Rookie Mistakes Series: #3 Purity Before Peace (Part B)

People that are afflicted and corrected by truth are the recipients of grace.

But a stiff-necked people must be humbled in order to be saved or they suffer judgment. Truth hurts. Conviction hurts. That they were to convict. You're guilty. It hurts.

But here's the solution. Romans chapter 8. For to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through a series called Rookie Mistakes.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick continues his message called Peace Before Purity in James chapter 3. Paul, of course, mastered doing that simply because he kept purity ahead of peace, all of his ministry. And so hypocrisy for the sake of peace, amateur, amateur, rookie mistake, don't do it. And yet I know in this church there have been many over the years that have made this very mistake. Well, how are we going to reach them, Pastor, if we don't compromise?

Well, hopefully I'll get to some of that in a moment. Our Lord, our Christ, and you know, just incidentally, I'm never really comfortable with referring to him as just Jesus. He is the Lord Jesus. He is the Christ.

I mean, I'm not laying that on you and say you have to do it my way, but I've just noticed that over the years. He's more than just Jesus. Well, anyway, when he dined with a tax collector, an outcast even, he did not compromise with him, nor did he slam him. He just remained pure in his presence, so much so that over dinner, Zacchaeus converted, submitted to the Christ, repented and conformed to the Lord, reshaping his own life. He kept, our Lord did, purity in the forefront. The entire life of our Lord is characterized by purity.

That's why we love him so. You read them in the Gospels, you just say, yes, this is the one person that has it together. You know, we find heroes as people go in our lives, people we look up to and admire, and that's good. We need them. You younger Christians, you should have such people in your life that you can look up to and say, I want to be like that man, or I want to be like that woman, a righteous man, a virtuous woman. There's no substitute for it. And we older saints, we should be working, and it ain't easy, because we still have a carnal nature.

We're working so that others can just say that very thing. I don't want to be a cranky old man, unless it serves my purpose. Holiness, purity is very attractive. It is attractive to all of us. Not a single born again believer, I believe, does not treat holiness as something that's unimportant.

We love it. We have, outside the sanctuary, holiness to the Lord. It's in the Scripture, it is scriptural.

Moses and Joshua and those moments in their life when they're told by the Lord, take the sandals off your feet, the ground you stand upon is holy. We are attracted to that. We're drawn to it.

I want some of that. Peter and Paul and John, when John falls down before the Lord in Revelation as though he had died, and the Lord puts his hands on him and encourages him and strengthens him, we are attracted to this. All of those men and women in Scripture who loved holiness went forward to serve gallantly, and that's why their stories are retold to us and preserved in writing in God's Word. To keep purity before peace, we have to accept holiness.

We have to understand enough of it, its value, how essential it is, even though we are not. Now, again, you see Joshua and Moses standing before the Lord, taking their sandals off their feet in His presence. Our feet must remain shod in the presence of unholiness.

We do not take our sandals off. We bear the armor of Christ, as Paul talked about in Ephesians 6. We have to guard against lovelessness. The Scripture says that because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. Make sure that's not you and me. We have no excuse to be loveless.

That is a natural reaction. The Scripture is saying lawlessness is coming on such a level, it's going to be almost impossible to love anybody. How can you love someone who is so evil? Evil is not only human. There is a contributor, an unseen sponsor of evil.

It is the underworld. Human beings are sinful, yes, and they can do evil things. But that evil and the capacity for humans to hold evil is supersized by hell, demonic activity. This is one of the lessons with the pigs running off the cliff.

One man could hold more demons than 2,000 pigs. We have the capacity for evil, but we have the capacity for righteousness and truth and endurance. I don't like the word endurance.

I liked it more before I became a Christian. Before I became a Christian, the word endurance belonged on a marathon or something, you know, a forced march. But as a Christian, it's to be everywhere in our lives, to endure, to take the pain and continue to be obedient in the process as best we can. So we keep our feet shod with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of faith and the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness, the sword. We retain these things, and if we don't, we begin reading the wrong materials, listening to the wrong sermons, posting the wrong things, and we begin to put chumminess with each other ahead of purity. Holiness is active.

It reminds us that God, if not we, has it together all the time, that God is not fumbling through anything, that He is self-existent, self-glorious, and worthy of it, and we are attracted to that. So anything less, when we begin to compromise and turn our back on the value of holiness, we introduce leaven, or here's a better word that might strike a little bit closer to the damage that leaven will cause on a spiritual plane, rot. It's okay in bread. It's not okay in theology. It's not okay in the Christian walk.

I'll give you an example of corruption over that which is good. You're at a party celebrating one of my sermons. It happens. I just find that the stupidest thing in the world. That's why I keep doing it. I can't help it. Anyway, and over the punch bowl, someone sneezes. I'm in a real big sneeze.

It could be a little sneeze. I'm not drinking any of that punch. I'll drag a water fountain.

I'll just be parched. But I'm not going to have any of that punch because something has been added to it I'm really not fond of. That's the kind of sensory perception we need. Spiritual sensors need to go off. Alarms need to blow. This is an impurity that cannot be sidestepped.

