-Transcript-
00:35 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the cafe.
00:40 Good to have you here today. It’s a great day in the cafe. Today we are looking at God’s Word, specifically the lost and the saved.
00:50 Who are you serving today? Amen. Who are you serving today? You know, there should be a change about us when we go to serve God. There should be something that we do that’s different.
00:58 Amen. There should be a difference in us. We should be living completely different and separate from the world.
01:04 And so if you look at the lost and the saved, are you able to tell the difference in your own life between how a lost person would live and a saved person would live? In your church, does it look different than how a lost person might worship? These things are totally different. The ways of God, the Bible says, is higher than our ways, as high as the heaven is from the earth. They’re so different.
01:27 And so the biggest mistake I think Christians might make in this regard is playing it, you know, fast and loose and just saying, I got saved and that box is checked and I’m going right back to the world. And that’s an abomination to God. Amen.
01:41 Romans 6: 6-7. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. So Romans 6:6-7 is telling us the old man is crucified with who? With Him.
02:02 Who’s Him? That’s Jesus Christ. When we’re saved, the old nature, our old nature, is crucified. What does that mean? It’s killed.
02:10 The body of sin might be destroyed. See, when we’re saved, that old nature is destroyed. Okay? It’s killed.
02:18 That henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. So if we’re born to sin, right? We’re naturally sinful.
02:24 We’re born in a sinful body that we inherited from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The sin curse comes in, and that sin curse is passed down generation to generation. The word I like to use is hereditary.
02:39 We have a hereditary sin problem. We can’t get rid of it. We didn’t create it, but we can’t get rid of it.
02:45 And God knows that. And so a merciful, loving God sent his only begotten Son, which is Him in the flesh, Amen, to die for our sins. And when He was risen again, He was risen to new life, a resurrected body.
02:57 And when we accept Christ as Savior, the old man passes away, and behold, all things become new. And so what we need to look at is, has everything become new in our life? And you say, well, Brother Clark, it says that we should not serve sin. Well, it doesn’t say we could not serve sin.
03:11 It doesn’t say we could not serve sin. It doesn’t say that we will not serve sin. It says we should not serve sin because we are still in this flesh.
03:20 And so even though we’ve been saved, we are still in a mortal fleshly body. You ever wake up with aches and pains? I mean, you’ve been saved, right? Shouldn’t you just be like an angel flying around? Probably not. Amen.
03:36 If you’re like me, every day seems to be a new health thing going on or ache or muscle pain or something. We are in weird places. You know, I’ll get like foot cramps lately, and I never had foot cramps really that much.
03:51 And so I’m just wondering, what is this? But that is living in the flesh. We’re living in the body. It’s still a body that is decaying, deteriorating, for lack of a better term.
04:04 Amen. A hundred out of a hundred are going to die. Amen? Unless the Lord comes back, and then we’ll meet Him in the air. But either way, when the saved Christian dies, they are with the Lord, and eventually they get that resurrected body, that new body.
04:17 And in that new body, there is no pain. There is no suffering. There is no problem.
04:23 There are no aches and pains, and there is absolutely no sin. And so I’m hoping here, by using the physical as an example, to help you understand the spiritual truth that when we are saved, we have the Holy Spirit living within us. Our name is written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
04:39 Never to be blotted out. Never to be erased. We are secure in heaven.
04:44 We have eternal security. We’re saved one time by one man in Jesus Christ, who is God, for eternity, forever. Amen. And that has been done.
04:52 Past tense. It’s already been done. So when you believe on Jesus, you’re already saved.
04:56 Once you’ve been saved, your name is written down in that book. Okay? You’re there forever. All right? Your place is secure.
05:05 You’re saying, okay, I was saved ten years ago, so I have a place in heaven. You do. You have a secure place in heaven.
05:11 In fact, when I am down on my luck, and I’m struggling with something in life, I’ll think of my place in heaven. And I’ll say, it’s there, Amen. I know it’s there.
05:21 I’ll think of my heavenly reward, and my spirits will be lifted by that, knowing that it’s there. And I’ll continue to serve Him despite being in the flesh. And all this to say that we have free will.
05:33 We’re in the flesh. We’re prone to sin. And because we’re prone to sin, we need to be conscious of this.
05:41 And because we need to be conscious of this, Paul writes that we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. Our natural man is dead. The first Adam is dead.
05:47 We have been born again. We’re saved. And now we are like the second Adam or the last Adam, which is Christ Jesus.
05:54 And so we should not serve sin. If you notice in the Bible, this is interesting, Lord gave me this. In the Bible, when Christ is on earth in His earthly ministry, is He tempted? Oh, ever.
06:08 So he’s tempted. He’s tempted by the devil himself, amen. Well, if Christ could not sin, like it was not possible for him to sin, then why was He tempted, right? So Christ was sinless, but that’s because Christ was obedient.
06:24 Another example would be if Christ was just like perfect and had no emotions, how come he was crying in the garden, amen, and asked the Lord to let that cup pass from him if it so be His will. But either way, let the Lord’s will be done. Why would Christ pray that if, in fact, he couldn’t sin, you see? So Christ was sinless, but he faced the same temptations we faced, and he had to exercise what? Discipline and obedience to not his will, but the Father’s will.
06:50 And that’s what God calls us to do. So where is your treasure? There’s a one way to look at this is looking at where your treasure is at. Because if we look at where our treasure is at, we’ll know where our heart is at.
07:00 Matthew 6:19-21, very familiar verse, lay not up for yourselves treasure upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, whether neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
07:29 Where is your treasure today? What are you working for? Think about it. What if you, if I told you I found treasure at the beach, my youngest son, he says he wants to go look for treasure at the beach with a metal detector. Because I said, you like the beach? He said, well I like the beach because I want to go treasure hunting.
