Well, good evening, brothers and sisters.
In 1 John, John writes, “These things I write to you that your joy may be full.” As I come before you tonight, I share that your joy may be full. Jesus is coming, and Jesus is coming soon. Praise God for that.
When the brothers asked me to share for the conference, they asked if I would share a word about how we practically live out this endurance to the end. As I was reading through devotionals a couple months ago, I came across this passage in Titus 2. That is what I would like to open with this evening.
For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world;
looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity,
and purify unto Himself a people for His own possession, zealous of good works.
These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no man despise thee.
Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh,
even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour.
Let us have another word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we come before You tonight, and we want to place You in the highest place. You alone are worthy to be praised. As we come here tonight, we are so thankful that we can gather in Your presence. We do look to You as our Head.
We pray that in all ways You would truly be Head over this time here, that You would anoint the word that You have for us tonight, and that You would give utterance to Your word tonight. May all of us have open hearts to hear what the Spirit has to say to us in this hour. So we say to You tonight, “Speak, Lord, for Your servants are hearing.” In Jesus’ name we pray.
Thinking about this practical reality of how we live out endurance to the end, look at the Titus passage. Paul says that the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. He says that it has taught us to deny ungodliness, deny worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
What I would like to share tonight is these three things: how we live in the now. How do we live between these two appearings—between His first appearing and His glorious appearing? We live in these three ways: to deny, to live, and to look.
You know, I remember when I was younger, I never really thought about the fact that we lived in the last hour. It was not something that I really considered as a young person, caught up in the many things that happen in life.
But John says, “Little children, it is the last hour.” John was writing at the end of the first century, around A.D. 95. If he thought it was the last hour then, brothers and sisters, it is the last hour now. It is a sobering word when we think about it.
Let us turn back to Titus and think about the setting. Titus is a letter written by Paul, and Paul says, “I left thee in Crete.” We have to consider the setting in which Paul was writing to Titus.
Titus 1:12 says this of the Cretans:
One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said,
Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, idle gluttons.
It is a strong word that Paul gives to Titus. He says, in effect, “You need to pay attention to the day in which you live. You need to pay attention to the people around you. They are liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.”
How often we think that we live in a world that is quite dangerous and quite difficult to live in. Certainly, Titus is one we can relate to, because he was living among those who were not only liars and evil beasts, and not just lazy and not just gluttons, but lazy gluttons.
I have been to Crete. I was there on my honeymoon about ten years ago. I do not know if I could say the same thing—that they were liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. They certainly were very aggressive drivers.
But I live in New York City, and this resonates with me. If we look around at the people around us—and it is not just New York City; it is everywhere we live—we are living in a day where people in this world are liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. We live in difficult days.
What does Paul say to Titus? He says, “Deny ungodliness, deny worldly lusts, and live soberly, righteously, and godly.” Let us talk about these two denials that Paul shares with Titus.
He says in Titus 2 to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. This is a word that we have heard before, but in this day, brothers and sisters, we need to take up our cross and deny ourselves.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us. Often we look at the cross and think of it in such a negative way, as such a difficult thing that we have to take up. But the cross is there for our good. It is there for our benefit, because God knows us, knows our nature, and knows that we need to deny these things because we are prone to them.
What is ungodliness? What is it? If I can define it simply, ungodliness is a lack of reverence toward God—a lack of what is pleasing to God. Maybe another way to put it is doing things my way.
Today is a perfect time for me to share this, since today is Independence Day. This is something we celebrate in the United States—at least some of us celebrate our independence. But many times, we live our lives in “Independence Day,” where we are living my way.
Even Frank Sinatra had an anthem to this called “My Way.” You may know the song. Over and over again, he talks about how it was his way, how he did things his way, and he celebrates that it was his way.
Well, as we come tonight, I think we can all appreciate that my way needs to be His way.
This is something that we see from the beginning of time. We look at the fall of man in Genesis 3, and we see this struggle of my way versus God’s way.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes,
and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat;
and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.
We know on the surface that there was an outward disobedience. God said, “Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” But was that all? Was it simply outward disobedience, or was there something more? Was there an inner heart attitude where they were choosing their way instead of God’s way?
Look at Genesis 3:6. The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise. It was an inner heart attitude. She wanted it; she wanted things her way.
