What Makes Us Different, Part 1

Go to countries today where they're struggling to find a man without 15 wives and what that means to that culture.

Where women are commodities, not to be cherished and protected but to be collected and effectively misused if not discarded. The Bible simply records the polygamy of so many Old Testament believers. Keep in mind that just because the Bible reports something doesn't mean the Bible recommends something. One of the common criticisms of God's Word is what Stephen described a moment ago. Because the Bible is honest with us and records the good and the bad of the people it mentions, some assume that the Bible is recommending or allowing those bad behaviors. The reality is that the behavior the Bible actually recommends and commands is holiness. When a person truly lives out the principles of God's Word, they stand out from the way the world typically lives and that's exactly what God's Word has called us to do.

God calls us to live out His Word. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen's calling today's lesson, What Makes Us Different.

In his work, Why Church Matters, the author began one of his chapters with the following true story that came out of his own pastorate. Robert lives in Gilbert, Arizona. He loves life and people and enjoys laughing himself. He's got a good job, faithfully attends our evangelical church, but if you really want to see Robert get excited, ask him about his Jeep. He'd searched for over two years to find just the right yellow and black Wrangler.

It was spotless, he said. It was gorgeous. Once I got the Jeep, of course, I joined the Jeep Club. Robert explained the local club here has over 1,500 active members. It offers meetings, parties, trail runs, and a website where members can exchange Jeep tips and information.

It's an entire Jeep community. Once he became a member of this club, Robert connected with guys who taught him the finer points of four-wheeling and Robert's commitment only deepened. He said, I was totally hooked. Every free moment was consumed.

I was either working on my Jeep, planning a Jeep run, hanging out talking Jeep, going online to check out our Jeep website, and more. Then a conference on the nature and subject of the church began and Robert realized he had no real passion for the church or its assembly. He said to his pastor, I would do anything for the guys in my club, but I struggled to do anything to serve here. He was challenged with this question at the conference. If the church is central to God's purpose as seen through history and the gospel, how can we take so lightly what God takes so seriously?

The author then made this application. We all have our own temptation. We have a temptation that can push the gospel and the church to the outskirts of our lives, and we have our own version of the Jeep club. Some interest, some pursuit. It might be a hobby, a sport, a career, education. It might be preoccupation with technology, health, a political cause, or even a relationship that pushes the gospel to the side. The signs, he ends with this, of our passionate commitment are already here.

We often simply do not recognize them for what they are telling us. Now I open with that, and I don't want you to think this illustration is directed at people who own a Jeep, okay? So if you own a Jeep, don't slink out of the parking lot after, you know, I feel sorry for you that you don't own a pickup truck, but at any rate, you got a Jeep. Now frankly, your Jeep might be your children's soccer league.

Your Jeep might be your garden, your retirement cottage, or a set of golf clubs. What is it that drives the real passion where you light up when you talk? Is any of it spiritually related? The church is a community of believers who effectively promise one another that they're going to accept the reminder of what ought to be the priority in life, to hold ourselves accountable to the gospel and to the call of Christ upon our lives. The church reminds us as we gather that there are things more important than our own version of our Jeep. Now we have begun working through several promises, 20-plus promises, that we're making to each other as members of this local assembly.

We began last Lord's Day. We've categorized them into three different sections, promises related to our conduct, promises related to our church, promises related to our community, all of them coming from the New Testament pattern that we find. And let me say this, the promises we talked about last Lord's Day and the promises we're going to talk about today are for every believer. If you're visiting here from another church or you're listening online in some other state or country, these are for every believer. If you're not a believer, I'm glad you're here or listening, we are putting ourselves as an assembly on notice. Delivering a message like this puts us all on notice.