07:45 Well if I told you he found treasure at the beach, what would come to your mind? Well money, gold or money, something of monetary value. Okay? And so where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If you are working, working, working two and three jobs, or you’re working all the time.
08:02 Look, the Bible says that work is good. God made us to work. And we should, we can and should worship Him through our work.
08:09 And I could go on and on. I think I did a three or four part message on that, on God in work. So there’s nothing wrong with work.
08:17 But if and when our mind is on work and money and not God, and money takes a higher place than God, and we are looking to money to solve our problems, and money for happiness, and money becomes that idol, that’s clearly where our heart is. And for those that are serving the Lord and sacrificing, even money if you can imagine. Giving money or just saying I won’t work as much to serve the Lord because I have my basic needs met.
08:44 I can continue to stay in this beat-up house or in this old car or whatever it may be. And they’re doing their best for God. They’re showing their treasure is in heaven.
08:55 And there’s nothing wrong with if you’re in a new house or have a new job, Amen. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as your heart is pointed towards God and your treasure is in heaven. And you’re living for God and he may choose to give you those things. But most people they’re laying up their treasure here on earth.
09:14 God has given me a thorn in the flesh. I believe it is the thorn in the flesh that I have to deal with as Paul had a thorn in the flesh. And people think it might have been something with his eyesight.
09:25 Mine is allergies. I have horrible allergies of all kind. I have food allergies, seasonal allergies.
09:31 I’m like just a cornucopia of allergies. I have all kinds of allergies. I have asthma.
09:37 You name it. I got crazy kind of allergies. And one benefit to having that, well there’s many, and I can glory my affirmatives because it shows the strength of God in me.
09:47 I realize that the futileness of a lot of things on earth. And one benefit of it is I’ll look at something that like that I may desire and say a moth and rust will corrupt that. Hey that thing will get dusty.
10:00 Hey this thing will be a snare and a problem for my allergies. And so one way that I’ve become less materialistic is by this thorn in my flesh. I just have allergies you know.
10:12 Hey if you’re really allergic you’ll want to be around less stuff I promise you. Especially carpet or anything like that. And we have a blessing in that.
10:20 And so we realize that you know what it’s true. You know anything that you get let it sit in storage long enough and it’ll rot out for the most part. And the moth will be in there and rust and so forth.
10:32 But the treasure that we lay up in heaven will never corrupt. You know this is the idea of the perishing versus the eternal viewpoint. You know we chase these perishing things for what? I mean can you imagine you save up for years to buy a sports car or something okay.
10:50 And you get it and then what? You know you’re still not happy. Everyone’s looking at you like who’s this person with a sports car? It’s really nice sports car. You’re not any better off for that.
10:59 And eventually that car will rust. Their problems will come to that car and it’ll deteriorate. Now let’s say in that time instead of saving up for that sports car you took that money that you were making and you gave it to the poor.
11:11 And you served God and you said I’m gonna be content with the situation I’m in. I’ll be content with a with a basic car that I have. And you just live for God.
11:20 Now maybe in that time you’re able to do more for God and you have a heavenly reward waiting for you. And when you get to heaven you have this heavenly reward which I won’t begin to guess what that would be. But I know that the expiration date on that heavenly reward is a lot longer than the one here on earth.
11:38 Because the one here on earth will absolutely decay. And the one in heaven will never decay. It’ll never corrupt.
11:46 It’ll never become a problem. It’ll never become less valuable. It’ll always be there.
11:51 And how great will it be to have that heavenly reward? You know I don’t know everything about those heavenly rewards. But I have reckoned or calculated, the Bible tells us to do this, that the reward in heaven is so much greater than the reward on earth. And it’s a delayed gratification.
12:07 It’s something we have to wait for. It’s something that we have to have faith in. I mean is that not why most people lay up treasures here on earth? Because they don’t have faith in God that he’s telling them the truth.
12:18 That they should lay it up in heaven. And they don’t have faith. They say, I’d rather have my little toy here on earth than have my mansion in heaven.
12:24 And that’s foolishness. That’s a bad deal. That’s a bad trade.
12:29 Your heart is set and your treasure simply shows where your heart is at. So if your heart is on the things of this world then your treasure will indicate that. You know where your treasure is, so is your heart.
12:40 Right? We see a connection there. And you can see the people that their treasures in heaven because their heart is right with God. They’re living for God.
12:48 They are getting away from living sinful. There is a difference in them. The natural man cannot understand any any of this.
12:58 The Bible says it’s foolishness. The preaching is foolishness to those that are not saved. Amen.
13:03 They don’t get it. They won’t understand it. They’ll think you’re crazy and weird.
13:06 That you’re storing up treasures in heaven. That you’re living for God. You know maybe the way that you’re doing that is you’re gonna homeschool your kids instead of sending them to public school.
13:15 And you have to sacrifice. But you realize you’re gonna have a godly child. And there’s a heavenly reward for that.
13:19 You see it’s not always the simple things. It can be very profound things. You could you know go and and and be a witness on Saturdays.
13:28 Instead of going to the lake. You know you can go and hand out tracts everywhere. You can start that ministry the Lord put on your heart.
13:34 You can grow that ministry the Lord put on your heart. You could just spend more time with him. You can say you know what instead of going out to dinner I’m just gonna study my Bible.
13:42 You know it’s so simple but so profound. And as we get into God’s Word. As we spend time with Him.
13:47 He will work in our hearts to store up that treasure in heaven. Because he knows it’s so much better than the failing dusty moldy musty things here on earth. And that even the best-looking thing today in 50 or 100 years will be rotten.
14:03 Right? For the most part. And in heaven it never rots. It never decays.
14:08 It is perfect forever. Because it’s of God. And God is perfect.
14:13 Thank you for listening. Take care. God bless and amen.