Beacon Sunday Service: September 22nd, 2024

All right, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the beacon. So glad to see everyone today, and what a joy it is to just be able to worship the Lord together, to be called as his sons and daughters, to sing praises to his name, and to hear his word and to fellowship with one another. At this time, may we all just rise and can we just greet each other in the Lord with grace and peace to you.

And as we uh gather ourselves back to our seats, may we all rise for our call to worship this morning. It comes from Matthew chapter twenty-one, and the response from you guys from everybody here will come from Hebrews twelve, twenty-eight. And so it says this, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. Amen. Can we do that this morning? May we come before God and just offer him acceptable worship from our hearts to him with reverence and awe. Let us sing together this morning.

So God engages us.

Then give us your strength, oh God. Give us your strength, oh God, encourage me perform your uncle through those who obey for his as you want whatever my grace will preach your gospel till kingdom, let your kingdom come, let your will be done so that we one might know your name. Yeah, let your song be heard everyway till your son were honor.

Let you come, let your kingdom come, let your will be done so that we one might know your name, let your soul be heard, every way till your song will honor this eye. Let your kingdom come let your kingdom come.

Blessing creator and giver created all things, accept my humble offering. All I have when I was changed to greet and pride, type destined just to die.

You show me this to grow my faith, all I have is yours, the more I give, the less I need I learn that you provide for me. Twas blind to this, but now I see all I have is yours. All I have is your kingdom come, your will be done.

All I have is yours, your finish that you gone, all I have is yours that you would use the gifts I bring in service to the coming king his reason now to praise and sing.

All I have is yours, that again, all I have, all I have all is yours.

This morning we will confess our faith using a catechism for Christian growth. In this question and answer, we'll confess how we are justified before God. So here's the question. How is it that we are justified before God? And together by grace, God proclaims our sins forgiven and credits Christ's righteousness to us. This happens the moment we repent and believe through our union with Christ. Amen. What a great truth that we have just proclaimed that we are justified before God because of his grace.

All the stains below we have judged sons and daughters for the sin that is our old. May we now forgive each other and lay down our store forgive us through the blood of Christ. We are forgiven. Forgive us for our love and the things we wish to forsake the things of God.

We do not the world so we find a greatest treasure in you. Forgive through the blood of Christ.

Forgiven.

Forgive.

We are forgiven. Lord forgive. Lord, forgive us for our shame. When we can release the past, when we're quick to take the blame.

We avoid your sons and daughters. For the fear we don't belong. Give us eyes to see each other through your own. Forgive. Forgive.

God forgive. Forgive. Forgive. Through the blood of Christ. We are forgiven. Good morning, everyone. Today's uh confession of sin reminds us that through his mercy our transgressions are washed away so that we can be with our Heavenly Father again. So together let us say, Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out our transgressions, wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin. Then we will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

O Lord, open our lips, and our mouths will declare your praise. Amen. Please be seated, and let us take in a time of silent confession of sin.

By faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Today's prayer topic is one that is a continual one for all of us. I was reminded this week of how important it is for us to encourage those who are studying in the Word, so and who do not know Christ, but want to know Him or understanding Him, and that they need salvation. We all have somebody like that in our lives who we're sharing the Word with or want to share the Word with, share the gospel message. And the Lord is either working in them or hasn't changed their perspective yet, hasn't changed their heart. So let us pray for them. Pray for those people. Pray for the people that you know of in our families, in our work groups, uh, friends that you you look at and you're like, I want them to know who God is, to be saved by the work of Jesus Christ.

Those are the people that we're praying for at this moment that are in your thoughts. Um and just really truly just ask God to work in their lives. So let's pray.

Not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus.

And Lord, we pray for the movement of the Holy Spirit in us to share and be bold and to be faithful, disciples, examples of who you are. Bless those friends, family members, coworkers, and even strangers. When the opportunity arises, Lord, may we seize it, may we take it, may we be so bold, Lord, may we be so impassioned, Father, for the sake of your kingdom to be faithful stewards of just this message. We pray, Lord, that you bless each and one of these members, Lord, as we go out, um, that we don't just share or hold on to something so precious, Father. And Lord, that this was something that we truly are inspired each day that we make it a point, Father, to do your work. So, Lord, we ask for blessing.

We ask for uh just your hand up to be upon us this week. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Children, before you're dismissed, I I I just got note of something. Um we hit the lights, sorry. Um, so uh uh, I think teacher Tiffany is locked out of the children's ministry classroom, and I can kind of see her face. She looks her face is pouting. Um, help her kids find a way uh in. There are some clues in the yard, and that is where you will begin. So, children, head over to the yard. You're gonna go look for some clues, and you're gonna help teacher Tiffany find a way into the classroom. Have a good Sunday school. And while they are ushering their way out, uh let's go over some announcements. Uh very soon, only in a few weeks now.

