What Makes Us Different, Part 2

In fact, this is why the New Testament emphasizes over and over and over and over again our sexual conduct, because it is this conduct which is so dramatically different from first century Rome and 21st century America. If you want to be clearly distinctive today in what you believe, and what you pursue, and what you allow, and what you consider pure, the Bible is going to make you very different and at odds with your culture around you. Christians are called by God to live differently, and because of that, Christians should stand out in the world.

Our behavior will seem strange against the backdrop of what is culturally popular or politically correct. In this lesson, Stephen Davey describes from Scripture three principles of personal conduct for the believer that distinguish us from the dark world in which we live. First is the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible study, worship, and service. Second is sexual purity and God-ordained marriage.

And third are the ordinances of baptism and communion. This is the conclusion to a lesson we began yesterday called, What Makes Us Different? 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. 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 perpetually out of date. You are promising to resist the cultural norm.

You are promising to accept derogatory and misleading labels. But this is our distinctive. In fact, this is why the New Testament emphasizes over and over and over and over again our sexual conduct because it is this conduct which is so dramatically different from first century Rome and 21st century America. If you want to be clearly distinctive today in what you believe and what you pursue and what you allow and what you consider pure, the Bible is going to make you very different and at odds with your culture around you that is different today, far different than it was just a few decades ago. But this is a great opportunity for the church.

It's a wonderful opportunity for the church. This is why Paul would tell the Romans, let us behave properly in chapter 13. Let's not behave in sexual promiscuity and sensuality. Let's not make any provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. It's like he's inviting the believer, come on, let's take this opportunity, surrounded by unbelievers who live this way.

Let's show the difference. He writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6. Flee immorality. Immorality is any sexual deviation from God's created order.

It's a big word, porneo, from which we get our word pornography. It involves everything, deviant, apart from God's order. He says flee immorality and as far as I can think, and I could be wrong that I thought about it again this week in my study, but I think this is the one sin, categorically, that you're actually never told to fight. You're never told to battle it.

You're never told to try to overcome it. You're not even told to resist it. You're actually told to run from it. Run from it.

Flee immorality. Do you not know, he goes on in verse 19, that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God. You're not your own.

You've been bought with a price. He goes into the slave market of that first century and he says, look, Christ has gone in to that market and you are on the auction block and he bought you. Your body now belongs to him.

And one of the best ways you distinguish your life as belonging to him is what you do with your body. So do the Thessalonians. Paul is even more specific.

In fact, turn a few pages to the right. Look at 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Look at verse 3. I love this clarity. And the problem again, beloved, isn't that the Bible just isn't clear.

It's just a little fuzzy. No, it's that it's saying something our culture wants to abandon and it's terribly passionate about rewriting it. Look at this. For this is the opinion of God.

Wait. For this is the suggestion of God, if you like it. For this is the what? The will of God and your sanctification, which is how you grow spiritually, that you abstain from sexual immorality. Fornication. There's that word again.

This broad categorical term that you abstain from any of it. This is the will of God. It's interesting. We now have a dedicated line over at the studios at Wisdom for the Heart, which takes these sermons and puts them on the radio. And was the idea of one of our staff members to just have a dedicated line where people could call in and leave their questions. And I thought, you know, nobody's going to call.

And I said, I don't think this is going to work. No, let's try it. And so we tried it. It's now probably the most popular thing we're doing. And we take one Friday a month to answer questions. They simply call in and leave their question and their name, and that's it. It's a joy to respond, by the way, to these questions. Now we have far too many than we could ever begin to answer. Not too long ago, we got a question from a man who called in and said this, I'm living with my girlfriend.

I'm a Christian, and she is not. And I'm praying to know what the will of God is. Do you have any idea? I had an idea or two. And so on the radio, he answered it.

And it was fairly simple, fairly simple. Move out. You don't need to pray about it. You don't need to wonder about it. He's already spoken.

And if you do want to look at something, there it is. First Thessalonians chapter four. And I gave that verse over the radio. You don't don't pray.

I happened and I don't really get to say this. I know God's answer for your life. And I got to say it. I know God's answer for your life. Stop it.

Move out. In fact, what a tragedy that this girl who is not a believer is living with you, compromising as a believer. Why would she ever want to give her life to Christ?

What does she see in you? This is the will of God. Look at verse four.

That each one knows how to possess his own vessel, that is his own body, honorably or in honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God. I mean, that's how they live. That's how they live. So don't do that.

And in that area, you're going to show the distinctive, sparkling, pure quality of your life. And they'll look at you like you are Rip Van Winkle. Are you serious?

You don't do that? You think that's wrong? This is the promise we make. Is God serious about it? The writer of Hebrews, turn a few pages more to the right in chapter 13, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 4. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled.

