-Transcript-
00:24 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:35 Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here. So glad to be here today.
00:38 As we wrap up, we did four parts on traveling on the King’s Highway and keeping the way. And now we’re looking at some of the stops that we would make on that King’s Highway.
00:50 Just to kind of cap this off, it really isn’t a part five, it’s kind of just a continuation, if you will, of the theme of stops on the King’s Highway.
00:59 The idea is that as we travel in this journey here on earth, that this world is not our home and that we are citizens of heaven. And we being those that have been born again, I’m speaking to the believer here today, those that have accepted Christ as Savior.
01:15 Proverbs 16:17, the highway of the upright is to depart from evil.
01:23 He that keepeth his way, preserveth his soul. The highway of the upright is to depart from evil. He that keepeth his way, preserveth his soul.
01:33 Think of the inverse of that. The wicked go near evil and lose their soul. I mean, that’s the inverse of that.
01:40 You know, I was just thinking of that, I was reading that. We need to depart, like leave evil, leave sin. And you know, I came up with five stops on the King’s Highway.
01:56 We’ll see if we can get to all five here in this little episode. But number one, the first stop on the King’s Highway, I believe, is conviction of sin. 2 Corinthians 7:9-10.
02:02 Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance. For ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us and nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of.
02:16 But the sorrow of the world worketh death. You know, if you can think, if you’ve been saved, can you think of when you were first convicted of your sin? Think of what kept you in this world or what drew you to Christ.
02:24 Think of that spiritual battle that was taking place at that time.
02:33 You know, I don’t know what God had put in me, but there was something in me that I practically ran down the aisle when it was time to get saved because I had been attending church for a year or two, something like this, maybe two or three years.
02:48 It was a while, and I wish I could say the exact amount, but I know I was a junior, sophomore junior in college, and I started going pretty faithfully, and I had to go. I just had this gnawing in me to go.
03:01 And then I remember about the first year out of college, I started grad school, it was about when I got saved, amen, and I just had to, I had to, I was like, I’m ready to go.
03:10 Now, then they sat me down after going to the altar, started walking me through Romans road, and that was something that was tough for me to really understand at that time.
03:23 And to be honest, it took me a while to understand that, but I remember being in the fundamental church after being saved so many years later and hearing preaching on sin, and it took a few years, but finally I realized, oh, that preacher isn’t just talking to everyone else, he’s talking to me too.
03:35 So we have to be convicted of our sin. Romans 3:23 is the first step to understand that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That’s the first stop on the King’s highway in the first step to being saved.
03:45 You can’t be saved, I don’t think, if you don’t realize that you’re a sinner in need of a savior. So in order to accept Jesus as your savior, you have to acknowledge that you have a sin problem.
03:54 And if you aren’t acknowledging that, then are you really acknowledging him as savior of that problem you won’t acknowledge.
04:05 So to keep it simple and only God knows for sure, but I believe this is a truth. We must be aware of our sin. That’s our first stop on the King’s highway is to realize that we need God, that we have a need for God.
04:16 I’ve heard people tell me before that they say, why do I need to be saved? I didn’t do anything wrong. Well, okay, we have to understand what sin is. Even Paul struggled with this.
04:29 He wrote there in the Bible that if it weren’t for lust, he wouldn’t have known what coveting was. And he, through lust understood, coveting understood that that was a sin, that he was a sinner. Amen.
04:41 So even Paul realized that. So our second stop, once we realize that we’re a sinner, is salvation through Jesus Christ by grace alone. Saved by grace.
04:49 Amen. Ephesians 2:8-9. For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.
04:55 It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Our salvation rests on Christ alone. Never anything we could or can do will save us.
05:04 Jesus is our substitute. That is the atonement. He’s the one paying the price and thus he should become our all in all.
05:11 And this is our second stop on the King’s Highway. The first one is to realize our need. The second one is to take action on that and accept Christ as Savior.
05:19 The only thing that we can do to be saved is believe. We are justified by faith. We are made just by faith in Christ and we receive his perfect nature.