Uh, Pastor Peter's installation service is gonna be October 13th at 5 p.m. We're gonna be having it in the KPC Sanctuary. Um, please, if you have people that you want to invite, just let us know. Uh, we're gonna be just planning um for 150 to 200 people. Uh children's ministry, uh, the new schedule was released last week. Uh, if you uh can go and take a look at the schedule, see where your name is, and also cross-check it against your calendar so you know when uh the date is. If you cannot do it, please find a replacement and help uh children's ministry. Um just uh with uh help stuff with scheduling. Uh an offering options are Zell Vemo Cash and Check, Pastor Masson to uh get a chance to look at the book of James again, but just before I do that, we've been talking about how to have friendship with God the last few weeks, and this is kind of just part three in that, but I would say uh I had I had lunch with uh Pastor Peter on Monday, and and uh after I we spent three hours and we thought, well, we better wrap it up here.

They're gonna they're gonna charge us booth rent, you know, at the at the restaurant. Uh and so he came up. Uh I drove uh down to Santa Clarita and he came up. Actually, and this is what's exciting to me. Um he's such a uh godly man and is so anxious to be your pastor, and so he left orange uh on that Monday uh uh at 4 15 in the morning so he could get up past the traffic in LA to have breakfast with Howard, and then he was around the morning time so he could have lunch with me, and so he wants to be uh he has a shepherd's heart, and he wants to be your pastor, you know. If there's anything you look for in a pastor, uh it's a couple of things uh that he that he found faithful and faithful to especially to the word of God, and boy, he is, and that he wants to shepherd people, and then he's not just here to hey, I'm uh here to preach, and I'm your preacher, I'm your pastor, and and I don't want anything to do with you kind of thing.

He's wanting to be with you, and so I pray that uh I said to him, you know, I I kind of like to get pictures, and so and I almost forgot we walked out of the restaurant and he says, Hey, let's take that picture now. I said, Oh, great idea. And then I uh I had the picture and I get a note from him later that day. Hey, can you send me a copy of that picture? And then last night, I get a note from him. He says, Hey, I'm I'm praying for you for the service tomorrow. And so his heart is right there. And if you have prayer concerns in your life, and with your kids, put them in touch with this guy, because he'll be really encouraging to you. So let's jump back uh to James chapter four. This is all the further I'm gonna get to go with you in the book of James out of the five chapters, but we talked about how to have friendship with God.

These are actually ten commands. Remember in the book of James, there are more commands, more imperatives in the book of James than any other percentage-wise than any other New Testament book. We know the old Testament ten commands. This is kind of the New Testament ten commands all in one place. And but let me let me say this. When you command your kids to do something, or when somebody commands you to do something, what's the first thing you want to do? When they're making a command, hey, don't throw rocks through this window. What does the kid want to do? He wants to pick up a rock and throw it through the window. And our tendency is to not want to do the commands. But this is how it ties these ten commands, tied into our friendship with God.

So here's what he says in John 14, verse 15. If you love me, you'll what? You'll keep my commandments. Now he's going to give ten commandments. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And he's what he's what he's saying is if you love me, here's what you're going to do. This is John 14, 15. John 14, 21, he says this. The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who does what? Loves me. So do you want to know if you love God? Think about these ten commands. And do you do them? Submit to God. You know, cleanse your hands, sinners. As he goes down through those commands, is that these things that we're doing. When you get to John 15, one chapter later, here's what he says. No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you. So, what he keeps saying is, I want to be your friend. And you tell me you want to be my friend, I'll know if I'm a friend of God. I'll know if I want to be his friend if I do what? Keep his commands. So here's the sermon that we've been looking at the last couple of weeks. You can be a friend of God. Friendship's one of the greatest things we have in this world. You start out as being a friend, and then Phil moved from being a friend to being more than a friend. Because, but it had to start there. You had to have friendship before you could end up with marriage. And God says, look, I want to be your friend. I want, and someday, we as friends of God are going to be married at the marriage of the Lamb.

And we're going to be united with him. We're the pride of Christ. But it has to start out with that friendship. And I already told you, look, there are ten commands in this section of scripture. And he's just going to go down through them. Here are the commands in the scripture. Submit to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God. Cleanse your hands. Purify your hearts. Now we've looked at the first four. Let's look at and purify your hearts. This is what the text says. Draw near to God, and he'll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. And rather than highlight purify your hearts there, I want you to see something before he tells them to purify their hearts.

Look at on the screen. Draw into God, he'll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, and what does he start calling them? Sinners. You double-minded. Can I say this to you? This is the first time. I mean, instead of being really loving and caring and kind, what does he call them? I mean, these are these are his church people. And what's he calling? Sinners and double-minded people. One commentary says it this way. James is bitingly aggressive because up to now he has been courteously referring to these people as brethren. But now, insultingly calls them sinners and double-minded people. I mean, he's going right at them. And what is he saying? Look, as sinners, what do we need to do? Purify. You know?

