Our Minds and our Holiness

We are going to read together a number of scriptures, and more could be read, but turn back, if you will, to the book of Genesis in chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1, and commencing at verse number 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Look at verse number 3. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.

And God divided the light from the darkness. The end of that chapter, verse number 31. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Now turn to the book of the Proverbs. Proverbs and chapter 4, first of all.

And just verse number 23, just some scattered verses in the Proverbs. Proverbs 4 and verse number 23. Keep thy heart with all diligence, or keep thy heart above all thy keeping.

For out of it are the issues, or the boundaries of life. Turn to chapter 16 and verse number 32. Proverbs 16 and 32.

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Chapter 25, verse 28. He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.

Now you have to understand that verse, you have to remember that this was the age of walled cities for protection. A city without walls was open to invasion, open to overthrow, open to destruction from any enemy, and so walls were the rule for cities for protection and preservation in that day. Now turn to the New Testament, more familiar verses for us all, and the book of Ephesians again.

And verse number 23, we'll just break in at verse number 23. Ephesians 4, 23. And that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be ye angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers or imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. But fornication, or all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as become a saint, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks.

For this ye know that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolater hath 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 ye not therefore partakers with them, for ye were sometimes or one time darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.

Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

Verse 16, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Now that will be sufficient to read along with other verses that we will look at together with the help of God and in the will of God.

Just a very, very hurried recap for the sake of some who are not with us last night. And when I do this in a minute some might wonder why didn't you do it last night in a minute rather than an hour. But I'm going to omit the Newfie joke so that'll save time.

Also keep me out of trouble. We mentioned last night, and I think it's obvious, that we are made up in a very simple way of both a material and a non-material part. A body and a mind.

Now whether you want to put soul and spirit together as mine, that's fine. No difficulty. But nevertheless, just for simplicity, a physical, material, tangible part called our body and an immaterial, intangible part of us which is called our minds.

We mentioned that as we can see from Genesis and the first three mentions of the word heart. And as we looked at Ephesians chapter 4, that mind really is made up of three parts. It is made up of our understanding or intelligence.

It is made up of our will or intention. And it is made up of emotion. And when sin came into the world, what happened in a very scriptural, Ephesians 4 as well as other scriptures, in a very scriptural and obvious way, is the understanding became darkened.

The will became debased. And emotions became degraded. And the result of that is then that everything the body does became defiled.

And with conversion, when the Spirit of God came in and we were saved, that understanding which was darkened became enlightened. That will which was degraded became emancipated. That emotion which was debased became elevated.

And that body that was defiled became energized to serve God. Now that's what occurred at conversion. But the problem that we all face, the reality we all face, is that we are constantly bombarded by a world around us that is seeking once again to darken our minds and affect our thinking and ruin, influence in a wrong way, our usefulness for God and our desire to serve Him and honor Him and to carry out the the Word of God.

So what is before us then is just an attempt to show that while we rightly ascribe weight to the physical part of us, that the weightless part of us has far more weight. The weight of the weightless. Far more weight in our lives by what never tips the scale even an ounce.

Our minds and our thinking are what give tremendous weight to our lives and are going to influence them in a very, very real way. God's intention in His divine design, in His makeup of humanity, was that a mind, an understanding enlightened by divine truth, would lead to a will that was yielded to Him that would give emotion that would desire to please Him that would then control what our bodies do and how our bodies serve Him and how our bodies act. So while you and I, as has to be the case, while we are dealing on the visible physical realm and we see actions and deeds and hear words, God really is far more interested in starting at the top with our understanding and with our will and with our emotion.

And all of that then leading to actions and the visible, physical, tangible, outward, external. And if all we deal with as believers is the external, if that's as far as our Christianity goes is just the visible and the external, as long as people see the external and they think I'm okay and as long as I'm passing muster on the outside, it doesn't matter about the inside, then we have failed to grasp, failed to appreciate what God is vitally concerned with. My understanding, my will, my emotion, and as a result of that then my actions.

But there's something far more crucial, something far more relevant maybe if that's your way of thinking, just make sure the outside is okay. Maybe not today and maybe not even next year, but eventually, eventually, inevitably, whatever you are on the inside is going to come out on the outside. You can only hide it for so long.

