Called Out

Sermon Transcript

All right. Good morning, Brave Church. How you guys doing today? Having a good morning. That's.

That intro video always pumps me up. Will you do me a favor and just for a second, I want to stop and I want to welcome our Westminster, Colorado Springs and online campus that are worship with us this morning. We love you and it is an honor to be able to worship not just all over Colorado, but honestly all over the nation as God is using Brave more and more in all kinds of different places. So absolutely pumped to be here and share with you guys today. I want to talk this morning with you all about being called out.

How many of y'all have been called out in your life before? Maybe it was a, a good friend who, who let you know when you were doing something stupid. Maybe it was a, a promotion for you at work and you got recognized in front of a bunch of people that you were working hard and, and, and getting to see. That may, maybe for you, you're a cheater at the game of Monopoly, you know what I mean? And your 8 year old son finally called you out about the, the, the hotels on Park Place that just appeared, you know what I mean?

But all of us at some point or another in our life have experienced this reality of being called out. And I remember a story, I'm gonna tell you this. Since Pastor Jeff is gone today, I'm gonna tell you a story about Pastor Jeff. You guys down? You ready to hear one?

I was at a residency doing some sermon labs. All right. And you know, we're doing like little 20 minute sermonettes and I've been reading way too many old dead theologians, and I'm fixing to come in and be the next spurgeon and teach on Romans 12:1 and 2. By the grace of God, the greatest message that's ever come about. You know, there's five or six other pastors there and we're kind of growing together and I'm feeling great until Pastor Jeff comes walking in through the back door and decides to sit in for my message in particular.

And I remember just the fear of God descending on me in that moment. It is May the fourth. It was like being Luke Skywalker and then having Darth Vader walk in. Okay. It was like, okay, here we go.

And I remember giving the message and I was, I was feeling it, you know what I mean? I was like, this is great. This is, this is, Mark it up. It's wonderful. And I remember going through and getting feedback from everybody.

And some of the other pastors were there, like, dude, this was Fantastic. I love that you did this. I love that you did that. And I remember it got to Pastor Jeff and he was like, it was really good. And you know when somebody tells you it's really good and you know it wasn't really good when they say it to you guys.

Ever any of you married? No, just me. Okay, cool. I remember hearing him say it was so good. Eddie was so gracious about it.

Eddie looked at me and he's like, here's the deal. You kind of missed the point of the passage. And I was like, okay, you know, I'll go back and start over. But here's the deal. In those moments, you either get called to more or you shrink back and you sink into something else.

And here's the deal. Here's what I want you guys to know. When we're called out, we're being called to more. Pastor Jeff in that moment, for me, was calling more out of me. Cause he saw more in me than I was giving.

And, and I want you guys to know the gospel is just thick with this idea of pulling more out of you than you think you have in you. And it's. It's almost as if Jesus knows more about you than you know about yourself. And I want you guys to. To get this because the.

The Greek word that's translated church all over scripture. The. The word ea literally means a called out assembly. It's a group of people that are called out. The Greek words ek meaning out in kalio to call is where we get our word for church.

If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, I want you to know God has called you out. This is the picture of basically the whole Bible. He calls out Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans and sets him apart. He pulls the people of Israel out of Egypt. During the Exodus, Jesus calls out his disciples from other people.

In First Peter four told that we're or two. We're told that we're a chosen priesthood, that God has set us apart to proclaim the excellencies of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. In John 15, Jesus says, you didn't choose me, I chose you. To go and bear fruit. I want you guys to get this picture.

The Bible is trying to hammer to us and those who are called out that were not supposed to be like everyone else were supposed to be different. We're supposed to be different than the people that are around us. You're not supposed to take your cues on life from sitcoms and self help and social media. You're supposed to take your commands from your Father in heaven, who is the Creator, sustainer and strength of your new identity in Christ. And I want you guys to get this today.

The book of Galatians, where we're going to be spending our time, is just filled with this idea that you are not who you used to be, but you are something else entirely, that you have been crucified with Christ. And whatever you used to be, I'm telling you, it is dead. And what God has started in you is a new creation that is beautiful. And God wants to call so much more out of us today than I believe we think we're capable of. And I want you guys to see this new identity for us in Christ means new appetites.

It means new direction. And more importantly for today, it means new relationships. The way that we think about relationships should be fundamentally different than the dumpster fire of relationships that we see in the world around us today. Can I get an Amen? We should be different church.