This is how you should see us live. This is how our unbelieving world should sense our priority, what they should observe in our lives. Now thus far we have covered three promises as it relates to personal conduct. First, the promise to submit to the authority of Scripture as the final authority on all matters. Secondly, we covered this promise, the promise to pursue holiness in all areas of life as a joyful act of worship to our triune God. And then the last one we covered was the promise to avoid sinful habits and entanglements, and we put a few here in the list. Illicit drug use, drunkenness, gossip, gluttony, and all other such sinful behavior taught in Scripture. And I made a comment last Lord's Day that if you think it's a little legalistic to add a few things, we took you, if you were here, to list after list, and the lists are rather long where the Apostle Paul and Peter and others sort of put everything they can think of into the list that would be sinful behavior so there's no question. Now today what I want to do is cover the final promises related to our personal conduct, and there are three more.

And as we get ready to do this, let me encourage you, these promises are not something we'll get nailed down perfectly. It isn't something you master. I don't know about you, but I love history, and that big fat orange copy of the history of Western civilization, and I thought I would be teaching that for the rest of my life. I could read that, and I could study that, and I could memorize it, and I could put that book on a shelf and say, I got it.

I've got it. Now on the other hand, Algebra 2, I could work on that and work on that and work on that. In fact, my high school didn't allow me to graduate until I went to summer school to take Algebra 2 all over again, and I had to get at least a D, and I did. I got a D, did everything I could to get that, by the way. I wasn't slouching, I was struggling, and got into college on, what's it called, thank you, probation. Oh, you too. Okay, yes. Got into college on probation, and I had to take it over again, and I made a D minus, and survived it so I could become your pastor.

So I did eventually graduate with that. I'll never say I'll master that, but I'll tell you this. This book, you never will.

None of us. And that's why, if you're old enough in the faith, you realize you've gone back to that verse now for the 12th time and you see something brand new. Oh wow, I didn't see that there before. That application, that nuance, that meaning. You never go, yep, got that, what's next? So when we talk about the promises of the believer's life effectively, we understand that we're gonna fail, we're gonna stumble, we're gonna trip up from time to time, we'll need regular reminders to live lives of confession with our Lord, the only mediator between us and God, Christ Jesus. We're gonna need reordering of our priorities because we get out of sync and we come and we assemble and we study together during the week, perhaps, and we have small groups meeting men and women and all kinds of ministries designed to take the Word of God to apply it to our lives. What we are saying is that these promises are going to be our pursuit, that we light up on these, that this is going to be what we want to see as a pattern, and we're deeply grieved when it isn't. This is our passion. We're effectively saying the gospel and the church means more to us than a Jeep or a set of golf clubs or whatever it might be. Here's the fourth promise, to pursue fellowship with Christ and growth in the Spirit of God through diligence in spiritual disciplines including prayer, Bible study, worship, and service. Again, this language is pointed. We refer to prayer and Bible study and worship and serving our Lord, not as spiritual entertainments or spiritual recreations.

You notice that? But spiritual discipline. We're gonna drop in on a number of texts and you can try to keep up. I'll be here long enough to have you turn to 1 Corinthians.

So turn there. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, his first letter, chapter 9, and I want you to notice how he refers to Christianity as an athletic contest. 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 26, and I need to go ahead and start reading here. Catch up when you can, but he says this, therefore I run in such a way, not without aim, I box in such a way as not beating the air. In other words, I'm not shadowboxing, I'm not punching at the air, but I buffet my body.

Now stop. In this one text alone, Paul is relating the Christian life to different sporting events like running and boxing. The Greeks had two great athletic festivals annually, the Olympic Games and the Ithmian Games. The Ithmian Games were held in Corinth, so when Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians and used this analogy, they immediately understood what he was talking about. Every athlete was involved in 10 months of training. The last month, before the contest month, these exercises under supervision would take place in the city of Corinth, in their gymnasium, which in these Greek city-states, that was really the central building around which everything revolved, as well as practicing on the athletic fields and on the track.

Then they would contest athletes from all the city-states in foot races. For instance, this is one of the references he uses here, and the one who won would receive a wreath. It would be made out of pine twigs and pine needles. In fact, Paul writes in verse 25, if you look up a verse or two, he makes the point that that wreath doesn't last, it's perishable. That is, it does what the pine needles do in your backyard.

