Our Center and Our Battle - Purity 1372

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of Edvard Munch's Summer Night on the Beach comes to us from yours truly, as I captured this work of art during my visit to the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts back on July 9th, 2023. Well, it's Tuesday, and as I was looking for something to share this morning with a center focus to it, Munch's "Full Moon Over Water" caught my eye and reminded me of how much the appreciation of beauty in all its forms is a secret to my success in fighting the battle of experiencing peace and joy in my life. If you didn't know it, let me clue you in. When we focus on the beauty in the world, life doesn't seem all that bad. And when we widen our perspective to recognize God as the Creator and Artist of our lives, moments of awe, wonder, and joy are continually available to us to help us transcend our momentary afflictions. Last night, the men's book study of John Eldredge's Wild at Heart at Starpoint Church focused on the battle and the various aspects of spiritual warfare accompanying our struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The bad news is that the Bible reveals to us we were born into a world at war, and the cost of this conflict could be our very lives, as the spiritual forces of darkness will use any means necessary to cause us to choose anything else to worship rather than the one true God. Satan has been the lord of this world ever since Adam's fall, and because he hates God and man, who was made in His image, he will attempt to deceive us, tempt us, and accuse and condemn us to cause us to reject the truth of Jesus Christ and choose any one of a pack of lies that could convince us that we don't need a Savior. While that battle over choosing Jesus as our Lord and Savior is the one that will determine the war over our souls, it's not the only one, because the enemy seeks to kill, steal, kill, steal, and destroy whatever he can. Even if the war over your soul has been decided, he will endeavor to keep you from being all that you can be for God's kingdom by keeping you locked in bondage to sin or keeping you busy or distracted from working to increase God's kingdom cause. Because of the ignorance that surrounds this sometimes subtle or Unseen Battle, the study guide suggested that men could be categorized as guys who either: 1) have no battle, 2) are fighting the wrong battle, or 3) who know their true place in the battle. Those who have no battle would be the ones who don't know the truth about God's kingdom or deny that the enemy even exists. These would be content to take the world as it is and disbelieve much, if not all, of what the Bible tells us about the spiritual kingdom of darkness. Weakness, and about our faith itself. These would be your practical, if not actual, atheists, who don't see that there is a battle at all. Or perhaps even worse, this could be those sinners saved by grace who languish in the bondage of their sins and rest on God's grace to forgive them of their sins rather than choosing to fight against them. The ones who have no battle are those who either don't know there is one to fight, or who have been deceived in believing there is no, you know, there is no battle to fight. They tend to be passive. However, these guys, sinners saved by grace, the practical and actual atheists, of course, and even Christian men with some understanding of the reality of their place in the world at war, need not be passive and could be very actively fighting the wrong battle. The wrong battle would be any battle whose focus is on one's own pride or that focuses on the world's agenda rather than God's. Building up your own kingdoms or careers or in trying to control or manipulate others for our own means and satisfaction are battles that can consume our time and energy and waste our lives in the ultimately fruitless pursuit of happiness or wealth. Political and environmental battles that ignore God and his word are battles that will lead us astray. As for those who know their right place in the battle, we fight a war on two fronts: one, in our personal satisfaction turning from sin and becoming more like Jesus, and two, in expanding God's kingdom through evangelism and making other disciples. We see the world, the flesh, and the devil, and how they seek to lead us and others astray. We understand our responsibility for fighting back by sharing God's truth and living according to it. This, of course, is the revolutionary mindset that we talked about yesterday, the paradigm shift that changes our focus from following our own or the world's agendas to being concerned with following Jesus and helping others. I was reading the Get Used to Different student guide by The Chosen team again this morning, and it addressed the fact that when we choose to follow Jesus, it shifts the center of our universe from ourselves to the sun, as in the Son of God, and how this re-orbiting can be a struggle for us to accept. It can be a real battle, but when we see the truth and follow the Lord, our eyes are open to the conflict over our hearts and minds, and we can defend ourselves and direct our efforts into the campaign and purpose that the Lord has for us. We have been born into a world at war, and we all are in the midst of a battle, but we don't have to be afraid because with Jesus on our side, We are more than conquerors, and victory and freedom are ours for the taking. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Kruijs. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on divorce, and today's verses are Malachi 2:13-16. The Word of God says: And this second thing you do: you cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning, because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, 'Why does he— why does he not?' Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God's— and what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourself and your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves and your spirit. And do not be faithless. Today's verses fall under the second point of God— of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on divorce. And that second point is: God rebuked the Israelites for the sin of divorce and commanded them to be faithful to their covenant vows. Today's verses point to the fact that God hates divorce. He encourages us to fight for our marriages. The enemy wants to destroy our marriages, and we have to guard ourselves and be faithful to our wives as an act of faith. God's favor is with us when we honor our covenants with Him and our spouses. So we need to stand faithful and true to the spouses God made us to be, the spouses God made us to be. And, and that's basically it. And we have to be faithful to our wives. And, you know, if God's favor shifts, we might want to look at our relationship with our wives and see if we're honoring those. Anyway, we move along. As always, we invite you to go to mtforchrist.org or .com, where we always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Allford. And, uh, in Allford's devotional, he commands us, or prompts us, to read a chapter of scripture from the New Testament. Today's chapter is Romans 15, and from Romans 15 he shares a portion of verse 27 which says, for if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister them in material things. And Stephen Alford writes, Paul speaks, Paul speaks here of the responsibility of those who have been part— made partakers of spiritual things. Their duty, he says, is also to minister in material things. The servant of the Lord must be the minister of the spiritual things. He must be faithful in his ministry. Those who to whom the ministers must be just as faithful in their ministry of material things. For the scriptures say, you should not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain, and the laborer is worthy of his wages. 1 Timothy 5:18. And Alfred ends his devotion by praying, oh, that the church might know its responsibility, Lord. Amen. And, uh, and with this passage, uh, Walpert is basically pointing us to be good stewards of the things we have, um, you know, to minister to the material things. So we're to take care of the things we have and offer our material things to the Lord, our money and our acts of service to, to, you know, to help his kingdom. Our battle against the enemy is a world war, meaning all the aspects of our lives should be dedicated to God's purposes. And so, and that will include our money and our time and our efforts, you know, that we get these spiritual things and which are nice, but, you know, our faith will be shown by what we do with our material things too. So that's Alford's point, I believe, and it just points to the fact that our faith is supposed to be an all-consuming faith, that all the aspects of our lives are supposed to be reflected as something that's underneath the government of Jesus Christ, that we're surrendering all to God and giving it all for Him and His glory and His His purposes. So there we are, and that's it. I think that's enough. One thing we shouldn't do is worry over the battle. It's not always easy to follow the Lord, and it takes some getting used to. So go easy and surrender what you can to the Lord and His purposes, and don't beat yourself up over it because it does take a matter of adjustment. We're shifting our entire focus from ourselves to the Lord, and we might have to do that bit by bit, you know, to have a sense of peace. The Lord invites us into his kingdom. He doesn't drag us in. And we shouldn't— if we're beating ourselves up, we're missing it, you know. So I just encourage people to be graceful to themselves until they get there. Last night in those discussions at the Wild at Heart series, you know, there was a mix of, you know, faith and condemnation that people, you know, were there and they were reporting that they, you know, they're reporting that, you know, how this guy's This guy is a good father and husband to his kids, and meanwhile he's got secret sin in his life, and he condemns himself. And the battle's there, you know. Who do you want to be? Do you want to be the guy living in the shadows, or do you want to be the guy who's— who has peace because he's doing what's right? And one of the guys said he wanted it all, and Want it all. Well, that sounds good, but when all, you know, part of the all is sin and darkness, that's part of the all we have to get rid of. And, uh, that's the battle we face in ourselves. You know, my battle is against the flesh currently. I'm so thankful that the Lord has helped me in my battles against alcohol and sexual addiction. Those battles are done. But my battle against the flesh in terms of food and, you know, comfort eating, that's a battle that rears its ugly head and I gotta fight it, you know, continually. I've had great success in that battle, but the battle goes on. And, you know, part of it, I think, is it just has to be, you know, redefining and you know, the way you look at life and, you know, making, making declarations of war against certain things that we're not going to give in to anymore. And the way we do that is we recognize the truth that the things that we're choosing aren't good and they cause us pain. When we make that decision, we're not denying ourselves something good, we're denying something that causes us pain. It makes it that much easier. That's how, you know, that's how we overcome that. That's how I overcame the drugs and alcohol. Didn't see those experiences as so good anymore because the light of truth was shining, you know, shone on them. When we recognized the truth and accept the truth, we can live by truth and we can live in freedom. So There's grace and mercy for us. The Lord forgives us and accepts us as we are, but he does call us to, to be more like him, to be sanctified. And it's not to beat us up, it's to, to give us more joy, more peace in our lives, because we get to experience life as he would have us live it— light in the life, and life in the light, where we don't have to be ashamed. So So let's try to find that today as we fight the battles again to support ourselves and walk through this world and find some peace and joy. So mercy and grace, the Lord be with you as we go forward. Let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in the kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all the help you give us in the battle. And the grace and mercy that you give us. And you give us life, and we can appreciate the goodness of the things in the world as we, as we go through the battle of another day. Um, Lord, we just pray for you to go with us today. We pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer requests and their walk of faith, because we all need your help, Lord. We couldn't win this battle without you, and we got to learn to let you fight our battles for us sometimes. Um, so Lord, we're praying for you to go before us today. Open our eyes to the things you want us to see and lead us in the way we should go, because all we want to do is represent you and your kingdom, Lord. And we definitely need your help in that because it is a battle, it is a struggle, but that, uh, you, you can make us overcome. So we're praying for your help, Lord, and we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.