And I want us to focus today on some important distinctives of what it looks like to live in a called out Christian community where we would embrace the holiness of God, the identity that he's giving us, and the call on our lives together. So with that, let's get into the Word. Today I want to go to Galatians, chapter six, but we're going to start just before chapter six in verses 25 through 26 of chapter five. Now, if you don't know this, the the verses and the chapters, those sections were put in later to help us navigate the text that was there. But this was one full letter, so you'll see, as I'm reading, the context flows really nicely.

And you'll see that this was a package set of verses. Let me read this right now. 5:25. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another or envying one another.

Brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted, bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he's something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But each one must examine his own work. And then he will have reason for boasting in regard to Himself alone and not in regard to another.

For each one will bear his own load. The one who is taught the Word is to share all good things with the One who teaches him and do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows this, he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption.

But the one who sows to the spirit. For over the spirit reap eternal life. So let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Bray, will you pray with me?

God, I thank you for this wonderful, glorious text. And I do not want to come into this service today and give a lecture. Lord, we believe that when your word is opened and faithfully proclaimed, Lord Jesus, you begin to transform hearts. You speak, you change things, Lord. And so we, we just say together, God, we want to hear you, we want to be transformed by you and we want to meet with you in this place.

Would you, in your grace and your mercy, by your spirit, meet us here and transform us in Jesus name? Amen. Thank you, Lord. All right, guys, so in this text, what we're seeing is the beginning is talking about walking by the spirit, and the end is talking about walking by the spirit. And in between are these concepts that Paul identifies that I believe our world is in tension with to this very day.

These two concepts are personal responsibility and corporate responsibility. And they're incredibly frustrating things to try to navigate together. I have a slide I want to put up for you that will hopefully be a picture for you that you can put in your mind as we talk through this entire message today. This is Mark Felix, world record holder for what is called the Hercules hold. Those pillars are about 352 pounds a piece.

I think the record is something like a minute and 25 seconds holding those things. And you can't tell from here, but our boy there is busting out of like a 5XL. I mean, it is a massively difficult thing to do. And I believe as we look at this, we'll begin to understand the tension and the balance that God has called us into. If we release personal responsibility, we're going all the way this way.

And if we release corporate responsibility, we're going to go all the way the wrong direction. And God has told us, he's called us to stand in the middle where he stood when he stretched out his arms and he showed us what corporate responsibility and personal responsibility meant to God. See, right wing people want to emphasize in our country today the personal responsibility pick Yourself up by your bootstraps, work hard, do the right thing, make something of yourself. And let's say the, the left leaning people want to emphasize our responsibility to care for the lowest and most broken. And God in his Gospel through the Spirit is demanding of us both.

Both. And it's an incredibly difficult thing to do. But our responsibility ultimately is the responsibility that Christ calls us to. And I have to tell you guys, for the longest time I didn't like being called a, a, a Christian. So when people would ask me like, what are you?

I'd say, well, I'm a, I'm a Jesus person or something weird like that and obscure. Because I didn't want to take on responsibility for all of Christendom. I didn't want to take responsibility for other Christians and what they were doing and how they were doing it. But listen to me, we don't need more people running from the name of Christian. We need more people standing up for the name of Christ and winning it back from the mouths of hypocrites who do not obey God with their lifestyle.

We want to be the kind of people who would own that.

So we see in verse 2 this call to bear each other's burdens. We see in verse 5 this demand to carry our own load. And I want you to know the Bible's clear on this. You are entirely responsible before God for the life that you live and the decisions that you make. And although you are free to make decisions, you are not free from the consequences of those decisions.

And on the other hand, we are responsible to bear one another's burdens and care for each other, lest we become like Cain who said to God when confronted with his treacherous am I my brother's keeper? In which we have the answer in the cross of Jesus Christ, which is emphatically yes, yes, we are combining. These two things I think is impossible apart from Christ, but by the Spirit of God. I believe that that is exactly the tension that Christ has called us to so that together we would lift the standard of what is God, God has called his church to together. So I want to start by getting Back to Galatians 5, 25, 26.

Let's read through this and let's learn a little bit more what it means to be called out by Christ. Let's read this together. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging or envying one another, okay? Being called out by Christ means we stop comparing and we start walking.

I want to explain something Important that we see right up at the top of this text, the Spirit of God is called the Holy Spirit because he is and produces holiness in those who believe. Okay, so there's this tension, and he's saying, I want you not to just live by the Spirit. I want you to walk by the Spirit. And we want them to be the same thing. But the Bible is saying that they're not.

The Bible is saying to live by the Spirit is to place your faith in the finished work of Christ. His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, all of that. And when we do that, we have the life of Christ inside of us. It's not that Christ just gives us life. It's that he is our life now.