This is man’s state. Our fallen nature is that we love ourselves more than we love God.
I subscribe to National Geographic magazine, and last month’s cover article talked about the state of man. It did not put it that way. It asked, “Why do we lie?” That was the cover story: “Why We Lie.”
I found it quite interesting that this secular publication recognized the issue with the fall of man. It gave a scale of why we lie, and it said that eighty percent of the reason why we lie is either to protect ourselves or to promote ourselves.
This is the nature of man: to protect ourselves and to promote ourselves.
We can go on and on through the history of man. We can look at Cain and see how he decided to give an offering the way he wanted to give an offering, and not in God’s way. He wanted to do things in his own way, in his own self-effort and self-reliance. We know where that ended for him.
Solomon shares about this reality of our way versus God’s way in Proverbs 14:12:
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man;
But the end thereof are the ways of death.
If that was not clear enough, just two chapters later, in Proverbs 16:25, he says the same thing:
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man;
But the end thereof are the ways of death.
Doing things our way, unless it is totally submitted and surrendered to the Lord—when it is our way—it is ungodliness. We need to deny that, because we have to realize how prone we are to doing things our way.
The second thing Paul shares with Titus is to deny worldly lusts and desires. How could we put that another way? Worldly lusts and desires are a craving, a longing, for what is not pleasing to the Lord.
If you look at the end of 1 John, the last verse almost seems like a non sequitur. John is sharing about knowing God, fellowship, seeing how God is righteous and God is love, and then he comes to this last verse:
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
I will share briefly about this. A few of the brothers so far have shared some part about technology, so this is the time where everyone starts to squirm.
I submit to you that technology is not neutral. It is not a neutral thing. It certainly can be used in positive ways when submitted to the Lord, and there are many positive uses. I am not recommending that we go back to horses and buggies and throw all our cell phones out when we walk out the door here. But technology is not neutral.
There is an issue with us being constantly connected, because it refashions our brains. As a result of this constant connectedness, we have developed an inability to abide—an inability to just pause, an inability to think, to consider, to focus, and to think deeply.
Maybe there is even an inability to hear the still, small voice, because we are so connected.
I was reading recently that in China right now, the number-one public-health issue is internet addiction—technology addiction. In fact, there are over four hundred addiction centers in China.
You may laugh, but I think they are actually much farther along than we are here in the United States, because maybe we have not come to the reality that we have the same addiction.
Surveys in the United States say that ninety-one percent of people say that their phone is an extension of their brain. I hope you see that in a sober way, brothers and sisters. This is a serious thing.
Technology is designed to make us addicted. For all the willpower that we have to disconnect, there are a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job is to keep us addicted. That is the state of technology.
We know that our enemy is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. But in a much more subtle way, our enemy is also like a fowler who sets a snare, who sets a trap for us.
We need to be on guard for this and to deny worldly lusts. Consider whether technology has become an idol for us. If it has, this is something that needs to go to the cross.
I share with young people pretty often, and when this topic of technology comes up, I tell them two things. This is going to make life a lot easier for your parents. You can ask for two gifts for Christmas this year:
A lot of these small-print Bibles, these compact Bibles, are actually going out of print, which I think is quite tragic. I think much of it is because of that iPhone that is in your hand right now.
The other thing is this: get an alarm clock. This is something that I have found, as I have shared with young people over the years, to be revolutionary in their lives.
Instead of starting your day with constant connectedness and being notified of something that happened—whether a news story, an Instagram post, or a message from somebody—start differently. I purposely did not bring my phone tonight because my friends had been texting me about a boxing match that happened a couple nights ago, and I did not want to be distracted by it.
Get an alarm clock. There you go. Parents, I made your life a little easier for gifts this year.
We need to get disconnected so that we can get real with God and meet Him, to hear His still, small voice.
Now, we can spend a lot of time on these denials. It is easy to get caught up in the reality of how we have to empty ourselves of these things, how we have to deny ourselves, and how these things need to go to the cross. But there has to be something on the other side of it.
Our lives are like vacuums. They are always going to be filled with something. If we deny ourselves and deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, it has to be filled with something. What Paul says to Titus is, “Fill it with these things: live soberly, live righteously, live godly.”
