in the hands of a holy God.

And so he says there is some cleansing work that we need to participate in, not to get into the family, but because we are in the family, to be useful and ready for every good work.

This is why Paul says in Acts chapter 24, I take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.

Acts 24 · chapter mention

So what pains are we supposed to take?

The first is he tells us to flee.

Flee defiling passions.

In verse 22, he says, so flee youthful passions.

The word flee, the Greek word fugo, it's where we get the word fugitive, doesn't mean go on a run.

It means live on the run.

To live on the run.

What are we running from?

He says, youthful passions.

And we know what he's talking about here because these youthful passions, in this case, are not noble because they're contrasted with what is righteous, what is faithful, loving, and peaceful.

In other words, Timothy's young man and he's got sinful passions.

And Paul says, you've got to run, but this is true of you and me.

It's a whole lot harder to run from sin when we're alone.

And so he says, run along with those.

And he gives two characteristics of the kind of friend you want to be and you need in your life.

You want to find some people, he says, who call upon the name of the Lord.

That means they pray and who long for purity.

That means that they are people who say, I'm going to help you be pure because I want to be pure.

I want to keep the window as clean as possible.

So he says, do this.

Why do we do this?

Because 1 Peter 2 says, Abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

There's something that we can do to the window that literally wages a war against it, boards it up.

He says, Abstain from those things.

Friends, there is something that you can do to become useful to God and even see the light more clearly.

Jesus said, There's a price, though.

You say, Well, what's the price?

Matthew 5.8, Jesus says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Do you know what the price is?

It's whatever boards exist over the window of your own soul.

So you'd be foolish for me to say, well, this is the list, because that would become legalistic.

You simply look at your own soul and you say, What is it that keeps me from seeing the full light of Christ and being useful in his hands?

And if you really want to be useful in his hands and to see the light, he says, that's your price.

Run.

Not only from passions, but also defiling ideas, to flee defiling ideas.

And verse 23, he says, Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies, for you know that they breed corals.

And the corals that he's talking about, he introduced in verse 16 of chapter 2.

And this is what these corals are.

It's when we elevate man's reason and philosophy to the level of God's word and then argue which is superior.

He says, You get around a bunch of people and they associate the same level of authority to their ideas, or to Fox News, or to CNN, or to some party or some philosophy, and you elevate it, and then all of a sudden they want to have an argument of how relevant these words are and superior they are to God's word.

Peter says, Timothy, run.

Run.

The mind is a vault for truth, not a dump for error.

So if you want to see the light, it's not only what you do, it's also what you think about.

Many of us, all of us, stumble.

So what do we do after we stumble?

There's another thing that we do, and that is to confess sin quickly.

1 John, he says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

In other words, he's saying, Timothy, take pains not to allow a mountain of unconfessed sins to grow and crowd out a close relationship between a holy God and your usefulness.

Keep confessing.

Keep confessing.

So let me encourage us, let me encourage you to help one another fight what defiles the soul.

And I want to give you a few suggestions here as to how do we help one another fight for what defiles, fight against what would board up our soul.

First of all, we need truth.

Open the Bible together.

That's what you do with your friends.

When you gather in this room, we open the Bible.

You go to a small group, open the Bible.

You need truth.

Second, accountability.

Accountability to invite somebody in your life who you look at and you go, you or happen to be someone it seems like that you like to pray and it seems that you care about purity.

Would you consider meeting with me once a month just to hold each other accountable, to ask each other, to ask me?

I invite you to ask me, what is it that's boarding up your soul today?

To confess sins to one another, to pray for one another.

A third suggestion would be then when we when it's time to confess those sins, is to confess those sins as God describes those sins.

You see, we tend to sterilize our sin and we see it when we confess.

We gossip and we say, Oh, God, I said too much.

We lust and we say, Oh, I had an impure thought.

And as a result of that, we hate the shame that comes with our sin, but many of us don't hate our sin.

And so we need to confess it in a way that God describes it.

What do I mean by that?

Well, let's just take the sin of lust.

You can come to the Lord and say, Yeah, you know, I had an impure thought.

Or we could address it as serious as God describes it in the Bible, and we could say something like this God, I am so sorry.

For what I have done is I objectified a human being that was made in your image and treated them as though they were a body without a soul.

And I committed adultery in my heart.

And not only that, I distorted my own sense of beauty.

And I struck my marriage.

And if I'm a single man or woman, I struck my future marriage.

And to make it worse, I liked it.

That's how the Bible describes lust.

And what you find is if you will confess it with the same degree of intensity as the Bible describes it, you will hate your sin as much as you hate your shame.

And now all of a sudden we've confessed it and we feel that shame.

So we say, what do we do with that?

Take it to the cross.

Don't take it, don't take it to the law, take it to grace.

The law came at Mount Sinai, grace came at Calvary.

And many of us, what we do is we've we want ourself loath, and we go like, oh, I'm terrible, I'm an awful person.

This is what I did.

And so we don't take it to Christ, we don't take it to Calvary, we take it to the law, and we and we talk about how bad we are and we feel bad about ourselves, but this is what happens if you take it to your shame, if you take your shame to the law, what you'll find is after a period of time of you not participating in that sin, your shame will diminish.

