Joe? Bearford? Everybody coming in from the hall?
Mary, lose anybody else out there? Mac.
Joe Bearford, he’s got my outline. Where’d Joe go? Go find Joe. He’s right there.
Oh, thanks, Joe.
Lord, we’re thankful that we belong to You. We’re thankful that we have a home. This earth is not our home. We thank You that we have a heavenly home with You.
Thank You that we’re part of Your family, Your body, and we just praise You this morning. We pray You would grace us to continue in a spirit of fellowship and worship this morning. In Jesus’ name.
Well, I’ve been thinking awhile, as most of us have, what a trying, whirlwind day we live in. You know, who knew what pandemic meant? Who ever thought of lawlessness in the streets?
Who ever thought of just the moral decline, the moral decline in our country? For me, it’s just breathtaking.
So, you know, we’ve been praying about restraining it, restraining the lawlessness, loosing the Spirit of God, and I think that’s what we should be doing. We need to be doing it.
But as we are personally caught in these things, what should our personal response be? That’s kind of what I wanted to talk about today.
In summary, the response should be: stop. We should stop and remember, take ourselves out of this whirlwind, and remember who we are in Christ. Christ has saved us; He is our life. And we belong to His body.
So there’s a thought I have today, and that is: Selah.
Joe’s got the outline to hand out. That’s the outline right there. Give every other one, Joe, so we don’t run out.
I like to keep things as simple as possible, so when we leave after hearing a message, we have one thing to hang onto. Maybe that’s because of my temperament, but if I get something, I want to take it home.
So right now, if you want to go home, take your outline with you and keep it: Selah.
The NASB defines Selah as “pause, crescendo, or musical interlude.” That’s how it’s used in—I always think of Psalm 46. They use it a number of times. That’s a musical term, right? It makes sense that the definition is in a song. Psalms are musical.
But I want to use a definition today from the Amplified. The Amplified says, “Pause, and calmly think of that.” Pause and calmly think of that.
I think this would be of great benefit to all of us: to pause, calmly think of it, and remember who we are in Christ.
There are five Selahs I wanted to think about today. There’s an infinite number, but just five that struck me.
We were lost and without hope. Pause and calmly think of that.
But God. In our lost condition, God intervened in our lives. Praise God. Pause and calmly think of that.
We have been born again. Pause and calmly think of that.
We have been born again to a living hope. In this hopeless day, we need to stop and think about it. We’ve been born again to a living hope.
Born again into the body of Christ. We are part of Him. Praise the Lord. Pause and calmly think of that.
Selah number one: we were lost and without hope. We were lost without hope.
In Ephesians 2:11-12, the Word says:
Therefore remember, that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by the so-called Circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands—
remember that you were at that time separate from Christ,
excluded from the commonwealth of Israel,
and strangers to the covenants of promise,
having no hope and without God in the world.
We were separate from Christ and had no hope in the world.
But if we are caught thinking of that state, living in that state, we need to stop and get out of that state. Don’t dwell there. We are no longer lost and without hope. That’s where we were.
We were separate from Christ, but we are no longer separate from Christ, and we are no longer without hope.
I found a definition of hope: hope is the expectation of good. Hope is the expectation of good. So if we are not expecting good, what are we expecting?
If we’re not expecting good, let’s not dwell on bad. It’ll kill us—absolutely kill us.
We were lost and without hope in the world. You know, I think we need to realize that we’re living in days when the enemy is taking very little time off, as Sparks said so well.
We worry about the economy, lawlessness, fears about the virus, and negative things flood in. We need to think of the positive.
Let me read just two verses that always come to mind for me. Jeremiah 29:11, which we’re all so familiar with:
For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord,
plans for welfare and not for calamity,
to give you a future and a hope.
A future and a hope. Praise God.
Romans 15:13:
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So we are no longer people without hope. Praise the Lord.
This is just a little parenthesis I’ll add: I think a lot of the fears we experience, and a lot of the assault of the enemy, has to do with fear of death. You know, if you get behind all these things, it’s fear of death.
We’ve been studying 1 Corinthians. First Corinthians 15 is Paul’s great, great treatise that we’ve been delivered from death. He says—you need to go back and read this—but 1 Corinthians 15:19:
If we have hoped in Christ in this life only,
we are of all men most to be pitied.