This is how we live before He appears again. What does it mean to live soberly? We can think of being sober as being serious, having a sound mind, being temperate, and being discreet.
Proverbs says to guard your heart with all diligence. I think an even better way to look at this is through Peter’s life.
Sometimes we get to a place in our Christian lives where we think we are invincible. We have heard it all, seen it all, and maybe even feel like we know it all.
Mark 14:29 says:
But Peter said unto Him, Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, that thou to-day,
even this night, before the cock crow twice, shalt deny Me thrice.
But he spake exceeding vehemently, If I must die with Thee, I will not deny Thee.
And in like manner also said they all.
Just a few verses later, in Mark 14:37, Jesus had called Peter out to pray:
And He cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter,
Simon, sleepest thou? couldest thou not watch one hour?
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation:
the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Then, in 1 Peter 4:7, Peter writes:
But the end of all things is at hand:
be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto prayer.
How much more insight do we have into the value and power of that word Peter gives? He experienced what it was to not be sober. He could not even pray for one hour. He had made that emphatic statement that he would not deny Christ, yet in such a short time he denied Him three times.
The end of all things is at hand, my brothers and sisters. Be serious and watchful in your prayers.
When I was thinking about this in a practical way, it turned me back to Hebrews 10. We have read our theme verse in Hebrews 10:36 a couple times, and some of the brothers even went back to verse 32. But let us go back a few verses before that.
Hebrews 10:24-25 says:
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works;
not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is,
but exhorting one another; and so much the more,
as ye see the day drawing nigh.
It is such a treasure to be with you all this evening.
I remember when I went to my first Harvey Cedars conference, maybe eleven or twelve years ago, in the fall of 2005. I remember being there at the Lord’s table on the Sunday, kind of the last main day of the conference.
As we were worshiping around the Lord’s table, we sang “Maranatha.” At that point, I said, “This is it. It does not get better than this. This is as close as you can get to heaven on earth.” Then you go home the next day, right?
For some of us, perhaps this gathering is all we have outside of the two or three where we gather. Those who have small gatherings really treasure and appreciate what it means to gather as the body of Christ. Too often, we take it for granted and forsake our assembling together.
We often come to these conferences and have the experience of saying, “This is it.” But we have to realize the treasure of brothers and sisters when we go back home.
Think about the California gold rush in the late 1840s. Thousands upon thousands of people rushed to California to make it big and find their gold. But to find gold, you have to sift through a lot of sand. You have to shake the sand out; it is very apparent. You have to see the gold through the sand.
We know from God’s word that gold speaks of the divine nature. Sometimes we have to do just the same. It is so easy to see the sand in our brothers and sisters, but there is gold in there—the positive Christ in each one of our brothers and sisters.
Are we willing to dig through the sand to see that gold and not forsake our assembling together?
Think about how our Lord dug through so much sand with His disciples. Think about how He dealt with doubting, denial, and betrayal. Yet through it all, He was merciful to them.
Brothers and sisters, let us not forsake our assembling together. Let us be sober about the value of gathering together in this day.
Paul does not just say to live soberly. He also says to live righteously. What does it mean to live righteously? To be just, proper, and upright.
We know that God is righteous. What does it mean that God is righteous? It means that He is right, that He does right, and that He makes right.
We are told in 1 John to practice righteousness. It is an interesting way to phrase it: practice righteousness. We often talk about the practice of law or the practice of medicine. I certainly do not want any doctors to practice on me, but this is the way we call it.
As an attorney, I can appreciate this, because I practice law. To practice means to repeat something until you gain proficiency. You keep practicing until you gain proficiency.
This is the way we are to be righteous. We practice righteousness. We take one step at a time to be righteous to one another.
1 John 3:16-17 says:
Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us:
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
But whoso hath the world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need,
and shutteth up his compassion from him,
how doth the love of God abide in him?
Not only are we to treat our brothers and sisters fairly, but our giving needs to be complete in ways far beyond finances.
If I were to ask you what the most valuable resource we have is, I wonder what you would say. The most valuable resource we have is time—something we can never get back, something we know is limited. Time is our most valuable resource.
We must redeem the time. Now, redeeming the time does not mean being busy.