Eventually they turn brown and then wither away. But for the Christian, his reward lasts forever. Then he refers to boxing. The boxing champions in Paul's day were similar to the professional athletes of our day.

Fame, attention, money, status. So they probably knew the one who was the reigning champion in some weight division in the games that had just been held. But Paul does something unusual here. He turns it. He effectively says that the Christian isn't running a race against others. He isn't saying, okay, beat all the Christians you can to the finish line. And then the more you beat, the more you can feel good about yourself. No, he's talking about running against yourself.

And then with boxing, it's a little more clear. He said here in verse 27, I buffet my body. The word buffet means to hit under the eye. It's a reference to giving someone a black eye. But Paul was saying, I'm effectively giving myself black eyes.

I'm buffeting my body. In other words, I am training and disciplining my own body in order to bring my lazy, undisciplined desires into and under self-control by means of the Spirit of God. Paul wrote along these same lines to Timothy in his first letter in chapter four where he says, train yourself for the purpose of godliness. Train yourself. I love that.

It comes from the word gumnas. It gives us our word gymnasium. In other words, your pursuit of godliness has the image and it would have in their minds of going into the gymnasium and working up a sweat.

He says, go into the gymnasium and work up a spiritual sweat from a good workout. Listen, if somebody says to you, you know, memorizing the Bible is hard. Memorizing passages of scripture is hard. Praying is hard. Studying the Bible is hard. You can tell them you are obviously doing it right because it is a discipline and it involves diligence and when you're heading in the right direction is hard and you're working up a sweat.

Good for you. Paul wrote to the Ephesians and I love his realistic language where he says, while presenting to us the goal, he said, we are trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Ephesians 5 10.

I love that. We are trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. One author wrote it this way when he defined spiritual disciplines. He said, spiritual disciplines are those exercises that free us from the gravity pull of our present age. Gravity never stops pulling and it doesn't pull you up.

It pulls you down. These exercises are designed with diligence and sweat to free us from that pull every day as we try to learn what is pleasing to our Lord. Promise number five.

We promise to practice sexual purity before marriage and complete fidelity within heterosexual and monogamous marriage. Now my grandfather could have had in his church covenant the same promise but he didn't need to use nearly as many words as we have and every word is freighted for our culture and our world. Couldn't help but go back in my mind to one short story that I have read, perhaps you have too, written in 1820. Washington Irving wrote the short story, in fact it was his first one, it became so immensely popular that we're reading it a couple hundred years later nearly. In fact you've read it too.

Let's see how long it takes before you figure it out. It's a story about a man who walked into the woods one day with his favorite rifle and his favorite dog. He met some strange men deep in the forest that gave him a strange tasting brew and within a matter of moments under the influence of that magical brew he fell into a deep sleep that would last for 20 years and that man's name was Rip Van Winkle. 20 years later he awakens and he hurries back into town, none the wiser, only to discover that everything has changed. He went back to the tavern inn where he used to sit and talk to his friends underneath the sign that had a painting of King George the third. Now it had the portrait of a different George he didn't understand.

Let me read you Washington Irving's own words. In the place of his friend who once ran the tavern was a lean-looking fellow with his pockets full of handbills haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens, elections, members of Congress, Liberty, and Bunker's Hill which bewildered. The appearance of Rip with his long grizzled beard, his rusty rifle, his strange dress soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded around him eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity. One man bustled up to him and drawing him partly aside inquired, on which side did you vote? Another short busy little fella pulled him by the arm and rising on tiptoe inquired in his ear, are you a federal or a Democrat? Eventually they all demanded who he was.

Rip exclaimed at which end, well I'm not myself. I was myself last night but I fell asleep on the mountain and now everything's changed. During one long 20-year nap his world had indeed changed. Washington Irving closed by writing, it was some time before he could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his sleep. How that there had been a Revolutionary War, that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England, and that instead of being a subject of His Majesty George the Third, he was now a citizen of this United States under the presidency of George Washington. Can you imagine such breathtaking change in 20 years?