Hebrews 2:14:
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood,
He Himself likewise also partook of the same,
that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
We were separate from Christ and had no hope without God in the world. Now we are with Christ and have hope. Selah. Stop and think of it.
But God. Selah number two.
Let’s read how God intervened: Ephesians 2:1-9. It’s a long passage, but let’s read it.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air,
of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh,
indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.But God, being rich in mercy,
because of His great love with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
and raised us up with Him,
and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.For by grace you have been saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
But God intervened. I know you hear me pray this often, but I can never get away from it. But God.
Think about this wonderful passage. How important it is to be in the Word and just to read these things. It brings them back to memory. You know, it doesn’t have to be a new revelation. We need to continue in what we’ve seen and what we live in.
We were dead in our transgressions and sins. No more. We were.
We were caught up in the course of this world. We’ve been delivered from this world. What a stronghold.
We were under the power of the prince of the power of the air and separate from Christ. Praise the Lord. Stop and think about it.
Romans 5:6 is a wonderful verse:
For while we were still helpless,
at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
Saints, we’ve been delivered from the domain of darkness. We’ve been transferred into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
If you are feeling caught up in your circumstances, in the grip of this present evil age, remember this verse. Stop. Take a Selah. Think about it. But God, our great Deliverer and Savior.
Number three: we have been born again.
In that verse we just read in Ephesians 2, it says that we were dead in our sins and trespasses. This can’t be physical death because we were still alive, breathing, walking. So we were spiritually dead—dead as a doornail.
I think how important it is to know that we’ve been born again. We often talk about how we’ve been saved, that we’ve been delivered from darkness, but we’ve been born again—born again to a living hope.
Let’s read another familiar passage. It comes out of the Gospel of John, the Lord’s dialogue with Nicodemus. There’s a lot of power in that, a lot of life in that, and we need not forget it.
Starting in John 3:1:
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews;
this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him,
“Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher;
for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
Very reasonable observation from Nicodemus. Did the Lord answer it?
He didn’t answer that question or that observation. He said:
Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus, you must be born again. We’re talking about spiritual things. Saints, we need to think and live in the spiritual, not in this earthly realm.
Nicodemus said, “How can a man be born when he is old?” and so forth. Then, in John 3:6, the Lord says:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh,
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not be amazed that I said to you,
“You must be born again.”
Who all has been born again here? Raise your hand. How many people know they’ve been born again? Good.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Starting now, starting today—not in the future.
The thing that really encourages me in these days is that our natural man is not our limit. If we look at our natural ability to deal with where we are, we’re not going to find it. Our natural man is not our limit.
We’ve been born again, and we’ve been born again deep within. Our spirit was comatose. We had no spiritual life.
The Spirit of God has come into us and revived our human spirit, and He has also given His Spirit to live within us. We have great hope.
We ought to be walking by newness of life in these evil days. If we’re trying to find our hope and our capacity in our circumstances and our natural strength, it’s not going to work.
Our natural man is not our limit. Stop. Take a Selah. Think about it. We’ve been born again.
For number four, I want to read a passage that is really wonderful, one that I often come back to. When we talk about being in the Word, this is a great place to be in the Word: 1 Peter 1:3-9.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away,
reserved in heaven for you,
who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.In this you greatly rejoice,
even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,
so that the proof of your faith,
being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire,
may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
and though you have not seen Him, you love Him,
and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him,
you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
I printed that a little too small. I’m having a hard time reading it.
The first thing I notice from this passage is that he says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I just want to say how important praise is.
Praising God is so important to our faith, to living in victory, to rising above, and singing and making melody in our hearts.
Bobby Greco once told me it’s almost, nearly physically impossible to be depressed if you’re singing praise to God. Your body won’t let you do it.
So it’s not just singing a song, but it’s singing praise to God—singing and making melody in our hearts. I just thought that was good. This starts out with, “Blessed be the God and Father.”
The other thing this passage says is that we’ve been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the seal of our inheritance. He’s been raised from the dead. We are no longer to live under; we’re to live above. We have an imperishable inheritance.
You know, in the first part of Acts, they were short one of the twelve; they only had eleven. So the question in that passage, when they were trying to choose another one to replace Judas, was what they needed somebody for.
They needed someone who would be a witness with them of the resurrection. That’s important.