I feel like we live in a generation where, as I meet with brothers and sisters in fellowship—from person to person, couple to couple, family to family—what I hear over and over again is how busy we are. It is remarkable how often I share with young people and they tell me how busy they are.
They are just in high school. They do not have to worry about putting food on the table or taking care of all the other cares of life, but even at this stage, they are busy. How busy we are.
If we are too busy for the Lord, then we are too busy.
There is this creation that has perhaps come up in the last generation called multitasking. If you ever go on Google, it will give you a chart showing how often words have been used in publications over the years. The phrase “multitasking” did not appear until very recently.
Multitasking is the buzzword of our generation: to always be connected, always taking advantage of every moment, and always being efficient in everything. Too often, multitasking becomes an impediment for us to live righteously.
I live in New York, and there are constant distractions everywhere we live. But I know some people are prone to have their devotional time on the subway because they multitask.
If you have ever ridden the subway, I would have to say that this is quite an impossible task. You have unholy advertisements covering the subway, unholy conversations next to you, maybe people who do not have a very nice scent emanating from them, crowds, delays, heat, sweat, and discomfort.
Are we too busy for the Lord? Too busy to live righteously?
Think about our Lord’s own example. We are talking about endurance. Look at the Lord Himself and, even in a physical way, His endurance. In the years of His public ministry, He traveled thousands of miles. It was remarkable physical endurance.
We see how often He was going from point A to point B and was interrupted along the way. But it was not an interruption. He never said, “I will get back to you. I am on My way to Galilee. When I come back, I will come and meet that need.” That was never the case.
Look at Matthew 20:29-34. Jesus was on His way from Jericho to Jerusalem for the triumphal entry.
And as they went out from Jericho, a great multitude followed Him.
And behold, two blind men sitting by the way side,
when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying,
Lord, have mercy on us, thou son of David.
And the multitude rebuked them, that they should hold their peace:
but they cried out the more, saying, Lord, have mercy on us, thou son of David.
And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I should do unto you?
They say unto Him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened.
And Jesus, being moved with compassion, touched their eyes;
and straightway they received their sight, and followed Him.
Those blind men were as insignificant as it comes—people to be disregarded, blind men on the side of the road. Yet Jesus took notice of them.
If you want to talk about an example of living righteously, look at our Lord. Look at how He did not see them as an interruption. He did not put them aside and say, “I have busier things to do. I am on My way to Jerusalem.” He had compassion.
What is compassion? Compassion is love in action—not simply saying that you will do something, but following it up.
I think about how often in my own life—and I do not say this to boast at all; I say this just to be real with you—I have said that I would pray for someone, and I never prayed.
I have learned some great lessons over the years from precious brothers in New York about what it means to really pray for one another. You want to live righteously? Pray for one another. Let us not just talk about it. Let us pray in action.
Brothers and sisters, if we are to live righteously in these days, we need to endure in prayer.
I can only imagine if we went around the room and thought about the different situations we are in, how easy it is to lose heart and not endure in prayer: a loved one who does not know the Lord, a loved one who has wandered from the Lord, an illness that seems unceasing, an impossible situation at work, or an impossible family situation.
We need to endure in prayer. It is so needed in this day.
I have been so humbled by some brothers and sisters. When the announcement went out for registration for this conference, I got an email that said, “We are committing to praying for you every day until the conference.” How humbling that is.
Do you want to live in this day? Do you want to live righteously in this day? Pray for one another.
Another way that we can live righteously is to share the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ with one another.
Too often, we look at our workplaces as ungodly places. Certainly, unless you work for Christian Testimony Ministry and work for the publication here—which is fully redeemed for the Lord—perhaps outside of that job, you can see your work as quite an ungodly place.
But I wonder if we look at our jobs and say, “How can this be sanctified to the Lord? How can my job be sanctified to the Lord? Maybe I am in this job, and maybe I am sitting next to this coworker in this season of my life to be the light of Christ to that person.”
Too often we shy away. We are timid. We fall back into our self-consciousness and wonder, “What will the person say?” People around us are distressed, in debt, and discontented, and they need the Lord.
If you want to live righteously in this day, share the gospel. Preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
It does not have to be a message that you give to them. You do not necessarily have to go through the four spiritual laws. It can be as simple as when they say to you, “How are you doing this morning?” and you say, “Great,” and they say, “Really?” What follows that is the gospel.