You can only live by rules and regulations so long. You can only pretend so long. You can only try to do things to please people for so long.

Eventually, what you are on the inside is going to be what you are on the outside. You know, people joke about you are what you eat. You are what you think.

Maybe not today, but you are what you think. So whatever your thought patterns, however your mind works, whatever the things that you value in your thinking, eventually that is going to be displayed and seen in you outwardly. So this is vital.

This is not just a matter of, you know, an interesting way of looking at Christianity. This is vital to us as believers and our lives for God and seeking to please Him. Now there will be some repetition in these meetings.

That's inevitable because of the nature of the material, but I trust we'll look at each in a fresh way and in a helpful way. So I want to just talk then about our minds and holiness. Our minds and holiness.

Holiness is not simply a matter of being a good policeman of my thoughts. You know, like you're there, like the kids with their games, zapping every thought as it comes, zapping it as it comes and get rid of that thought and get rid of that thought and as long as you police your thoughts, you're holy, not the least. Not the least.

There was one that moved here on earth that never had to zap a thought and he was the most holy man that ever moved here and he did no thought zapping. He did no thought policing. It was a life that was positive.

A life that was positive. The holiness of Christ was not simply in the absence of sin. It was in the abundance of fruit.

Far different. Far different. So I just want to look with you first of all at the problem that is acknowledged.

The problem acknowledged. Now what I mean by that is just this. We read in Proverbs chapter 16 of the difficulty that is implied.

The difficulty that is implied. He spoke there, didn't he, of the fact that it's easier to rule others than it is to rule yourself. A man could take a city, a warrior could take a city and conquer it and enslave others, but control his own thoughts? Control his own behavior? Control his own life? Far more difficult.

So as we are approaching this, even the wise man Solomon says, we're looking at something that's difficult. That's not just going to happen by accident or happen because you fall into it. It is going to have to be something that you make a priority in your life.

That I am going to live a life that is holy for God. The difficulty that is implied. But likewise he tells us of the danger that's implicit.

He says a city that has no walls, has no bars, has no gates. He says a man who doesn't control his own spirit, who doesn't take responsibility for his own mind and his own spiritual life, that man is like a city that has no walls and gates or bars, absolutely defenseless at the open invitation of every enemy and every source of danger. So you will see then that to have no control over my thinking, to just feel as though I respond to everything in my environment and I react to everything that comes my way, he says that man is in absolute desperate danger from everything in his environment.

But we spoke last night and I won't go into it again, of a destiny, of a destiny that is involved. Because we read together in Proverbs chapter four, this great truth, keep your heart above everything else you keep. Now, in case I should maybe just get a little asterisk here, we are going to use the word heart and mind interchangeably because the scripture does as well.

We read that in Genesis and we could look at it undeniably in Proverbs, heart and mind will be used interchangeably. The seed of intelligence, the seed of emotion, the seed of will, all are linked with both. So keep thy heart, keep thy mind above everything else you keep, because it is going to determine the boundary, the outer posts, the outer limits of your life and usefulness for God.

Your destiny will be linked with your mind. So the problem is acknowledged here, but what of the point of attack? How does Satan then begin to attack us in this area of holiness and in this area of so vital to our lives? Well, the first thing is, of course, the denial of the existence of sin. Sin, that's archaic, that's the dinosaur age.

And you really don't still believe in this thing called sin. That's such a relative term and that's just your view of it and we have our view of it and really after all, and so he denies the existence of sin. He diminishes the importance of sin.

Did you ever have an unsaved person or even sometimes someone who professes to be saved tell you, you you're making too much of that. You're making too much of this thing called sin. And sometimes we are accused of making too much, making too much of the importance of sin.

The reality is we don't know even the very beginning of the importance of sin. We scarcely can begin to measure how awful sin is, but that's the kind of thinking in our world around us that begins to infiltrate us, that begins to inculcate us with its values. The denial of sin, the diminishing of sin, the defining of sin in a different way, the defining of it as a social ill or in psychological terms or in some way, you know, it just is defined differently.

