Grab uh, Philippians chapter 1 for us if you don't mind, you know Paul tells us, The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they're foolishness unto him.
Yes.
Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
Yes.
You know, many spiritualize and they tell spiritual lies, they can't see the truth because they don't have spiritual eyes.
Yes, yes.
Okay, did you get Philippians 1?
Yeah, Philippians 1, give me verse 3.
Verse 3, okay.
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of
the mind for you all making requests with joy.
Joy.
For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.
Amen.
You know, you can give me your thoughts here, but when I read verses, I often, I've have made a habit to look for keywords that stand out to me.
Here, right off the bat, I see joy.
It just stands out.
Fellowship stands out.
Gospel.
These are just three words.
When I first glance at this, they just jump off the page here.
In prayer, Paul did what?
He made request with joy.
You know, this isn't about just happenstance praying.
No, we're to be precise in our words and with a heart full of joy.
You know, Paul loved to fellowship and we know that from his 13 epistles, he loved fellowship with fellow saints.
So there's the word fellowship over the gospel.
Yes, yes.
Well, and you're not going to have fellowship unless you are unified in
doctrine in the gospel.
And let's make it clear, unified, not uniformity.
No, we're to all speak the same thing.
I beseech you brother that you all... Paul says, Consider what I say and the Lord give the understanding and all things.
So we're to just consider what Paul says.
One of the first things on the list is to get ego out of the way.
That's correct.
Yes.
Yeah, because I mean, when ego's in the forefront, ego wants to say something that nobody else has ever said to learn some new thing.
Yeah.
Say or do some new thing.
That's over in Acts.
He's not commending them for that.
He's not saying, Good job, look for something new.
That's a bad thing.
You know, and you remind me of something by saying that, that Paul wrote to us in Romans 16, and grab Romans 15 for us.
But in 16 there, you know, we're all familiar with the verse.
He says, Brethren, Mark them, which cause divisions.
Yes.
Mark them which causes offenses contrary to the doctrine which what? which ye have learned and avoid them.
Now, the doctrine which "ye" here, the Romans, have learned was the doctrines of Paul, Pauline doctrine.
Anybody teaching contrary to anything Paul wrote, avoid them.
And he goes on to say those that do so, they don't serve our Lord Jesus Christ.
They're serving their own belly.
They're going by their feelings.
Yes. That's right.
And they make good.
What does he say, fair speeches?
And they got words that deceive the simple.
Yes.
They deceive the hearts of the simple.
Yes.
Yes.
That's right.
That's right.
Grab.
Did you get Romans 15?
Yes.
All right.
I'll like what Paul says here.
Read.
Well, I'll read it, I've got it here.
I've got it somewhere.
Let me pull this up real quick.
This thing's slow.
Romans 15:4, And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.
Verse 15, Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort as putting you in mind because of the grace that is given to me of God.
Verse 16, That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. This goes along with Romans 11:13, does it not?
Yes.
Ministering the gospel of God that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
That's powerful.
Yes.
Yes it is.
I love the reading of that passage.
Yes.
Yes.
And here we have, That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
Now, this speaks to the fact that we are sanctified by the Holy Ghost when we believe the gospel and are placed into the body of Christ.
The offering up of the Gentiles would be acceptable because the offering up of the Gentiles is sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
That's right.
Oh, you mean you don't have to do physical calisthenics to make your way there?
No.
Do I have to show up to the spiritual gymnasium?
No. No. No. No.
You take all the fun out of it.
No.
You don't... I have to show off my flesh.
That's exactly what you're going to do when you do things in your flesh, is show it off.
Make, I mean, that's a fair show of the flesh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's speaking over in Galatians.
Is it in Galatians where he's talking about them constraining them to be circumcised in order to make a fair show in the flesh?
We can just fill in the blanks.
Now, that's in context.
That's, that's right.
But in the context of the Pentecostal Church, in the context of the Baptist, the Methodist, and on and on it goes, there's a wide, wide list of how you can show off your flesh.
They constrain you to walk the aisle.
They constrain you to be water baptized.
They constrain you to speak in tongues.
Join the church.
Say the sinner's prayer.
And it's so that they can make a fair show of your flesh because what happens, whenever that happens, you get to stand up before the, I mean, first of all, you have to walk down in the first place and, and, and put yourself on full display, walk in the aisle and you have to go down and you have to submit yourself to the pastor or preacher.
Whatever he tells you, you need to do when you get down there in order to make it to heaven.
Keep it simple and keep it clean.
No extra ingredients.
These ingredients that you can't pronounce.
No, we just need the gospel.
The simplicity that's in Christ.
Moreover brethren, I declare unto you the gospel.
Right.
Well, and I can speak from the perspective of growing up Baptist.
I can tell you how all the technicalities and all of the formalities will put your mind in a place to where you believe that being a part of an organization is what saves you.
Right.
And I mean, it doesn't matter if the preacher is saying that it's Jesus is the one saving you while you're doing all these things that organization tells you to do.
I mean, it's just saying one thing and doing another because according to this organization, if you're not doing these things, then you're in some trouble.
