-Transcript-
00:35 Amen, glory to God. Welcome to the program. Thank you for joining me today.
00:40 Good to be here. Welcome to the cafe. I hope you’re having a wonderful day.
00:45 I hope you’re just doing fantastic today and excited to get into God’s Word to see what we can learn that we can apply to our lives today from God’s Word. God’s Word is the living Word. It is so rich and the Old Testament and New alike are applicable to our lives every single day.
01:03 And here we’re talking about something so important that oftentimes Christians, we don’t really hear too much preaching on this, at least I don’t, but it’s incredibly important and that is what happens when you mess up. What do you do as a Christian when you fall short? More specifically, how do you deal with sin in your life? Now, I’m not calling anyone out here. I’m just a radio preacher recording a message.
01:34 So I don’t know if you did something wrong. If you didn’t do something wrong, don’t take offense. Amen.
01:38 If you start getting offended, that might be the Holy Spirit convicting you. That’s not me. But that being said, we all fall short.
01:46 I mean, think about the world we live in today. It is a very rough and fallen world, full of grave sin. And it seems to be getting worse and worse all the time.
01:59 Growing up, there are many companies and organizations that I view generally as good and wholesome that have now come to show their true colors as wicked and evil. And we point our finger and say, look at this wicked place, you know. But then deep down, we have wickedness within us, or we’ll still go and patron these businesses.
02:18 And so it begs the question, how are we living? And deeper than just places we do business with, how about, you know, doing business with God? Amen. What are we doing to look at the sin in our life and to get right with God? Because you know, God, He is near those that repent and get right with Him. As the book of James says, cleanse your hands, you filthy sinners.
02:46 Draw nigh to Him and He’ll draw nigh to you. And so we need to get right with God. And that starts with1 John 1:9,1 John 1:9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
03:08 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I’m so glad that verse is in the Bible, and I’m very glad it says all unrighteousness, because some people feel like they have a sin in their life that God won’t forgive them for, that it’s unforgivable, something they’ve done that they, or that they do, that they just, that God will never understand. And here we see that the Lord is faithful and just, and that’s kind of the theme of the preaching this week, all this week as I’ve been preaching on the radio, I’ve been preaching about God’s faithfulness.
03:42 We see here He is faithful to forgive our sins. And so we need to start by identifying what is a sin, and that is anything that goes against the ways of God, the holiness of God. It is anything that is a perversion of what God would want us to do, right? So in marriage, what we do in marriage is not a sin, but when we don’t, when we’re not married and we’re doing what married people should do, that is a sin.
04:14 You know, we, we, it’s not a sin to say drink water, amen, but if we were to drink something else in large amounts, that would be a sin because the Bible tells us to be of a sober mind and we’d be belligerent. The Bible tells us not to murmur. It’s not wrong maybe to vent a frustration or to explain where you’re coming from, but it is wrong to murmur.
04:30 It’s okay to want something like, oh goodness, it’s all right to, you know, hey, my computer is slow. I may want a new computer, but it’s not okay to covet that computer. So the idea is everything that I’m mentioning, there is a godly way about it.
04:47 You know, you want something, work for it, and put God first, and don’t worry about it too much. That is the godly way. And then there’s the perversion.
04:57 You start coveting and saying, oh, if I had this thing, I’d be happy. Or if I, if I was with this person, I’d be happy, and you get into adultery. Or, you know, the Bible says if you even lusted after another person, that’s adultery.
05:07 And so we’re all probably guilty of that one right there, amen? Lying, stealing, you go through the Ten Commandments. Oh man, it’s so easy to start seeing the sin in all of us. And so what do we do? The devil wants you to think you’re never going to be good enough and to run away.
05:24 But God wants you to know that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all, A-L-L, all unrighteousness. He’s willing to cleanse us from all that unrighteousness. And that is so wonderful because we can be, the Bible word would be sanctified.
05:44 We can be sanctified. So imagine like a map, right, of the Christian journey, and the first step in that map is being born, right? And then you’re born, you don’t have the Holy Spirit, you’re born spiritually dead, you’re living in this life, and the Lord starts working on you, starts convicting you, and you have people witnessing to you, and at some point you decide to accept Christ as Savior. That’s kind of the second mark there on that map, and you become saved, Amen. And you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
06:11 You recognize that you’re a sinner in need of a Savior. You recognize that you couldn’t save yourself. That’s where you get into a lot of testimonies where man had to hit rock bottom before they really get saved, Amen. Because you realize your need for a Savior, and then God is faithful to save you at that point.
06:30 And that second stop there, 2 Peter 3:9, incredible verse in the Bible, 2 Peter 3:9, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Again, here’s God’s faithfulness again. He’s long-suffering.
06:47 He is faithful. He’s long-suffering. He’s waiting and waiting and waiting, suffering through all that sin, which is an absolute reproach to God.
06:57 He cannot look at it. He cannot be around it. It’s disgusting.
06:59 It’s rebellion. The Bible calls it enmity or warfare with God. We are literally at war when we’re living sinful, but God’s so loving.
07:07 He’s long-suffering, not willing any should perish, any should go to hell, but that all should come to repentance. What does that mean? That means coming to repentance is an understanding our need for a Savior and being saved. So on that roadmap, you’ve got being born, you have living in the world, you have getting saved as God would have us to be saved, and now you have the Holy Spirit living within you, and now don’t we wish everything would be perfect and everything is great and nothing else needs to be done? You know, we’ve been saved, amen? That’s not the case.
07:36 No, just because we’ve been saved, and by the way, after you’re saved, you want to get baptized as a public profession of your faith, but baptizing you in the water doesn’t save you, amen? That doesn’t save you. It has to be in the heart, and there’s scripture on that in Romans. Romans, I believe it’s Romans 10, talks about with the mouth we make confession, but with the heart we believe, Amen. With the heart we believe, and I’m gonna look that scripture up for you.