And so whatever disease, whatever problem that plagues society, whether it's gambling or alcoholism or immorality or drugs, whatever it is, it gets redefined instead of being a crime, instead of being an evil, it's a social ill or it's a problem and it's a difficulty and it's a psychological problem and it's all redefined so that somehow the onus, the horror of it is removed from our thinking and it's no longer sin. I am not for a moment suggesting that there are not those issues involved, but that doesn't remove it from the sphere of sin. I mean, we are all bent creatures.

Psychology just has to do with thinking, doesn't it? And the whole problem with sin is warped thinking. Every sin, every sin is a psychological problem in that sense, because everything that has to do with psychology has to do with the mind. And there is something wrong with our minds.

A mind that is darkened, alienated from God is going to think in a warped way and is going to have tremendous problems. And to the measure in which we buy into the thinking of our day, to that measure our minds will become warped and our values will become altered. And so we have then the defining of sin differently.

Let me just show you one area that you and I have already bought into. Okay? Every one of us, we're guilty of this. We have two areas.

We have desires and we have needs. Needs are things such as food, shelter, and so on. Desires are things that it will be nice to have if you could have them.

Many times we have taken desires, transferred them over to the column called needs. And because they're needs, then it's okay. It doesn't matter what you have to do to justify getting them, because they're needs.

You know, how many advertisements have you heard? You need a vacation. You deserve it. You have a right to it.

And immediately it transfers itself from the desirable, nice idea column to the need column. And the moment I put it in the need column, then everything else begins to take second place. If I have to miss the meetings for it, I miss the meetings for it.

If I have to maybe miss a Lord's Day for it, I miss a Lord's Day for it. Because I need that vacation. I need that new car.

I need that new home. And I've made it a need. We have taken many things which are desires.

We have made them needs. And as a result, we have let other things fall by the way. Things that should have been priorities in our lives have taken second place because we have a need.

Because it is a need, it has every right to be fulfilled, and it doesn't matter what's sacrificed. So we define things differently. And then, of course, the dissociation of sin and judgment, which is present in our world today.

But in this area of thinking and holiness, let me talk about the power of atmosphere. We read of it in Ephesians chapter 5. Let me just comment on it. Paul speaks there of holiness of life.

And he says there in verse number 4, filthiness, foolish talking, jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. I want to talk first of all about my comfort level. My comfort level with sin.

How comfortable am I in the presence of sin? How comfortable am I in conversations that are all about sin? Now, I am almost going to have to ask for the indulgence and the patience of older Christians because some of the things I say may sound rather bold and things you never heard in your early days, but I think we need to be real. Young people going to schools and I was going to say university, no, junior high school, sometimes creeping down to the elementary school level, sit at lunch tables where conversation, conversation is so open and so vile and so sex filled that you will not have even heard it whispered, not even heard it whispered about when you were in school, but now it's talked about in loud voices, boasted about. How comfortable am I with that kind of atmosphere? So that's what we live in is a world where everyone is comfortable with sin.

And we move in it. It's like moving in a fog that Satan has created and developed around us and we become comfortable with it. You know, those off color jokes, those stories with double meanings.

And if you say something to someone, you know, you'd rather not then you get accused. Oh, you've got a dirty mind. That's all you're thinking about, you know, and the story obviously was meant for that.

That's the kind of society in which we live in. And the danger is that we become accustomed to that and we begin to get comfortable with it. The coarsening of human interaction, how coarse men become with each other in their language, in their conversation.

The careful way in which Satan has enabled the wicked to become the norm. The common has become the correct. Let me just show you how subtly this has occurred in our society.

This is no great insight. This is no make believe, but you just think about it for a moment. Men have taken everything, whether we want to talk about the movie industry, the music industry, or we want to talk about the art world or whatever it is, whatever sphere of the arts you want to talk about.

What we are told is that the responsibility of the individual in the arts is to depict life as it is not a moral judgment of what's right or wrong. Here's what life is like out there. And so it's blazoned on television, it's blazoned on the movie screens, blazoned in the videos.

And we're not told at first that this is right or wrong, but we're told this is what is really happening. This is what life is like. And so we go from what life is like and then we subtly move from that, just a hair's breadth on the moral meter, to what is common.

Well, if that's what life is like, then that's common. And then the moral meter moves just another millimeter or two from common to normal. And if this is normal human behavior, then we get a little further movement of the moral meter to say, well, it must be natural.