But that's not the same as walking by the Spirit, which is our cooperation with what the Spirit is trying to do in us right now. Salvation is a work of the Lord. Sanctification. We gotta link arms with the Holy Spirit on that. Let me.

Let me tell you right now that how many of you guys want more of the Holy Spirit's work in your life? How many of you guys want to be a little more sanctified? Look at the person next to you and tell them you're being called out. Tell them you're being called out. God is calling all of us to a higher standard here.

He's calling us some more to walk by the Spirit of God. And I want you guys to know this. Everything that Jesus did in his ministry was empowered, anointed by, led by, and filled with the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. Now, when we think about the ministry of Jesus, we tend to think about him being the second person of the Trinity, the Son. And everything that he did, he was acting out in the power of the second person of the Trinity, the Son.

But actually what the Bible tells us is that the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, who is fully man, fully God, truly man, truly God, was actually doing everything in the power of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, which you and I have inside of us. The ministry of Jesus was not just because he was God, so he was doing all those things. The ministry of Jesus was showing us what it looks like to be filled with the Spirit so that we could go and do the same thing. Look at the person next to you and say, you ain't got an excuse, because if you are in Christ, you have the Spirit, you have it now. Now, I gotta ask you guys, how many of you have tools in a shed or a shelf or.

Or a toolbox in your garage that if you're being honest. You have not touched in like five or ten years. Anybody? Ladies, out. Your husband right now.

He paid for all those tools. He didn't even tell you he was going to get them. And now they're collecting dust. This is the time. Okay?

I want you to understand because the Holy Spirit is inside us and empowering us and growing us. God has given us a tool chest in the Spirit for everything that we need in this life. He has totally equipped you for everything that you need pertaining life and godliness. Some of the tools that the Spirit gives us. This is by no means comprehensive, but I want to read some of these to you to understand and apply scriptures.

1 Corinthians 2, 12, 14. To bear spiritual fruit. Galatians 22:23. To overcome sin, to pray effectively, to boldly witness for Christ, to be assured of our salvation, to receive and use spiritual gifts, to grow in holiness, to experience true freedom in Christ, to love others supernaturally, to cause saints to overflow with hope. He allows the saints to convict the world, consenting sin, righteousness and judgment.

He gives life, not to mention giving wisdom. Searching the mind of God. Helping us persevere produces unity, revealing Christ to us and empowering others for the work of the Gospel through us. God has turned you into an absolute tank that is set against the schemes of this world in the darkness. You are not a cruise ship just waiting for things to get to heaven.

You are a battleship that has been armed by the. Armed to the teeth by the Spirit to go to war against the nonsense that this world is setting itself up against. I want you guys to know this. Today you have a tool chest. You have the Spirit inside of you who is here to produce life in you.

So that when the world wants to take this arm and this arm and then lean this way or that way by the Spirit, we get to stand and unload the gifts that God has given to us, through us, to the world around us, and by the grace of God, keep corporate responsibility and personal responsibility in this tension that raises the tide. Together, you've been supercharged by the Holy Spirit to create an environment of holiness and spiritual life wherever you go. You're not a wandering victim waiting for heaven were saints who have been given and anointed by the same Spirit that empowered the ministry of Jesus and ultimately raised him from the dead. That Spirit is in you right now. Right now.

And you will either allow that communion and fellowship and obedience to the Spirit to drive your life, or according to this text, you will allow comparison, envy and boasting to do so. Which takes us into this portion here, where I want you guys to just consider with me for a second the reality that I'm either going to rely on the Spirit and I'm going to grow in holiness, or I'm going to look at the people around me and just try to keep up with them to decide if I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing or not. That spectrum of pride and insecurity, that comparison and envy and boasting puts you on, let me tell you firsthand experience, it's exhausting. You're not meant to live. You're not meant to run on in this new life that Christ has given you by looking around and measuring yourself based on everybody else.

You're not supposed to do that. The only comparison, aside from looking at ourselves and God, that we're supposed to be doing as Christians, is when I look at my own life and I look back and I see how far Christ has got me. Want to see, man? Look how far. Look how far I've come from where I was before.

Or if you're going to look at your brother or sister in Christ, you would want to look and instead of saying, where am I to them, you would want to look and say, look how far God has brought them from where they were. The comparison that's supposed to happen in the Kingdom is ultimately meant to be a work of encouragement so that we would build each other up in the Spirit, not take on this fleshly nonsense of measuring who is better. It's about all of us lifting the standard of holiness because of a love for Christ by walking in the Spirit. Holiness means to be set apart to. To.

