More Miles Down A Very Dark Highway - Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. The body of Christ must be unified. By the way, over all the centuries, how has the Christian church done on this?

Oh my goodness. How many denominations are there in Christianity? How many church splits happen in Christianity each year? No unity at all.

Why? We don't see it the way God does. We see it the way we see it.

That's what ends up happening. We go by worldly wisdom, not by divine revelation at all. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. God says that a trial is good for you and for me. That's God's perspective.

A trial. That's why I can consider all joy because it's to help me become more like my Savior and to grow me in my faith. How many times has that thought crossed your mind in the last 17 months? Be honest.

How about this? If we're to consider it all joy, and that's what he says, I'll ask a more penetrating question. How many times in your prayer life have you thanked God for COVID-19? Serious.

How many times did you thank him? Thank you, Lord. I know this is for my good. We don't think like that. You see, we don't like the idea of enduring and that. When we get a trial, all we want is that we want it over.

You see, I want it eliminated. Then I can get back to my happy way. God says, consider it all joy. I mean, all joy, not some joy. In other words, if you thought just like God thinks, when you find yourself in a corporate trial or an individual one, you'd be joyful. You see, you'd be joyful. And one of the reasons I'm joyful is I know that I'm only going to suffer for a little while from God's perspective, even on a terrible prognosis for me. It's just going to be a little while, and I'm going to be forever with the Lord.

See, he sees things from a very different point of view than what we say. So God wants to use this for an opportunity for me to grow. Secondly, I want you to go with me to Philippians chapter two, Philippians chapter two. In verse two. The second thing that God wants you and I to think like and act like during this covid crisis.

The first thing he does, he starts out with some conditions, by the way, that if you don't want to do this. You're really in bad stead when it comes to your relationship with God. He says, therefore, verse one, if there's any encouragement in Christ, is there any encouragement in Christ?

Just imagine saying, no, I don't think there is. I mean, if that makes sense, right, it's first class conditions of assumption, you could translate it since there is encouragement in Christ. If and it's true, if there's any encouragement in Christ, if there's any consolation of love, if there's any fellowship of the Spirit, if any, if any affection and compassion, he said, here's what I want you to do. Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit in ten or one purpose.

What's Paul saying? You and I must be unified. The body of Christ must be unified. By the way, over all the centuries, how is the Christian church done on this?

Oh, my goodness. How many denominations are there in Christianity? How many church splits happen in Christianity each year? No unity at all.

Why? We don't see it the way God does. We see it the way we see it. That's what ends up happening. We go by worldly wisdom, not by divine revelation at all. So he says, let me give you here's the point.

How do I do this? He said, OK, let me show you. Verse three, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. But with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Wow. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also the interest of others.

Wow. How many things can I do from my selfish perspective? None.

None. He says you can't do anything that way or from empty conceit. With humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. How do I regard you as more important than me? I have to humble myself.

Why would I do that? Because God told me to. God told me to humble myself. You see, when it comes to any situation, you're more important than me.

That's what he says. You're more important. That's our brothers and sisters in Christ. Remember, about three weeks ago, I preached in the greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. So I've got to consider not just my brothers and sisters in Christ, but everybody else as more important than I am. Now, you can just see what I find a lot going on in this COVID thing is most of us don't even think about what's happening to other people. No interest in what's happening. This is about me.

These are my choices for me. But he says that's not true. He said, let me give you an example how you should be this way. Have this attitude in yourselves, which is also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. He emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men.

Being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself even further by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. What rights to the Son of God have? What are his rights?

All there is. He's God. He's God incarnate.

He has every right to have every right. He says, yeah, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to humble myself. I'm going to humble myself, but first becoming one of them.

The creature. Then I'm going to humble myself further. I'm going to become a servant of them. And then I'm going to humble myself even further.

I'm going to go and die for them on a cross. You and I can't do that. We can never humble ourselves like that. He said, but that's my example. Now, tell me why you can't humble yourself and think of everybody else is more important than you are. Tell me that. Tell me why you think you're the most important thing here, because you're not.

And notice then what he says is the aftermath for this reason. Also, God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that's above every name. You want to be exalted by God, approved by God. Humble yourself. Consider everybody else is more important than you are. Our interests should be for everyone we know. Everyone that comes our way. My interest is in you. My interest is in your health.