08:05 Yeah, I just had to pause it, look it up here as I was recording. It’s Romans 10:9-10. I should know this.
08:12 This was our founding verse when we planted the church three years, coming up on three years ago. Romans 10:9, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. So you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart.
08:28 What do you believe? That the Lord Jesus died for you and was risen again. And then verse 10, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. So it doesn’t say be baptized and be saved.
08:42 Believe in your heart. That’s that idea of that true emotional, intellectual understanding. You believe.
08:51 You understand you’re a sinner in need of a Savior, Amen. And you believe. So that’s what salvation is. And then what’s the next stop on that road map after salvation? Sanctification.
09:01 Sanctification, to sanctify. It’s the cleanse or purify or make holy, as my King James Dictionary says. Yes, there’s something called a King James Dictionary, KJV dictionary.
09:13 You can look it up online. To separate, to set apart, to appoint to holy, sacred, or religious use. To make holy, to consecrate.
09:22 Well, that’s sanctification is happening after salvation. It’s the purification. And again, it is not for our salvation.
09:31 Once saved, always saved. Christ died for all, for all time, one time. So Christ died for everyone, for all of eternity.
09:38 But he did it at one time. And now that has been done. Past tense, it’s already complete.
09:44 Amen.That’s why when we’re saved, our name is written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life. We already have a place in heaven. So God’s time is different than our time.
09:55 I believe the Lord transcends time. And so in heaven, Clark Covington already has a place up there. Amen? And you do too, if you’ve been saved.
10:02 That’s already secure. Amen. That’s eternal security. We believe in that here.
10:07 It’s all over the Bible. Nothing in the Bible contradicts that, as much as I’ve studied it over the past decade. Amen. So my place is secure in heaven.
10:14 I’m saved. So now, why do I need to be sanctified? Well, we live in this dirty, awful, fallen world. And we are going to surround ourselves with the world because we’re in the world.
10:25 Paul writes about this so eloquently, that in order to be away from sin altogether, we’d have to leave the world. And that spaceship hasn’t taken off yet to go to Mars. Amen.Lord hadn’t come back.
10:35 So there’s no way to leave the world. So we’re stuck here in this dirty, filthy world. And we are going to get ourselves dirty.
10:41 Now, that’s not license to sin. That’s not encouragement to sin. But that is a fact of life, that we all fall short.
10:47 And again, I think it’s more pronounced now, being in the ministry for me, I notice it more because I’m holding myself to the pastor standard. And frankly, that can be difficult because I’m not always smiling, and I’m not always showing the great love that I should show. And I’m saying to myself, oh man, I’ve read the Bible.
11:08 I understand God’s calling me to love people and be forgiving and all this stuff, and just this or that. We’re human. Or we want to watch the news, and then a wicked commercial comes on.
11:19 Or you’re at work, and someone tells a dirty joke, and you find yourself laughing at it. Or you end up watching something you shouldn’t watch, or whatever it is. You know what I’m talking about.
11:29 So what do we do? How do we cleanse ourselves? We go and we repent before the Lord. We tell the Lord, Lord, I’m sorry. I understand that sin.
11:38 The idea of repentance is identifying that that is a sin, identifying with God that’s a sin. It’s not like, okay, I got in trouble. You know, we’ve got a five and a six year old at home.
11:47 Okay, those kids, they get in trouble. They say, we’re sorry. And then they go right back and get in trouble again.
11:53 You know, kids, don’t jump on the couch. Oh, we’re so sorry. And then a minute later, they’re diving on the couch.
11:58 They’re not identifying with mom and dad what the problem is. They’re just saying sorry to get out of it and going and doing it again. Repenting, confessing before God, going to the Lord in repentance is identifying with God that, you know what, it is wrong to do this.
12:11 I was wrong to do it. I’m ashamed that it would that would hurt you and create division between us. I won’t do it anymore, and I’m sorry.
12:18 And then God will forgive you and cast that sin into the sea of forgetfulness, never to be brought up again. And so if it comes up again after you’ve gone through that exercise with God through prayer every day, if it comes up again, you don’t have to pray about that sin every day. But I’m saying if you’re doing it frequently for all your sins, right, praying to God, I try to pray to God for repentance every day, every morning, ask for forgiveness over whatever new sins, because whatever old sins they’re forgiven, if it comes back up, that’s not God, that’s the devil trying to bring it back up because God has forgiven you for it.
12:48 And so you can be purified. You can be cleansed by what God has called us to do if you’ll repent. And so for the Christian that messes up, for the one that’s been saved, for the one that goes to the Lord in prayer and repents and confesses their sins, you can expect God, being a God of His Word, He cannot lie, He cannot deny Himself, will forgive you of those sins and will cleanse you from all that unrighteousness.
13:11 And that is the process of sanctification. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. You don’t need to give a bunch of money to the church, and you don’t need to do a bunch of community service, or you don’t need to, you know, do all these other things.
13:27 You just go to the Lord in prayer and repent. And because we’re sinners and we don’t always know what we’ve messed up, it’s good to pray, not only for specific sins, but also to ask God through the working of the Holy Spirit to show you where that sin is in your life. And that is a very deep subject, but it’s very true.
13:43 I mean, how can you know if you’re coveting if you don’t know what coveting means? Amen? And that can go down the list. So we must focus on this activity, on what God’s called us to do, on this process, on God’s program, however you want to put it. We must not deny ourselves this opportunity to be cleansed by God and forgiven by God so that we can have a closeness with Him.
14:05 And we don’t grieve the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is enriched in us, and we’re living for Him wholeheartedly in these last days.
14:12 Thank you for listening. Take care. God bless and Amen.