Doctrine Drives Our Actions

Yeah, pastor um we we were talking and he was telling me that he was going to take this break between first uh Timothy and second Timothy and um he was telling me what he wanted to do and then we were talking and he and he mentioned that for me to pick up this back half and I'm extremely happy to do that. uh pastor has been uh focusing on trying to encourage us to make an intentional effort to live righteously and that is biblical. That is very biblical. God has told us that in his word. Let me give you some examples or where you can find some examples in Romans 12:es 1 and two. There God calls us to present our bodies as a as a living sacrifice.

Strong imagery. When an animal is killed, it gives up all that it has in its in its life. And God calls us to give up all that we have, to give up all of our will as a living sacrifice for his. So that all that we do is now focused on what his will is. The action that comes or the action that's all described in Romans after this section is all to be motivated on this or or driven by this. In Hebrews chapter 12, you find a similar idea there. There there is the command in Hebrews 12:1 that we are called to lay aside anything that would hinder us from running a race. Anything a life that would uh call our attention off of Christ in the way that we are to live needs to be put down so that we can fully live for Christ.

So that we can live intentionally for Christ. Philippians 2:12 actually says it very plainly. It calls on us to work out our salvation. Make it intentional. work with all fear and trembling. God's word is clear. We are to make those intentional efforts to live out our salvation. But my duty tonight is to show you or to at least introduce what Pastor Wayne uh would call the other side of the coin. Because while we are to be very intentional about our effort, there's another aspect. And notice that in these passages that I just noted to you, uh, Romans 12, Hebrews 12, Hebrews 12, uh, Philippians 2, this call or these starts or these initial calls for action don't take place at the beginning of the book.

In fact, the call for action, the call for righteous behavior never comes first in God's word. In Romans, there are 11 chapters that speak of our great salvation before we're ever called upon to make that sacrifice. In Hebrews, there's also 11 chapters that that tell us of Jesus as our great high priest before we're ever called to run that race. In Philippians, I know it's chapter 2, but Philippians is only four chapters long. So, Philippians 2, chapter 12, almost halfway through that book. That's where that call to action verse is. But prior to that, uh, they've been talking about the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You find this pattern throughout all of scripture, for most part, all through scripture. In 1 Corinthians, uh, you don't find about the action aspect of what to do and how to live until chapter 7. There's six chapters of what we have in Christ that come before that. 2 Corinthians, same thing. Six chapters of what we have in Christ before we're uh, told how to live. You even see the same pattern in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, there's a there's that progressive revelation of who God is and who we are. And and in that progressive revelation, there's no call to a or to action until later.

In the Old Testament, it starts with Genesis and we have God revealing himself as the creator and God creating this perfect paradise without flaw. and he puts man in there and he gives man the ability to to be free and man uh disrupts this paradise and brings sin into the world. But as we continue to read in Genesis, we see that this is a God who does not walk away from man. This is a God who's committed to man and committed to having revelation or sorry committed to having relations with man but yet he still hates sin and we see the hatred of his sin in the flood but yet we see his mercy in the ark.

God reveals that he wants to be with those who walk with him. when in the very first genealogy there, I think it's Genesis chapter 5, uh you get the genealogy and you find Adam died and and and all the following children died and there's that consequence of the sin that had been brought into the world. But halfway through that that genealogy, we run into Enoch and Enoch doesn't die. It says Enoch walks with God and God takes him. Here in the very early part, we get this we get this understanding that that God and his desire for relationships with with man and and women, mankind is what I mean. He he desires those that walk with him and then he wants those that walk with him to come with him after this life.

And so you get this picture of eternal eternal life in our Lord. As we continue to read through the Old Testament, we see God's desire to bless the people that he calls his own with Abraham. We learn of his faithfulness as he frees Abraham's descendants from Egypt. children that had forgotten about their God, but yet a God who had not forgotten about them, who then rescues them out of bondage. We learn about a God that is patient and long long-suffering as we enter into the book of Exodus. And it's not until Exodus 20 do we finally start to get commands on how to live. And God gives us the ten commandments in Exodus 20.