To set a standard. And it's not setting yourself apart from other people, it's setting yourself apart for other people so that we can build up and encourage and have each other's back, instead of the nonsense that our world has become so proficient at, which is tearing each other down in the name of feeling better themselves. We're not going to do that here. We're not going to do that at Brave Church. Which leads me to my next point.

Let's read verses one and two together. Brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Each one looking to yourself so that you will not be tempted, bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. Being called out by Christ means we draw lines. Means we draw lines.

Now, he uses this word trespass here. How many of you guys have seen a no trespassing sign before. How many of you guys in your mind are already crossing that trespass sign? You're like, no trespassing. That's.

That's for me. I'm going like you. You just. That's who you are. And in this text, what he's trying to point at is, hey, people have this natural tendency to go where they're not supposed to go, to cross lines that they're not supposed to cross.

And he wants us to know, in this text, listen, if you see someone crossing a line and going where they shouldn't go, the goal is not to go there with them. It's to stand where the line was drawn and call them back to sanity, call them back to safety, call them back to where they're actually meant to be. And we as Christians are called to draw lines where God Almighty has drawn lines. We are called to have standards. And you need to know this.

I mean, the whole Bible has this picture of standards that God has given to us. I've met many of you. I've been in many of your houses. And so many of you guys have the same plaque on your wall, right? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

So I've drawn a line. This is what my house is going to be about. Or Deuteronomy 30, right? I've laid today. I've laid before you today.

Life and death. Choose life. Pick where you're going to live. What's the line that you're going to draw? And holiness is about setting a standard of living in cooperation with the spirit of God.

Which means you're going to have to have standards. You're going to have to draw lines in your life. And I got to tell you right now, our world hates standards. It can't stand them. It wants to rearrange and come up with its own plan.

And its own plan is to trespass every good commandment that God has given to his people. Our world hates masculinity. It doesn't like what God has commanded men to be, and it is actively assaulting that. Our world hates femininity and what God has called civic. Okay, you are a tank.

You are armed to the teeth for spiritual war, to go to war against the darkness. And the problem is, is if you're not engaging in what God has called you to engage, your tools will sit back and collect dust and you'll say, I guess I'm just not called to that, or I can't really be Jesus and I want you guys to know the Spirit has given you the ability to walk, not just have salvation live by, but to walk in the Spirit. You have been supercharged by the Holy Spirit to create an environment of holiness and spiritual life wherever you go. You are not a wandering victim waiting for heaven. We are saints who have been given and anointed by the same Spirit that empowered the ministry of Christ.

It's that same Spirit that gives us resurrection, power to call things back from the dead. And you will either, according to this text, allow the Holy Spirit to drive your life, or you will allow comparison, envy, and challenging one another. This is the paradigm it gives us. Either you're going to try to do this by the Spirit, or you're gonna try to hold onto these two things in your own strength. And I'm telling you right now, you're gonna lean one way and let go of the other.

You're gonna lean the other way and let go of this side, and both ways end up in devastation. Comparison can't be the basis of Christian relationships. It can't be all right. And rather than producing holiness, it produces exhaustion and strife. And it simultaneously either puts other people down so that you feel better, or it raises you up so that you feel better, or put yourself down so that you feel worse.

Either way, it's this weird spectrum of pride and insecurity. Anybody lived on that spectrum before. It's miserable. It's miserable. And God is calling us not to sit in comparison and jealousy and envying, but to actually walk in the fullness of what the Spirit has for us.

The only comparison we should be doing as Christians, outside of, like, comparing our own life to God is comparing someone where they are to where they used to be to encourage them. Or if you're gonna compare for yourself, maybe the way to do it is to look at where I am now and how far I've come since Christ began to work in my life. See, Christian encouragement is not the process of crushing other people so that you feel better or being crushed by other people to validate your feelings of victimization. It's the process of leaning in and say, by God's grace, I am what I am and he's doing a work in my every single day. Comparison in Christ is meant to encourage and be a reminder of grace, not an egotistical game that puts us on the spectrum of pride and insignificance.

It's about all of us lifting the standard of holiness because of a love for Christ by walking in the Spirit. Holiness means to be set apart and I want you guys to hear this. It doesn't mean to be set apart from other people means to be set apart for other people. The goal is that we would live in such a way that we're able to help build the people up around us. But you have to do the work of setting yourself apart to be able to call people to that standard.

Which leads us to our next point. Let's read verses one and two together. Brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted, bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. Being a called out Christian means we draw lines.

We draw lines. Now how many of you guys have seen a no trespass sign in your life? How many of you guys are like, I, I'm already over the fence. You said no trespass and I'm already over the fence. It's, it's a picture.

