Transcript for:
Ephesians 5:1,7 -Walking In Love- Pastor Rick Beaudry 2026-03-22

Ephesians chapter five verse one through seven, walking in love. So be therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as become a saints, neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting, which are not convenient but rather giving of thanks. For this you know that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things come at the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. Father, thank you, for the straight and narrow path that you've given us, Lord. You keep it so simple. And if we just stay right on that path following you, Lord Jesus, Lord, we don't fall into the ditch. We don't hurt ourselves. And we thank you for your word that's a light onto our path, a light onto our for our lives, Lord. And a a foundation for our marriages and our lives to be built upon, Lord, upon Jesus. And so Lord, we pray today that as you show us a contrast of lifestyles of those who are in the world, children of darkness, and those who are in the light, children of light. And Lord, we pray that each of us here this morning are children of light, that we're truly saved. And Lord, as we take inventory this morning, as we evaluate behavior, as we look at the cross and we see the the importance of faith demonstrated with repentance and a transformed to changed life, Lord, we pray that evermore you'll help us to make sure make sure, Lord, that that we're truly in the faith. That we not one day hear away from me, I never knew you, you that practice iniquity. But Lord, as with Sally, Lord, that we hear, well done, thou good and faithful servant. So Lord, we pray this morning that you minister unto us, that you'd be our teacher. Bless our homes, bless our families, and thank you for the example of James and Sally, Lord. They're exemplary example of what it means to live the Christian life. The marriage describing Lord, picturing Lord our our relationship with you being the bride of Christ. So bless, we pray now. Comfort James, watch over him, care for him Lord, and comfort Linda too, and and Melissa, Lord. Bless him, Comfort him. In Jesus' name, amen. Alright. Would you please be seated? Walking in love is the love of three things. Walking in love is the love of the savior. It's the love of the saints and the love of those who are saved. And so notice first of all, walking in love, the love of the savior. Verse one, be therefore followers of God as dear children. That word followers, means to mimic, mematees, to mimic a person, to imitate. And so as a Christian, our life should be imitating Jesus. As we say, hey, I'm a follower of Jesus, we need to imitate him. We're not to be conformed to this world, be distinctly different than this world. We're not to Christianize the world. And so come out from among them, be separate, sayeth the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing and I'll receive you. And so in many cases, we as Christians, you know, we could be bible thumpers and fanatics, and that's a good thing because if I see people that love the Seattle Seahawks, you know, they're fanatics. They're fanatical. They express their love and adoration toward the Seahawks so much so that they'll, well, you know, paint their faces and wear weird shirts, and they'll show up, as drunks down at the ferry terminal, you know, get to a game on Sunday morning. And they don't care if it's snowing. They don't care if there's snow. They the Christians will lay in bed and say, it's snowing. I can't go to church today. But boy, them heathen, they're gonna they're gonna worship their god come no matter what happens. And they're gonna show an exuberance and excitement and and wanting to be fanatical, if you will. And so we don't wanna grieve the Holy Spirit. We don't wanna quench the Holy Spirit. We wanna be imitators of Christ. We don't wanna be just people that profess to know Jesus, but in works deny him, as in our behavior, our character, the lifestyle that we live is an oxymoron, you know, the opposite of who Jesus is. And there used to be a thing that people put on their wrists and all, and what would Jesus do, you know? You wanna ask a question, hey, what's God's purpose and plan for my life? The first place you go is prayer. The second place you go is God's word. God's word and prayer. And you ask the Lord, Lord, what would you have me do? And if your decision making process is contradicting God's word, you've got your answer. You're not to go that way. You're to be in conformity to God's word. You're to be in obedience to God's word. So it's a no brainer. For instance, something's very common today, if you're in love with a person or in lust with a person, you think, hey, this is a person I wanna marry. This is person I wanna be with, you know, whatever. Well, if that person's an unbeliever, then you need to search the scriptures. You need to ask yourself, well, Lord, is this the person you have for me? And if that person's an unbeliever, the bible clearly states, you know, be not unequally yoked together with an unbeliever. So you gotta wait. The Lord's gonna have you wait, and the Lord's gonna have you pray for that person, and to wait upon the Lord that the Lord if if give confirmation that this person is the right person for you because the Lord saves that person. And you don't want to rush up ahead, and you don't want to be disobedient. Some people can spend fifteen, twenty, thirty years in a very, very bad, you know, sick marriage because can two walk together except they'd be agreed? You do the best you can, but, yeah, if you wait upon the Lord, the Lord might show you that, hey, I'm gonna save that person, or the Lord says, I've got somebody else. You know, I've got somebody else for you, Somebody that I've purposed to bring into your life. So we wanna mimic the Lord. We wanna follow him. We wanna make sure that we're in love with Jesus. When I first fell in love with Kathy, you know, we tried and tried and tried, but it it didn't quite work. And and so I had to I had to I had to get saved and the Lord the Lord saved me. I didn't know what was coming, he saved me. And then Kathy, she was an unbeliever and and I prayed for her to get saved. And so, you know, eventually, she did get saved. But what the Lord was establishing first and foremost in my heart during that time was, will you love me supremely? Will you love me more than Kathy? And as I began to develop and nurture that love for Jesus, I knew that I'd be okay no matter what because I had Jesus. And and once I was established and grounded, rooted and grounded in my walking relationship with the Lord, then the Lord gave me Cathy back. Then he saved her. Then we I asked her to marry me and nine months later we were married. But but the Lord wanted to establish himself as my first love within my heart and life because I wouldn't be able to adequately love Cathy without Jesus being my first love. And so, I needed to mimic Jesus. I needed to be a follower of him first and foremost. So by being unkind to one another, remember the love of the savior and forgiving you your sins. So as we saw last week, be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. So we mimic Jesus in that when we're wronged, how do you know how to forgive unless you've been wronged? We've all been wronged. And and when we're wronged, then we have a choice. Am I gonna love like Jesus love? Am I gonna be able to say from my heart, father forgive them for they know not what they do? Am I gonna be able to stay like Stephen who is following the Lord? Lord, lay not the this sin to their charge, you know, as he's being stoned to death there and as a first martyr in the church and all, but he had the heart of Jesus. He was a mimicker, a follower, an imitator of Jesus in that he didn't hold, the people accountable to the sin they were, placing upon him. And so he says, walk in love. So six times in Ephesians, we are instructed how to walk six times. How should I walk, Lord? How then shall I live? What kind of life should I live as a Christian? Where do I find it out? Do I watch Joe Rogan? Is Joe Rogan gonna teach me how to be a Christian? Are all these people on social media and everybody's becoming a Christian now? Everybody's going back to their faith? I think they're developing the one world religious system where anything goes and everybody is a believer in God, this generic God, you know, and all. And, if you were to examine their lifestyles, I think you'd see some inconsistencies. When we're watching across the country people proclaiming that there's revivals going on, I've said many times, well, I'm excited but I wanna see how they walk in the next couple weeks, you know. If college students are coming to Jesus, then I wanna see over the next two weeks if they're still sleeping with each other in the college dorms. If they're still doing the drugging and partying and all that. You can't Christianize your carnality. You can't Christianize, you know, your ungodly lifestyle. You can't just add Jesus to the lifestyle. You gotta be a mimicker of Jesus. So as I evaluate, I'd say, well, is that person walking with Jesus? When I see that