Refining Our Faith, Finding Our Freedom - Purity 1140

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 roaring mountain of a bonfire comes to us from Tara Becker, who shared this scene from her visit to the Country Roads Campground on Peaceful Lane in Goboah, New York, on social media on Labor Day. Well, it's Wednesday, and I thought that the the campfire in Tara's photo had enough of a peak on it to visually represent our arrival at another Hub Day, and that its heat was a good analogy for the crucible of change that can be experienced when we decide to trust the Lord to help and change us on the path of Christian discipleship. In an Old Testament passage that points to the crucifixion of Christ, the prophet Zechariah speaks about how God's people will be refined by fire. Zechariah 13:7-9 says, Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. I will turn my hand against the little ones. In the whole land, declares the Lord, two-thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one-third shall be left alive. And I will put this third into the fire and refine them as one refines silver and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name and I will answer them. I will say, 'They are my people,' and they will say, 'The Lord is my God.' Likewise, the Apostle Peter encourages us to endure the fiery trials, um, that will prove the genuineness of our faith in 1 Peter 1:6-7, where he wrote how we can rejoice over being born again because of our faith and endure because of and that passage says, in this you rejoice, though not— and though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So, if we put our faith in the Shepherd and become God's people, are born again through faith in Jesus Christ, we will be called to repentance, and we may feel the heat of the transition from our old life to the new life we have in Christ. People reject us for our faith, but beyond the losses of relationships and persecution we may suffer, The real heat may come from leaving the shadows of our former darkness and walking into the refining fire of God's magnificent light. Tonight I host another meeting of the Celebrate Freedom growth group at Star Point Church, and while you may think that I'm just being poetic about the refining fires of repentance, I can assure you that the pressure and heat of surrendering your hurts, habits, and hangups to God for healing and transformation is not for the faint of heart. We have people who have moved— who were moved to register for our group who have never shown up. Others who previously confessed the need to be there— be— confess their need to be in a group of Christians to support them in their recoveries have gone AWOL. Facing the heat of trying to change our lives is not easy, and it will cause some to never show up and others to leave before God's refining work can be completed. So while I am encouraged by the people who keep coming back to our meetings and by the new registrations that we've had in the last few days, I still pray, uh, for the Lord to protect and guide them to find their way to our meeting each week, because I know too well how much pressure and heat you can be under when you turn from your worldly ways to follow the Lord into purity and healing. But I also know the God who protected Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3, when they were willing to face certain death in a fiery furnace rather than to worship their pagan king's golden idol. When Nebuchadnezzar threatened to throw them in the fiery furnace and questioned what God could possibly save them, they responded by saying, in Daniel 3:17-18, If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. Did you catch that? If not, meaning even if God doesn't save us and we die, We will not serve your gods. That is genuine faith, the faith proven in the heat of the moment, the faith that is steadfast in the face of death and free of the conditions of positive outcomes. Come what may, I will follow the Lord. So they were willing to die because they knew the Lord and would either be saved on earth or would see Him in heaven. And to demonstrate that their faith was true and their God was the one true God, the Lord went into the fire with them and they were not consumed. There was another in the fire who gave them the courage, strength, and protection they needed in their fiery trial because they were faithful. And likewise, when we enter into recovery and repentance to actually live out Our Christian faith, the Lord is with us in the fire and will give us the courage, strength, protection, and guidance we need to overcome the fiery trial of leaving our hurts, habits, and hang-ups behind to experience the victory and the freedom that the Lord has for us on the other side of our trials. They say, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." But I say that if you are walking and talking with God, there is no amount of heat or fiery trial that He, He can't see you through. So brace yourself for another hot one today, as the forecast is in the 90s in my neck of the woods again. But keep your cool by reminding yourself that the Lord is with you. He will never leave you or forsake you, and He will be right there with you as you walk through the refining fires of trials and tribulations to test the genuineness of your faith and just how good God can be. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Kruis. This morning's meditation verse comes from the section on alcohol and drug abuse, and today's verse is 1 Corinthians 6:11, and the Word of God says: And such were some of you, but you were washed, You were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Today's verse falls under the 12th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on alcohol and drug abuse. That 12th point says, one can be saved from drunkenness and set free. Today's verse follows verses 9 and 10, which we shared yesterday, that told us drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God. Of God. However, today's verse tells us a different story. It tells us that even though we may have been a drunkard or guilty of the other sins listed in verses 9 and 10, we, as Christians, are not expected to stay that way. If drunks don't make it to heaven, how can I be saved? You take your faith in booze and put it squarely into Jesus Christ and abandon it. You repent and stop drinking. Such were some of you tells us that some of the saints in Paul's day were guilty of all those sins, but after coming to faith in Jesus Christ, they repented and