But your love for the sin will not diminish.

And so you'll only do it again.

But if, however, you take it to the cross and you imagine Jesus hanging there dying for that sin.

Being buried in a grave is a bloody body.

Because he paid that penalty for you and for me.

You see him rising from the dead and saying, I forgive you.

What you find when you find that superior picture, that superior joy, what you find is this is you begin to hate your sin as much as you hate your shame.

And now all of a sudden, your confession has teeth.

My last suggestion is to exhort one another to believe God.

You see, there's only one thing I'm aware of that sin and God have in common.

And that is they both make promises to make us happy.

And so we need people in our life.

That's why Hebrews chapter 3 says, exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

It lies to us.

So let me encourage you to help one another fight.

The last third thing is that God has called us together to pursue all that protects the soul.

He's called us to protect the soul and to do it together.

You notice in verse 22 that our maturity is as much about what we pursue as what we flee.

And so in verse 22, he says, it's true, flee youthful passions.

But he says, but there's something to pursue.

Pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call upon the Lord with a pure heart.

Righteousness is doing what God says is right.

Faith is giving visible evidence with our life that we believe that God is true.

And his word is true.

Love is serving people at their point of need and peace.

Peace.

Peace is the serenity that fills our heart when the Spirit of God within us is confirming his pleasure by convicting us of righteousness, and it's the calmness in our community when we dwell together in unity.

And what he's saying is it's really hard to pursue those things in isolation.

You need other people to remind you as well.

And so find some running buddies who pray and who care about purity and run.

So let me encourage us to help one another to pursue what protects our soul.

Similar to the last application, I want to give us just a couple suggestions on how we can help one another pursue what protects our soul.

First of all, I want to encourage you to engage in a small group.

In this space, in this larger space, there's things that are really important to our faith that we can do.

We take the Lord's Supper, in a moment, we're gonna see people baptized.

That happens in this room.

Preaching, praying for the nations, singing together, seeing that the Christian faith is bigger than just us.

You look around the room, you see all these people, and you think, you know, more's going on here than my life.

Those are values that happen here.

But what happens in here is not sufficient.

You can't be known here.

We're not praying for your needs here personally.

So we have these small groups, Providence would call them life groups.

For adults, there's over 60 of them.

I want to encourage you to be in a life group where you can be known, cared for, encouraged as you know, care, and encourage others.

For many of us, maybe the thought of trying to find a life group is overwhelming.

And so we're just starting something called a bridge group.

It's a very short time where you get to experience what a life group is like, and then within that group, it'll either form its own group or at least it'll help you to identify and get into another group.

You can go to pray.org slash info and you can find a way to register for those bridge groups.

Be in a group.

Second suggestion: once you're in a group, let me encourage you to love the people in the group more than you love your vision for the people in that group.

It was a man named Bonhoeffer who wrote, Those who love their dream of Christian community more than they love their Christian community will destroy their Christian community.

All of us have a vision for what our church should be, a group should be.

And if you love your vision, you will become lonely.

But if you love the people in your life, you will find community.

And finally, help people run their race.

When I was in high school and college, I ran track, really in high school.

And um, there wasn't a single time in track race that I helped somebody else finish.

There was one winner.

And I intended to win.

Interestingly, within the Bible, he talks about the Christian life as a race.

Paul says, I run like I intend to win.

But the Bible gives a different definition of what it means to win.

And that is, the Christian who wins is not the Christian who gets there first, but who helps other people get there.

In Hebrews chapter 12, he says, Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Then you get down to verse 12 and 13, he says, Lift your drooping hands, strengthen your weak knees, make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

And all of this is the plural.

If you really look at the full context, these drooping hands, they're not yours.

What he's saying is this as you're running your race and you look over and you see a believer, and they're so wearied and fatigued and broken that their knees are wobbly and their hands are drooping, slow down and help them run until they begin to get strength in their hands and their feet, and they can run on their own.

Who are you helping to get home?

To those of you who are considering following Christ and yet are confused by the lifestyle of those who claim to be following Christ, let me acknowledge to you that we are under construction.

Some of our words are honorable and some are not.

Some of our thoughts and deeds are honorable, some of them are not.

But let me remind you: construction sites are messy until the end.

And we're not finished yet.

And so instead of judging the credibility of the gospel on the basis of fallen people, judge the credibility of the gospel on its founder's integrity, his life, his death, and resurrection, and in the incremental changes you see in the lives of people who have called upon his name.

Set your eyes on Jesus.

You have a need, and he has met that need.

Look at Christ.

There's never been a man who has ever loved you like him.

And there never will be.

And trust him.

Let me pray.

Father in heaven, we bow before you.

Thank you so much for the truth of your word and pray that you would help us to be the church that we are called to be and help us to grow incrementally from where we're at.

We thank you for those who are bearing witness of their faith right now by being baptized.

Give them peace that passes understanding and give us joy as we celebrate.

Thank you for your kindness to us.

We pray all of this in Christ's name.

Amen.