Ready to Wave the White Flag? - Purity 1172

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a beautiful fall sunset over the shores of Lake Ontario in Oswego, New York comes to us from Celestial Blue Photography as Rocco Seo shared this masterpiece on social media back on October 6th. Well, it is Saturday, and as we move into the last lap of the second week of October, I want to encourage all my friends to enjoy the weekend and to get some rest so you can be restored and ready to face the challenges of another week come Monday. The Lord thought getting rest was so important that He instituted the observance of the Sabbath as a holy day of rest in the Ten Commandments. The Lord knew that we would face challenges in a world broken by sin and tried to encourage our worship and rest to give us the motivation and energy to keep going in life. The idea of rest is especially precious to me this morning as I was up a little later than usual last night and my shifted work schedule is making a traditional Saturday Sabbath rest not an option. I have to work today, but look forward to the day's end as I will be reunited with my beloved wife, Tammy Lynn, and observe a holy day of rest on Sunday, the New Testament or Christian Sabbath, as we follow the apostles' lead who worshipped on Sunday, the day Jesus was resurrected, the first day of the week, as Acts 20:7 tells us. But we have the freedom, really, to make any day our Sabbath, as the apostle laid out in Romans 14:4-5, where he wrote to the church Who are you to condemn someone else's servants? They are responsible to the Lord, so let him judge whether they are right or wrong. And with the Lord's help, they will do what is right and will receive his approval. In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another, while others think every day is alike. You should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable. So, whether you choose to rest and worship on Sunday, Saturday, or any other day of the week, as long as you are fully convinced and resting and keeping the day holy, it is acceptable. So, whatever day you want to worship the Lord and rest in honor of His commandment of a Sabbath is fine, I guess. How about that freedom in Christ? However, most Christians gather as a corporate body to worship on Sunday. And as we are not— are— as we are called not to forsake the assembling of ourselves as Christians in Hebrews 10:25, it would probably be best to make Sunday your Sabbath and the day you can meet with the body of Christ to meet both of these provisions at once. It is good to come together as the body of Christ, and the reason I am tired this morning is because I attended a gathering of Christian men at North Star Point Church's Man Up event last night, where we were entertained by some NASCAR-themed activities and encouraged by North Star Church Pastor Mike Lynch, who came all the way from Atlanta, Georgia, to deliver a message on never giving up. Utilizing the faithful example of Nehemiah, Pastor Lynch's message encouraged the men last night to keep building their wall, to continue to work on their personal calling and purpose in life, to not wave the white flag—to quit or give up. Lynch shared how troubles in his congregation back in 2012 had brought him to the brink of waving the white flag on his work as a pastor. But through the Lord's help, who used faithful men and women to encourage Lynch through the desert season from 2012 to 2014, he endured and experienced a wealth of personal and spiritual blessings since then. That he would never have known had he waved the white flag and walked away from ministry. After Lynch's message, the men were directed to share the white flag moments they had walked through during their lives in small groups to encourage one another that they too had endured, or if they were currently going through a white flag season, they could receive encouragement and strength from one another and from the Lord as we were directed to pray for one another. We do not forsake the assembling of the Saints because we are stronger together than we are by ourselves. And the only white flag of surrender we should wave is to mark our decision to surrender to the Lord's will and ways for our lives, because only God can provide us with the strength, guidance, and wisdom that will help us to navigate through life and to persevere in the work of building our walls. Whatever projects the Lord is calling us to work on. So if you are blessed with a full weekend off, I encourage you to make Saturday or Sunday or even both days your Sabbath rest. Or if you have work to do on your wall, just pick one and use the other to get 'er done. I know too well what white flag seasons and work mean, and let me encourage you that when you go through them with the Lord, you can somehow make it and accomplish far more than you ever thought you could when you keep walking and talking with God. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Kruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on bitterness, resentment, and hate. And today's verses are Ephesians 4:31-32 from the NIV. The word of God says, get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Today's verses fall under the first point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on bitterness, resentment, and hate. That first point is In the power of the Holy Spirit, every Christian can and must get rid of bitterness and hatred and become a kind, compassionate, forgiving person. Today's verses command us to give what we have received, forgiveness, as a remedy to overcome all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, and every form of malice. As Christians, we are called to follow Jesus and to be kind and compassionate and forgiving people to be more like Him. But, as today's verses indicate, the key to becoming kind and compassionate is to forgive from the heart. Recognizing all that we have been forgiven of, we should be humbled to forgive others their offenses against us, and thus diffuse and remove any bitterness or anger from us. So, practice forgiveness and do away with the anger, bitterness, and hate that represents the world and follow the example of our kind and compassionate Lord and Savior instead. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit: as we continue in Chapter 30, The Spirit Fructifying. And today's section is called Cultivating Christlikeness. And just to remind everyone, uh, fructifying is not a bad word. It means producing fruit. So, um, I just think of the shampoo— shampoo fructis, I guess. Um, you know, it's, it's fruit-scented shampoo. So fructifying and fructis, I guess, have that fruct— um, anyway, that, uh, fruitful, uh, pronoun, I guess, is fruct— fructi— whatever. Anyway, um, I encourage you not to stumble over your words, and I encourage you also to, um, to check out our discipleship teachings, uh, that we have on the podcast and, uh, YouTube. Um, for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. Those teachings are all about who you are in Christ, about the spiritual forces of darkness, and how you can overcome your spiritual and personal conflicts by going through the steps to freedom in Christ. The steps were transformative for me, and they help you experience your freedom in Christ. And so we encourage people to check out those teachings and to go through the steps to be set free from, you know, anger, malice, bitterness, unforgiveness, and, um, you know, demonic oppression, you know, if it's there. Yesterday I shared about how a prayer minister, of all people, claimed to have a demon blocking an area of their life. Um, whoa. So that's why I, I point out the steps to freedom in Christ. Quite frankly, I was sort of shocked by, by that admission, you know, in that testimony I heard about someone who does prayer ministry, but then when they were in prayer ministry reported a demon blocking a pathway. You know, as members of the body of Christ, we can be oppressed by demons, uh, but usually it's, you know, we give them permission, um, to afflict us in some way through sin or through bitterness of unforgiveness, through generational curses or occult involvement. So when we remove those permissions by repenting of those things, the demons have to flee. They don't have a legal leg to stand on, and we can cast them out. And so when you encounter a demon in your life that manifests as anger or bitterness or, you know, sin, um, repent of it and follow Jesus. And come together with a faithful brother or sister and ask them to lead you through the steps to freedom in Christ. It's a simple, prayerful repentance process. That has been known to set people free of all kinds of afflictions, including anger, bitterness, depression, anxiety, addiction, and demonic oppression. So we recommend that. And if you want more information about the Steps to Freedom in Christ, I direct you to ficm.org. That's Freedom in Christ Ministries website. Dr. Neil Anderson is the one who, uh, you know, developed the Steps to Freedom in Christ because he He discovered it helped people overcome the spiritual conflicts they had in their lives with amazing results. So we point you to FICM and your freedom in Christ because we know it and we live it and, you know, we enjoy it. So that's why we do what we do. We keep pointing people to the life of faith. Why? Because I grew up in it? No, well, not quite. I was sort of the prodigal and went off the rails in terms of running away from my traditional liturgical church background to the point of, you know, nearly self-destruction and addictive— and an addictive lifestyle of drunkenness and foolishness and really selfishness, you know. And I had my white flag moments, you know, when I realized that my way wasn't the best way. My way was headed, headed to nowhere and sort of destruction and didn't lead to happiness and filled my life with uncertainty and depression and anxiety and anger, quite frankly. But luckily the Lord was merciful and revealed himself to me through the gospel message that I heard. And now I have cats in my life, and it's amazing. Um, anyway, but what's really amazing is, is I have Jesus in my life. Sorry, Marvin. Um, so we encourage you to follow the Lord in all the things you do, right, Marvin? Right. Anyway, um, that's my cat Marvin. Well, actually, it's not my cat, my daughter's cat. You know how that is. Anyway, um, I'm gonna wrap it up because Marvin's looking for attention and because I have to run out the door to work any moment. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all that you do for us. We thank you for our salvation. We thank you for the faithful men and women who met— we've met along the way in the body of Christ to encourage us in our faith. And Lord, we just pray for those people, um, Whoever might be listening or reading today's message, we pray for you to come alongside them in their walk of faith. Pray for you to bless them and their prayer requests. And Lord, as always, we pray for you to go before us today to guide us in the way we should go, as, uh, we need your help every single day, and we're asking for it in prayer today. Please open our eyes to the things you want us to see and move our steps into the things you would have us do. Because, Lord, all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom because of the life you've given us. And, uh, we just want to thank you, Lord. We praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.