There are times we have to be flexible and understand the environment that we're working in. The apostles did that. Remember the gal that went before and Philippi Paul? These are the ones that bring us the gospel. Everything she was saying was true, but the source was corrupted. And if the source gets to be a credible witness, you got a big problem if they're not a credible witness.

Paul put the kibosh on that when he realized what was going on. This person is leavening our message. She's cheapening our message. I guess you could say that when you have unauthorized distributors. The manufacturer, the original manufacturer, he doesn't appreciate unauthorized distributors distributing his product even if he's making money because a problem is committed of integrity.

It breaks down. So it is with Christ. It's okay to compromise over dinner, not doctrine. And again, Jesus, our Lord, he helped the sick. He ministered to those who were ignorant, sinful, and he did it successfully without ever appeasing anyone, without ever sacrificing purity. Do you know, and I've said this I think a few weeks ago, and I make that statement so you don't think I'm getting senile yet, but a church is often better off without some people. God filters them out. That's why the book of Acts tells us he adds to the church daily such as those of being saved. I don't know who belongs in the church and who doesn't until he makes that clear.

That's his work. Just like in heaven. Do you know heaven is better off without Satan?

That's an easy one. Now that doesn't mean that those people that the church is better off without are all problematic and doomed and going to hell, but it is a timing issue and God reigns over that. Ecumenicism mocks Jesus' words, narrow is the way, and there are few who find it. They scoff at that. They think they know better. They want peace to be first, purity to be somewhere else. There is no such thing as peace for the Christian without purity.

You say, well, how will we save them? That is a rookie question that goes along with the rookie mistake. It reveals that you think you know better. You think that you can edit, redact God's word. Luke's Gospel chapter 6 verse 26, woe to you when all men speak well of you.

So did their fathers to the false prophets. Now if they're speaking harshly against you and it is because you are wrong and doing what needs to be rebuked, that's one thing. But if you're not, if you're doing what is right and people don't like it, oh, that's just the way it is. Look at our nation. This nation's the wildfire of corruption, of corruption of morality, the indecency, the dishonor, the injustices that are taking place. It's because people were appeasing earlier on instead of stepping up. Churches should have been saying no.

It's no secret if Hillary Clinton were elected, I'd probably be in jail by now because this is what they want. And someone's got to have the timing and courage, of course, the discernment and the appointment of the Lord to say these things. And it is not just the pastor. If it is not going on in the trenches, what good is it coming from the pulpit? What good is it if it's preached from the pulpit, it is right, sound, and holy, and it never makes it outside church doors? It is useless. It dies on the vine.

It's got to make it into the fight. And that is why you get verse-by-verse teaching and a topical every now and then. It is the Lord's system.

Unscripted encounters will encounter us, but they're only unscripted to a point because our foundation allows us to confront those things that we are faced with in a biblical way as the saying goes, in some hell or high water. A people that are afflicted and corrected by truth are the recipients of grace. But a stiff-necked people must be humbled in order to be saved or they suffer judgment. Truth hurts. Conviction hurts. That they were to convict. You're guilty. It hurts.

But here's the solution. Romans chapter 8, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Peace of being spiritually minded. The Bible is very clear on this throughout. Hosea chapter 4 verse 17, Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone. Their drink is rebellion. They commit harlotry continually. Her rulers dearly love dishonor. The wind has wrapped her up in its wings and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices. Now again, we're not host to rudely and abrasively go jam the gospel.

We've covered that in rookie mistake number one. Cast not pearl before swine. Do not give what is holy to the dogs. Then we also covered again a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. We're not to hide our Christianity. It should be no secret that we serve the Lord. It was not my intention to keep these in line with evangelical ministry, but that's where the Holy Spirit has put it. I see a pattern has emerged from the first three studies concerning sharing the faith. Let me also point out, if you've been sharing the faith with someone and they've not given their life to Christ, be careful. Number one, that as Jim Elliott said, you do not yank at green fruit.

You have to wait. Otherwise, you commit a rookie mistake there by pulling on something that's not ready to be pulled. Also, don't think that the person you're ministering to or anything Christ is calling you to do is your pet project. It belongs to him. He, as Paul said it this way, one waters, one plants, one waters.

God causes the increase. It's a process there. Where you are in that process, find it, be it, and let the Lord have his way. But if you begin to become possessive and it becomes, again, a hill to die on, you're out of line. Careful what you listen to.

If you're going to listen to other preachers, then your pastor, understand their core doctrines, the core ones, the essentials. That will tell you where they're coming from. Authors, the same thing. The problem if you're a voracious reader is after a while you run out of good stuff to read, you start reading junk. And you're taking into your body these impurities, these additives that don't belong there, and then you become defensive over it when someone points it out. And the one that's pointing it out is looking for purity.

Before peace, what will your response be? Don't make, you know, rookie mistakes get easier once you commit them. It's a basic and you violate it. The next time if you are confronted with, you do it again, it gets easier and easier until you begin to say, you know what, I about had it with this.