And so let's go back to the text again. Draw near to God, he'll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and do what? Purify your hearts. Can I say this to you? Just before this, the command was to cleanse your hands, sinners. Got it. Your hands are where? On the outside. And now he's moving to the inside. Let me even say it this way. David says, create God, create uh what? A clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me. It has to do with the heart. Matter of fact, let me drop this in and say, change me from the inside out. That's what he's saying here. He said, I've talked about the outside now. I've talked about your hands. I've talked about how they've hung on to things and how they need to let go.

How to cleanse your hands. But he said, now there are people that seemingly do correct things outside that people can see with their hands. They give with their hands, they serve with their hands, but their hearts aren't with him. And so he says, Cleanse your hands. Oh, and purify your heart, because now I want to get inside. And if I went to the New Testament, Matthew 15, 7 and 8, here's what Jesus says to them. And he goes right at them. Hypocrites. Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said, These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. You know, see what he's saying is this. There are people with their hands, they serve God. With their lips they serve God, but with their hearts, they're far from him.

So now he's really digging deeper into what needs to go on in these Ten Commandments. I want your heart to be exclusively in love with me, is what he's saying. And if you love me, ah, you're my friends. You're going to keep my commands. But if you love the world, you're what? With God. Remember what James calls us? If we're if we're friends of the world, we're enemies of God. That's kind of a scary thing to think. That I would be classified and even thought of, uh, an enemy of God. He said, Look, I want to be your friend. You can be a friend of God. And if you uh follow these commands. And this command is purify your hearts. This is verses 7 and 8 of Matthew 15. If you go just 10 verses later, here's what he says even further.

Don't you realize that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is eliminated? But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart. And this is what defile defiles a man.

What's God want? He wants a pure heart. Something that's clean. My wife could tell you, I enjoy cleaning windows. There aren't many people that say, oh yeah, you know, let's clean some windows. She'll say, hey, you know, can you get the windows? So, you know, when you look at this, these sliding glass doors, man. Uh the first house we had, I mean, I'm old, and this will tell you how old I am. The first house we had, I paid 26,000 for. I bought it before we got married. Okay, wouldn't you like to buy a house for 26,000? Well, just be old like me, you know, and and buy it way back when. And that that house uh actually it was a two-unit upstairs in uh an upstairs unit and the downstairs unit. We rented the downstairs, and and I lived in the upstairs.

I had it before we got married. And so we finally got a house in California that had sliding glass doors. And what a nice patio outside. And so I would love to clean, I love to clean the windows, and and you know, but the windows get dirty real easily, especially we had a three-year-old and a six-year-old. And so, what happens to a window when you have a three-year-old and a six-year-old? Man, their hands are always and they go up against the door. And the way my grandkids now open the doors, they push on the door window and slide it open like this. And everything that's been on their hands, and there's been a lot on their hands, just goes and really makes a mess on the windows.

Uh house, um, I cleaned the windows. You know, they were really messed. I I clean them inside and out, and I'm fixing a barbecue on our back on our back patio, and the doors, I had no idea. The door was so pristine clean that I had a platter of food in my hands, and I go and I go out through the door, and the doors closed, you know, but it was so clean that I go, run right into the door. Listen, God wants our lives clean so people can see Jesus in them. He wants our lives so clean. He says, Purify your heart. Maybe a better illustration is this. I was in Africa preaching, and I I preached on our services, our three services Sunday morning. Another guy and I went to the airport, uh O'Hara Sunday afternoon.

We flew all the way to Africa. It was 21 hours going, 27 hours coming back. But uh we flew out on Sunday after afternoon, we got there on Tuesday, uh, we landed and then drove 10 hours to where the conference was going to be. Um I spoke 15 times from on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So I put I spoke 15 times, and then we flew back uh on Monday. One of the things you don't want to do in Africa is drink their water, unless it's you know, bottled water or something. Our church had given them uh well things to dig wells. So we had given them three three units, we'd shipped them over from here, and so they could dig down and do wells and stuff. But I'm there speaking, and they said to me, uh be just be careful with the water or the fruit, you know, if it's rinsed off with water, uh, you might get something.

And so about Saturday, I spoke at a college graduation, and then that afternoon, right after I'm done speaking, man. It's yeah, all of a sudden I'm I'm starting to feel oh man, I don't feel well. And then that was all Saturday and then Sunday and then Monday. Now I've got to fly back 27 hours on the plane, and my stomach is really because they even say, look, when you take a shower, you know, try to keep water off your face and off your lips, because anything that's in the water is gonna be in where you and so I was so sick. I got back, and I ended up going to the emergency room of the hospital at the hospital, and and I and I sat there for about seven hours, and and they hadn't done anything yet except draw blood, and so it's like uh, and I hadn't had any dinner, and it's like uh 11 o'clock at night.