person, do they remind me of Jesus? Does their lifestyle remind me of Jesus? And so, Ephesians two ten says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus under good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. And so we're his workmanship, his poema, his work of art. And God is wanting people to observe in your lives and your lives, my life to remind them of Jesus that we he'd be foreordained that we should walk in that in that goodness of life. In Ephesians four one, it says, walk worthy. There's a worthiness. Worship is describing worth unto him, adoration unto him. Lord, you're worthy. And the the angels and the four and twenty elders around the throne of God, thou art worthy, oh lord, to receive glory, honor, and power for thou has created all things and for thy pleasure, they are and were created. Is he worthy? Is he worthy of obedience? Is he worthy of our worship? Is he worthy of our adoration? He says, walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called. And so the Lord has called you. So what a privilege, what a blessing to be called of God, to be called a saint, to be called a Christian. It's a high calling. And then you begin to discover your gifts, your unique gifts within the body, and you exercise those gifts as you were called to do for his kingdom and his glory. Are you gonna walk worthy of those gifts? A lot of us don't appreciate the Lord. We don't appreciate our salvation. We don't appreciate fully. We don't have lives of thankfulness and and thanksgiving. And so Paul's exhorting us to walk worthy of the vocation. It's a high calling. Paul was Saul of Tarsus be before he became the apostle Paul. And he considered his past life as the most brilliant Jewish man of his era. He said concerning his contemporaries, he exceeded them all. He said he was a Pharisee of Pharisees to zealous to the point of, you know, killing Christians and all, incarcerating Christians. So he went all out, full bore, full throttle, seeking whom he thought was God, but hating Jesus. He didn't know Jesus. So he didn't know the true living God. And Paul said, all those accomplishments, all those things sitting at the feet of Gamaliel and being groomed to be a member of the Sanhedrin and all, as many feel he was. You know, he he looks back on it and he says, he considered all as dung, all as refuse for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. The Lord arrested him on his way to persecuting Christians all the way to Damascus and Syria. The Lord arrested him and said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he says, who art thou, Lord? I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting. He didn't even know Jesus. He was going the opposite way. And then once the Lord arrested him, once the Lord revealed himself unto him, and the apostle Paul repented of his sins and became converted, know, he he was right on the Lord's heels the rest of his life following Jesus. Obedient to what God had called him to do. And his calling to Ananias and show him what things he must suffer for my name's sake. It's a calling of suffering. So Paul's saying, walk worthy of the calling that God's called unto you, that he's given you unto. And so what a what a blessing that is. Then he says in Ephesians five fifteen, to walk circumspectly, uprightly. He says in a Ephesians five verse eight, walk as children of light. So the these are pretty clear exhortations, you know. Contrast, not not in darkness, but light. Walk as a child of light. You're a child of light now. Maybe before you were in darkness, but now you're in light. In Romans six verse four, he said to the Romans, walk in this newness of life. So what's that mean for you and I? We we can profess that we know him. We had an experience, you know, this four types of seed that are out there. There's this exuberation and this oh, this I'm so excited, you know, for Jesus. And then the trials come, begin to the sun begins to beat down, and our root system is exposed as as just on the rocky soil, and we begin to wither under the pressure of the of the trials we're facing. So it exposes us as a as a shallow faith at best. And then there's those who profess to know God and but the cares of this life and the deceitful's riches begin to choke off that life and it doesn't bear fruit. There's some that where it falls on the wayside soil, it doesn't even germinate and grow and the devil comes along, the birds come and take it away. There's a fourth kind of soil. It's a good soil. In the good soil, the heart's been prepared, and it goes down deep, and the root system deep, and it bears fruit some thirty, forty, you know, hundredfold. And that's the key. Jesus said, you'll know them by their fruit. They're filled with God's love. There's a transformation. There's a change. You're gonna walk in that newness of life. You were a drunk, but you're not a drunk anymore. You were a womanizer or promiscuous as a woman or a man, but you're not anymore. That's your BC days. That's not who you are now. You're mimicking Christ. He says in Romans eight verse four, walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. So now we learn as Christians, oh, I have a fallen nature that the Bible describes as the flesh. It's a demic in nature. Body and soul and spirit, a tri part being. But before I'm born again, I'm just body and soul and I have an appetite, a fleshly carnal appetite and and I serve that appetite and I'm deceived by the wicked one. When God saves me, he sets me free from the bondage of the world, the flesh, the devil, and now I'm able to walk in that newness of life. I've been emancipated. I've been freed up from the tyranny of wickedness, the tyranny of the flesh and all. So walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. I wanna live the life of the spirit. I want all that God has for me. Romans thirteen thirteen, it says he says, walk honestly. Be honest. You need to be known for being honest that you're not a liar. You may have been a liar in the past, but you're not a liar anymore. You're changed. You're transformed. You're not like that person anymore. In second Corinthians five verse seven, it says, we walk by faith and not by sight. Galatians five sixteen, walk in the spirit. Colossians four five, walk in wisdom. First John two six, he that say it, he abides in him. He that say it, that's the key there. He that say it, we can talk a good talk. We can really boast of great things of ourselves and all. But he that say it, he abides in him, ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. So there's a time where I saw a woman leave her husband and she began to and she's at our church worshiping and all, and and we loved on her, and we and had some really good times with them. And and then her and her husband had this crisis, marital crisis, and she wound up finding a boyfriend, and and her car would be at her boyfriend's house on my way home from from the Roxy. I'd drive along Trenton, and her her car would be there all the time, and it began to really grieve me. And and as she's coming to church, and she's lifting her hands worshiping the Lord and all, And her husband, you know, he he was he was trying to attend church too, and I'm trying to minister to both of them. And I'm trying to apply, you know, some sort of a church discipline if I can, counseling, something to be able to help reconcile this this difference. You know? And so what you have to do when you're caught in that sort of situation, if you're going to use a ministry of confrontation, Matthew 18, confront a person, go alone first, you know. And then you go and you bring a witness, and then if they still don't listen, you bring you bring them before the leadership of the church. Well, in my case, I didn't bring anybody. I went there as the pastor, but you have to ask qualifying questions. So my first question is, do you consider yourself to be Christians? Why would I ask that? Because if you're a non believer, my objective is to get you saved. But if you come to church and you lift your arms and worship and all, and profess to be a Christian, I got a question mark over your life. Christians don't walk like that. They don't act like that. That's not Christ like. Be imitators of Christ. Be followers of Christ. Followers of Christ shouldn't do that. And so I asked them, do you guys consider yourselves to be Christians? I said, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I says, well, the Bible says, and here I go getting people to hate me again. The Bible says that adulterers and fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then they ushered me away and, oh, get out of here, you know. At first, they were gonna invite me in to drink some wine with them. Now, they're ushering me away, you know. And the guy's acting all bravado and all, and and and I'm like, you know, I need to I need to qualify this. We we need we need to we need to think this through. How can you Christianize your behavior? It's an oxymoron. That's not how Christians live. Now you might be a Christian and you might be in Hebrews 12, and the Lord's gonna chase you and spank you. So you're a backslidden Christian. You're gonna be