were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. They were set free from the sins of the flesh that have defined their lives, and now they were no longer known for their sins. They were known for their faith and purified lifestyles that they were able to live out because of the Lord's help that they received when they put their faith in Jesus. The reason I do the blog and podcast is because I never actually knew it was really possible to be set free. I didn't. Uh, my drunkenness was part of my identity for most of my life. I was a drinker. I drank, and in spite of the negative consequences I suffered, I was never going to change, because that was who I was. But God made me a new creation through my faith in Jesus, and after that happened, I no longer felt right living in my former darkness. And rather than stay there, I obeyed the Lord's call to repentance to experience the new life he had already given me. It was a fiery trial at first, But the Lord was with me, and he has continued to be with me as I have kept on following him in repentance. Alcohol, drugs, sex addiction have been defeated, and now I am currently walking in victory in 18 days— in 18 days of victory over my food addiction. Today's official weigh-in is 227.4 pounds, down from 238.9. And I'm going to keep leaning on the Lord to keep that victory streak alive and growing. With the Lord, we can be saved from drunkenness, drugs, sexual immorality, even food addiction. But we have to believe it and lean on the Lord's strength and guidance to experience it. But when we keep walking and talking with God, we will see that we have been washed, sanctified, justified, and set free. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.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, and today we continue sharing from chapter 23, uh, the Spirit Witnessing. Um, and today's, uh, section is called Doubting and Professing Christians. So if you want to see what A.W. Pink has to say about doubting and professing Christians, go to mt4christ.org and you'll see that, um, that resource at the end of today's blog post. Also at the end of today's blog post, you'll see an encouragement to join our Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ series of discipleship classes via the M.t. for Christ 24/7 podcast. Those teachings are all based on the work of Dr. Neil Anderson and the and the Bible, um, the truth of God's word. And they're available on, on our podcast and our YouTube channel under those names. And people are, people are checking them out continually, and I'm just, uh, amazed and humbled and so glad, um, that I decided to, to record them and podcast them back in 2021 because You know, I probably had, you know, let's be honest, I think I had less than 10 people in the class when I taught it. Well, it depends on the class. I think we started strong, and, you know, by the end there was probably less than 10 people in total, you know, as I went through those different classes in 2021. But now those teachings are being, you know, listened by, you know, they're some of the highest clicked-on reviewed items on our YouTube channel. And I've had people from all over the world ask me for the materials that I handed out in class. And so if you wanted to partake in those classes and get those materials, just email me at mtforchrist247@gmail.com and I can send you the Word docs to the things I handed out in class via email. So, good there's no cost, but there's no, you know, you're gonna have to print whatever you want. You'll get an electronic copy of those handouts and study guides or whatever, depends on the class. And as always, we encourage a lifestyle of Christian discipleship. How do we, how do we do this? Well, we should have a daily spiritual practice of prayer and Bible study to set the foundations for our day, to thank the Lord for what we have we have so we don't take our lives for granted or our salvation for granted. And we don't focus on the negative things in life. We focus on the goodness of God and what he's done for us. And we face our fiery trials, um, not with anger but with diligence. And we try to do what's right. We accept what we can change— well, we, we try to change what we can and accept what we can't. And, uh wait for the Lord to change things, um, you know, if they're outside of our control. But we remain faithful and we forgive. So that's that. As for studying the word of God, if you need an informal Bible study to listen to, we offer one at the podcast as well for Bible Study with the Sincatis. We just did an episode on Celebrate, on, on Sunday. So if you wanted to check out the latest, that's available on our podcast and YouTube channel as well. Well, today was a little mixed up. Apparently the Holy Spirit put it on me to get today's message done before my Bible study, so I have to still shower, do my Bible study, and get out the door for work. So, uh, we should pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for delivering us from everything we had to walk through in our life to find you and to find the freedom and victory that we have today. And Lord, we just pray for you to keep us, uh, and uphold us, uh, as we try to follow you. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that you would bless them, you come alongside them and their prayer requests, and that you would lead them in the way they should go., in their walk of faith. And we pray that for ourselves too, uh, Lord, we need you to open our eyes to the things you want us to see today, and we need you to lead us on the way we should go as we have a full day's work followed by, uh, the Celebrate Freedom Recovery meeting tonight, uh, the growth group meeting tonight. And we pray for you, we pray for the people, or all the participants, uh, that you would protect and guide them to find their way to the meeting. We pray for you to bring people who've never shown up, who've registered and never walked through the door. I don't know those people because they never showed up, but you know them, Lord. We pray for you to grab the heart of one or two of them and bring them in tonight. That's up to you, but we're praying for it. And we're praying for you to bring people who are unexpected. We're praying for the new registrants,, to come in. And we're praying for the people who've been faithfully coming to come back. We pray for you to help them in their walk and to encourage them in their faith. Um, yeah, because, uh, we all need your help, Lord, and we just pray for you to give it to us today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.