I said, Look, I'm gonna go home. I'm hungry. I you guys haven't gotten anything. You are you ready to see me now? No, I we don't know how soon we're gonna see you. I said, How can I get the blood draw? They said, come back at 5 30 in the morning. So at 5 30 in the morning, I'm back there. And they said, Oh, we thought you left, so we threw it away. So I listen. When you drink water, you want it to be what? Pure. What does God want with our hearts? Pure. Purify my what? Heart. Sin gets in the way, but I want it to be pure. Let me go back. What does God want? He wants to be a friend, he wants to be my friend, he wants to be your friend. I would say, you guys are friendly with a lot of people.

But if I said to you, tell me who your best friends are. It's going to be different than just people who you're friendly with. One of my best friends died. Oh, probably five years ago now. And we had done tons of stuff together. We'd gone to Israel together. I brought him on a trip out to California when I was working at MBI in Chicago. And I get the call from him. And I look at my phone, and his name pops up on my phone. His name is Barry Olson. I grab the phone and they say, Barry, how are you doing? You know, he's from San Jose, and I'm down in El Valley. Barry, how are you doing? And his wife says, his wife's speaking. And I'm thinking, uh-oh, you know. She says, I needed to get in touch with you.

Barry just passed away. And when when your friends, when your friends, your close friends pass away, I want you to know. Remember that old hymn? What a friend we have in Jesus. You ever sing that hymn? What a friend we have in Jesus. So he wants to be your friend. And he's going to give you commands that can reveal to people and to you that you want to be his friend too. You ever want to be a friend with somebody? And they didn't respond. I reached out to them, but they never reach back. God says, hey, are you willing to reach back? I want to be your friend. Submit to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God. Cleanse your hands. Purify your hearts. Not only put these three together. Be miserable, mourn, and weep.

What? Wait a minute. These are commands. These are not options. And so, how on earth? What does he want? Wait a minute. I can hear somebody saying, wait a minute. I thought he came that we might have life and might have it more abundantly. What's this miserable and mourn and weep stuff? Look at the text. Here's what it says in James 4 9. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. What on earth is he saying there? Why would the Lord say that? By the way, just so you know, uh, let me even give this to you. The King James uh version of the Bible uses the word be afflicted, be afflicted, mourn and weep. The NIV translates it grieve, grieve, mourn and weep.

The new American standard and the Christian standard Bible that we're using is be miserable, mourn and weep. You know, I would say to you, this is the only place in the New Testament that this Greek word is used for be miserable. And you know, let me give you another place where he ties this kind of together. Be miserable, mourn and weep. Can you think of any other passage of scripture that says something about mourning? You got anything that comes? Jesus' longest sermon is the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Three chapters. And in chapter 5, a part of that sermon we have called the, we call them the Beatitudes.

Someone has said it this way: the beatitudes are attitudes that ought to be in your life. And one of the beatitudes is blessed are they who mourn. For they shall be what? Comforted. Did you catch that? Now, why should we mourn? Blessed are they who mourn, they'll be comforted. Well, there are a lot of people that mourn in this world who aren't comforted. So, what kind of mourning is he talking about? What kind of M-O-U-R-N-G? Mourning is he talking about. I'm going to tell you what he's talking about. He wants us to learn to mourn over our sins. Like he mourns over our sins.

If I learn to mourn over my sin like the Lord mourns over my sin, I'll be comforted by him. If I realize that my sin says to him, I don't want to be your friend. My sin is against him. And he's wanting me to repent. So what does he call them in this text? Sinners and double-minded people. And he's saying to them, look, be miserable. May your sin cause you misery. And may you learn to mourn and weep over your sin like God mourns and weeps over your sin. So that you'll say to him, Oh, I want to repent. I want to be your friend. I want to obey your commands. Let me slide that down. I'm going to put it here in the New Living Translation. I've already told you once before, but let me just quickly throw it out.

Remember the living Bible that was written years ago, translated, uh not paraphrased years ago. It wasn't a translation at first. I told you that the guy used to work at Moody Bible Institute. He had eight kids. And so remember the oldest was 16 and the youngest was like two, and they would have devotionals. And so he would paraphrase the scripture every day on his way to work. And then when he got home at night, he would have the Bible time with his kids, and he wanted to put it down so the 16-year-old and the youngest could hear and understand it. So look at, he says, be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Look at the new living translation.

Let there be tears for what you have done.

And by the way, this is a translation now. They upped it from just this paraphrase to saying, what is the Greek say here? New Living Translation. But again, if you want to get the most literal, you're going to go with the New American Standard or a real tight translation. But a real tight translation might not give you as an American understanding of where the text is going. So what does he say? Let there be tears for what you've done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, gloom instead of joy. Because what did David pray after he committed sin of Bathsheba? Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Because I'm in grief over my sin. Let me give you some, like Luke 22, verse 62.

