Spiritual sobriety

Likely with just 15 minutes left, there wouldn't be anybody clamoring for the podium. I have one verse to read and then many verses from the epistles. But turn with me to Mark chapter 5. The Gospel of Mark chapter 5. And you're going to wonder how this is all going to fit initially reading this one verse, but I've got a reason behind it.

Mark 5 verse 15. And they came to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil and had the legion sitting clothed and in his right mind. I noticed in looking at the statement here, in his right mind really carries a thought of sobriety.

So, I want to go on and look at some verses in the New Testament that set before us that great truth. Being right in our mind or being sober in our mind. You know, as well as I do all over this continent, there are laws that are in place that cover the need of safe driving on the highway.

And impaired minds are not welcome to drive in Canada or the United States or anywhere else. And there are tremendous consequences if caught in such a way because there are tremendous dangers that come even to other people that are so innocent as they move on the highway. But how much more important it is when it comes to spiritual things to be in our right mind and to have a spiritual sobriety.

And we have heard a lot of ministry today that lends to this type of thought. Turn over to Romans chapter 12. Now, I know our brother Lavery has just covered these verses well.

I just want to notice something here. I'm just going to read one verse, verse 3. For I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly. That's the same thought of what we read in Mark, to be in one's right mind, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.

You will notice this section of scripture here now introduces to the Romans as Paul is writing to them about the practical aspect of this epistle. And you know that one of the leading thoughts in verse 1 is the body. And one of the leading thoughts in verse 2 is the mind, the command center, of that which gives direction to the body and the movements of the body.

And it just makes us think of what is in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. What? Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost. But then you come to verse 3 and we have the word think, or thinketh. It is there three times.

And it comes right down to the fact when it comes to being sober and how we think. Here's our body, here's the command center, here's the mind, but here's the thinking process. And we need to be sober in our mind.

We need to be thinking right. And one of the leading things here in this chapter is having right thoughts about oneself. That's a solemn thing.

You know, sometimes we shouldn't move around like a loose cannon. It isn't a thought of being sober here to have a long face and some expression, you know, like a little child, you might say to the child, you know, you're kind of a sober puss, something of that nature. But there needs to be a sobriety about how I think about myself.

You know, we can sometimes surround ourselves with people that compliment us, and they endorse us, and they try to help us and encourage us. But really the thing is in view here is if I really want to be sober about myself, it's a good idea to take time to get into the presence of God with any human instrumentality taken out of the equation, and just to seek the face of God and ask Him to speak to me and to make adjustments in my life that need to be adjusted. You know, it's been said already at this conference today, it's easy to look at others and judge others and think they ought to change this and they ought to change that in their lives.

I wonder if it's because we're not big enough just to judge ourselves. I think of what the psalmist said. He says, teach me, preserve me, keep me from presumptuous sin, judge me, examine me, restore me.

We've heard about restoration today. Do we have those occasions in our life, those times in our lives when we just get in a place of absolute quietness, with our hearts open before God, and our longing is that God will speak to me, that the Blessed One who has reached me and saved me by grace, that He will have His way with me to take the Spirit of God and implement the Holy Scriptures and to show me where I need to make adjustments in my life. Sobriety and thinking rightly about myself.

You know, we have this ability within ourselves to justify ourselves and to encourage ourselves and maybe think higher than what we should think of ourselves. Now, I don't think we should run around with dragging our chin on the ground. That's not what I'm advocating.

But you know, when it comes to having a right mind in relationship to our life and our activity, our blessed God is able to give adjustments to us that is needed by the Holy Scriptures. Have you ever been there? Have you ever done that? I don't think we can participate in something like this too much and too often because we know exactly what's within us at times and the wickedness of our own heart. And so I'm saying here as I read from Romans chapter 12, I see the truth of having a right mind toward oneself.

You know, you come down to the gifts here and you come down to something here in verse 9, let love be without dissimulation, without hypocrisy. How do we get along with one another? Are we thinking rightly today toward one another? Do we have a loved one toward another? Well, you can answer that for yourself and I can answer it for myself. But I don't think it's the most profitable thing and the prosperous thing spiritually to move around and sometimes we're on outs with our brethren and we have a hard time.

Really, maybe we don't like it because we don't always get our own way and so on. But you know, on the bottom line, it says here, let love be without dissimulation. It's not under some kind of a pretense.

It's not a hypocritical movement on my part toward fellow believers. You know, if I want to check my own heart, how do I think about God's people? Is there anybody in the whole world that I know as believers, as a believer, a child of God, that I don't like? Better get it right. Better start thinking right.

Better get sobered up about it. Because I notice when I come to chapter 14, listen, for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Our brother Brandon reminded us of that today.