You always have that catch that even though every Baptist church that I was a part of preached once saved always saved, there was always the catch that, well, if they backslide, if they stop going to church, if they turn their back on God, if they do all of these things after salvation, but what they'll say is that you were never saved in the first place.
Now, this is a Calvinistic idea.
It's a Calvinistic idea because that's what they will prep into the Baptist church.
Calvinism is in all sorts of denominations.
Right.
And it's really what it is, it's backloading works into salvation by saying, Well, if they're not staying true to God after their confession of salvation, then well, it's just because they never really believed it anyways.
As if they can read hearts.
Only God can do that.
Yes.
There's always a distraction from the finished crosswork.
There's always some distraction.
No matter how big or small it may be, but, you know, there's always a different teaching that's going to distract you from that that makes your goal turn into something else.
Yeah.
Besides, understanding that gospel as fully as you can so that you can give it to others.
Right.
Let's look at Philippians chapter 1.
Philippians chapter 1, guys, if you want to follow along, verse 9, And this, I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in what? knowledge and in all judgment.
Yes.
You shouldn't judge.
No, we make spiritual judgments every day all day.
Yes.
Verse 10, That you may approve things.
How are you going to?
We can't approve things if we don't judge.
Right.
We have a book that does the judging for us.
We just read it, install that doctrine, and therefore we are able and prepared fully equipped to approve things that are excellent.
That you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, verse 11, Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.
Faith, powerful words from our Apostle Paul delivered unto the saints.
That's right.
Right smack dab here in the middle of this dispensation of grace.
Yes.
I get so filled with joy, like a kid in a candy store, been doing this for a long time, and I'm just, well, as I said last night, I'm more excited about this today than I was when I first ran across this.
Me too.
I like verse 10 where he says that, Ye may approve things that are
excellent.
I just love that phrase that very, I mean, it's without offense till the day of Christ, which is when we're caught up to be with him.
That's right.
Not to be confused with the day of the Lord.
Oh, go back there in the Old Testament and we can see some prophets.
They'll tell you about the day of the Lord.
Aren't you glad that we're not appointed to wrath?
That's right.
Praise God.
That's right.
Yeah.
And but, but to approve things that are excellent.
You have to have your love abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment.
And that judgment, when Paul speaking of knowledge here, he's talking about knowledge along with judgment.
That makes me think of wisdom.
Amen.
Because you, you know, we've said it often, you can have all the knowledge in the world, but no wisdom, it's not going to, I mean, we shouldn't be easily impressed, impressed with just knowledge.
Let's do Proverbs chapter 18, Faith.
Oh, wait, Trey, Paul's epistles are the only epistles for you.
No, incorrect.
There's wisdom throughout this entire Bible from cover to cover.
All the Bible's for you, but it's not all written to you.
And even Paul's epistles were not written directly to you.
I am not a Galatian.
I'm not a Corinthian.
I am not Titus.
I'm not Timothy.
But I am, well, I should say, I was a Gentile.
Now there's neither.
Yeah.
You're just a neither.
I'm just a neither, but I'm, but I'm thankful.
I'm a neither, too.
I've got a heart full of joy that I'm in the body of Christ.
And I'm sealed unto the day every redemption.
Proverbs 18:15 guys, The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge.
There we are back to that word.
I hope we're, we're paying attention to the common denominator of some of these verses we're reading.
The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.
That's interesting.
Let's take a look at Luke chapter 1.
Luke chapter 1, and guys, see if you notice the contrast from what we see here, to what we later see as things progress from our Apostle Paul.
Luke chapter 1, are you there, Faith?
Yes.
I'm going to sip coffee.
You're going to read verses 76 and 77.
Okay.
76 and 77 of Luke chapter 1, And thou child shalt be called the prophet of the highest. For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.
There you go.
What do you see here?
What do you see the progressive contrast from something going on here, to the but now and what we have?
Remission of sins.
Luke here says to give knowledge of salvation unto his people, and we know when reading the book of Luke and this brother says his people at that time he's talking about Israel because we're outside the covenants of promise. We're aliens from the commonwealth at this time.
His people by the remission of their sins.
Remission of sins is not Colossians 2:13 forgiven of all sins, which is why we read through the Pauline Epistles starting with the book of Romans and we see how it progresses into the what?
2 Corinthians 5:19, God's not imputing sins.
Luke's talking about having knowledge of salvation unto his people.
That's Israel.
Peter's doing the same thing guys when he's giving them that murder indictment there at the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 3.
Future sins are going to be blotted out.
That's when they will be born again, and that's when they'll have all their sins blotted out.
You can go over there, Faith, 1 Peter, 2 Peter to where he talks about, we were purged from our what? old sins, purged from our old sins.
Hey, his little letter over there matches perfect with Acts chapter 3,
does it not?
It does.
Matches up perfectly, but it does not match up with the Apostle Paul and the glorious news that he had for us.
Yes, yes, and, and Peter also speaks of the grace that is to come.
Yes, the grace that is to come, and Paul, on the flip side of that says, The grace that we're standing in.
We're already standing in the grace that Peter and the little flock is looking afar off to see coming.
It's coming down the road.
At the same time they get their new covenant.
At the same time they get born again.
At the same time they get those sins blotted out.
They'll stand in that grace, a future grace.
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