miserable, and so that's what we look for. We look for the Lord to correct you, to bring you back to that place of repentance and back into the fold. But if you don't receive that smackdown from the Lord, that's an indicator you never were. You never were a believer. He's you're none of his, and he's just gonna let you go. So I wanna caution you. Don't try to Christianize a life of immorality, a life of adultery, fornication, drugs, alcohol, whatever it may be. That life of the flesh that used to live. Don't try to Christianize that. Don't try to don't try to, you know, muddy the waters for people where they don't know what a Christian is. There should be a distinct difference between those of the world and those who are saints. You're either a saint or you're an atheist. There's no in betweeners. There's nobody that's almost pregnant. You either have the seed, you're either born again or you're not. And so, and don't try that one where, you know what, I got my girlfriend pregnant and we never had any sex, but she got pregnant, know. Oh, another immaculate conception. There you go. Alright. So he that say it, he abides in him, ought himself also so to walk even as as he walked. So you and I, as we look at people that profess to know Jesus, we should say, we should be able to evaluate their profession of faith. Are they mimicking Jesus? Are they living a lifestyle consistent with what the lifestyle that Jesus commanded us to live? And he doesn't just command us, he empowers us. Because I can't fulfill the command to love without the empowering of his holy spirit to love. I can't do it. That's the whole intention of the law is to stop every mouth, to make us all guilty, to show me my need of Jesus. So even to this day, I got saved in 1980. Even to this day, I still pray on a regular basis every day. Lord, change me. Change me from the inside because I still see too much of the old Rick in me. I'm gonna be battling. I'm gonna be fighting that old nature till the day I die. Gotta put off this old man. But if I'm Galatians five, if I sow to the spirit, I don't fulfill the lust of the flesh. So I wanna be a follower of Jesus. I wanna be in his word. I wanna be built up and strengthened with the holy spirit so that I can overcome the temptation of the world. Three enemies for the Christian. The world, the flesh, the devil. And I have the victory. I'm more than a conqueror through him that loved us when I'm filled with the spirit and be being filled with the spirit. So I need the spirit's help. But if I rationalize and if I make excuses for my behavior and I try to Christianize my ungodly behavior, then you know what? That might be an indicator that I'm not a Christian, that I'm a poser. I might profess, but I'm just posing. I'm just acting. And that's where we get the word hypocrite, actor. And so Jesus said, you'll know them by their fruit. The fruit of their life, the character that's being developed. In second John one six, it says, this is love that we walk after his commandments, obedience. Do do you want to love? Do you wanna know if you're loving? Then you're living according to obedience to his commandments. You're not pulling out the 613 precepts of the old testament law. The volume of the book is written of him, but love. Love fulfills the whole book. To love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength, to love your neighbor as yourself, and these two hang all the law in the prophets. Love is the fulfillment. Can I love? Will I love? And love is demonstrated and exemplified. It's seen by others, not just with words. Love not just in word, but indeed in truth. It's a life of obedience, a life of submission unto Jesus. Surrendering to his will, Lord not my will but your will be done. In three John one four, he says, have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. Oh, it's such a blessing when our own children walk in truth. It's a blessing when we in the body of Christ desire to walk in truth, to be truthers. I hope the characteristic of this church is not one of deception, deceiving people. I hope and pray that we yearn more and more to discover the truth and to live the truth and to expose the darkness. When we get to verse 11, he says, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. And Jim and I were talking yesterday, and we're talking this morning. One of the reasons why people, don't want to be a truther and hear the truth, because it's uncomfortable. Reality and I can't say the word because in our text today, says, you know, watch how you talk, so I gotta be careful sometimes. So I'm gonna find a Christian word. Let's see. I can't find one. If you guys mention Hillary, it makes me wanna cuss. No, won't I won't do that. So you lose your you lose your way to articulate this. We were talking yesterday about it and and he said Jim said to me, well, know, they they like ignorance. They like not having to think about the reality of the culture and what we're in. So if the pastor is constantly reminding people and showing people this age of deception we're living in, and we're truthers and we're trying to wake people up to the truth, be not deceived, a lot of people opt out and they live like Kathy and I lived when we were in California, ignorance is bliss. And I loved my ignorance. I didn't wanna anybody to quench the bubble I was in, you know. And so there's churches that have that bubble ready for you that you go and you can escape reality. You can escape reality by being Pollyanna maybe, you know. But life's gonna bite you. It's gonna bite you. You're not gonna be prepared. And why would Jesus say, take heed that no man deceive you if he didn't want you to walk in truth. And so we take the risk of offending people, losing people, making them mad at us when we speak concerning the truth of the world in which we're in. We know how to grow a church. Just watch Fox News and mimic what Fox News is saying to right handed, right winging conservatives. We could have that kind of church, a right wing conservative group, and we could get our marching orders, our talking points every week from Fox News. But if Fox News is deceiving you, I don't want you to be deceived. So I gotta be the killjoy and say, that's not Christianity. That leader, that guy that's professing to be a Christian that you're wanting to follow, he's not a Christian. Well, pastor Rick, how do you know? His life's work. His attitude, his glory, and his pride, the statues built up to him, you know. That's not Christ like. That's not Jesus. You're being deceived. So quit following the pied piper. Get your eyes back on Jesus or it's gonna really hurt when reality bites. So we're trying to prep you and get you ready. And it's interesting to me that there's several prophecy groups now. Their topic is, and pastors, don't be deceived. They're getting on board with us now Because they're recognizing they've been deceived. We've been talking about this for years. The deception that's within the culture. And so what better place than a church to be lovers of truth and not wanna, you know, look for teachers having itching ears and only thing the pastor can say is things that the people want to hear, you know. We have sound doctrine, you know. Healthy doctrine, healthy word. And and the word's gonna offend. It's it's if you throw a rock into a pack of wolves, how do you know the one that you hit? It's the one that screams, that's yelping, running away. Oh, how did he know that? How did he know that about me? Why did he talk about that? Why did he reveal that? Well, he just he just, you know, he he's a killjoy. It makes me feel bad. I like to go to church to make me feel good. Well, then you like being lied to. I don't like being lied to. I despise being lied to and I don't wanna be a part of it. So I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. He says verse two, and walk in love as Christ also has loved us. So there's your example. How am I supposed to love? I'm to love like Christ loved us. Greater love has no mind than this than a man who lay down his life for his friends and has given himself for us. Are you giving yourself an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. So be imitators of the savior's love. So again, we'll go to Romans 12 verse two. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is a good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So you're gonna come out from among them, be separate. So I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies, your life, as a living sacrifice. What kind of sacrifice? Holy and acceptable on him, which is your reasonable, in light of all that he's done for you in saving you. It's reasonable, it's logical that your response would be a life of worship in serving Jesus and offering yourself unto him. Isn't that reasonable? After all he's done for us? Or you can enter into a Christianity, a false Christianity, where it's all about you and your happiness. And you wanna go and get the pink bunny and the buzzy feelings and the all that. No. I just I I I got chills. I got the chills. I got I got goosebumps. Oh, and they talked about that. And so the pastor's up there all sentimental and telling you all these little cutesy little stories, you know. It's like romper room time. It's nursery school. Anybody as old as me would know what romper room is. Otherwise, you won't know what romper room is, but basically, it's nursery school. It's kindergarten, lower than kindergarten. So we we want you to grow and we want you to emphasize loving. Loving like Jesus loved and you can't love if you're a deceiver. Love is truthful. You gotta be truthful. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. The kisses of an enemy are deceitful. I don't wanna deceive you. I don't wanna give you a false sense of security where you think you're a believer in Jesus. Those folks that I confronted, at least they were confronted. At least Nathan the prophet came to David and said, David, you're the man. God and his love confronted him so that David would repent. God always gives space for repentance. But if I said to myself, well, you know, I'm not gonna go confront them because the two people, the husband and wife, now it's turned into a third. Now I get three checks. Now I can get three people tithing. It's all about nickels and noses. If I offend these two, then I'm gonna lose their tithe check, and then I've got the one over here. Well, it's about numbers, man. I don't wanna be too heavy. I want people to feel comfortable in their sin. If I start to say that the LBGTQ is contrary to the word of God, I'm gonna lose a bunch of LBGTQ people. I got a love on them. That's not love. That's a wokeism. That's a that's that's an aberration. That that's a an abomination. And we're not gonna pick on a certain sect of people, certain group of sin because we're gonna show you that covetousness is just as bad. That adultery and fornication is just as bad. That you'll go to hell just as easy for those sins as you will for the l b g t q p people. Gotta be so careful today. What if I what if I what if I go against BLM? What if I go against some of these these psyops that we're facing? Should I incorporate all that in the church and and give them a pat on the back and acceptance, you know? Should I should I move in the groove of women pastors now so that we could grow this church more? Should we lean more towards feminism so that so that we can tie in with all those strong women who rule their homes? Who are demanding to be recognized? And I don't blame them though. I'm I'm told as I'm studying that the church in Iran right now, the fastest growing church in the world is being led by women. Well, what's that mean? It means the men are not up to speed yet. God gives the men the the chance to lead. If you don't wanna lead, then by all means ladies, get your family to church. Have devotions. Read the word of God. Make sure that your kids are covered with the word of God and and nurtured and trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And pray for your husband that one day he'll realize what a joy and a blessing it is to be called of God to be the head of the home. To be the spiritual head, the spiritual leader, the priest within the home. Then maybe the women will feel secure enough that they don't feel the need to become pastors because there's guys in the pulpit who are mimicking Jesus and they're secure in knowing that they and their family are safe. They're safe. It's a safe place for my family to grow in the things of the Lord. You don't need to always be a Deborah and accept in a time of apostasy or a jail and take a big nail and ram it into a guy's temple. Oh, a bash on king. And they're running and come to the tent of jail and jail gives them some warm milk. That's why I never I never drink warm milk when a woman has something sharp in her hand. Not gonna happen. I stay away, you know. I can I can learn from other people's mistake being nailed to the ground, you know? So stay away when they got sharp objects in their hands. Stay away. Stay away. Back away. Be imitators of the savior's love. How has Christ loved us? The cross. He gave himself. No man took his life, he willingly laid it down for us. Love is a decision. It's not just an emotion. I love that the emotions are there. I love that the the four types of love, the storge love, the family love. I love the the God is the one that created sex. There's an eros love. I love the phileo love, the brotherly love that we experience. And most of all, we love the akapayo, the agape love. And so we see the agape love, there's a noun form but a verb form of doing, of loving, of laying our lives down for others. And so greater love is no man than this than a man lay down his life for his friends. And so we have the example of Jesus. You wanna love like Jesus loved? Then lay your life down. You wanna love like Jesus loves guys as you as you read ahead in chapter five here, we're gonna get to husbands and wives. We're gonna get to husbands and their children in chapter six. We're gonna get to spiritual warfare when their kids become teenagers in chapter six, you know. It's all here. And the decision is yours, it's mine. What kind of home do we want? Do we want that home to be a Christ centered home or not? Do we want Christ to be the head of that home? And and we're gonna learn some things, some I've been meditating and thinking a lot about this because these are these are crucial areas of of foundational truths within a home. The role of a husband, the role of a mother, the role of the children. God's a God of order. He's not the God of confusion. He doesn't want you encouraging your kids to be confused about their gender. I heard a really sick sick sick thing about this new CBDC currency and the real ID, the digital ID. I hope this isn't true, but you've heard about, you know, China's social credit score and you've heard about Larry Fink and the other bankers talking about once they get this digital currency in place, the central bank digital currency, everybody will be on board or they'll starve to death. And so the creation of scarcity of food with a lack of oil to make fertilizer, a lack of fertilizer is too expensive for the farmers to farm if they don't have fertilizer at a reasonable price, so they just don't farm. So it creates a scarcity of food, which causes the price of food to go way up, Then all those data centers stealing all of our electricity and water, and my electricity bill over a thousand dollars doubled. How could that happen, you know? So energy, the Strait Of Hormuz and all this stuff happening, but the thing that alarmed me the most was the guy saying, don't know if it's true. I'll pray against it. But basically, with the social credit score, you're gonna be bailed out when things crash and they're gonna encourage you, or they're gonna give you the carrot to come into the system, to come into the new system. And you'll have $10,000 in your Fed account. But that account, as you abandon your old way of doing business, your old and that's what's happening. All the trade agreements are being abandoned. All the tariffs. That's what that's designed to do to it's a wrecking ball to get rid of the old system so that to usher in the new. So now you're in the new and you're excited. Oh, that was well. Thank God for oh, man. Now I've got the Trump coin and I've got $10,000 in it. I still can't afford to buy food, but it it it's alright. It looks good. But here's the here's the clincher. Now they impose upon you their will to shape behavior. And the guy said this, I still it's hard to even say it because you'll you'll think I'm a bigger nut job than I am. But you've got three kids and in order to be in the system, you've gotta encourage, you've gotta make one of your children a transgender kid. Or you have your bank account shut off. Is that possible? Is that even possible? Can they impose that sort of tyranny upon a family that your bank account shut off if you don't comply with your kids being vaccinated, public schools, and one of them being transgender? That's crazy. That's crazy tyranny. What would you do? How would you love? We need leadership. We need people that love the truth because that deception's a huge deception coming. And it's coming. The bible speaks of it. So the giving of ourselves, imitating Jesus by offering ourselves, sacrificially loving one another. So when we walk walk in the savior's love, we become the sweet smelling savior of Christ. A fragrance unto God. Christ's love fills the room and reaches up to heaven, a well pleasing unto God. Not the grieving, not the quenching, not the resisting of the Holy Spirit, but a yielding to the Holy Spirit. I watched Sally and I watched Joe over the last few months, both of them going home to be the Lord. And there's this there's this instinct within each of us to to survive, to be healed, to live, to not give in to the sickness. And both of them are fighting real hard, fighting real hard the will to live, and all of us praying and anointing them with oil and doing everything we can from a human standpoint. The doctors and nurses, and everybody's moving in a direction you hope and pray, that they be healed. That fighting, that fight within. And then there came a point with Joe, there came a point with Sally, where both came to the place of