And we then get the final little swing of the meter. If it's that way, then it must be right. So we go from what is out there, and subtly we are made to begin to think that because it's out there, it's common, it's normal, it's natural, and it must be right.

And so the great philosophers of our day have become the movie moguls and the entertainment industry. Now you just think for a moment, you know, just flashback to ancient Greece, to the days of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and all the others, the great minds and the great thinkers. I'm not championing them.

They certainly were godless men, but they were the great philosophers of that day, the intellectual giants. Who are the philosophers today? Who are the philosophers that control the thinking of mankind today? You know who it is? There are the Oprahs, and there are the Jay Leno's, and there are the talk show hosts on the radio, and they are the ones who are establishing the norm, the ethos for our society. And that's where we live.

That's where we move. That's where you and I make our living and raise our families and go about our lives, in that kind of an atmosphere. And that's what's being promulgated as ethics and morals and right and wrong.

That's the kind of world in which we move, the power of the atmosphere in which you and I exist. What are the plan of assault of Satan? There are three things at least, certainly. There's the external.

We've already touched on the media. It all is trying to establish new norms, new ideas, new concepts of right and wrong. Let me venture maybe into dangerous areas.

Music. Music. Do you understand the power of music? Do you understand the influence music can have on your thinking? I was not saved as a child.

I was a bit rebellious. I was saved at 21. There are songs that I heard in my unsaved days, and that's now almost 40 years ago.

I just need two or three words of that song, and you know what happens? It's like you clicked on the on button, and I can tell you every word of the song. It's all there. The power of song is tremendous.

That's why before the days of writing, men committed things to ballads and to poetry, because there's something about music that is ingrained in your mind. It's there. Music has a tremendous power to affect your thinking.

It plays 24 hours a day. The tunes are going. Now, there are many, many concerns I would have, not just about the secular world, but even about the so-called Christian music world.

But just be careful of lyrics. I won't get into tunes and beats and all the rest of that. I'm not able to talk about that, but I can talk about the lyrics.

Some of the lyrics of modern Christian songs are excellent. There are some that are tremendous in their message and in their sentiment, but there are some that are tremendously dangerous. Music, and certainly music that's out there in the secular world, the need to be careful about what we listen to.

What about the Internet? I'm looking over an audience of probably over a hundred people. I'm not good at quick counts. Mr. Paisley would have it closer to three, but it's probably at least over a hundred.

There's somebody in this audience addicted to pornography on the Internet. Someone. It's inevitable.

It's far too easy, far too available. If in my town that I live in, I went to Blockbuster Video and got out a video, almost inevitably, somebody is going to see me. I'm too well-known.

It's too small a town, so I couldn't go there. But when everyone else is asleep, the door is closed, I'm in my study, and there's a computer screen sitting in front of me, and all it takes is a double click. It is so tempting.

It is so available. And it sucks you in first just out of curiosity. You know, could it be that, you know, you just can't believe that something like that could be advertised? And just a double click.

And the problem with it is each time you need a little bit more. Each time a little bit more. The danger of the double click.

Very real. And as I said, I would almost guarantee an audience this size, there is someone who knows what I'm talking about personally. The danger of a double click.

If that is your problem, you may have to make some very drastic changes. Some very drastic limits. And some very drastic alterations in your behavior.

The external. But then there is the internal. The internal.

It's not just that it's out there, but it's in here. There is something in us that gravitates. That gravitates towards what is unholy.

What is sinful. God was teaching Noah a lesson that Noah failed to learn. When that ark rested upon the mountaintop, the first thing Noah sent out from the ark was a raven.

An unclean bird. That unclean bird never returned. You know why? Because even after having been in the ark, it could still find death to feed on out there.

The dove returned. The dove could not find any rest in that world of destruction. But the raven was quite at home.

Could find everything that was dead to feed upon. Listen, there's still a raven inside. There's still something in you and in me, called the flesh, that would gravitate, that would feed upon everything that's out there.

Noah should have learned the lesson he didn't. A drunken scene reminded him of his failure to learn that what was in the ark wasn't necessarily changed inherently. You and I have not.

Our flesh is no different than it was the day before we got saved. Just as wicked. Just as vile.