That's my interest here. But we've not done that. So many of us take there's been so much I and me talk.

It's just amazing. Listen, if you really understand Christianity. There is no I and me. In Christianity, there's just us and him. That's my that's my perspective. There's us and there's him, not I and me. I'm amazed that I hear this over and over again. Many people saying no one can tell me what to do.

Wow. I think the Lord and save Jesus Christ can tell you exactly what to do. That doesn't mean you do it. Remember, Jesus said, Why do you call me Lord? And then you don't do what I ask. You see the job descriptions in the name Lord. Lord means he's the Lord. And you're the servant. He said, Why do you call me Lord?

And then you won't do what I ask. So that that's the selfishness right inside of us. So he says God wants us to know that he wants us to love our neighbor and consider everybody else as more important than us. Thirdly, let's go back to First Peter, Chapter two. First Peter, Chapter two. And this gets get more and more difficult for us as we go. Peter speaking verse 13. Submit yourselves.

Now watch for the Lord's sake. Why do I submit myself for the Lord's sake? In other words, my Lord told me to submit myself, so I will for the Lord's sake. He said to every human institution. Wow. He said, whether a king as the one having an authority or the governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right for such as the will of God.

What you submit yourself for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Golly. But not this government, not ours. No, you're right. It's Nero's. Oh, and by the way, Nero crucified Peter upside down. He executed him. And Peter submitted. You see, how do we get into this?

Could it be clear? And why do we have to do this? OK, go with me to Romans Chapter 13. Romans Chapter 13. Paul talking this time, and he gives us the reason.

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. There's no wiggle room here. No, I think I can manipulate this.

You can't. You can defy God and say, I don't care what God says, doesn't matter to me. But be careful with that. He said, why? There is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.

Think of that. There's no authority but God. Remember, why was Nebuchadnezzar on the throne?

God said, I put him there. There's no authority but mine. There is no human authority but mine. So the government we have, God says, yeah, I have authority over that. And by the way, if you study history throughout, you know, very thoroughly from ancient times to the day, I am so grateful for the government we have versus all the other governments that have ever existed in this world. By the way, are human governments usually good and righteous?

In fact, I challenge you to tell many how many were good and righteous. They're pretty terrible. They oppress people. They take advantage of people.

Yeah. He said, that's what I'm telling you. For the Lord's sake, you have to submit to him. But why? Because human government is an institution that I established, God said. Why did you establish human government?

Because of you. We're sinners. If you have no human government, you know what you have? Anarchy, chaos. You have to have a human government.

Sometimes it's dictators and kings and sometimes it's democracy, sometimes it's socialism. We need a human government because we're all sinners. And he said, that's why I want you to submit to it. Now, he never tells us to submit to it when it tells us to sin or submit to us when it tells us to deny God.

Well, we never do that. That's Peter and John saying we have to obey God rather than you. Their job was to proclaim the gospel. They said, we're not going to let you proclaim it. He goes, I'm sorry, we've got to proclaim it. Now, even in that, though, if we were told you can't proclaim the gospel, my view would be I'm still going to proclaim it. And I'm willing to pay the consequence. So if it means I go to jail or it means you get so what?

We're willing to do that. I'm not talking about that. But he said, by and large, he said, your job and my job, I want you to submit to human government. And again, you hear over and over again, not me, not me.

Wow. You're a child of God. Maybe I can do it from another point of view.

The next point I want to make. Go with me to Philippians chapter three. Philippians chapter three.

Paul going through this chapter. And it says in verse 20. An interesting little phrase. For our citizenship is in heaven.

From which we also eagerly wait for the savior of the Lord Jesus Christ. God wants me to believe in my heart that I am a citizen of heaven first and foremost. Let me give you an analogy that maybe I'll make it clear. I am not an American. Who is a Christian? I am a Christian who's an American. They're different.

This isn't secondary. The citizenship that I have is in heaven. That's why Paul says it. The priority of my life is in heaven. The perspective of life that I have comes from heaven. I thank God all the time that I'm an American.

When you think of all the possible places in the world you could have been born at different times, thank God we're in America. I as good a government as has existed in this world. Perfect? Clearly not.