So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Everything is transparent before our God. And for that reason, we should be sober.

I want to go over to 2 Corinthians now. It's kind of a thing where we'll cut off the ends and burn the middle. But I notice in verse 13, for whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God.

Or whether we be sober. Chapter 5, sorry, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 13. Apologize.

It is for your cause. Then everything that is subsequent in this chapter. It brings up the lovely person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And sometimes, how does my mind work in relationship to the person of the Lord Jesus? Am I in the appreciation in verse 14, controlled and the impact of the love of Christ on me in my life? Notice verse 14 says, For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. And so we see this constraining love of Christ in our minds. We might think properly about the lovely person of the Lord Jesus and to realize that our lives are to be constrained by Him and guided and directed.

Come down to verse 15. I'm not going to read it. But the thought is living for Christ.

There are people who live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them. You know, there's no room for selfishness in Christianity, is there? We should be living for Him and for His glory and for His honor and not being so occupied about ourselves and what satisfies us and fills our own personal purposes. Verse number 17 tells me I'm a new creature in Christ.

That should have an impact upon us, how we think about the Lord Jesus and what He has done for us. And He has made us new creatures in Himself and through His finished work at Calvary. That ought to adjust our thinking, shouldn't it now? Come down a little further.

We come to the truth of reconciliation. You think so many times in the Scripture we're reminded of what we were in our sins and without Christ and in our hopeless condition, but yet now through the Lord Jesus Christ we have been reconciled to God and divine purposes. Verse 20, we have the thought of being ambassadors for Christ.

And finally that beautiful verse at the end, For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, and flowing to us is divine righteousness in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to think rightly and in an appreciation of the glorious person of the Lord Jesus. It needs to permeate our mind and have impact on our mind, because certainly in our mind comes our thought processes.

And we have heard much today about the Lord Jesus and how we should respond to Him. I come over to Titus and again, if you will, I'm just going to point out very quickly. We see sobriety here in relationship to bishops.

Titus chapter 1 verse 7, For a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God, not as self-willed, not as soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy looker, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful words, as he had been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayer. Overseers in an assembly, there's to be a sobriety about it all. There needs to be the functioning of the mind that thinks right.

I'm not down on overseers today, all right, you understand that. Overseers need to know what the Word of God has to say and implement it and carry it out in the assembly without respect to how it might impact maybe their own family or someone that might be special to them in the assembly. There's to be a sobriety.

There's to be a thinking rightly. It's incumbent upon them. But I want to go somewhere further with this.

Must be. Some people look at these qualifications and they say, well, you know, look at all the failures in the human heart and with the Christian, you know, how can they possibly look at these qualifications and fulfill them all? Listen, it says must. And there must be the desire to fulfill it as much as possible is within them.

But I'll go somewhere else with it. These things should be qualifications of those that preach the gospel and move in the public. And it should be that which every person in God's assembly aims and aspires to do.

There needs to be a measure of sobriety about us when it comes to these things. You know, sometimes people say, well, we have this problem, we have that problem in the assembly. Listen, sometimes it is because of the failure of overseers, bishops in the house of God.

I don't want to be unjust and I don't want to be critical. But, you know, I would say to any of those that are overseers today, here's something that is to characterize everyone, and we are to be sober. Now, I don't have time to look at the sobriety here that pertains to aged men, chapter 2, verse 1, or the younger women or to young men.

But you see, we should all be sober. We should be thinking rightly with our minds. We should understand that the Spirit of God wants to implement and use the Word of God and guide us and direct us that our minds might work soberly.

And then we come to another verse here, chapter 2 and verse 12, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. I'm going to take two minutes, and that's what I've got left. I want you to turn to 1 Peter 4. 1 Peter 4, and we're at verse 7. But the end of all things is at hand.

Be, therefore, sober and watch unto prayer. Think of sobriety among God's people today, our minds thinking right. And we think of conditions we have been told about today and so many things that need to be prayed for.

With a sober mind, we need to be involved in prayer and in supplication before our God, that which is set before us even in 1 Timothy 2, in the opening verses. Across the page, you'll find this verse. Be sober, be vigilant, verse 8 of chapter 5, because your adversary the devil is a roaring lion, walking about seeking whom he may devour.

It's good to be sober, isn't it, brothers and sisters? Isn't it good to look after these things and to make sure that our mind is thinking properly and functioning according to the Word of God, no matter how we would think about ourselves or even toward the person of the Lord Jesus or toward one another. We need to be sober in this dark world because there is an adversary of the devil who can never take our salvation, but can take our joy and take our testimony and take a lot of other things. So I came with this thought in my mind to the conference, the need of sobriety among God's dear people.