Peter has just denied the Lord. Look at what he did. And Peter went outside and did what? He wept bitterly. He's just denied the Lord three times, and he's heard the rooster crow. And he knew, oh, the Lord said this was going to happen. And he wept bitterly. Let me give you another example. 1 Corinthians 5 1. It is wisely widely reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And the kind of sexual immorality that is not even tolerated among unsaved people, the Gentiles. A man is living with his father's wife. So his father, I don't know if his mother has passed away and his father remarried, so it's now his stepmom. So here's a guy having sexual relationships with his stepmom. And he's a part of the Corinthian church.

The text goes on. And you are inflated with pride because you are inclusive. Let's be inclusive. Everybody, you know, whether it's the sin of adultery or the sin of homosexuality, or the sin of, oh, let's all be inclusive. What's interesting to me is everybody wants inclusivity except when it comes to Christians. They don't want, they don't want Christianity to be inclusive in their stuff because it has standards and moral standards and goes against what they're believing. So he says, You are inflated with pride. Oh, hey, we're we're big people. We can accept them. They're in the church. Now God says, no, that's not what you should be doing. Instead of filled with grief, so that he who has committed this act might be removed from your congregation.

Here's a standard. This is 1 Corinthians 5. In 2 Corinthians 7, he says it this way. For godly grief produces repentance. So what does he say in his one of his commands and three of the commands? Be miserable and weep and mourn. Because you're sinners. You're double-minded people. And that's where he went with these people, these 12 tribes that are scattered abroad. Let me take you back here. He wants to be your friend, right? And if he wants to be your friend, he's going to give you some commands that you can follow and obey. Here they are. Submit to God, resist the devil, draw near to God, cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, be miserable, mourn and weep. Humble yourself. Don't criticize one another.

These are all ten of them. Let's look at this one. Humble yourself. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will do what? Exalt you.

In this passage of Scripture, you ever heard of somebody that jokingly says, I'm I'm I'm humble and proud of it. You know, nobody's humble and proud of it. They're just humble. They're broken and contrite in heart. But let me give you the entire text here, starting with verse 6, all the way to verse 10. And what do you see there? God resists what kind of people? Proud people. But what do we tell people all the time? You know? Hey, have some pride in your heritage. You know, you were born in this. Have some pride. Be proud about this. God says, look, he resists proud, the proud, but gives gives what? Gives grace to what kind of people? Humble. What's interesting about these ten commands? It's like a bookend.

You ever seen books on a desk? And here are the books all lined up. And on each end of the books, you have what? Bookends. And this text is almost set up like bookends. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he'll flee from you. Draw near to God, he'll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded, be miserable, mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourself before the Lord. So what's he do? He just takes these bookends and says, Look, you're never going to be able to do this unless you humble yourself before the Lord. You see, people that aren't humble, people that are proud think they don't need God.

They're good enough. I can do this. I can do this. You know, even even if a pastor thinks that he can preach, listen, the only thing that we can preach is the word of God with power. That's what's going to change people's hearts and lives. Not somebody that thinks, wow, I'm articulate. I can, oh, I could preach really well. Nah. It's not your capability that's going to change hearts and lives. It's the word of God and the Spirit of God, applying the Word of God to the people who need God. And change these place. What is he saying here? Look, here's the Greek word that's used. This is there's no English word that I can just put from this Greek word. A lot of times, and you've heard me as we've gone through the book of James, I say, here's the Greek word, and here's the English word that comes right from it.

There isn't one here, but let me slide it up and show you what it means. Humble. To have a modest opinion of oneself. I know a guy that he jokingly says this, but I know a guy that when he's done preaching, I might say to him, How'd it go? He says, Oh, friend swam again, you know, and the bases were loaded, and I hit the you know the ball out of the park, and and every time I talk to him, it's oh, that sermon was terrific. Ah, yeah, it was a ball of the park. And you know what I want to hear the word of God from pastors who realize they don't have much to give, but they have a lot from the word of God. It's not my talent that's gonna keep you your attentiveness, it's not my talent that's gonna help you understand God's word more.

It's the Holy Spirit that's gonna apply the word of God to your hearts and lives. And some weeks you're gonna come in and you're gonna hear me or Pastor Peter or any other pastor, and they're gonna preach, and you're gonna say, Man, I didn't get anything out of that. I there have been times though that when I preached, people have come up and said, Wow, that really fucked my heart. Oh, that's good. What part? And they'll tell me what part fucked up their hearts, and I haven't even spoken on that part. Do you get it? Do you get what I'm saying there? It's the Holy Spirit that's speaking to their hearts, and and I go, I didn't want to say to them, oh, that's interesting. I didn't even say anything about that.

You know? But what happens is as they're sitting there listening, the Holy Spirit is speaking to their hearts as well, and they're thinking of things that I'm not even saying, and they've kind of blended it together, and they walk away saying, Boy, that's what I need to do. And so what did he say? Be humble. Have a modest opinion about yourselves. You're not the greatest preacher in the world. Jesus was the greatest preacher. Let me give you another one. Humble to behave in an unassuming manner. I don't assume that I'm great, or don't assume that you're great, or that way that we have the answers for people. It's in an unassuming manner. Let me give you one more. To be devoid of haughtiness.