You see the commands, these these commands that are there that call us to live righteously, that call us to seek to intentionally uh uh live out our salvation with intention that pastors been calling for us is based upon the truths that come before it. It's based upon doctrines that come before it. I got to define that word doctrine just for just for Chris Real. I know he's since passed away, but Chris would always uh call us out in young adults if we start to use a term that he's not comfortable with. And I always remember him calling us out on on on doctrine. And the one time he he said, "What do you mean when you say doctrine?"

And we had at that period of time broken up into a small group. And he said, "What did you mean when you say doctrine? Explain that to me." And the one thing about Chris, if you didn't know Chris, is Chris uh Chris is a very honest. And if he didn't know, he would tell you. And if you gave him an answer that didn't make sense, he would tell you. I love it about Chris. I miss it about Chris. But yeah, we're in that group and somebody said, "Oh, doctrine means truth." And Chris's immediate response is, "Well, why don't you say truth?" No, it's a little more. And that's why when we say doctrine, when we think of doctrine, what we're talking about is we're talking about a a system of beliefs that are true.

uh that compiled event all compiled give us who God is, who we are, what salvation is and all that we need to know for spirituality for for living within God. It is these doctrines that then guide our uh actions. We need to know them. I had a pastor one time, he was trying to get me to understand this. And he and he described it in a way that really kind of stuck. And he said, 'You know, doctrines, these doctrines are are like a grid pattern or a filter. And you filter life through these doctrines. And as you filter them through, you understand where you are in in whatever this issue is or what this issue is.

And then you're able to apply those application passages. But you got to know doctrine. And doctrine drives. It's the motivation for everything, too. And and our Lord Jesus even taught in this way. In Matthew 4:1 17, it it says that Jesus starts to preach. And Jesus goes and he he preaches the exact same sermon that John the Baptist is preaching and and probably one of the shortest sermons in in the Bible. And he says, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent." The action aspect that we are to do, the confession of our sins, the the turning away from our sins is based upon the doctrine of the coming of the kingdom of God.

motivation for the repentance is in the doctrine. And and what this points to is that Christian living is unique because Christian living in our pursuit of the the proper behaviors for life are is not driven by the benefits that come out of those behaviors. It is not then our our our our mindset is not improving our quality of life. because it's the reality of what we have in Christ that drives us or should drive us. Unfortunately, today the gospel gets twisted and and and we get ideas like come to Jesus because he'll heal your marriage. Come to Jesus because he'll help you overcome addiction. Come to Jesus and have your best life ever.

But none of those are the gospel. In fact, none of these actually even hit the idea of what it means to be saved or to be rescued. You guys know I've been in the water and I've grown up around the ocean and I've given stories that in the past of rescuing people and I don't want to go into detail, but but anybody who has seen somebody rescued out of a situation where they're where they're where they're facing death, they never come out of that situation and and then look at their rescuer and say, "Oh, you know, I'm so glad I got saved because I really was hoping to have a nice dinner tonight." Now, they may have a nice dinner that night regardless, but they're not happy about being saved because of a blessing that they can receive afterwards.

They're They're ecstatic that they're alive. Yes. And I've seen people come out of the ocean after getting pummeled and thinking they weren't going to get out and they're covered in sand and their swimsuits all messed up or jacked up their hey or something because they're just all whatever and they don't even care. And in that position, they want to hug their rescuer because they've been brought from death to life. And we have received so much more because it's not just physical life we have received. We've received eternal life. We've been rescued from eternal condemnation or damnation, I'm sorry.

And so we're Christians. We we live in the pursuit of righteousness. We we address our relationships in in in uh the motivation for addressing our relationships is is empowered and motivated by the gospel. You see, the message that saves is also the message that drives our uh drives how we live. Scripture teaches this in Philippians 1 27. It says, "Only let your conversation or your manner of life uh be as it becometh." That would be like, "Let it be worthy the gospel of Christ." If I could reword this in my own language, I would say, "Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ." How you live is to be driven by the motive to be worthy of the gospel.