Undefiled. Fornicators and adulterers, that is those who refuse to repent of it, live for it, cherish it, long for it. God will what? Judge. How many times do you hear people saying, you know, you shouldn't judge anybody. You shouldn't be so judgmental, so narrow. You know, God isn't going to judge anybody for doing something they love or with somebody they say they love. And he says, any kind of sexual action outside of my defined structure of marriage, God will judge.

God will judge. We've seen a lot of tinkering with the family over the past few decades, haven't we? Abortion on demand, cohabitation, which now outnumbers marriage, licenses annually, no-fault divorce, same-sex parenting through surrogates or artificial insemination, on and on, all of it just kind of whittling away and whittling away and whittling away and reducing and reducing and ultimately erasing the ideal of marriage and sexual purity as God designed it for our own good. One more promise. One more promise in relation to our personal conduct. To follow the ordinances of scripture by being immersed in water, following conversion to Christ, and remembering and celebrating his atoning sacrifice through what we call communion.

Now we're putting this in the category of personal conduct issues because while the church administrates it, it isn't something the church forces. That activity is your personal desire to obey and follow and remember Christ. And when you fulfill these promises, you can be brought into the full and rich relationship with those in the church who've been identified as disciples of Jesus Christ as well.

And by the way, let me tell you this. I've seen this change in the 30 years I've pastored. We are not making, as body believers, too much of baptism.

We're trying to correct the faulty thinking of the church that makes it too little, makes too little of it. The Lord says to his disciples in Matthew 28, if you have a question, you ought to go back to that text, Matthew 28, 19 and 20. Go, in the process of going, I want you to make disciples. What's a disciple? A follower of Jesus Christ. Make disciples.

Do two things to them. Baptize them and teach them. Now, I've never met a Christian who didn't think the church ought to be teaching or shouldn't be teaching. It ought to teach. I'm here because it teaches. It's important to be taught the Word of God.

Good. What about baptism? They came first and you can't draw a line through it and say one's important and the other one is not. This passage isn't a suggestion. These are commands to publicly identify outwardly with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ through immersion in water baptism and then to be taught all that Christ taught us to obey. Now, according to the New Testament pattern, baptism is not something you do for your parents or that your parents do for you. It isn't even something you do for your church at 12 or 14 or 16 or 8 or whatever. It's something you decide to do for Christ as a statement of obedience. It's simply a living testimony. It demonstrates that you have believed the gospel. You believe that Jesus died for you, was buried for you and rose again for you from the dead, which is why baptism by immersion is the biblical mode. The word means immerse. I'll say more about that in a moment.

But immersion is the significant mode because it symbolizes what's taking place. It symbolizes death and burial. We don't stop there. We believe in the resurrection, right? Amen. Sometimes we count slowly one, one thousand, two, one thousand. No, we pull them out.

We haven't lost anybody yet. Now, the word baptize means to immerse or dip. The Greeks were intelligent people. They had words for baptizing and pouring. None of them are ever used, not once, in passages related to Christian baptism. Why? Because you can't get the symbol out of anything other than the mode of immersion. That's why I have good Presbyterian and Methodist friends in Greece and they all immerse.

Why? Because they have a Greek New Testament that the people read. Unfortunately the verb for English people is transliterated. Baptizomai is transliterated.

Baptizim. We just created an English word. Nobody knows what it means. It means to immerse. Why is it transliterated? Why is a verb in the original language not touched in its translation but transliterated? Because it would have created a scandal when the first English version occurred in the Middle Ages because the Catholic Church was sprinkling infants as a sacrament. So the verb was left alone and baptizomai was simply transliterated to create an English word, baptism, which still left people without knowing what it means, which bothers me, by the way, more and more the older I get. It means to immerse.

It's the only verb associated in any passage with Christian baptism. I shook the hand of a gentleman a few days ago who was one of the leaders on the committee of translating to ESV and I didn't say it to him but I wanted to say to him, why didn't you lead your committee to refuse the pressure of economy and publishers and marketing and translate that verb? I didn't say it. I said it on the way home in the mirror. It sounded really great.

I didn't say it to him. So what happened when the church was created? Acts 2, so those who received his word, those who believed the gospel message of Peter as this church is created, they were baptized. Wouldn't it be great if it had been translated? They were immersed, signifying their belief in the one who came and died and was buried and rose again.

What a wonderful symbol. And there were added that day about 3,000 souls. So you have the church springing into existence suddenly with 3,000 people in Jerusalem making up the first local church and they fulfilled effectively a promise to be identified with Christ in this ordinance and we follow that practice to this day. The ordinance of baptism is a one-time event after your conversion. Don't pull it into your conversion as a definition within justification by faith alone or you've created a work plus faith.