Now if you say, but I'm weak and I struggle, okay, that's better than being ignorant. Again, Hosea chapter 7, his whole ministry was dealing with a nation making a rookie mistake when it came to their own scripture. He says, Ephraim has mixed himself among the peoples. Ephraim is a cake unturned. They are half-baked in their theology and their faith and their lives before God.

And therefore they are no good. But James does say here, gentle. This wisdom that comes from above, this knowledge, this God participating with us, imparting to us, that comes from above, that's that knowledge from God, divine wisdom.

It is first pure. It looks to make peace, but it is gentle. I must as a Christian be polite, but I must also be obedient at the same time. I must be polite, not disobedient, and this is doable. Being right is not grounds to be harsh or rude. It is not impolite to disagree with someone, even if they think it is. That's actually an opportunity for you to tell them, you know, it's not impolite of me to disagree with you. It would be impolite of me to my God to sit here and hear this nonsense spewing out of your mouth.

Well, I mean, if the opportunity rises where you can say it like that, go for it. You know, the more you share your faith, the more in tune, more sensitive you become to the Holy Spirit. I'm not talking about just sharing your faith with people in your family or your loved ones or people you're comfortable with. I mean sharing your faith when the Lord opens the door. Christianity has a repelling and an attractive power at the same time.

We have to understand that. It's okay to repel those who will not receive it. When Demetrius was incensed at Paul casting out a demon at that lass that was preaching the gospel before them in an unauthorized way, he was repelled.

He doubled down against the apostle in the preaching of the gospel. You'll have that. You'll have those that will be just no way to deal with them. Well, there's more. There are more people. There are other people out there. Don't get sidetracked with that.

Don't get caught up on that. But because some of our brothers and sisters are afraid to hurt the harmful teachings of those in their circles with the truth, they withhold the truth and try to make up for it under the guise of keeping the peace. Well, blessed are the peacemakers. Abigail, the great peacemaker, one of the greatest peacemakers in the Bible.

But at no point was Abigail leavened in her approach. Some churchgoers, again, rather offend God than visitors or fellow attendees. Anyone, they rather offend than stand by the truth. John's gospel, chapter 7, Jesus speaking, The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Remember that time when the apostles asked the Lord to tone it down? He was offending the Pharisees. What did the Lord do?

He ramped it up. Woe unto you Pharisees. Woe unto you scribes.

And he just lit them up because that is what it was called for. The gospel is not a discussion. It is not a debate. It is an announcement. That's what the gospel is. To make that announcement, you have to have messengers. That's us. And we have to become skilled at delivering the message by being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, having discernment, being able to articulate the fundamentals of our faith.

That's all it takes. A witness tells what they have seen. We're not called to, no offense, be lawyers of the gospel, witnesses. There's a time to, you know, we have a field called apologetics, to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. But our defense is an assault. It is an offensive. We are counter striking when we are on defense.

As I quoted Richard Wambrandt last session on these rookie mistakes, you can't win a war on defense. It is a fundamental of life. There are laws and there are other laws. And these are laws of the rookies that we want to make sure they don't miss. So what alternative is there to peace based on holiness?

What is the alternative? If you don't have peace based on holiness, then you have a peace based on unholiness. Do we ever think of it that way?

I think we should. We must not let our view of God's love blind us to his holiness. We must not let our understanding of his grace make us lawless. Where lawlessness abounds, the love of many will grow cold. Talking about 2 Thessalonians, the lawless one will come.

Antichrist, a name for him is the lawless one. That's not us. It's not to be us. I'm almost done. Don't settle down to a peace at any price because there's no such thing. As I believe it was Shakespeare, the coward dies a thousand deaths. I close with this verse and a comment. Philippians 4-8, worthy of memory or memorization. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just.

Let me back that up. Whatever things are true, that's your first step. Whatever things are noble, that is honorable.

That is higher than dishonor. Whatever things are just as opposed to unjust. Whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report. If there is any virtue, if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. This is not that contemplative meditation where you repeat a word or tap into some spiritual state.

That is anathema. But to meditate for the Christian is to put some thought into it. That's what meditation is, a strong encouragement. Go to bed at night thinking about righteous things if you can. Some of you have the gift of pillow to head sleep.

Me, I'm usually sleeping by about the 450th rollover. Whatever things and according to the scriptures, James says in chapter 2 verse 8 of his own letter that we've read this morning, according to the scripture. So be encouraged.

God wants us pursuing purity. And when you feel that you lack courage and discernment, ask God for it. Don't take it upon yourselves. Don't try to fake it.

That would not be good. We're glad you joined us today to learn how to avoid some rookie mistakes in the faith. Pastor Rick will have more to share next time on Cross Reference Radio, a ministry of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from Pastor Rick or if you'd like more information about this program, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music or your favorite podcast app. What a great way to keep God's word with you wherever you go. We hope you'll tune in again next time as Pastor Rick continues studying through the scriptures, right here on Cross Reference Radio.