It is the simplicity of sharing your life. That is how we share the gospel.
The other thing I will say about living righteously is this: speaking about time, we need to be careful as parents. Too often, we model extreme busyness to our children and then expect them to abide. We expect them to live a life fully committed and surrendered to the Lord, a life that is enduring to the end, while we model extreme busyness.
What happened to Sabbath? What does Jesus say about Sabbath?
The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.
He knows us. What a loving God, that He knows we need Sabbath.
But what is directly connected to Sabbath? It means that we have to trust Him. Trust Him that if we are not going to take that extra three hours, two hours, or one hour in the morning to study, that the Lord will redeem that. We can say, “You gave Me the first part of your day. Trust Me that I am going to take care of you on that test.”
It is so easy to get caught up and to try to take matters into our own hands. But we need Sabbath. Sabbath was made for us.
Just last week, my family had quite a crazy month leading up to the conference. There were different ministry responsibilities and family responsibilities—much blessing on all sides. I was able to share the word in different places, had family visiting New York, and was a tour guide, which is an open offer to anyone here.
There was also extreme additional responsibility at work. I have a full-time job, and there were layers upon layers of extra responsibility. In preparation for the conference, I was preparing and preparing and preparing.
My wife said to me last week, “You need to get out of the house. You need to not bring your phone. You need to not bring your notes. You just need to have rest.”
The last thing I wanted to do on Wednesday night before the conference—we left Saturday morning—the last thing I wanted to do was have a night off. All I wanted to do was dig into the word, fiddle with my notes, research things, and prepare.
But can I tell you that time was so much more valuable than anything else? I needed that Sabbath. I needed that rest.
It was as simple as sitting in the grass in a park, which is difficult for me. You have to understand, we do not have a backyard. But to sit in the park and simply adore the clouds, look at the beauty of the color of the sky, listen to the birds, feel the leaves—just having that moment where I could be at peace with the Lord—was so refreshing.
We need Sabbath. How are we using our time? If we are to live righteously in this day, may we consider this.
The other thing Paul shares with Titus is this: live godly. Live soberly, live righteously, live godly.
What does it mean to live godly? I can put it simply: to pursue and please God. Or, in another way, to be conformed to His image—to do things like God and be conformed to His image.
I have already shared how God is righteous, but we also know that God is love.
1 John 3:1 says:
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we should be called children of God;
and such we are. For this cause the world knoweth us not,
because it knew Him not.
“Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us.”
There are several words in Scripture that should really pique our attention, and one of them is this word, “behold.” To behold is to stop, to contemplate, to consider, to pause, to look, and to say, “Wait a second. God is trying to get my attention in an even more powerful way here.”
John says, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us.”
When we behold His love, we are arrested. Arrested means that we are not free to leave. We are constrained. We have no choice but to be captured by His love once we see it.
I can only do so much to try to explain the love of God. I will share a short story.
For many of you in this room, you may be old enough to have seen this. For some of you, it was before you were born. In 1992, the Olympics were held in Barcelona. There was a 400-meter race, one time around the track.
If you can picture an Olympic athlete, that athlete is devoted more than one hundred percent to competition. Training is their life. They eat training, they live training, and everything they do is focused toward the goal.
There was a British sprinter by the name of Derek Redmond, who made it to the semifinals of the 1992 Olympics in the 400 meters. The race is about forty-five seconds, perhaps a little less.
At about twenty-three seconds into the race, he pulled his hamstring. That meant it was the end of his Olympics, the end of the race, and possibly the end of his career. When you are a sprinter, you are at the peak of your physical capabilities. This could have been it.
But he did not want to give up. He hobbled a little bit, then hobbled a little bit more. He could not make it to the end.
Then, in such a powerful picture of love, Derek Redmond’s father ran down from the stands, somehow got past security, came down onto the track, and picked up his son.
He put his arm around him and carried him all the way to the end.
Race officials came and tried to push him away. They said, “You cannot be here. You are not allowed to be on the track.” But the love of the father pushed them aside.
He said, “This is my son. I am going to see him all the way through to the end.”
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us.
We sing the hymn “The Love of God,” and the chorus talks about how measureless and strong His love is. But it is the third verse that really gets me:
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
God is love.