Lord, nevertheless not my will but your will be done. Lord, I surrender to your sovereignty in my life. Joe said, I think Jesus is coming for me. And Sally and James had a private discussion about comfort care in a point where previously she didn't want the comfort care, not at that time. But as time went on, she yielded in obedience under what God's will is for her. The Lord's saying, I'm coming for you to be asked in the bodies to be present with the Lord. Heaven is better. I'm gonna heal you. I'm gonna heal you with a new body. And so God supersedes. He supersedes and and does things that we can't even comprehend or even know. We know theoretically. We know faithfully. We know by hope, a confident expectation that we too are one day gonna have our new glorified body. And based upon the faith that he's given us and what happened with Jesus, we know that his promises are gonna come true because 100% accuracy on everything else. So we're not gonna die and then wind up in hell. We're not gonna die and wind up a cow. We're not gonna die and be annihilated. We're gonna die, which means move out of this body and be with the Lord. Absent the body present with the Lord. And we have a new glorified body with Jesus as the prototype. The type of body that he demonstrated for forty days upon the earth with the scars still in his hands. And John saw him in Revelation five as a lamb that had been slain. Maybe still bearing that disfigurement that he received at our hands at the cross of Calvary. And that's the demonstration of his love, the proof of his love. Walking in love is the love of the savior. Secondly, walking in love is the love of the saints. Verse three, but fornication so look at the contrast. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not once be named among you as become a saints. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting. I might be sitting right there. Which are not convenient, which is inappropriate, but rather giving of of thanks. So as saints, we're to be set apart from the world, we're to be made holy. And I have a hard time using a vernacular that's unnatural. You know, that's that's, you know, get my collar on and act like a holy man. You know, he's a holy man. When when I finish from the pulpit, sometimes things come out that may be questionable, you know, and I try to I try to maintain the dignity and the sanctity of being in this pulpit and and know who who who we're representing. But there's times where after church when I'm tired and I might say something that shocks you, you know, like how could a pastor say something like that? Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm wanting a cheap joke, a cheap laugh. Maybe I need to examine that a little bit better and not, you know, say those things. But we did the with the kids, we did the king of the hill type thing, you know. And I mentioned a couple of you that that, hey, maybe next time we're gonna do smear the queer. Well, that sounds weird coming from a pastor, but that's what we did when I was a kid. And so can I say that word, smear the queer? I mean, what do I do? What kind of words should I use? So when I'm at the gym and I'm around secular people, totally secular people, there's beautiful nurses, young girls, a lot of young girls, and they all throw out f bombs. That's strange to me. That's strange hearing that. These girls are like drunk sailors from Bremerton, you know. It's bizarre. I certainly don't talk like that nor do I want anybody who's a Christian talking like that, you know. And then there are some flaming gay people there. A couple guys and a girl, and the one girl is incredibly nice to me. Incredibly kind. And the two other guys, they're very respectful and very kind to me. And word gets around that I'm a pastor, and maybe they would think that I would be condemning and condemning their lifestyle, condemning who they are, but no. Again, I qualify. They don't claim to be Christians. If they claim to be Christians, I'd go have a discussion with them. But they're worldly people. That's how worldly people live. So I'm gonna treat them like Jesus treated sinners. Like he treated you and I before we became Christians. He loved on us. It's a love of God. It's a kindness of God that leads us to repentance. We know we're doing wrong. The Holy Spirit's convicting me. I know I'm doing wrong. And so when we're drawn to his love and, you know, the home of Simon the Pharisee, the the woman who's this sinful woman is weeping over Jesus, washing his feet with her tears and drying it with her hair and costly, you know, ointment and anointing him and all. And Simon the Pharisee's indignant and basically Jesus says, those that are forgiven much love much. And so the confusion and the hurt and the degradation of being sexually abused as children and all the different things that factor in to bring forth a person in adulthood that's confused about their sexuality and all, we don't know what they've been through. We don't know what they've gone through. We don't know where they're at, or maybe you do. Maybe you experienced that, but God saved you out of that lifestyle. You don't continue in that lifestyle, do you? No. That that would be not walking like a saint, one that's set apart. That wouldn't be mimicking the savior. Certainly, there's the fruit of repentance where we could see that you're no longer a fornicator, that you're not walking on uncleanness or covetousness, that there's some repentance there. So as saints, we're set apart from the world, we're made holy and our love is not like the world which seeks to gratify self. We do not fornicate. This word fornicate is the Greek word porneia. Get pornography. Speaks of harlotry, adultery, it speaks of incest. All this pedophilia, all this Epstein Island, all the ranch, the Epstein Ranch, all the the globalist leaders, their their affinity for pedophilia, their desire to normalize pedophilia and legislate pedophilia. It's in your face everywhere. And man, a parent, these kids are entrusted to you and you're to protect them from these predators to the point of laying your life down if you have to because they have an insatiable lust that we see in Sodom and Gomorrah where they want the new blood. They want the new guys that come into town. They've had their way with all the children and all the people up to that point. And even when God allows them to be blinded by the two angels, You would think when you're blinded, when you're smoked with blindness, that you'd say, uh-oh, I better chill. I I I I better not push my will any further. My feverish appetite to be satisfied. I better stop. But no, it says that they were groping for the door in their blindness. That's some sick puppies right there, man. That's some sickness. Groping for the door in your blindness? Where's the door? I gotta have these guys. I gotta have them. And Lot's offering his virgin daughters to these guys. They don't want no virgin daughters. That's a real sick sick society. And Jesus said, as it was in the days of Noah, as it was in the days of Lot, it's gonna be in the last days, the times we're living in. So fornication is off the charts. The porneia, the pornography, the uncleanness is off the charts. We're living in a very degraded time. It should be easy for us to stand out as saints from the darkness of the world. We should be so bright and so close to Jesus that they know that we're freaks, that we're Jesus freaks, that we're aliens, that we don't fit in with the world. We don't wanna Christianize the world and bring the world in here and be like the world. We wanna be distinctly different as light is from darkness. Oh. In Numbers chapter 25, God smote 24,000 of his own people because they were engaging in fornication with the Midianites where Balaam taught king Balak of the Moabites how to subdue the children of Israel. I can't do a direct assault against them. I can't tell you how to take them out king Balak because every time I start to move in that direction, God gives beautiful prophecies concerning them. The star of Jacob, the Messiah that's gonna come forth from him. And king Balak's gonna give him money. You could have been a great man, Balaam, as Balak says. Yeah. I'd have given you almost everything. And he said, I don't care if you gave me all of your house, everything. I can't speak against the children of Israel. I can't speak against them. Revelation 12, the accuser of the brethren, the devil's the one that condemns and speaks against you and I. And the Lord, he meditates on you, he thinks on you. In his good thoughts concerning you, good thoughts, not condemning thoughts. His good thoughts concerning you are numbered more than all the grains of sand. That's why when I'm at the beach, I like to take the sand. Wow. God's good thoughts. Look at all this sand or the stars. His good thoughts concerning me. The Lord thinks on me, he thinks on you. You're his workmanship. And he's you're just getting a taste of what eternity is gonna be like, being filled with the spirit and all. And so Balaam concocted a plan, a strategy, and he said to King Balak, if you entice these guys with your women, if they were to commit fornication