Just as prone to every sin. Just as given over to all uncleanness. Still the same.

Hasn't changed. So the external, the internal, the infernal. Satan himself with all of his skill has devised, has developed, has created a world that can suit every taste, but can satisfy no taste.

He can suit every taste. Whatever you like. The arts, he's got that.

Sports, he's got that. Music, he's got that. Vileness, he's got that.

Whatever you want, he can satisfy. He can suit your taste. But he can never satisfy it.

He can never fully satisfy any of his plan of attack. But what of the particular acts that really are linked with holiness? That clock is going far faster than I realized. Let me just list them.

And I'm not listing arbitrary ones. I'm listing them from Ephesians chapter 4. First of all, he puts his finger upon truth-telling. Oh, I thought you're going to talk about morality and drugs and alcohol.

No, I'm not. Holiness involves truth-telling. Telling the truth.

Paul says, this new man is created after God in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, stop lying. Do you know what has become common, tragically, even for believers? Is that truth is dispensable.

We don't have to tell the truth. Paul says, as I begin to talk about holiness, the first thing I want to put at the top of the list is truth-telling. That a man should be marked by truthfulness.

Now, we're not talking about something that's arbitrary. We're not buying cars and ticking off the options we'd like to have on our car. God says, this is what holiness consists of.

Now, I know we're dealing with the outward. He's dealt with the inward already, with our thinking, with our minds, with our values. Now, he says, the first thing I want to talk about is truth-telling.

That a believer should be marked by truth-telling. He speaks then, as well, of temperance as a mark of holiness. Self-control.

He speaks there of not being angry and, as a result, not losing control of myself. He speaks, as well, of our treasures, doesn't he? Of giving. Let him that stole steal no more, but what? Let him give.

You mean, giving is part of holiness? Yes, it is. Materialism is unholiness. It's amazing the Lord Jesus Christ spoke more about the wickedness of materialism than the wickedness of immorality.

Now, we would certainly eschew immorality. Don't misunderstand me. We certainly would not minimize or diminish the significance of immorality or drugs or alcoholism.

That's not the issue. What the Lord Jesus does do is elevate the significance of materialism so that what I do with my treasures is a mark of godliness. I don't have time, but you can look at it yourself.

You go through the Old Testament. You can begin with Abraham in Genesis 14. What men did with the spoils of war throughout the Old Testament was a mark of their spirituality.

You remember what Achan did? Kept it. Remember what Abraham did? Remember what David did? Remember what Solomon did? Remember what others did with the spoils of war? It was a barometer. Look, there's nothing sometimes that is much of a barometer of your condition and mine as what we do with our money.

So holiness involves what I do with my money. Holiness here involves, as well, my tongue. Not just telling the truth, but he says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying.

So that holiness involves my speech. Not just that it's free of wickedness, but that it's used for blessing. Holiness involves, as well, my temperaments.

He says here to be tenderhearted, forgiving, and so on. And then holiness involves taming the monster of lust, as well, as he speaks about the danger of fornication and uncleanness. So all of this is involved in holiness, and it all relates back to my mind, to my thoughts, to my unseen life, then made visible by what I do with my treasures, what I do with my tongue, what I do with truth, what I do with my temperament, what I do with temperance, what I do with tenderness towards others.

It's all displayed in that way. The present world attitude, the praise of an open mind. Tolerance is the key word in our society.

Of course, it's tolerance for everything and everyone except those who say they have found the truth. Then intolerance rises to the surface. How can you say there's only one way to heaven? How can you say there's only one way for Christians to meet? How can you say that act is sinful or that act is wrong? They become intolerant the moment you express a knowledge of what is right, because, after all, no one can know what is right.

So we live in this foggy, uncertain world. There was a book written, some of you may have had to read it either in high school or college, by a man named Alan Bloom. I think he was a professor at the University of Chicago, called The Closing of the American Mind.

Now this is a secular book. This isn't a spiritual man or a religious man. This is a secular book written by Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, in which what he takes is the thesis, the premise that we have opened our minds so much to everything that basically we have closed our minds to truth.

That we will swallow everything and anything except the idea that there actually is truth. That there actually is something that is right. That there actually is something that is correct.