It follows conversion to Christ as a statement of your belief in the gospel of Christ. There is another ordinance, one more ordinance that takes place as often as the leadership of the church play in the event and we call it communion. And again, we don't want to make too little of it, we want to make much of it and so here in our church if you've been around here long enough you know whenever we have communion we shut everything down. I don't preach my same series of messages, we stop it, we do a different devotion, we do a different subject related to the cross, the music, everything is designed for that hour. You know today you can buy now from the Christian bookstores and churches do it a little plastic cup that has a little thin covering and on top of that covering is a little wafer and then over that's another plastic covering and so you can just hand those out and then zip zip zip and get it done at about you know 120 seconds. That's not what we want to do.

We want to make much of it. Baptism is a one-time act of identification so when you learn more about Jesus you don't get baptized again, you're going to be learning more about him all the time. It's a one-time act after your conversion of identification. Communion is an ongoing ordinance of examination and I like to say rededication. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church but let a man examine himself and then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. It's for believers but it's a wonderful opportunity at that moment to rededicate yourself to the Lord to make sure that path is clean and clear. It isn't a picture of sonship it's a picture of fellowship for the sons and daughters of God.

So this is a promise we make repeatedly and even collectively as we remember our Lord. You know what these personal promises do for us as it relates to our conduct? They cause us to revalue those things that have real value. Because out there in the world they're always changing the price tags. They take purity and they say that's not really worth all that much money let's just dumb that thing down. They take marriage oh let's just dumb that thing down. Let's take fidelity you know you know man's just an alpha male let him collect dumb it down. The church changes those price tags back to what they ought to be.

And part of the message and part of the accountability and part of the promise that we have to each other and to our Lord is to constantly urge each other on to keep those price tags what they ought to be. I was sent this true story a few weeks ago from a member of our fellowship and with this I'll close. A man in disheveled clothing sat at a metro station in Washington DC playing his violin. It was a cold January morning took place just a couple of years ago. He played several pieces by Bach and his playing through the morning rush hour lasted just about 45 minutes. It was calculated that several thousand people walked past him as he played. One middle-aged man noticed the musician and stopped looked listened for just a moment and then rushed away. Another one came and leaned against the wall and watched listening and then looked at his watch on his wristwatch and realized he had to take off and he left. The only person to pay the violinist any attention was a little boy who stopped to listen fascinated and even when his mother took his hand and urged him along he kept his head turned back watching as he was led away. In the 45 minutes this musician played only six people stopped for a moment or two. Only 20 people of the thousands that walked by him only 20 tossed some money into his violin case which came to just at $32 and they didn't slow their pace when they did. When he finished playing and silence took over no one noticed no one applauded no one recognized that this was Joshua Bell one of the most famous violinists of our world and he'd been playing on a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Now he had been under guard unsuspecting to any of the audience that walked by it was part of an experiment by the Washington Post to just do a little experiment on perception and priorities among people.

You see two days before he played in that subway he had sold out Boston and the seats cost a hundred dollars a ticket. I couldn't help but think of this subject beloved just because the world ignores you and just because the world doesn't applaud you just because they don't hardly stop but every so often to listen to your message what you have and what you are delivering is worth its weight in a city of gold. And these are our promises. Just remember you don't take your cues from what the world can perceive you don't take your cues from what the world stops and says oh you gotta listen to this or that's not worth listening to.

You don't take your cues from the world. You take your cues from what God has already said. And so as it relates to our personal conduct these are promises we're making to each other. This is our priority.

This is the direction in which our toes are pointed. This is our passion for the benefit of our own lives and God to goodness and so ordering it for the benefit of our church and the gospel and ultimately to the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. What an important challenge today from God's word. We're called to live lives that are distinct from the world. The challenge before us today and every day is to live lives that bring honor and glory to Jesus Christ even when that makes us different from everyone else who does not follow Jesus. Thanks for joining us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. Today's lesson came from Steven's series on the church called Upon This Rock. This particular lesson is entitled What Makes Us Different?

We'll continue through this series in the days ahead. In addition to equipping you with these daily Bible lessons we also have a magazine that includes articles written by Steven to help you dive deep into various topics related to the Christian life. This month Steven is looking at the topic of thankfulness and exploring what it means to be truly thankful. There's much more in each month's issue including a daily devotional to help you explore the depths of God's word and updates and information about our ministry. We send Heart to Heart magazine to all of our wisdom partners but we'd be happy to send you the next three issues if you'd like to see it for yourself. We have some of the current issues left and if you call today we can send one out to you right away. Our number is 866-48-BIBLE. That's 866-482-4253. I'm Scott Wiley and for Steven and all of us here I thank you for listening. We're so glad you were with us and I hope you'll be with us for our next Bible lesson here on Wisdom for the Heart. you