of their own accord, then God would do the cursing. God would do the justice against them. I can't curse them. So what a strategy of the wicked one. If he can't get you in a frontal attack, he's gonna join the church. And he's gonna bring fornication in. And he's gonna bring where all the people are sleeping with each other that profess to be Christians. When your youth group gets together, they're sleeping. When your college age singles group goes over to Port Townsend for a wine festival, they're all sleeping together. Now they're getting drunk sleeping together. That's Christian growth right there, baby. That's the way to grow a church. And nobody questions it. Because it's pragmatic. Hey, the church is growing. Yeah. Growing in sin, disgust, and wickedness, and you know what else? No power. You neutralize a group of people, they have no power. The devil's busy neutralizing us with sin as we incorporate and adopt and give in to sin within the church. No. We're to live like saints. We're to be distinctly different. First Thessalonians four verse three, this is the will of God, even your sanctification that you should abstain from fornication. It's a no brainer. This is the will of God. Abstain from it. Don't do it. Stay away from it. If God's made you a eunuch, then enjoy being a eunuch. If God's made you one that's designed to cohabitate to the two come together to be one, he's given the context of marriage. It's marriage. One man, one woman. The world's so confused about marriage. It's easy. It's simple. God lays it out. One man, one woman. The two coming together as one. Male, female. He made them in the beginning. Right? It's it's a no brainer. This is the will of God. Don't commit fornication. Paul says in first Corinthians seven, if you burn, if there's passion there, then get married. If you have the gift of being a eunuch, then be a eunuch. Nothing wrong with that either. But not all men can, Paul said, can live like that. Paul said, I chose to live like that rather than bringing my wife through all the heartache that I'm gonna go through. Peter had a wife, the others had wives and families. No problem there, but fornication's wrong. And fornication was very rampant, apparent. It was it was the norm in these cities, in Ephesus, in Corinth, in Thessalonica. It was the norm. The culture, culturally, it was the norm. Many people had mistresses. Many people had many liaisons and women in their life, men in their life, and even even children. It's horrific to look at the Roman culture and to see that the the Roman senators were just like the guys today where they actually had castrated little boys as their sex toys. And even in the records, bequeathing them as an inheritance to the next rulers and others. So these eunuchs are eunuchs by by men as Jesus said, where they're castrated, they're not gonna affect the the ruler's harem of women maybe. But if they have an appetite as they've exhausted all every woman and the desire for a woman over and over, woman after woman after woman, now they desire little boys. Because they can't satisfy the lust anymore. So now they gotta go to another stimulation. We don't wanna go too far down this road. You know where I'm going. Because it's a sordid, ugly, horrific picture of our degradation of what we're capable of apart from Christ, what the perversion that comes and the children, the sex trafficking and what victims they are. And so Jesus brings it home with Matthew five twenty eight, whosoever looks upon a woman has already committed adultery, you know, in his heart. So the heart is the place of cultivation. And so the next word is uncleanness, which speaks of sexual impurity. Everything outside of marriage is wrong. And then he comes to a word, this is so strange. We're talking about sexual sin. We're always we're always bashing people that are sexual deviants in the church. We never ever ever hear a sermon on covetousness. And yet it's always listed. What is covetousness? What is that? What's that look like? It might be being more in love with mammon than with God. It might be we're more in love with money and our way of life than with Jesus. It might be that we've kicked Jesus out of the church, and we're self satisfied with our wealth, and we define it as God's blessing on my life. Look at how much God approves. Look at how blessed I am. And the Lord looks at the church of Laodicea and he says, you know, you guys are delusional because you're saying, and I might have to wake you up. I might have to attack your idol. I might have to reduce you so that you'll you'll let me back in because I'm knocking. You've kicked me out of the church and you're self satisfied that, hey, we're we're we're rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing. You're delusional because you were going in the way of delusion. You didn't want to know the truth. You kept attending churches where you were appeased by the material wealth. It must be God's blessing on me. Where's the spiritual blessing? Where's the spiritual vitality? Where's the power of the spirit to transform and change lives? What have you become a social club? You lack power? He says, no. You you guys are naked, poor, blind, and miserable. You're empty. You don't have the spiritual vitality. You don't have the real blessing of the spirit. You've kicked me out and yet I still love you and I'm knocking on the door of your heart saying, let me in. Why would you kick Jesus out of the church? Why would you be self satisfied with your own covetousness? Not a good thing. Gets in the way of loving him, which speaks of greediness. You can't serve two masters. Either serve God or mammon or money. Hebrews thirteen five, be without covetousness and be content. There's the word, contentment. Godliness with contentment is great gain. We brought nothing into the world and certain we're not gonna carry anything out. Be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have for he has said, will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Is Jesus enough? Can you be content with his love? Yesterday, when we're talking about Sally, one of the things that keeps coming up is how hard she worked. She loved to work. And coming from The Philippines and, you know, meeting James and marrying James and James being a great great provider, Sally didn't need to work. Why did Sally work? To get more stuff? No. They were very content. They could have had a bigger house, more houses, more cars, newer cars, newer everything. That wasn't who they were. They were content with Jesus. They loved Jesus. I propose to you that Sally worked primarily so that as Paul said, when you work, now you're able to give. You're able to give to others. God provides an abundance. And so Sally worked and worked and worked, and she gave it away. She was a giver. She she wanted to give to everybody. She sent money home to The Philippines, which many of the Filipino community do. It wasn't about amassing a greater and a greater fortune. You ask a Rockefeller, how much is enough? Just a little bit more. Just a little more. Well, when's enough enough? And there's a lot of people here and people within the community here that know what tremendous, how generous James and Sally have been these thirty years. People were wearing earrings and this jewelry that Sally would just arbitrarily buy for them. Just buy for him. She had a car and she'd pick the ladies up and take them all to work, even on her days off, James is saying. Definitely wasn't guilty of covetousness, was she? More blessed to give than to receive. So excited about Jesus. So excited of the of the marriage she had and God's provision in her life and living in America and how blessed she is and she wanted to bless others. She tried to not go to work, but she had to work. She loved to work. She had a strong work ethic. Beautiful example. Beautiful example of the generosity, the giving, more blessed to give than to receive. Is Jesus enough? Can you be content with his love? Verse four, neither filthiness which speaks of obscenity, vulgarity, nor foolish which speaks of moronic talking nor jesting, clowning around, being a clown, buffoonery, dirty jokes at work. I know a lot of you when the guys start talking or the gals start talking dirty jokes or potty talk and such, you just walk away. And what's interesting, I've heard some of you say, you know, you guys offend me every day. You guys speaking to guys at work are always f bombing talking trash. But you and I as Christians, they're looking for the tiniest thing that we might say that they could take us before the board and get us fired, you know. And then we let them know, you guys are always offending me as a Christian. We don't say anything. We love on you. The worst that we do is we walk away from your filthiness. And you're testing us. You're trying to see if we'll entertain these thoughts, these ideas, these things. And we we lay our lives down. We love on you, pray for you. But no, we're not gonna compromise. We're not gonna give into that vulgarity. From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. God wants to change your heart. If you've had a problem with profanity, God can change your heart. Don't ever incorporate that profanity into your home where your little ears are hearing that stuff. If you have a problem with the tongue in this regard, bring it to the cross, bring it to the Lord, ask the Lord to change you. You don't need your kids, your grandkids mimicking you, speaking the same words they hear you say. They're gonna hear it school maybe. They're gonna hear it out in the community, but you're gonna teach them by example. That's not a way a saint talks. You're better than that. You're more intelligent than that. You have more adjectives in your vocabulary than that to describe things. It's it's unbecoming of a Christian. And especially in the pulpit, they have pastors, they called them the cussing pastor. Oh, what an embarrassment. What an embarrassment. And I can't even describe the sentences, the things that he was teaching these kids and just to get a laugh out of them and all. And it's just just horrific, just embarrassing, just you you just don't do that. Which are not convenient or acceptable, but rather giving of thanks. Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name that he's worthy. So we don't want any whiners. We don't wanna be the whiners. We wanna have the thankful heart, a grateful heart. Walking in love, the love of the savior, the love of the saints, and thirdly and finally, the love of those who are saved. Are you saved? There's a contrast here. There's a way that you can know. Verse five, for this you know that no whoremonger boy, it's a big King James name. Whoremonger. Oh, he's a whoremonger. Nor unclean person, and again, nor covetous man. Are we that in love with material goods, with material things? Have we developed a business model that's based upon money? Never satisfied, never have enough, always wanting more and more and more? Maybe that's why we don't have anything on covetousness. Nor a covetous man who is, notice, an idolater. And I've told you this before, I've been in a room with a couple professing Christians and their life was centered, built on money. And there was a palatable, there was a presence in that room of evil when they were talking about money to Kathy and I. Multi millionaires, enormous amount of wealth and that was the first time I ever sensed the presence of evil in that way, in that regard. It's weird. It's really strange. I went away rejoicing that I was poor. God wants me poor, you know. God. It was scary. It was scary. And you can see how people can get all caught up in it and how it can be so binding. And money becomes your god, and every day you're working your money, you're day trading, and you're trying to make the the net thing grow and grow and grow and grow your whole life long. Not wanting to have any children because they might get in the way. Just focused on building and building and building. Tear down my barns and build bigger barns, know. Hey, your soul's required of you this night, you know. And Jesus gives us perspective. What's it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what would a man give in exchange for his life? You can't serve God and money, God and mammon. And then I wanna see you guys. You guys are so generous, so kind, so content, so in love with Jesus. You know, you're you you just want the Lord to be glorified. You're thankful for your ability to work. You're thankful for your job. You're thankful for your health. You're thankful. And then you want to bless others, and you do. You have it in the right place. It's the Lord first. And you're just a channel where God's able to bless you and you're blessing others. It's that's the proper context. That's the right way. That's how it's supposed to be. In first Corinthians six verse nine, where he says, let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things come at the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. So the saved and the lost are distinctly different in behavior. And so we see that the difference by behavior. And again, in first Corinthians six verse nine, he says, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? And then he says, be not deceived. Good name for a podcast. Right? Be not deceived. Jesus said, take heed that no man deceive you. Right? Do a do a study with a concordance about deception. Take the phrase, be not deceived. And watch how many times God's exhorting you and I to not be deceived. So you don't get your truth from the culture. You don't get your truth from pansy preaching that's I think, I think, I think. I don't care what you think. What's the Bible say? What's the Bible say about that behavior? So Paul says it this way, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, he's got a nice list here. You're probably in this list, not yet. You're you're here. Nor the effeminate, nor the abuser of themselves with mankind. Alright. Now those are the sexual sinners. Let's beat them. And yet, many of us are having trouble with the fornication, the porneia of looking at naked pictures. They didn't have the internet back then, but they had idols that they'd make. They'd have when I went to visit Ephesus, when we went to see the seven churches, they have these statues, these little things that they'd carve and make, and they'd be multi breasted to stimulate, to incite, to to take somebody that sees that and stimulate them lustfully. So they had their pornography and we today have boy, do we have the pornography, the fornication, the porneia. And we in the church, outwardly you may not be effeminate, you may not be a fornicator with somebody, but as Jesus said, if you looked upon a man or a woman, and I'm and some of the stuff I'm reading, it it's sounding like the women are watching just as much porn as the men now. That that's that's crazy. It's crazy. But we're just overwhelmed. We're polluted with filth that's in the church. We're trying to hide it. We're trying to deal with it. So he says, be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers. Adultery is husband and wife, now one of you is cheating on the other. That's adultery. Nor the effeminate. That's the skinny jeans pastors, you know. Acting all like women. Fairies. Effeminate. Maybe that's why it's swinging this masculinity, cause of the effeminate aspect of men. And so the pressure of feminism, the women against the men, this battle that's taking place. So the men grow a beard, try that. Women can't get a beard, but they can take steroids and get buffed, you know. They can squat more than I can squat. When I'm at the gym and they get next to me and they're squatting, they say, it's okay if I lift, I work out here. And I said, as long as you don't lift more than me. You can't crush my ego, man. I can't take that. So go over there. If you're gonna squat 500, go over there, you know. And I'm serious. No. I'm just kidding. But there are. There are a lot of girls nowadays that are stronger than men. It's crazy. I I it's bizarre. They when in my day, the girls were strong, but they kinda held back, I think. And if you hug a girl or kiss a girl, it's like she feels really good soft, you know. Now you kiss a girl, it's like she's got traps. She's got bigger arms than you, and oh, wow. You're rigged. Crazy, isn't it? Did you think like that? Let me see your six pack. Jim gets me. Debbie doesn't. You know? It's okay. It's okay. You guys love me. You love me like I am. But you know you're thinking this stuff. You see this stuff out there. How's a pastor to respond to that? What are we supposed to do with this? So again, know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor the adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor the abusers of themselves with mankind. Then he says, nor thieves. Thieves aren't gonna make it. People that steal. Right? And then he says, after the thieves Let's see. After the thieves are the drunkards, revilers, extortioners shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Or actually says thieves, then the covetousness, then the drunkards, and then the revilers, people that are brawling, and then the extortioners, and then he says shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And then after that he says, and such were See the BC days? Such were some of you. See, people that are in the LBGTQ lifestyle, they're told they were born that way, and then they hinder you and I, the culture in Canada and BC. You're not allowed to share the gospel with them to rescue them from that behavior. You'll get in trouble. But Paul says, and such were some of you. But now, see the repentance? That's the old Rick. Now you got the new one. There's a distinct difference. Be not deceived. Don't be deceived. There's gonna be a distinction. There's gonna be a contrast. There's gonna be a difference of people that say they're in revival. They're Christians now. Well, let's see how they walk. Let's see their behavior. Are they walking with Jesus? But you're washed. What are you washed in? You're washed with the blood of the lamb. In the contrast, but you are washed. But you are sanctified. Sanctified means you've been made holy. You're unholy. Now you've been made holy. And it goes, so washed, sanctified, but you're justified just as if