05:32 We receive that as our payment for sin because he went to the cross without any guilt of his own. He didn’t go to the cross because he had done anything wrong. He was falsely accused.
05:44 He lived sinless and perfect 33 and a half years. People for thousands of years have been trying to figure out something Jesus did wrong so they could tell everyone about it and they can’t because he didn’t do anything wrong because my God is perfect.
05:54 And Jesus Christ came to die on the cross for your sins and he was raised from the dead the third day according to the scriptures for your sins and my sins so that we would know he is Christ.
06:05 That’s what the Bible says. When God raised him from the dead, now we know he is Christ. We trust in Christ, we’re saved.
06:11 And once you’re saved, what happens? You’re on that third stop on the King’s Highway, edification in Christ. 2 Peter 3:18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever, amen.
06:27 So we are to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment.
06:36 That’s Philippians 1:9. You know what Peter’s saying, what Paul’s saying? We have to grow.
06:43 The example I gave to our congregation is if, you know, my oldest son, he wanted to go to the gym. Let’s say he wanted to go to the gym and lift weights. And let’s say two years he went to that gym and he lifted weights consistently, faithfully, if you will.
06:58 Well, I hope he would come out kind of bigger and stronger after a couple of years of lifting weights. I hope that that fitness, that that time spent and invested would show some fruit on his body. Well, amen.
07:11 We should show fruit in our spirit by growing as Christians. If you got saved in 1975 and you’re living like you were back then, that might be an issue because we are to grow more and more like Christ every day.
07:20 And so for the last whatever, 40 some odd years, what’s been going on, right? Now I know we’re in the flesh.
07:30 I know the world is full of problems and all of this. I get it and I experience it. And so I don’t believe that God doesn’t get it.
07:38 I believe God is very merciful and he understands what you face. I think that the reason why the Lord allowed Jesus to come so humbly and to face so many snares and problems was that as a scripture says,
07:49 he’s not one that can’t relate to us, but he can relate because he’s been through everything that we’ve got. We are going through and have gone through and we’ll go through.
07:57 And so God knows that we struggle along here and God knows we’re not under the law, but we should grow. There should be growth in us like, you know, if one year you are studying one book in the Bible or one, you know,
08:19 the Old Testament or the new, the next year you should be studying more, right? You know, if you understand one part of this, the next year, maybe you see what I mean? Like growing, maturing in the faith. That’s what it means.
08:35 I guess I wanted to spend some time on that concept of growing because we hear it preached over and over again, but a lot of times we don’t see it, do we?
08:41 And I heard of a preacher that had once been in a church. He was a very famous evangelist, but I’m not exactly sure which one, but he was in a church and he outgrew the church in like a year because he just got on fire for God.
08:53 He’s studying the scriptures and all the deacons and all the people there just didn’t want anything to do with him because he was just constantly a thorn in their flesh because he was just so knowledgeable and growing and pointing out, you know, where things might not be going right in the church.
09:05 And that’s kind of maybe an example on steroids, but we need to be, we need to be about our father’s business, grace, knowledge, judgment. We need to grow in these areas.
09:13 How do you grow in those areas? Through prayer, Bible study, praise, and service, prayer, Bible study, praise, and service.
09:20 As we do these things, as we pray to God and spend time with him, as we read his word and pray to God and spend time with him and meditate on what he wants us to meditate on, he gave us that word for a reason.
09:35 As we do those things and as we praise his holy name, we’re made to praise him. We should praise him in good times and bad times and rejoice in his name and what he’s done for us and how close he is to us and how wonderful he is.
09:49 Now he gave us the comforter. That’s the Holy Spirit. Amen.
09:54 As we do that, that should then lead us to a life of Christian service, winning others to the Lord, at least working to plant those seeds, serving the Lord. How about helping the brethren and loving on the brethren?
10:04 The Bible is full of scripture on helping other Christians. We’re told to help people a lot, especially the needy, but there’s kind of a message out there that needs to be preached, and maybe the Lord will let me preach it soon, about helping the brothers and sisters in Christ.