You ever seen somebody that's puffed up and proud and haughty? Man, they they're they're God's gift, you know. You you've even seen this in some guys. They think they're God's gift to women, and they're not. Women are God's gift to us. Saul was a good example, or David was a good example of this. Saul was against David at times. And here's what the text says in 1 Samuel. Saul's servants reported these words directly to David, but David replied, Is it trivial in your sight to become the king's son-in-law? Remember, if you're gonna fight Goliath, he could marry the king's daughter. And his family would be tax-free in Israel. And so now he's going to marry the king's daughter. Look at what he says.

I'm a poor man who is what? Common. He wasn't proud of and braggadocious about things. It was just common. He was just, look, what I have came from God. I'm a little shepherd boy. And I happen to be able to throw rocks pretty well with a slingshot. And I just happened to be there when Goliath. And by the way, God directed the stone. God gave the victory. The battle belongs to the Lord is what scripture says. In Matthew 18, verses 1 and 2, it says this. At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, Who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Then he called a child to him and had that child stand among them. I assure you, he said, unless you are converted and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Do you get that? He's saying, I want you to be childlike. Now, let me drop this on the screen so you see this for sure. He wants you to be childlike, not childish. You see, you know the difference, right? If you're childlike, you know what your kids do? You've disciplined them, they've cried. And later on, they're willing to do what? Hug you, kiss you, think you're the terrific, you know, parent. But you discipline them. But childlikeness, it just reaches out, wants to jump in your arms. Because they trust, they have faith that you're going to catch them. But if you're childish, you know what happens when childs and they fight over the toys and they do crazy things, and you say, Don't do that.

He said, I want you to be humble like this child. Let me take you to Luke chapter 18. You've read this story before. Two people go up to the temple to pray. Two men went up to the temple complex to pray. One a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood, took his hand, took his stand, and was praying like this. God, I thank you that I'm not like other people. Greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I get. But the tax collector standing afar off would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his chest and saying, God, turn your wrath from me, a sinner. I tell you, Jesus said, This one went down to his house, saved, justified rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

What does he say? One of the commands, be humble. Don't think you're God's gift to the rest of the world.

And if we can do anything, I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. But if I can do anything, it's because of God who lives in me. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure, so that if I love my wife like I'm supposed to love my wife, it's God loving through me. If I am obedient to God, if I'm humble, then God, it's God working through me. Jesus was this way as well. Philippians 2, verse 5. Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, who existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for his own advantage. Instead, Jesus emptied himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of humanity.

And when he had come as a man in his external form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on the cross. Can you imagine? Here's the God of the universe. And he did what to himself? He humbled himself. Can I drop this in and say he is not commanding us to do anything that he himself was not willing to do? So you married guys that are here. And the newest married guy here. What do we do? You don't demand anything from your wife. If you're obedient to the Lord, you humble yourself, and you love your wife like Christ loved the church, you know, things are going to go really well.

If you become prideful and think you're the boss, things aren't going to go well. You know this guy. You know this guy? Raise your hand if you know this guy. Okay. This was Coach Wooden, who was the coach of UCLA. He said there's a difference between excitement and bragging. You win a game, you're excited. But you don't go and put the other team down. But here's what he says about being humble. John, as John Wooden, a legendary basketball coach said, talent is God given. Therefore, be humble. The talent you have, where'd you get it? Came from God.

And some people can sing, some people can speak, some people can cook, some people can talent is given by God. Be humble. The second thing he says is this fame is man given. Ah, be grateful. You know, if you have some wonderful accolade given to you as a as a police officer, as a school teacher, as someone that serves in some way, uh, be grateful. Let me give you the third thing he says. Conceit, conceited people, conceit is self-given. If somebody's conceited, you know, they think they're whatever. He said, conceit is self-given, so be careful. Talent is God given, be humble. Fame is man given, be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. You know this guy at all. I would hardly know him, too, but uh, but I looked him up.

You know what's interesting? Humility. If you're, if you see people that you think aren't as good as you, you kind of look down on them, and you think uh, you know, things aren't as they should be. Let me give you the background of this guy. In 1884. Got the year? 1884. A couple years ago. 1884, a young man died. He was 15 years old and died of typhoid fever on a trip to Italy. In 1884, if you're doing a trip to Italy, you probably come from a family that has something. But this guy doesn't look very impressive, does he? I mean, if you look at him and you think, uh, I mean, he's got a he had a picture taken in 1884 or so.