I've never sinned. How? In the name of the Lord Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God transformed and changes sinners, and he turns them into saints. That's the beauty of the gospel. And Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek for therein, where? Within the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. God's revealing to you that the just shall live by faith. You wanna be justified? You gotta walk by faith, trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the cross of Calvary. That faith is imputed to you for righteousness. Holy Spirit comes into your heart and life, sanctifies you, sets you apart, seals you, and begins a work in you where you're no longer body and soul, your body, soul, and spirit. And now the people on the outside that can't see the inside, they see your lifestyle of repentance. You're no longer the drunk. You're no longer the clown. You're no longer the womanizer. You're not in the bars anymore. You're not going on business trips and cheating, adulterating against your wife and all. You love Jesus. You're a Jesus freak. You're fanatic. You bring your bible with you. At lunchtime, you go out to your car and you read your bible. Nowadays, on your phone, can read your bible. You can get the word of God and you listen to the bible. You're listening to teaching everywhere. You're a transformed, changed person. And your family's looking at you. What happened to you? I like you better when you're on drugs. You ever have them say that to you? I like you better when you used to drinking on drugs. Why? Because you scare them. Because they thought they were saved. Because they were baptized as a Catholic. Why are you so extreme? When you come down from this high, Rick and Cathy, you're gonna commit suicide. Nobody could stay up there that long. And then they wind up becoming Christians. They wind up being thirsty. They wind up wanting to know what you know. They wanting to know who you know, and they start getting saved. The saved and the lost are distinctly different in behavior. First John three ten, he says, in this the children of God are manifest. You wanna know who the children of God are? John's given an example. And the children of the devil, a contrast. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God. Neither he that loveth not his brother. So real simple. If you're practicing sin, and the keyword is practice. Because if you say you have no sin, you're a liar and the truth isn't in you. Any one of us can commit that list of sins. Any one of us as a Christian can be guilty of fornication, adultery, covetousness, all of it. Any one of us as Christians, as saints, as those saved, we can fall as David fell. We can fall like so many. The difference is we don't live under the radar as secret Christians, as hypocrites. Our sin finds us out. God gives us space to repent and we quit, we stop, we get back on track, we get back on the narrow road. We confess our sin and he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. We don't want to live a dual lifestyle. We don't want to live a lifestyle of practicing sin, going to church, raising our arms, praising the Lord, but living a hellacious lifestyle. It's it's incongruous. It's an oxymoron. It doesn't match. It doesn't occur. It doesn't it it's it's not true. And the key again in first John, look at the word committed. It's a word practice. If you're practicing sin, that means there's no change, no transformation. You're still in the lifestyle of the natural man, the flesh, dominated by the flesh. First John two four says, he that say it, so again the professors, I know him. Everybody's saying they know him now. All the politicians, all the all the Charlie Kirk people, all the the actors, all of Hollywood, everybody's coming up with a testimony of they know Jesus. It's bizarre. I think it's getting ready for the one row religion. He that sayeth I know him and keepeth not his commandments. Alright. Let's watch. Are you keeping his commandments? Are you loving one another? Is a liar and the truth is not in him. So basically, you're an unbeliever. Not basically, you are an unbeliever. This is my commandment Jesus said in John fifteen twelve, that you love one another as I have loved you. Verse seven says, be not you therefore partakers with them. They're distinctly different than us. We're saints, they're ain'ts. Don't be partakers with them. Don't mimic their lifestyle. Don't try to christianize the world's lifestyle. Don't bring it in here. We don't care how many empty seats there are. We don't care about the seekers feeling comfortable here because we don't call out sin. We want the prideful unbeliever to be uncomfortable, to be pricked, to be angry maybe, or to be humbled, to be broken before God. That's the goal. But if they won't be humbled, if they won't be broken, you either fall upon Jesus and you be broken or he's gonna fall upon you one day in judgment and grind you to powder. So don't be fighting with God about this. You don't like me, that's fine. You take it up with Jesus. This is what his word says. So we're not gonna change the gospel to appease the world. Seekers. We're not afraid of offending sinners. That's our job, to speak the truth in love. We don't want false conversions. We don't want a false sense of security. We want you to know that you know that you know that you're a Christian and you're going to heaven. And when we stand before God, I'm gonna give an account. God's gonna hold me responsible of whether or not I took you with the full counsel of God or whether I watered it down just to make money, just so I could be successful with a big church. Don't you wanna vomit? Doesn't that make you sick? Jesus said, you're lukewarm, I'm gonna spew you out of my mouth. It's sickening. Don't go there. Be not either for partakers with them. Love like the savior, love like saints, love like the saved. By this shall all men know that you're my disciples, Jesus said in John thirteen thirty five, if you have love one to another. Be different than the world. It's simple. You wanna be different than the world? Walk in love. You will be distinctly different than the world. Jesus said in the last days, iniquity is going to abound and the love of many is gonna grow cold. Jesus said, when the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth? A genuine faith. People profess that they know God, but in works and fruit, they deny him. You don't see the fruit. You don't see Christ in them. Can people see Christ in you? Can they see that you're a saint? That you're separated from this world? Can they see your love for Jesus? Your your indomitable love that nothing can quench that love that you have for Jesus? There's no circumstances. The devil's betting with God. You take away this from him, he'll curse you to your face. No devil. You lose. Job maintained his faith. Naked came I into the world. Naked, I'm gonna go. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. The Lord knows the way that I take, and when he's tried me, I'm gonna come forth as gold. I know that my redeemer lives. That's what I know. You can't take that away from me. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day, thank you for this time, thank you for the testimonies, thank you for your love, Lord. And as I look around this room, Lord, I I see that everybody in here is saved, but Lord, I don't want to I don't wanna guess. So Lord, if there's anybody here this morning, you don't know Jesus, you don't have a relationship with Jesus, this is your time, this is your moment to respond to his love. It's his kindness that leads us through repentance. If you're playing games with God, if you're a poser, if you haven't really surrendered unto him, received him into your heart and life, we wanna give you the opportunity. He came onto his own and his own received him not. He was in the world, the world world was made by him and the world knew him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God even to them that believe in his name. He's given you the power, the choice of becoming a Christian, becoming a saint. Just lift your hand up, we wanna lead you in prayer. He's not rejecting you. The ball's in your court. Will you receive eternal life through Jesus Christ? Will you love him as he's loved you? Will you be a responder? Will you worship the true and living God or not? It's your decision. This is the day of decision. Anyone this morning, just lift your hand up. We wanna pray with you. Father, thank you so much. And Lord, now as we worship you, as we partake of communion, we pray that this would be a sweet time of drawing near to you, Lord, as you draw near to us. So bless, we pray, and continue to comfort Linda and James, and family and friends who are agonizing. Their hearts hurt. We hurt, Lord. It hurts to have Sally go before us, Lord, but we know where she is. She's not lost, she's saved. She's with you, but Lord, it hurts. And thank you for that hurt, thank you for that sorrow. Use that in our lives to reach the lost, Lord, where they could be separated for a whole eternity. Lord, save. Save now, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.