10:14 It’s very important. It’s very biblical. And as we do all these things, we serve the Lord, as we pray, as we praise, guess what? We’re going to be growing in knowledge.
10:27 We’ll be growing in judgment. We’ll be growing in grace. We’re going to be becoming different, and we should look different to the world.
10:35 Amen. And as we grow, the fourth stop on the King’s Highway, as I see it, could be that daily washing that we need, that sanctification.
10:46 1 Thessalonians 4:3, for this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication.
10:53 Now I like this verse because I can say fornication is a bad sin. We know what that is. That’s sexual relations outside of marriage.
10:59 But let’s take that and say sin in general. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from, you can pick the sin. How about all sin? Now, of course, we’re all going to fall short.
11:11 Amen. We’re all going to sin. But we should, for our sanctification, abstain the best that we can.
11:18 And then when we do fall into sin, which we all will, including me, everyone does, 1 John 1:9 tells us if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
11:30 So what do we do? We go to God for that washing. It’s like when Peter, Jesus was going to wash the disciples’ feet and Peter first said, no, you don’t do that.
11:39 And then he said, okay, well, wash me altogether. And Jesus is like, look, devil, get away from here, okay? You don’t need to be cleaned all over. You’re saved.
11:47 You just need the washing of your feet. We don’t need to be saved again, once saved, always saved. We’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
11:55 It’s nothing we can do, but we do need to be cleansed. We do need to go for forgiveness. This pastor right here, I learned this very early on.
12:03 Lord called me to start a church and I believe at that very moment, the Lord called me to repent daily. I mean, it was like boom, boom, you know, okay, well now
12:10 I’m going to be a pastor and all these things. And Lord’s going to give me some ministries to work in.
12:15 I need to be repentant before God. I need to have that closeness with God and that relationship with God where I’m comfortable, if you will, being uncomfortable saying, Lord, please point out my sin.
12:23 That’s not a fun prayer to make, but that is what God wants us to do.
12:27 And he’s faithful and just to forgive us of these sins as he helps us to understand what they are. And so we work to stay away from them on our end. And he helps us to understand that we’re completely forgiven.
12:33 We’re forgiven. Confess, go to the Lord humbly, seek forgiveness, ask him to ID your sin by the work of the Holy Spirit. He’ll give it to you.
12:45 Luke 18:13, and the pelican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes into heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. This is the one that was justified before God. The one that simply admitted he was a sinner.
12:58 There was another one there that was saying, thank goodness I’m not like these other people here. I’m so righteous. And that person was not justified before God, but this one was because he simply admitted what he is.
13:11 God knows what we are. He simply wants us to come to terms with who we are so that we can rely on the savior and Lord Jesus Christ. And the final stop here, you know, we’ve got our first stop conviction of sin.
13:19 Our second stop salvation through Jesus Christ through grace alone. Our third stop edification in Christ, growing in Christ. Many I believe are stuck in that stop right there.
13:29 Our fourth stop, daily washing, sanctification, getting right with God, growing close to God. Our fifth and final stop evangelism, the great commission. Amen.
13:37 That’s our fifth and final stop.Mark 16:15-16. Very familiar verse.
13:45 And he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. But he that believeth not shall be damned.
13:51 What we can we do as believers spread the gospel? That’s what we need to be thinking about on that fifth stop. We need to be about our father’s business. He called everyone to be an evangelist.
14:01 What roadblocks are getting in the way? What things are kind of stumbling blocks for us that we need to get right? We need to fix so that we can properly evangelize. Maybe it’s through gospel tracks. Maybe it’s through social media.
14:10 Maybe it’s door to door. Maybe it’s in church. Maybe it’s out of church.
14:16 Maybe it’s the homeless mission. Maybe it’s at the rehabilitation center. Wherever it is, let’s be about our father’s business on these five stops on the King’s Highway.
14:25 I thank you for listening today. Tune in next time.
14:27 Take care. God bless and amen.