We are witnesses. Our lives are witnesses of the resurrection. They should be witnesses of overcoming death, new life, and eternity in our souls. Praise God.
Of course, we are distressed by various trials. Peter says he knows we’re distressed by various trials, but we’re to persevere through them to gain the salvation of our souls.
So when we’re down, discouraged, and under this whirlwind, let’s take a Selah and remember:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has caused us to be born again to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Praise the Lord. Selah. Think about it.
The last Selah may be a little longer than the others. Selah number five: born again, we are born again into the body of Christ.
As we’ve been born again, we’ve been born again to a new nature. We become new creatures in Christ. That birth has caused us to be members of His body.
This isn’t a theoretical thing, not a teaching principle; it’s a spiritual truth. We’re not members on a formal list of membership.
We’re not part of an organization, but we’re part of an organism: Christ in us. We share that life of Christ.
Together, we express Christ in His physical absence. The body of Christ expresses Jesus—His witness and His testimony—in space and time until He returns.
It’s not a club. It’s not an organization that’s good to see everybody. It’s a spiritual reality. We express Jesus Christ to one another and to this world until He returns.
Ephesians 1:22-23 says:
And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him as head over all things to the church,
which is His body,
the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
When we get in trials, in distress, and come to the end of ourselves, it is for a purification, so that we might be set free to be brothers and sisters and express the body of Christ together. Praise the Lord.
Let’s just look at a few passages. This body is not something that was organized. It wasn’t something that was thought up. It wasn’t something laid out as a plan somewhere in the Scriptures. It was birthed.
The body of Christ was birthed, and we see the history of that birth and expression in the book of Acts.
Acts was written by Luke, who traveled with Paul as a doctor, and he wrote the Gospel of Luke. I’m glad they put his name on it. He was writing to Theophilus.
Let me just read this. Acts 1:1 says:
The first account I composed, Theophilus,
about all that Jesus began to do and teach.
Of course, we’ve heard this often over the years, but if He began to do and teach in the Gospel, Luke must have been thinking that He was continuing to do and teach.
The Lord Jesus is continuing to do and teach in His heavenly body—in the body of Christ. He’s continuing to do and teach.
This witness of the resurrection is to be our inheritance in our lives individually and in our life together. We are to be witnesses that Jesus is alive and well, and we are the witness of Christ.
It’s not that we have a witness that’s outward. We have testimony that’s outward, but fundamentally it is to be inward: Christ in us, the hope of glory, His life expressed in the assembly.
So what happened when the church was born? I just want to read Acts 2:1-4.
When the day of Pentecost had come,
they were all together in one place.
And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind,
and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves,
and they rested on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak with other tongues,
as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
You know, oftentimes we can think of this as a great outpouring of the Spirit to be copied. We ought to be doing these things. We ought to have tarrying meetings, have the Spirit of God falling on His church, and speak in tongues.
Well, that’s not what happened here. That’s all good, and maybe that’s all true, but what this was was the beginning of the church. This was the birth of the church.
This outpouring of the Spirit isn’t the end. It’s not the goal; it’s the beginning. It’s the beginning of a new chapter. It’s the beginning of Christ in His church.
This shows that Christ had ascended on high, and the Father had sent forth His Spirit to bring about that birth—the birth of the church.
Then I want to look a little bit at Peter’s message, what he had to say. It says that Peter took his stand with the eleven. Peter took his stand with the eleven.
I think that just shows the connectedness, the oneness, of the body of Christ. They were together. They were standing with Peter and his word. I think that’s great. It shows the beginning of the outpouring of the Spirit of God on His church.
The way Peter spoke is unbelievable. How many people ever get struck with that passage after Peter was kind of a fool, you know? But he had a heart for the Lord, and the Lord took him and used him.
I just want to read a few verses from Peter’s message here. Acts 2:22:
Men of Israel, listen to these words:
Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God
with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst,
just as you yourselves know—
this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God,
you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
But God raised Him up again,
putting an end to the agony of death,
since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.
Again, He put an end to the agony of death.
Acts 2:29:
Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David
that he both died and was buried,
and his tomb is with us to this day.
Acts 2:32-33:
This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.
Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God,
and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit,
He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.
Jesus was raised from the dead and poured forth His powerful power to birth His church.
Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain
that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—
this Jesus whom you crucified.
He’s been raised—Lord and Christ, and Head of His church.
Acts 2:37-38:
Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart,
and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles,
“Brethren, what shall we do?”Peter said to them,
“Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins;
and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Acts 2:41-42:
So then, those who had received his word were baptized;
and that day there were added about three thousand souls.
They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching
and to fellowship,
to the breaking of bread
and to prayer.
The church was birthed and began a life together.
Acts 2:46:
Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple,
and breaking bread from house to house,
they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.
So Acts 2:42—you hear this from me a lot—they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.
This is not something to be copied. This is something Luke testified of. This is the fruit of the church being birthed.
So anyway, we see that there was a birth. We look at this whole passage, and there was a birth of the church. It goes on through much of Acts—particularly the first part is Peter’s ministry in Acts.
We see that they didn’t have time to organize anything. It was an organism. It was a living body of Christ. We want to continue to be that living testimony, that living body of Christ.
Thank the Lord, we are together in apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. That’s the normal fruit of being in the body of Christ.
It’s not a group of meetings you decide to have; it’s Christ in us bearing fruit. That’s my testimony: when I was born again, there was something born in me, birthed in me, that wanted to be with the saints, encouraging one another, testifying of the Lord, and building up His body.
The times we’ve had these last months have been particularly challenging to me, that we’ve been separated—separated physically.
Pardon me, wearing these stupid masks, but I look forward. I will not give in and say, “This is it.”
I look forward to the day we’ll be set free from all these restrictions, and I believe—and I have to believe—it’ll happen to us here on this earth, in our lives.
Even though we can’t be together, and I understand people can’t be together, we should long and look forward to that day when we will be together unhindered.
I just want to share a little testimony that I thought of. Lee Miller has a little thing she’s going to put up here that I want to talk about.
Anybody know what that is?
That’s the Huguenot Church, out on 711, out toward Powhatan. I just want to talk about the Huguenots.
Steve Morrissette is a Huguenot. Who knows about the Huguenots?
Huguenots were French Protestants. They were probably Calvinists—that’s okay—but they were Christians wanting to be Christians, meet together, and express the same things.
I’ll take a little license here, but I think they wanted to be out from under the Catholic oppression in France.
They were tremendously persecuted, murdered, and run out of that country. So you’d think there’d be nothing left.
But there’s the hope. Our street out here is called Huguenot.
If you go out 711—I think I’ve said this before—all along 711 there were twenty-acre tracts deeded to the Huguenots. Steve’s family had one of the first tracts.
They were set free to worship God and support themselves on those tracts. In this little church, they could be together, worship the Lord, and meet in that little building.
So that little building, in some sense, gives me a little hope that we’ll be back together. Don’t ever give up the idea that we should be together worshiping the Lord.
That’s my story, Lee.
This body of Christ is so important.
We were born into that body. That body goes beyond our human bodies, by the way, and our human families. We love our human families, but we have an inheritance in Christ, in His people, and in His church that goes beyond that.
This body was birthed at Pentecost. Peter spoke with great power there, and there was an immediate response to his speaking. Many were pierced to the heart, repented of their sins, and were baptized.
There was an immediate expression of that body among its people there, among God’s people.
So let’s take a Selah and think about it. We are members—members of the body of Christ. We could go on for a long time and talk about that.
It’s our being together that expresses Christ on earth today: His body. We are a witness of His resurrection together. Take a Selah. Stop and think about it.
Well, in conclusion, we live in days of great trial and terrible confusion, terrible lawlessness, terrible moral decline.
But I think it’s very good for us not to give in to it—to stop and take a Selah.
We were lost and without hope in this world, but no longer. God intervened and rescued us and saved us.
We have been born again. We don’t have the natural strength for these days, but we do have His life. We’ve been born to a living hope. We have eternity in our souls, and we have hope.
We’ve been born again into the body of Christ, to be a witness of His resurrection, to be an expression of Christ on this earth today. Praise the Lord. Selah. Stop and think about it.
Lord, I want to thank You this morning that, in these days of whirlwind, these days of despair even, You would grant us grace to stop and think about it.
What a great salvation we live in. We pray You’d grant us grace to rise above our circumstances by Your resurrection life and to be about Your business in our lives today. We just give You praise in Jesus’ name.