And this word, it really is. That's the point that it's making. Here's a boundary line, here's where you landed. And the reality is this picture is trying to paint for you that there is a standard. There is a line that God has drawn for us as Christians and he wants us to understand in this passage, you gotta draw lines.

You have to where the Spirit has drawn lines. And if somebody has trespassed that boundary, you don't go after them in the process of calling them back. You hold the line and you call them back from where you are. And too many Christians trying to save somebody else are trespassing the very boundaries that got the other person in trouble. Can I get an amen?

And God is saying, toe the line while you're calling other people to repentance. I mean, you need to know this. God has called us to draw lines. He's called us to do that. I've seen in plaques and so many of you guys houses, honestly, the choose this day whom you will serve.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Right? Or Deuteronomy 30 I've laid before you today life and death. Choose life that you would live. Holiness is about setting a standard of living in cooperation with the Spirit of God.

Which means you're going to have to have standards. You're going to have to draw lines in your life as a Christian. And our world hates standards. Our world hates standards. It hates masculinity and is just has a full fledged assault against what it means to Be a man.

It hates femininity and the God given gift of womanhood and is assaulted that. It hates children and wants to destroy what that is. It hates gender and the line that God has drawn there. It hates responsibility. It hates the word sin.

It hates the word hell. It hates Jesus. It hates holiness. I want you guys to know that our whole world is set against the good standards and lines that God has drawn. And so many of you guys, I gotta tell you, last.

Last Sunday, Pastor Jeff called many of you guys to show up on a Wednesday to the Capitol building to oppose HB 25, 13, 12. And I gotta tell you guys, they packed out four overflow rooms. Y'all showed up in spades. And I'm proud of you for being a church that will stand up against some of the legislation that's. That's coming against us.

And hear me on this. The goal is not like, oh, we packed out a courthouse. The goal is no. Our church showed up to hold the standards that God said are valuable. Our church showed up to defend the family.

Our church showed up to defend gender and masculinity and femininity and to fight for our kids and the next generation, because apparently in this state, nobody else will. And I want you to know I'm so proud of being able to minister at this church where you guys will stand up for things that actually matter. You see, Jesus was filled with the spirit in his ministry. Jesus drew lines. Jesus had standards.

But it wasn't just standards for himself. It was standards to call the whole world to. Jesus was reminding the whole world that you're on this side. You gotta come home. You gotta get out of there.

This is killing you. This is keeping you in bondage. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is this story in John, chapter eight, right? You have this picture of this woman who's caught in adultery because the Pharisees wanted to trap people with these standards. They were looking to take the holiness of God and use it as a cudgel to just beat people with when they stepped out of line.

And Jesus was saying, no, no, no, no, no. I'm inviting you into freedom. I'm trying to bring you across this line. He wasn't saying the line didn't matter. He's saying when you step across that line, it is killing you.

And listen to me. If you're in here today and you're on the other side of that trespass boundary and you're not living the way that you should, I want you to know today, this conversation about holiness is not to crush you. This conversation about being called out is to remind you that Jesus was crushed for you so that you don't have to walk in that nonsense anymore, but can walk in freedom in the name of Jesus because He's provided that for you.

And he ends the statement there after everyone's left with this reminder. He says this in every woke church. I was listening to a couple of pastors addressing this in Colorado this week who are just in these churches, you know, and they were like, this one lady, Lord help her, she said something along the lines of, I really hate this last part of the verse. It's very icky. I don't like it where he says, go and sin no more.

And what I wanted to say to her was like, listen, then you hate people finding freedom in Christ and actually being able to walk without bondage. It's that statement, that drawing of the line that allows us to walk in freedom instead of the bondage that the world is trying to put on you. Christian, you have to draw lines. Listen to me. Love without standard is just adultery.

All right? Love untethered from virtue is not love. People want to say, love is love. No, love is Jesus. And he gets to decide what that word means.

And he's the one who defines what it means. And if you take him out of the equation, you do not have love. I don't know what you have, but you do not have love. The world says, choose this. Choose money.

Christ says, no, I've drawn a line there. I want you to choose holiness. The world says, bend the fear of man. Holiness says, no, no, no. No fear God alone.

The world says, sexual immorality is totally fine. Holiness says, how dare you lay a finger on a son or daughter of God outside of covenant marriage. Brave. I want you to be willing to draw lines. Leviticus 11:44 says, Consecrate yourself.

Come across that boundary. Be holy as I AM HOLY. Isaiah 35, verse 8. I love this verse that says, after that. It's talking about this way of holiness.