We have become huge open sewers. I don't know if you call them that here in the Midwest. Just taking in all the garbage and all the filth that comes along without any concept that there could be something that is right.

What has happened is men have begun to equate truth in the moral realm with knowledge in the scientific realm. Now what I mean is just this. If you are involved in science in any way, preferably or directly, you know that there is a constant search for truth.

And this year's truth, this year's knowledge has to be adjusted by what is learned next year. And on and on it goes as truth is refined and as truth is developed and as truth is discovered. And so that model is taken and now superimposed on morals.

And we are told the same thing. We are always learning what is right and wrong. We are expanding in our knowledge.

Let me come then quickly because this is vital to what I have called the permanence of absolutes. There are absolutes in the moral realm. In other words, things that are right.

Things that are wrong. Things that will always be right. Things that will always be wrong.

Now let me be honest. Let me head you off at the pass where you are going. There are difficult questions.

Most courses that are begun in college along this kind of a topic begin with the difficult ethical issues. You know, you are living in Nazi Germany and you are hiding some Jews in your home and the knock comes on the door from the Gestapo and you are asked, are there any Jews hiding in your house? And so now you have two conflicting, quote, absolutes. Telling the truth versus saving someone's life.

And so you are left with what appears to be a dilemma and so immediately then your mind is kind of conditioned to this. Well, I guess there must not be any absolutes. Everything is relative.

And from there it is downhill. Now look, there are difficulties. No question.

But the difficulties are because of us, not because of God. When the Jews approached the Lord Jesus with questions that they thought were dilemmas that were unsolvable, no matter which way He would go, they had them. The Lord Jesus just confounded them every time.

So the problem isn't with God. The problem isn't with God's absolutes. The problem is with us.

The problem is with our difficulty seeing what really is truth amidst it all. So don't allow the seemingly conflicting absolutes that men throw at you to somehow take away from you the idea that there is truth. Because really, when you come down to it, 999,999 out of a million times, it's crystal clear.

Don't let the one out of a million somehow make you feel that maybe God didn't know what He was doing. Let me just talk then, if I can, for a moment about the permanence of absolutes. When was good introduced? Now just think about that for a moment.

When was good introduced? God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. Now let me just sound almost cynical for a moment. I don't mean to be irreverent.

Day one, God says it's good. And you go down the list. One day, of course, He doesn't say it's good.

Maybe you have an idea about that. But nevertheless, six of those days, God says it's good. Was God just complimenting Himself? Was God just patting Himself on the back, what a good job I have done? Or is God telling us that what is according to His Word, and what is an expression of His will, is what is good? What is according to God's mind, what is according to God's Word, what is according to God's will, is what is good? Good is what is consistent then with the character of God, the Word of God, and the will of God.

That is good. Now when was that introduced? It was introduced before there ever was a man upon earth. It was introduced before we began to tread the sands of time.

In other words, good is independent of you and me. Good is independent of what we think. Good is independent of our ideas.

Good springs from the heart and mind of God. And to the measure in which I know, the measure in which I know the mind of God, I will know good. I will know what is good.

So there are absolutes. It is totally independent of me, independent of my ideals and my ideas and my wish. It is what God views as good.

More could be said there. I have to leave that. Let me just talk about a preserving appreciation.

Look again at Ephesians chapter 5, just one expression. The end of verse number 4 says, rather giving of thanks. So the first thing that is going to preserve me, the first thing that is going to be a preservative for me in a world that is marked by defilement and sin, that wants to change my language, that wants to change my learning, that wants to change my life, the first thing is this.

The first piece that is going to be a preservative for me in this is the blessing of being redeemed. Blessing of being thankful. You know, one of the most dangerous, one of the most dangerous mentalities to get into is self-pity.

Self-pity. Why me? Why this? Why now? And feeling sorry for myself. You know what happens when that happens? I begin to think that I deserve something and God isn't giving it to me.

And the Christians aren't responding to me. So I'm going to get it on my own. Doesn't matter how I do it, doesn't matter what I do, but self-pity entitles me to whatever I want.

And so Paul says, these kinds of things shouldn't characterize you. And he speaks of fornication, uncleanness, idolatry, foolish talking, jesting. That doesn't mean joking.

Those are immoral jokes, is what he's referring to there. Off-color jokes. He says, don't be marked by that, but rather be marked by a giving of thanks.