And it's not that we are saved by our works, but but it's that we live in a worthy manner of what we have received. And what we have received are all those teachings that come before those application aspects which are in scripture. As I mentioned, me and pastor had talked about this this little miniseries a while ago. So, I've had some some time to kind of think about the outline that I was going to try to set tonight and the the points that I wanted to try to hit. And to be honest, I'm not very good at at this type of teaching. I don't when I just have to do a topic, I struggle with that. I find this actually very hard.

And so, I was thinking about it, really, really working on it. And while I was thinking about it, I was listening to a a sermon and and I heard the pastor there, it's pastor MacArthur, uh make the same point that I've been thinking of. And he was making it as he introduced Ephesians 4, which is where the the call to actions are within the book of Ephesians. And he summarized Ephesians 1 through3 so well with what we have in Christ. I thought, man, I got to share this. And so I went online, I found his manuscript, and I copied it. I want to share with you his short introduction about what we have in Christ just in Ephesians before Ephesians ever calls us to action.

And this is what he said. He said, "The exalted reality of the gospel demands an exalted lifestyle." The first three chapters of um Ephesians are positional truth, the resources, the riches, the things God has done for us. He blessed us with all spiritual blessings. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world. He made us to be holy, to be blameless in love. He even predestined us. He adopted us. He made us to the praise of his glory. He has made us accepted in the beloved one. He has given us redemption, forgiveness. He has given us wisdom and prudence. He has made known to us the mystery of his will.

He has in the dispensation yet in the future what's what's going to come about to lift us up to heights that we haven't even dreamed of. to give us an inheritance that was pre-planned before the world began. He granted to us the Holy Spirit. He has given us resurrection power. He has made us alive from the dead. He has taken us who are who are a far off, who are lost, who are cut off, and he has made us as one new man. He has given to us the great mystery of truth, mystery of the truth of the gospel, the truth of the church. And he's made it possible for us to capitalize on all of this by giving us his Holy Spirit who can strengthen the inner man so that Christ can settle down and be at home so we can be filled with incomprehensible love so that we can have eternal fullness, the fullness of God.

And he ends his intro by saying, "He has done it all for his glory and he has done everything for us." That's just the first three chapters of Ephesians. And if you're like me, when you hear that, you're already starting to have your heart swell up inside of you and think, "Wow, what a wonderful savior I have." And it is these truths that we find in God's word that help us to have the mindset, the proper mindset to carry out how we are to live and and how we're to do things like how are we to treat our spouse? What motivation do we have to be a good employee? What motivation do I have to step away from my career and give up of my time to be able to raise my children?

It is in the motivations of what our Lord Jesus has done for us for everything that we have gained because of what our Lord Jesus has done for us. And this is unique in our world. We are the only people that do this. You see, the Christian is motivated to live that good and healthy life if you want to say it that way. Okay, maybe in a little more modern terms uh because they have been given life by our Lord Jesus Christ and it goes against that motivation aspect goes against how the world thinks because the world or to the world moral behavior is pursued for its blessings. I seek to work on my marriage because I want a good marriage because I want the pleasure and the enjoyment that comes from a good marriage.

The pursuit is after the created thing not the creator. And the reality is even within the world you can achieve great morality through those kind of efforts. But we cannot be a part of that group as believers. Because if we are the efforts that we give towards whatever it is we're pursuing, if we're pursuing towards the blessings that come from it, our pursuits are done in vain. And I'd like to argue here in a a minute or two that it's actually a sinful act to do that. we should have or we should not have that desire for the blessing to be our focus because in doing that it takes our focus off of what we have in Christ.