Those who are called out. It says, there will be a highway called the way of holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, only those who walk in the way, and fools will not stray onto it. Some of your friends are not on this highway right now. Some of your girlfriends or boyfriends, they're not on this highway.

Some of you have been living a dual life where you're trying to act like you're on that highway, but you're not. And I want to call you today to walk with the Spirit, draw lines. Set yourself apart. Don't act like everybody else. Don't live like everyone else.

Be holy like Jesus was holy. And I got to ask you, what kind of standard are you setting with the way that you speak and live? Do people know that you have lines that you've drawn? Or is it every time you draw a line, it seems like you can just push it right over? Do you know where your lines are?

Have you drawn them where the Spirit has drawn them? Are you dedicated to holiness or just dedicated to looking better than other people? See, one is life giving and one actually leads to death. And if we're going to hold that tension of that personal responsibility and corporate responsibility, we have got to learn to draw lines in our own life and hold the standards that God has called us to. If you don't value holiness, you can't lead others.

And honestly, if you don't value holiness, you cannot lead yourself. You can't carry your own weight. Which brings me to my next point. Let's read verses three through eight together. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

But each one must examine his own work. And then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone and not in regard to another. For each one, one will bear his own load. The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him, do not be deceived. God is not mocked.

For whatever a man sows this, he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Being called out as a Christian means we carry our own weight. Being called out as a Christian means we carry our own weight.

Walking in the Spirit means being led by the Spirit. It also means being present for what the Spirit is trying to do in your life right now, not just what God did in your life when you were saved 10 years ago. Okay, it means we need to be paying attention to what God is asking me to do now, not just relying on a testimony of what amazing things he did back then. See, there are so many Christians out there who started pursuing God and wanting to lead well and in their Bibles and in prayer and in fellowship, but at some point didn't have time for what the Spirit was calling them to now because they got too busy and they started to rely on what they used to do with the Spirit instead. There are noticeably a lot of overweight Personal trainers out there.

Anybody notice this? I'm not trying to throw shade, okay? But I got to ask the question, like, if the guy who looks like that is giving you information about what he used to do, what is the outcome of his process?

Right? And I gotta ask you, like, is that what you wanna do, or do you want to continue to walk in a particular secret? Listen to me. Christianity is not a moment where you stand up and just accept Christ. Christianity is when you look back and see the fruit of Christ working in your life all the way back.

And so many people, I feel like, are stopping or getting stale halfway. There are a lot of Christians who are saying one thing with their mouth but living just like everyone else. And unfortunately, it shows. There's a lot of leaders who ended up hurting others because they stopped carrying the weight that God had given them to carry. You see, at some point, they stopped bearing their own load.

The Bible is. Is telling you emphatically, you must take up your cross and follow me, and nobody's going to carry that cross for you. That's what God has given you to carry daily. And at some point, they just stopped and listen, they stopped carrying the weight that God had specifically given to them to keep them where they needed to be. The struggle in your life, the tensions in your life, the difficulties in your life are to anchor you to the Son of God so that you would continue to run to him and say, I need you.

I got to keep pressing into you. I need you in my life to help guide me and lead me. The weight that God gives you to carry is to keep you from drifting. And I love what Paul says in First Corinthians 9:27. He says, I discipline my body so that after preaching to others, I may not be disqualified myself.

Saying, I can't just be out here doing the work and telling other people what to do. If it's not going well in my own life, I cannot be telling other people how to love their wife. Well, if I'm not doing it at home, gentlemen, I can't be telling other women how to love their husbands. Well, if I'm not doing it at home, ladies, you can pick whatever arena you want to. We have to be willing to carry the load that God has given to us Christians.

I want you to see this. We're supposed to be working the ground that is around us. First Timothy 4:15. Paul tells Timothy, I want you to take pains in these things, work hard at carrying the weight that God has given you in your life. We're supposed to Be busy.

And when we have too much time on our hands, we can start to get caught up in deadly currents that are taking us to a place we were not meant to go. Oftentimes, the reason people are addicted to porn or addicted to substance or can't put down a phone or can't break up with this person or can't stop watching these movies or whatever is because they have way too much time on their hands. They're letting go of personal responsibility and thinking that they'll be able to hold the weight up on one side on their own. You will fall. Christ has called us to both of these things.

Deuteronomy 6 paints this picture. It's called the Shema. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. What he's telling us in that text is God is not asking for a prayer on Sunday.

He wants your comprehensive life. He wants your mind. He wants your heart. He wants your body, all of what you are. I love that.

Pastor John Gall preached a message a couple weeks ago where he was telling us in prayer to bow before the Father. Why? Because God's not just after your mouth. He's after your heart and your body and all that you are. Can I get an amen?