After the funeral of that 15, his son passed away. Okay, I'll give you that once now. His son was 15, passed away of typhoid fever. After the funeral, his grievants decided to establish a memorial to honor him. With that in mind, they met with Charles William Elliot, the president of Harvard University. So now here are the parents looking kind of poor. Disheveled, not, wow, they're impressive. They met with the president of Harvard. His name was the last name was Elliot. Elliot received the unpretentious couple into his office and asked what he could do for them. After they expressed their desire to fund a memorial in honor of their son, Elliot said, Well, perhaps you have in mind a scholarship.

You know, you're going to give, you know, some scholarship that might be there to reproduce money year after year, something like that. The wife spoke up and said, we were thinking of something more substantial than that. Perhaps a building. Elliot dismissed the couple after assuming they did not have much to offer. He brushed aside the idea as being too expensive, and the couple departed. The next year, the president of Harvard, Elliot, learned that this plain-looking couple had gone elsewhere and established a memorial named Leland Stanford Junior University.

Better known today as Stanford. They gave 26 million dollars in 1884. You know, you want to know what that's worth today. According to the internet, chat GPT, 26 million dollars in 1884 would be worth approximately one point eight seven billion dollars today. And the president of Harvard turned them away because they didn't have much to offer. You see, they came in as humble people, even though they had everything. The dad made his money establishing railroads throughout the West. He eventually became one of the senators in the United States. He had something to offer. But sometimes we look at people and we we aren't humble with them.

We think we have something to offer them. And what is he saying? Look, I want you to be humble. This guy's name is Leland Stanford, of which Stanford University became part of.

I mean, here's the God of the universe. He designed it all. He sustains it all. And you think you have something to offer him. Look, he wants us to be humble before him. You can be a friend of God. These are the commands that reveal whether you're a friend of God. Submit to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God. Cleanse your hands. Purify your hearts. Be miserable, mourn and weep. Be humble. And the last one, oh, don't criticize one another. Did you catch that? All of a sudden it moves from all about, you know, to other people, you know. Don't criticize one another. The text says it this way. Don't criticize one another, brothers and sisters. Anyone who defames and judges, a fellow believer defames and judges the law.

Let me let me quickly say it this way. When you think of the the laws that God gave, there are ten there, we had Ten Commandments in the Old Testament, right? We call it that way. But there are over 600 commands in the Old Testament. But ten of them are kind of, you know, the Lord gave them to Moses. Of all those commands, 600 of them, all of them can be summarized. Remember when they said to Jesus, what's the what's the greatest command? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And the second command is kind of like it love your neighbor as what? Yourself. Because see, if I love my neighbor as myself, I won't commit adultery with my neighbor's spouse.

I won't steal from my neighbor, I won't kill my neighbor, I won't covet my neighbor. He said, look, I'm gonna reduce it down to just love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and your neighbor is yourself. But he says, if you're gonna go after your neighbor, you're gonna defame and judge the law. Here's what the Greek word is uh kata lalao uh for uh criticize. Let me slide it up here and divide it. Kata uh means against, and lelao means to speak. So what is he saying? Uh don't speak against or don't speak and leave oh and another one I had wasn't that one. I'm gonna back this up just a second here. Don't speak against any person that uh is a brother in Christ.

I showed you um Coach Wooden before. Coach wouldn't just so you know, not given the school, but Coach Wooden won more championships than any other men's college basketball coach in history. Came from Indiana, little bitty town, you know, but he became the winningest national champion, coach for the men's basketball in history. Here's what he says when he talked to his team. And by the way, Coach Wooden was a believer. One of the guys in our church in Palmdale became his very best friend. He would take guys from our church down to have breakfast with Coach Wooden. And so here's here's what Coach Wooden says. And another one I had was not one word of profanity, one word of profanity, and you you're uh out of here for the day.

If I see it in a game, you're probably come out and sit on the bench. And the third one was uh never criticize a teammate. I didn't want that. I used to tell him I was paid to do that. That's my job. I'm paid to do it. Pitifully poor, but I am paid to do it. Not like the coaches today, for gracious sakes. No. It's a little different than it was in my day. I don't know if you know. I mean, he he made in the 30s and 40,000, you know, a year. And coaches today are uh and he won more champions than any other coach. But coaches today are 300, 500,000 or more, you know. And that's why he said, I was paid pitifully poor, but I was paid. But he was just a humble man. And when he passed away, uh, his funeral, thousands and thousands and thousands of people came.

He was just a humble man. So what does he say there? Don't speak against, don't criticize your brother, don't speak falsely against anybody. Now there are times, you know, somebody's in sin. You you go to them and you have one on one. And if they refuse to listen, then you take another brother, you know, with you. So you you can speak, but don't speak falsely against them, don't criticize them. So here's the text. Don't criticize one another, for it's going to defame and judges the law. And God says, look, I'm going to go back to James 2 here and tell you what it says. Indeed, if you keep the royal law prescribed in Scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing well. He calls that the royal law.