So let me show you or explain to you my second point and that is the aspect that if we let that creep into our life the fact that we're pursuing after the blessing then we have fallen into a sinful pursuit and I have to speak towards our motives in this to get to that point. So have your Bibles flip over to Genesis. I'm going to read a couple verses here in Genesis chapter 3. Sorry, in Genesis 3:1 it says, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, ya hath God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden." And the woman said unto the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

And the serpent said unto the woman, "Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day that you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired, to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat. Now, get the get the story here. Eve's in the garden. She's without sin. She hasn't fallen. There's nothing to to pull her in a wrong direction. And the serpent comes to her and and basically challenges God. And if I can paraphrase his argument to Eve, he basically comes to Eve and says, "Eve, let me tell you, God's not being fair.

He's not being completely honest with you. You won't die if you eat. In fact, you'll be better off. God's holding back good things from you. Eat the fruit. It's good fruit. And then the blessings are your eyes will be opened and you'll be as a god. Eve, you're going to get a good thing. You're going to get that blessing. Go for the blessing. Now, the servants put Eve in a perplexing situation here. He's challenged God. And she's probably never heard this before. And she looks over and the fruit looks good. And she possibly wonders, is what the serpent said true? In fact, she very likely does. And it puts even a position where she has a choice.

She has a choice. She can trust what her creator said, which logically we would think that would be the right one, right? The creator is going to have it correctly. Or she can go after what the serpent said. Eve has a opportunity here to make a choice. And we know what she does and we know that she chooses to go uh to take the fruit. And what Eve has has done is Eve has basically denied God's authority over her. God the creator has the authority over her and he wants to uh he wants to bless her. He wants to put her in a place where she's going to thrive. He's told her not to eat for a purpose. But she once challenged that that idea is challenged.

She decides in herself which way she's going to do. She's chosen self-ruule over submitting to God's rule. And this aspect of of self-ruule is the heart of every single sin that has taken place since. Every single sin comes from the heart that either intentionally or or unintentionally denies the authority of the creator and goes after its own desire. Goes after what it wants, what he or she wants. And this mindset is the reason for every issue that we have in life. And James speaks to this in James chapter 4. If you want to turn over there, James chapter 4 verse one, James writes and says, "From whence come wars and fighting among you?"

Where is where do of all our conflicts come from? He says, "Come they not hence even of our lusts that war in your members. Ye lust and have not. Ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight and war ye have not because you ask not. Ye ask and receive not because you ask a miss that ye may consume it upon your lust. Every human conflict comes from the core issue of wanting something that you want. And your conflict could be initiated by somebody else coming and causing a conflict on you with something that they they want, but then your response is something that you want back and then the conflict starts.

It's a hard issue. And that issue, why James has worded it here in in in fighting languages and war language, it it doesn't always revolve around what is evil, what is bad. Human conflict comes from even when you have the desire for what is good. And yet yet because it's the human desire that's saying my way and not God's way, it's still sinful and it still has an issue with it. And we got a glimpse of this with with Miranda's testimony last night or last week. If you guys were here, um Miranda, her last week was here. We're going to miss her and the kids. Um Evan and Miranda, great couple and uh and we love those those children of theirs.

But she came up and she spoke last week and she gave her testimony. And after she spoke, pastor came up and talked about how uh he first got involved with Evan and Miranda and and and uh Evan had come and and he had recognized that his marriage had become a train wreck. And he came to pastor and he and he talked to pastor and he said, "I need help with my marriage." And pastor, we have a wise we have a wise pastor. Our pastor looked and he saw the real issue. And if you remember from last week, pastor said, "Well, you're not going to fix her. What you need to do is you need to fix your relationship with God."

And what Evan had had done, and we too fall often into this, probably daily fall into this, is Evan had seen something good, a good, healthy marriage with the woman that he loved, and that became his focus. So that we zeroed in on that, and his actions were going to be driven by what he could do to get a good marriage. And pastor said, "Whoa, wait. This is the relationship you need to have. And you guys, if you were here last week, you saw the you heard the wonderful resolution of that issue as Miranda talked about it and gave that beautiful testimony of how how when Evan turned and started to follow after Christ, that's when her heart started to change as well, too.