Jesus is not asking for a smidgen, right? But I love what our pastor says. He's not coming in to be resident, he's coming in to be president. And we need to know this. The Shema is reminding us.

It's our comprehensive selves, our mind. You're supposed to take care of what God has given you. And if you haven't been exercising your mind, that's not honoring to God. You should be in your Bible, you should be learning. You should be growing in the skill and the ability that he's given you and using the amazing gifts that God has given you in your brain.

Do you realize how amazing your brain is? Do you realize that the world is totally set against you using your brain? It's totally set against it. And God is saying, no, no, no, that's mine. That's my brain.

I want you to work on it, exercise it. God's given us a body to take care of. And let's be honest, sometimes our body are a physical representation of our relationship with discipline. It just. It just can be.

And we need to be thoughtful about this. Jonathan Edwards, in his resolutions, I think it was his 40th resolution, he would talk about what he would eat before he would preach so that he wouldn't be lazy or lethargic when he came to bring the word of God. And I think about that like, am I. Am I thinking about what I'm consuming? Am I taking care of my body so that the way that I act and treat other people and love other people and represent Christ would be consistent with what the Spirit has called me to?

How about the heart? God has given us a heart. And the Bible tells us to guard our heart above all else. From. From it, everything else flows.

This is perhaps the most important because if you lose this, the other two don't really matter. And watching everything that has happened in the years that have come with guys like Ravi Zacharias and Steven Lawson and Robert Morris, is this grave reminder to me that numbers 32, 23 is true. Be sure your sin will find you out. You cannot be filling your heart with lust or pride or unforgiveness and strangling your conscience to silence it and not expect awful repercussions to show up eventually. We gotta carry our own weight.

See, the world tells you to have a hard heart, push past things. Jesus is calling you to utilize the new heart that he's given you and walk by the Spirit. He wants you to give him your mind and your body. And I want you to realize this. Philippians 3, 18, 20.

Paul addresses people who are actually doing the opposite of this. Here's what it says. It says for many walk of whom I often told you now and tell you, even weeping, that they're enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, whose glory or strength is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things, mind, heart, body. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly await our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are setting your whole self against the very thing that God has called you to you, you're not actually carrying your own load.

As Christians, we should have healthy rhythms in our life of exercise, education, spiritual discipline, so that we're bearing our load and able to contribute to the people that are around us. I want to give you six spiritual disciplines, not to be legalistic today, but to take with you, to start helping you think about what you could start adding into your life today to make sure that you're staying in spiritual shape. The first is this. Confess and deal with personal sin. Make confession just a regular part of your life, guys.

Just make sure you're starting your day that way. I want to give this to God. I'm not right here. I need to work on this, work on that. Start seriously considering what matters in your life and find more time on your calendar for those things.

Like, like really process. Am I giving my time to what is honoring to God, or am I wasting it? 3. Be in the Word. Be in the Word.

I cannot stress to you enough how important that is that you would be renewing your mind. 4. Meet regularly with God's people. All right. I want to tell you today Pastor Jeff has made it really easy to get into cadres.

Gather. Grow. Go. If you are not in a cadre yet, I feel like you're just not writing down the things that you're probably already doing in your life. If you're meeting with other people who love Jesus, who are walking the same direction, and you guys are holding each other accountable, you guys are doing the right things.

Gather. Grow. Go. Make sure you get signed up for a cadre. 5.

Quit doing things that are feeding fear in your life. And many of you guys are, like, cracked out on the. On the wormhole of information about the world that's trying to deceive you. And I want you to know you're supposed to see everything in the light of Christ, not just stare into the darkness. And I've seen a lot of people staring into the void, and they start to look more like the void than they do Christ.

I'm just warning you, be careful. Verse 6. Live from a place of victory. Stop walking around defeated already. Christ is in charge.

Christ is in control. And you, my friend, have taken up arms with the one that has spoken the world into existence. Jesus tells us this 365 times in the Bible. Fear not. Don't walk around afraid.

Don't walk around as a victim. Victimization is the opposite of holiness. Christians don't wallow. They rise and they worship. Amen.

That's what Christ has called us to do. Your holiness is supposed to be contagious. And some of y'all are in quarantine. Nobody's catching Jesus, okay? Walk it out.

Some of you guys need to tell yourself, tell your face. It's redeemed. Right? We, we have the joy of Christ. We have the spirit of Christ.

We need to carry our own weight. And if you can't carry your own load, you can't serve others well. And if you can't serve others well, you can't honor God. Because fulfilling the great commandment is allowing our love for the Lord to be transposed into the way that we talk to and carry other people. Which leads us to our last point here, let's read verses 9 through 10 together.