How does this apply to us? How are we to live godly? We know there is this eternal love between the Father and the Son, an eternal love which they share with one another. Because God is love, He poured that love out on us, creating us so that we could share in that love.
1 John 4 says:
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God;
and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
Herein was the love of God manifested in us,
that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world
that we might live through Him.
Herein is love, not that we loved God,
but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
When we really behold His love, when we see how He so loved us, we ought to love one another.
When Jesus was asked, “What is the first commandment? What is the greatest commandment?” He said:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
All the law and the prophets are summed up in loving God and loving one another.
How do we live in these days until His glorious appearing? How are we to live practically in these days? We love one another.
I can go on and on about different ways I have experienced love from the saints. I have been touched by so many people over the years in so many ways. I am so thankful for the unseen ways.
Those brothers who come and share often have a place where we are seen much in what we do, but I am so thankful for so many brothers and sisters who are behind the scenes, sharing love.
There is the brother or sister who puts a meal onto our stroller at the meeting place right after we have a baby. There is the brother or sister who sends you a call or an email and says, “I am praying for you, brother,” or, “I know what is going on.” They come alongside you when you are having a difficult time.
I had difficult times in my own life recently, and a brother was over at our apartment. I was pouring my heart out to him, and he said, “Let me pray for you.”
He just loved me, and I will never forget that.
How do we love one another in this day? It does not get more practical than that. Saints, we need to love one another.
We share these things: denying ungodliness, denying worldliness, living soberly, living righteously, and living godly. The question is, how do we do it? How do we deny? How do we live this way?
I think Paul gives us the secret in Titus. Titus 2:12-13 says:
Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world;
looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory
of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Here it is. Here is the key: looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
How do we deny? How do we live? We look to Him.
We have to realize that we cannot do this on our own. We cannot do it by our own emotion.
We come out of this conference, and I think many of us experience something of a mountaintop experience. We have this brilliant week of fellowship, hearing God’s word, such a rich and full time.
For some of us, that lasts for a day. For some, it lasts for a week. Maybe we can live off that for a month.
But we cannot do it by our emotions, brothers and sisters. We cannot simply feel it, get pumped up, and live this denial and this way of life.
We cannot do it by our own mind. We can try to come up with a five-point how-to list, write down a schedule, and try to figure out with our minds how we can do it. But it is just a matter of time before we fail again. We have to realize that we cannot do it.
Maybe you are a willpower person. Maybe you will put your foot down and say, “This is it. I am taking my stand right now. I will deny, and I will live, and this is it from now on.”
Over time, we will fall, falter, and make mistakes. Some of us have to learn the hard way, and we have tried all these different things. Many of us have tried all three, or some combination of them.
But I think our anthem should be something different.
We read a children’s book that many of us know, called The Little Engine That Could. The story is that this little engine is trying to get over a mountain. It is unable to do it and seeks help from some other trains. Finally, it makes its way, repeating over and over, “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can,” and wills its way over the hill.
Our anthem should be just the opposite. We are the little engines that could not.
What is the biblical way of putting that? Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live,
but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh
I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
We can deny. We can live because of His overcoming life. It is only because of His overcoming life that we can take that stand today, that we can endure to the end.
The only way is when we look to Him. He is the One who gives us the strength to deny, who gives us the strength to live in this sober, righteous, and godly way.
I think we appreciate that endurance is not easy. There is so much daily training involved. Paul said that he died daily. So much of endurance is step by step and day by day.
There is a precious book—another plug for a book in the bookstore—called Abide in Christ. One of the treasures that I took from that book was this: I always thought that abiding in Christ was such a daunting thing, the idea that I would abide in Christ forever—that from now on, every moment of my life would be abiding in Christ.
I think it was Andrew Murray who wrote it, and what he said was, “Abide in Christ right now.” That is it. All we have to deal with is right now. Abide in Christ now.
If we look to Him now, not even just in this day, but in this moment—right now—we look to Him. That is how we deny. That is how we live, right now, in the moment.
I am so encouraged by so many saints in this room. I have only been coming to these conferences for, I think, my eighth or ninth year at this particular conference. I know many of you have been walking with the Lord for thirty, forty, fifty, or more years.
I have to say how encouraging it is to see so many in this room who are enduring to the end and pressing on.