And God saved that marriage and brought them back together. But what had to happen first is they had to step away from their the the desire of just the marriage and to turn it back to God. This problem of us doing this is why James calls his readers in verse four of chapter 4, adulterers and adulteresses. James isn't speaking a sexual sin. What James is doing is he's speaking the language that he knows. He's he's an Old Testament person writing New Testament uh literature. And and in the Old Testament, Israel when it turned to worship idols and was unfaithful to God, God referred to them as adulterers.

He told them, "You're like an unfaithful wife because you're unfaithful to me in your worship and you turn towards idols." And this issue with our heart of of turning after something, turning away from God and turning after our desires and letting that desire drive our action is idolatry in God's word. It's an idol of the heart. And we can take even good things and we often do unfortunately take good things and make the good thing the idol that now we chase with our heart. In Romans chapter 1 23, speaking of of mankind, it says that that they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and for-footed beasts and creeping things in our flesh, in our sinful flesh.

We'll take anything within creation and we'll turn that into an idol and then we'll pursue after that and we'll turn away from God. And it's so easy to do. But the thing is is this is what we have been rescued from. This is what we've been rescued from. And scripture speaks so much to what we have been rescued out of and into and what we now have. that we need to focus so much more on those other parts of the passages that speak to what we have in Christ so that our hearts would be lifted up and and motivated then to carry out these these um practical applications of scripture. Now, we're going to fail at this a lot.

But that's the gospel. The gospel is what rescues us from that. In 1 John chapter 1, you guys are familiar with these verses, but in 1 John chapter 8, he says there, it says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." The reality is is even as Christians, we're going to be dealing with sin for the rest of our life and we're going to be having these idols come up in our hearts and we're going to be chasing after these idols and we're going to fall in sin and we're going to have to repent. But verse 9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgives of us forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we will then turn and confess every time that we do this, God will continue to remain faithful and continue to forgive us time and time and time after again. And for those of you that that have been struggling with trying to overcome sin, let me encourage you that that that that even though it's tough to beat and you're struggling to beat it, uh keep confessing because as you confess, your heart's going to be lifted up because you've been forgiven again. God God wants that broken, contrite heart. And sometimes when we're trying to beat the sin, we're trying to do it in our own flesh and we're and we're putting all these things up to try to get control of our sin and we forget the fact that we need to be confessing it to God and and and being forgiven and being humble and doing that.

And I I do wonder sometimes if God holds back helping us beat certain things because he wants us to quit doing it in our own strength and to get on our knees and to confess and to cry out to him again and draw closer to him on our knees. But the wonderful thing is is that through forgiveness we get the fellowships renewed too. In verse 7 it says, "But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin." is the gospel truths that are our motivation and our driving force for how we live. And if we take our eyes off that and we look at somewhere else, we've fallen into sin and we need to keep our focus back on Christ and all that Christ has done.

And Christ gave us or God gave us more of the Bible that speaks of him and who he is and what we have in Christ than it tells us what to do. We got to put our minds there. We got to train our minds to to think on those things. Now, tonight we're going to have a a short discussion time and know we're running a little late, but I set up the discussion time to give thought on this idea uh to somebody who went through this or or or has documented this idea going through with um in the Old Testament. And I'll just summarize the passage so you're you're familiar with where the questions are coming from.

But but in 1st Chronicles 17, David wanted to build a house for God. And and you guys know Nathan comes and Nathan tells David, "No, you can't build the temple." But then what God tells Nathan or tells David is that that David or God's going to build a house for David and that there is going to come from David, one uh whose kingdom will be established forever. And David, when he gets this truth, this this truth of God's commitment to him, he breaks into this beautiful section of praise and a beautiful prayer as he as he recognizes what how small he is and what great things he has received because God has shown his commitment to him.

And it's after this then that David then goes to war again. And David then goes and fights God's enemies. And on our questions tonight, I want you to guys to kind of think a little bit about that is what does the fact that God told David that he was committed to him and was going to lift him up, how does that affect David's thinking in his prayer and in his actions because that's what's motivating David. And so we'll break up