Getting worse? Clearly so. But the point of it is it's a great government. It's a great country.

But it's not my primary idea. And see, and I keep hearing Christians say, My rights! I have my rights! I have my rights!

I'm an American! I have my rights! Well, I'm a citizen of heaven. And just like the Apostle Paul, I'll tell you what my rights are. I'm a doulos of Jesus Christ. I'm his slave.

That's what Paul says. I'm a slave of Jesus Christ. So whatever America talks about has no real ultimate bearing in my life. Only what my Lord talks about. My citizenship primarily, you see, primarily is in heaven. The idea that as an American, that trumps everything and I can assert my rights, you see, my rights, no matter what Jesus said.

It's not true. It ends up with worldly wisdom. It ends up with a wrong perspective of the way you and I should live our lives. So, God wants to use this as an opportunity for you and I to grow. God wants to use this for you and I to demonstrate our love for our neighbor and to consider everybody else as brothers and sisters in Christ more important than us. God wants us to submit to human government and God wants us to believe in our heart and in our mind that we are citizens of heaven first and foremost.

And one last thing. Come with me to Ephesians, the book of Ephesians chapter 4 verse 32. Paul goes through this whole section from verse 17 on.

It's called the Christian's walk. In other words, how should a Christian live? And he goes over all these things and he basically says we're to be angry but not sin. We should tell truth.

All those things are in there. But I just want to look at verse 32. Here's what he says to us. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Wow. Kind, tenderhearted, forgiving. I can't imagine why any church or Christians would split over any issue. We're to forgive each other. Let me ask you something. How has God forgiven you?

That's the how. First of all, tell me how many of your sins did he forgive? How about the ones you've committed today? Forgive.

How about tomorrow? He said that's exactly the way I want you to forgive one another. The same way that I forgive you. So even if you get on sides of these other issues with COVID, some people will even say, but I believe what they're doing is actually sin.

OK. Isn't that what God forgives? See, if it actually is, forgive it.

Just as God in Christ forgave you. But we don't. We use it to set up animosity and tension.

There's no place for it. This covers almost every possible thing we could do. You see, there's no problem with pointing out things that you think are important in someone's life. That's an important part of our life. But ultimately, you see, in a sense, we don't sow discord. We sow forgiveness, one with another. Give each other the grace that God has given you. Those are five things and there's more. That God says these are how you should think as you go down this dark road. You see, as you go down this bad road, start thinking this way.

It gives us an opportunity to live our lives based on what God said. And I don't mean this just as a joke, but I've heard this so many times. You know what many of you are basing your lives on? A YouTube video. I saw a video on YouTube and this is what the guy said and that's what I'm going to hold on to.

Wow. I've never heard anyone say, I was reading the word of God and this is what God says. That doesn't have anything to do with this.

I saw a YouTube video that agrees with me and I love that. There's no place for that for a child of God. That's not the way we operate. You see, as we go through this, this may seem strange, but as we go forward down this road, we should be a people that are full of joy and peace and hope and love. That's who we should be.

It's for our good. I consider everyone else as more important. I'm willing to submit all the in it and out there, they're not like that.

You know what, if we were, somebody out there might ask you, how can you be like this? And now that's the purpose of the church. I can give an account for the hope that's in me. I can tell them what the reality of Jesus Christ means in my life. But my fear is that for many of us, our testimony through COVID is exactly the same as the lost. We just want it over. But it's even got worse now that it's infiltrated the church and has become divisive.

There is just absolutely no place for this. So, for the rest of the journey, I pray you will start filling your hearts and your minds with what God says. And if you do, you'll let him lead you on this journey. And in his sovereign love, he will end this.

But it's completely up to him. And I'm okay with that. And I pray you are too. Let's pray. Father, I am afraid that we've got caught up in the suffering and the fervor. We think so horizontally that we end up coming to conclusions that are absolute denials of what your word says. I confess that, Father.

That's not right. I pray, Father, that I will allow you to speak to me through this. I pray, Father, that I will move from worldly wisdom to divine insight. And getting that, Father, I know it will be for my good. I know it will help the body of Christ. I know it will help our witness in the world. Father, use this time for our good and for your glory.

In Christ's name, Amen. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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