I wish I could thank everybody individually for how much encouragement they have been to me. But even when I look around the room and see faithful saints who gather year after year after year to seek the Lord’s mind, to draw together, and to prepare for His return, how encouraging that is to us.
This is part of that great cloud of witnesses around us. We can encourage each other in this way—step by step, day by day, pressing on all the way to the end.
Paul shared in Acts, “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” That is looking to Him. That is how we live our lives in these days between His appearings.
In Him, we live and move and have our being.
We often think about this in an individual way, but there is such a corporate element to this as well. We cannot take for granted the corporate element of what it means to live and endure to the end in this day.
I played baseball as a young man. One thing I remember learning from my dad and my coaches is that when you are running to first base, you do not slow down. You run all the way through the base.
May we not lose heart in this day. May we run all the way through, full speed, to the end.
We need one another to press us so that we can press on to the end. Even though the book of Titus is written from Paul to Titus, there are so many times in the book where the plural is used: we, we, we, us, over and over again.
This word that Paul shared with Titus is a corporate word as well.
We can talk about so many examples of saints over the years who had a band of brothers around them: Daniel and his friends, David and Jonathan, Paul and his companions. Think about one another in this room.
I shared this morning with the teens about what kind of friends we are to one another, what kind of encouragement we are to one another. In these days, as John shared, the last hour, we need each other even more.
There is such a necessity to be thickly tied with one another, to be banded together in these days.
I share about New York, and we can glorify New York as being such a difficult place, but it is just as difficult anywhere else. Anywhere you live, it is difficult. Every place has its temptations, tribulations, and difficulties.
Something I have been able to practice in New York over these recent months, as we have been sharing about having a firm foundation, is the necessity of really being built up with one another.
How do we have this firm foundation? How do we endure to the end? By seeing how much we need one another.
It has been such precious fellowship to gather with four other brothers every Thursday morning. We come together, share life with one another, pray with one another, and encourage one another.
One of the brothers was on a medical rotation recently in med school. He came back after that month, when he had been unavailable, and said, “I just do not know how people live apart from fellowship.”
It could not be more true. We need each other so much.
I will leave you with one more picture of how much we need each other to press on to the end as we look to Him—not just individually, but as we look to Him together. It is the picture of the sequoia tree.
If you have ever been to Sequoia National Park, it is an awe-inspiring place. We often use the word “awesome” and overuse it, but if you go to Sequoia National Park, it is awesome.
There are trees three hundred feet tall and thirty feet in diameter, as massive as you can imagine. It almost does not seem real, towering into the sky.
Because these trees are so tall and massive, you would think they have deep roots. You would think they must have remarkably deep and strong roots.
But sequoia trees do not. In fact, they have very shallow roots. The way they derive their strength is that they are intertwined with one another. Their strength is derived because they are built up with one another. That is how they stand strong.
We need each other in this day so much.
We come from this conference, go back to wherever we are living, and it is difficult to remember the words that are shared. Too often we are forgetful, we move right on, and we get caught up again in our lives.
But I think we have a responsibility when we come out from something like this. When we hear God’s word, we have to remind each other of these things, so that we can build each other up and be so thickly tied that we can press on together in these days.
Even though, as Paul shared with Timothy, some may despise you in these days, Titus 2:15 says:
These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority.
Let no man despise thee.
You live for the Lord. We live for the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We look to Him. We are built up together. Let no one despise you.
Press on, brothers and sisters, all the way to the end.
Lord, we are thankful that we can come before You tonight. We are so thankful for how merciful You are to us, how often we have not lived in the way that You have called us to live.
We have fallen into ungodliness and worldly lusts. We have not lived in that sober, righteous, and godly way. Yet we are so thankful, as we come before You tonight, that You draw us together with Your cords of love, that Your mercy is new every morning, and that we can say, “Great is Your faithfulness.”
Lord, we come before You and say how much we need You. We need You to be able to endure in these days. We look to Your example. We look to You, dear Lord.
We are so thankful that we can be built up with one another. We pray, Lord, that we may know how to encourage each other, how to build each other up, how to be edified, and how to press on together all the way to the end.
We are thankful for Your living word. We entrust it to You and pray that You would still speak to our hearts. In Jesus’ name we pray.