You can, can't you? In the past 20 years we have experienced seismic shifts away from any semblance of a Christian worldview that is now long forgotten to a man-centered relativistic subjective pagan worldview. It's still struggling with the nuances of Scripture but it is rewriting them as fast as it can. Perhaps unlike any other arena of life, the arena of sexual ethics, sexual relationships, marriage, and now gender have morphed into unrecognizable patterns that are based entirely upon your whim and belief.

No longer going back to the created order. Time magazine last month blazed the question on its front cover, is monogamy over? And one of the authors they asked to give his opinion wrote, quote, monogamy is unnatural but we should keep it for our kids sake. If you just woke up after a 20-year nap or maybe you're wanting to go back to sleep, the cultural understanding of marriage has been reduced to mean virtually nothing simply because the argument for same-sex marriage is the same argument for polygamy, group marriage, and more. Your subjective feelings of love determine now what is marriage.

Consider how long it will take for other laws to fall out of favor in our cultural consensus. Currently it's against the law to marry someone in your immediate family. Currently it's against the law to marry someone who's already married. Currently it's against the law to alienate the affections of someone's spouse through your own adulterous affection.

Currently it's against the law to marry someone who isn't an adult and what exactly is an adult. In other words, having redefined marriage as something beyond its biblically and cultural parameters that have been understood for several thousand years, it becomes anything we want it to become and that means it becomes nothing. Beloved, monogamy is not man's idea, it's God's. Polygamy is man's idea.

That's easy to figure out and let me just address that for the moment because that'll be the next court case. All the way back to the days of Abraham and the patriarchs, their disobedience in multiplying wives brought heartache and division and rivalry and jealousy and war that is continuing to this day. And to this day where fidelity in marriage and monogamy of one man and one woman, covenanting together in faithful union, wherever that standard is eliminated and you can go to countries where it doesn't exist, look at the results, or where it's ignored you have incredible travesty. In fact for one thing those hurt most will be women and children. Women become collectibles like property, travel through world history, go to countries today where they're struggling to find a man without 15 wives and what that means to that culture.

Where women are commodities not to be cherished and protected but to be collected and effectively misused if not discarded. The Bible simply records the polygamy of so many Old Testament believers. Keep in mind that just because the Bible reports something doesn't mean the Bible recommends something.

The Bible recorded that Judas hung himself by the neck that's not being recommended to any of us either. Just look at what happened to Esther. Look at what happened after she won that contest and then her husband goes out with another sweep to add to his harem. Look what happened to David. Look what happened to Solomon. You can go to Israel and still see what they call the hill of shame. Look what happened to Hannah and Rebecca.

Look at all that it records. Go back however in the created order to Genesis chapter 2 and that which is affirmed by Jesus Christ in Matthew 19. Here's the pattern. Here's the created order that a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife singular and they in fact the man and his wife it's interesting that Jesus actually emphasized it by saying and the two shall become one biologically physically spiritually one so what are we promising as believers something that the church needs to get back to we're promising fidelity we're practicing and promising purity but let me tell you beloved you are promising to be viewed in your village like they viewed rip van Winkle God's Word never changes but our culture does change and it usually changes in a direction away from biblical standards that means that living for Christ will get harder and harder it also means that when we do we will become more and more distinct from the world that's what we're called to do this message isn't complete but we need to stop here and resume it tomorrow because we're running short on time you're listening to wisdom for the heart with Stephen Davey Stevens working his way through a series on the church called upon this rock today's lesson from that series is called what makes us different not long ago we received this short note I'm a retired police officer who listened every morning on my way to work and it was your sermons that reconnected me with Christ thank you well that came from Chad in Louisiana and Chad thank you for serving your community and thanks for sharing that with us it's great to know that God continues to use the power of his word to transform lives if you'd like to send Stephen a note you can address it to info at wisdom online dot org or you can write to us at wisdom for the heart p.o. box three seven two nine seven Raleigh North Carolina two seven six two seven thanks for listening today we'll conclude this lesson tomorrow so join us here on wisdom for the heart you