And that's why he said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Because James quotes that as well. Love your neighbor as yourself. In Numbers 21, they were speaking against Moses. Here's what it says the people spoke against God and Moses. Why have you led us from Egypt to die in the wilderness? God says, No, you're not going to get away with that. Numbers 21, 7, it says, the people then came to Moses and said, We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede for us. Look, God wants to be your friend. Are you a friend of God? Here's where he's going. Submit to God. Resist the devil.

You know, can I say it this way? Some of these are almost coupled, coupled together. You see, if I resist the devil, I do that by drawing close to God. Because as I get close to God, I move away from the devil. He says, God, cleanse your hands, but just don't, it's not just outwardly. I want you to do it inwardly. So he's giving you these commands to show that you're a friend of God. And so as I wrap up my last sermon with you, and these ten commandments, earlier this summer when we were at the park, I taught you the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament. Remember? He's number one, no other gods before him. You probably still remember the eighth commandment, and I did it with my hands and I made the number eight.

And I said, if you break this command, you'll probably get these handcuffs. And so I taught you that command. Now I'm teaching you these commandments. And the question I have is, are you in love with Jesus? If you are, you will keep his commands. Let's pray together, shall we? Heavenly Father, I'm praying that right now you'll move us to be friends, friends with you, to not hesitate, to not hesitate to obey your commands. Help me to leave here today, help our your people to leave here today more in love with you today than they were yesterday. But can I even pray this father? Maybe be more in love with you today than yesterday, but less than they'll love you tomorrow.

Help them to grow in their love for you. Help us to look at these commands and be obedient. Father, right now we want to submit ourselves to you. We want to obey that very first command that is listed in our text. Help us to submit to you. Help us to draw near to you. Help us to resist the devil. Help us to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. Ready us, even today, to take communion. To draw close to you. And to express that you're the best friend we have. Help us to be a friend back with you. For it in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Amen.

Just as we've been encouraged to do so, humble ourselves before the Lord. May we sing this next song as a prayer to him that we would kneel before our master and maker and submit our lives to him. So let's sing together.

Before you I knew my master need to offer the work of my hands.

For your goodness to come with my hands for patience and peace to save all my way.

And all glory to your name. And all glory to your grace. Amen. You may be seated. As we ready our hearts to take communion, I would say a couple of things. Our communion service is an open communion. You don't have to be a member here. You have to be a person that's in love with Jesus and has trusted him as Savior and Lord. When we take communion here, if you desire to take communion, we actually have you come forward and take it and go back to your seats. And then we participate together. We would say, we take it in kind of unison. So we all take it at the same time.

Here's what God's word says. For I receive from the Lord what I also passed on to you. On the night when Jesus was betrayed.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Also, he took the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So then, whoever eats and drinks the cup of the Lord, the bread and cup or cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself. In this way, let him eat the bread and drink the cup.

It's not my job to examine you or your job to examine your spouse. But for you to just say, Lord, here's where my heart is. Would you purify my heart like we talked about in Scripture today? Let's go to God in prayer. You examine your hearts before the Lord.

We would admit, we've confessed it in the service that we're sinners. We've individually confessed our sins to you. Thank you that you forgive us from all unrighteousness. Ready us now to see your body and blood and what you did for us on the cross. Bless this bread and bless this cup, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.

The Lord's Supper as you place the bread in your hands.

Let's be keenly aware that doing this does not save us. It looks back to what Jesus did that makes our salvation possible. He gave his body and blood for us. And he said, This is my body, which is for you. Eat of it. Scripture says in the same way he took the cup. And he blessed it, and he said, This cup is my blood, which was shed for you. Do this. As often as you want, but do it in remembrance.

He shed his blood so that we could have forgiveness.

Phil, do you have the other mic? I I'm gonna have I'm gonna have Phil uh bring his bride up and just have him so that everybody gets a chance to rejoice with him on Friday night. Can you Phil, you want to come up here? And just to rejoice with them. Uh we're we're thrilled that you have taken time to worship the Lord. Um just two days after you have united in marriage, and just uh just uh share a little bit about your bride so that everybody knows for sure. Uh yeah. Well, tell them all about that. I don't even know where to start. Well, then I'll say the best way to start is you love her and you're gonna spend a lifetime with her, and you uh we are praying for you as you um begin marriage together.

We're thrilled that you've taken the time to be here today. I'm gonna ask that we close a prayer and let's ask God's blessing on them and their marriage. Oh, Father, we're so thrilled to have believers that are committed to you, and we pray your blessing now on their marriage and their life together. Father, may they uh have the joy of a lifetime together. Would you continue to bless them and uh as they uh spend time and honeymoon together, may it be just blessed by you. Thank you that they have um said to you that you are the priority in being here today, and we pray your blessing on them, and we pray, Father, that you've blessed now this congregation. Thank you for the privilege that I've had to uh be here these last uh several months, and now to pray that Pastor Chung and Becky and their kids, oh Father, we want to ready our hearts for when they come.

Use them here to grow this church to reach more people for you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Have a good week. God bless.