The blessedness of being redeemed. Having a thankful spirit for whatever God has brought into my life. But then he talks as well about the blush of a tender conscience.

He says it's a shame. We should feel ashamed even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. Don't become comfortable with sin.

If you find yourself comfortable with sin, get into the presence of God and ask God to give you a sensitivity to the awfulness, to the awfulness of sin. Speaks of the blush of a tender conscience. He speaks as well here in this section of the barrenness of the past.

One time you were darkness. Is that the way you want to be? Is that what you really think life is all about? And then he speaks of the beauty of holiness. I don't know how to describe the beauty of holiness to you.

Maybe the best way, and I've done it before because I still struggle with this concept, maybe the best way is to think about how ugly sin is. Yeah, it really is. It's not attractive.

It has a glitter to it, it has a glamour to it. But I want you to think that every tear, every tear that has ever stained this earth, every heart that has ever been broken, every home that has ever been shattered, every hope that has ever been blasted, it all goes back to sin. There has no sorrow rent this earth.

There has never been a grown rise from earth in all of its millennia. That is not traced back to sin as its root. Everything that is ugly in our world today, you know where it stems from? You know where it comes from? It comes from what men think is so attractive and so glamorous and so appealing.

It comes from sin. Now you flip the coin for a moment. And everything that God finds attractive in our world today, everything that God finds pleasing in our world today, and everything that God is going to do in an age to come is marked by what is holy.

By what is consistent with his character. By what is in keeping with his word. By what is the carrying out of his will.

The beauty of holiness. Dear young sister, if you are keeping yourself holy, and I don't just mean in the sense of moral purity, I mean in the full scale we have looked at, to the eye of God you are beautiful. Dear young brother, if you likewise avoid the danger of the double click, and if you know what it is to live a life that you are seeking to please God and honor him, that life is beautiful to God.

Dear older saint, because the struggle gets no easier as you get older and sometimes I think it gets harder, that life that is marked by holiness is lovely to God. But let me close by asking you to turn, we didn't read it, let me go back with you to John chapter 15 for just a moment. Look at verse number 7, if ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.

Herein is my father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye not be, but so shall ye become, become my disciples. Fruit bearing, the subject of John 15 isn't it? Bearing fruit, and I think we all understand this has nothing to do with seeing people get saved, seeing people added to the assembly, what we think about is fruit in the gospel or fruit in our ministry. We are looking at fruit in a person's life.

Now, that being the case, little wonder the Lord Jesus Christ says that, herein is my father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye become my disciples. What is discipleship? You'll just have to take this from me for a moment because time doesn't permit going into it. There are at least three or four concepts linked with discipleship.

There is love for the master, isn't there? A disciple loves his master. A disciple learns from his master, doesn't he? A disciple is led by his master, but the ultimate issue of discipleship is likeness, likeness to his master. Not only loves him, not only learns from him, not only is led by him, but he becomes like him.

It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master. And so, what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying here is, if you bear much fruit, you'll become like me, and that brings joy to the Father. Okay, let's just go back to the verse before that.

Verse 7, if ye abide in me, my words abide in you, you shall ask. Now, if you've never had it thrown in your face yet, it'll come. The skeptic, the cynic, oh, the Bible says you can ask God for anything and you'll get it.

Look at the context again. The context is being like Christ. So, what this verse really means is, as his word abides in me and I abide in him, you know what happens? I become more and more aware of how unlike him I am.

And I bring that to my Father. I tell him, tell him how far short I am of Christ and how much I would like to be like him. If he asks anything in my name, the Father's going to do it.

In other words, the challenge that ends this meeting is very simple according to John 15. You and I can be as much like Christ as we want to be. Let me put it in the terms of this meeting.

You and I can be as holy as we want to be. The issue is, do we want to be? We can be as holy, we can be as Christ-like as we want to be. That's the promise of the Lord Jesus, abiding in the vine, allowing his word to abide in us and us abiding in him.

He says, you'll ask, it'll be given. Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye become my disciples. Herein is my Father glorified.

Want to glorify God? Want to please God? A life of holiness is what will bring him infinite pleasure and delight. May the Lord bless his word. Shall we pray?