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap a reward if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Being called out by Christ means we intentionally serve each other for the sake of Christ. As we learn to pursue holiness and lead ourselves, we'll increasingly be able to help those around us pursue Christ. You might be bearing someone else's spiritual burden right now, and you don't even realize it.

I want you guys to understand this embracing personal holiness, stepping up to the plate, and say, I want to draw lines where God draws lines. I want to stay in the tension that God has called me to. I want to be the person who carries the load that God has given to me and isn't constantly trying to shuck it off. You end up carrying other people's spiritual weight that you don't even realize. Listen to me, parents.

Can I just talk to you for a second? Some of you right now, you feel like you're in a war, and it's just heavy right now, and you're struggling with stuff. And I want you to know you might be killing generational curses for your grandkids, and you don't even realize it. You might be going to war for your family right now, and you don't even realize it. Some of you know what it feels like when you're an intercessor and God calls you to pray on behalf of somebody else.

You wake up in the middle of the night and God puts this person on your heart, and you feel a burden that you're supposed to carry for them. And I want you to know it's because you're walking in holiness that God has given you the ability to help lift up somebody else in that moment. As Christians, we're supposed to be the kind of people that realize my battle is not just my battle. When I walk in holiness, I am the rising tide by the grace of God, that is gonna help build everyone else up around me. I was reading Charles Spurgeon the other day, God bless him.

And it was one of those moments. You guys ever just reading, like, just an old dead pastor and just have, like, a tear coming down your face? He's like, he gets me, Daddy. And I remember reading, and I was sitting here thinking, as my heart was being wrecked by this person, he was carrying a spiritual load then and fighting a war then, so that I could have my heart wrecked right now, 200 years later. Christian, what are you doing in your life that you don't realize right now?

You think it's just a personal war and you're just struggling for no reason and you're tempted to cave and you don't realize? No. What you have, what you're doing right now has repercussions for people that come after you 200 years from now. Now, there is such a beautiful picture here of the body raising up the body. What Jesus did on Calvary changed everything.

And I want you to see that Jesus has invited us into what he did on Calvary as the body of Christ who would bear each other up. And that goes so far beyond what you can see or understand in the moment. I want you to take heart. If you've been struggling, if you've been wrestling, it may not even be your weight right now. You might be bearing the load of somebody else later on that gets free because you are willing to carry it for a while.

Your strength because of Christ can lift those around you. Your strength because of Christ has the ability to turn the world upside down through the church. And hear me on this Christ. Giving you a desire for holiness and the ability to walk in rhythms of grace with the Spirit is for the purpose of spurring one another on to the goal of eternal life, you Christian. Or to devote your life to walking in lockstep with the spirit of Almighty God so that when the time comes, you would see each other through to that end, no matter what.

In Fox's Book of Martyrs, there's this wonderful story of these two gentlemen who gave their life and raised the standard and called each other to more in their darkest moment, on October 16th of 1555, after spending a year and a half locked away in a tower cell for their outspoken faith, Faith, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley met together for their execution. The two men prayed, spoke briefly, and then were led to the stake where they would be burned as criminals. These men were guilty of standing against a regime that wanted to silence them, keep the word of God out of the hands of the public and put to death anyone who sought to do otherwise. History tells us as the bundle of sticks beneath them began to catch fire, Ridley turned to his friend and said, be of good heart, brother, for God will either assuage the fury of the flame or else strengthen us to abide it. Then Latimer, raising his voice so that all could hear, spoke these words.

Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light Such a candle, by God's grace in England as I trust, shall never be put out. Raising each other up, calling each other to more mere. Three years later, Queen Mary or Bloody Mary, the Catholic monarch responsible for their death, died, leaving the throne to their Protestant half sister. The country that had burned them alive for their convictions was now being reshaped by the very they refused to deny.

They lit a candle and got to see on the other side of that from heaven. God used that standard in those lines that they drew to change their entire nation. I want that for us. I want us to be the kind of church where we would carry each other's burdens in a really unique way while we raise the standard in our own life. And Jesus is the one that taught us how to do this when he first stretched out his arms and took hold of us and carried the line himself.

And if, if by the grace of God he was able to do that in the spirit, I believe God is calling us out to do the very same thing so that our community, our called out community of Christians, wouldn't just walk around in isolation, but would realize we are raising a tide of holiness and the gospel together by the grace of God that would transform Colorado. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

And I'll. I'll end with this. Verse 10 says, do this while we have opportunity. He says, let us do good to all people and especially to those who are of the household of God. And he makes his point while we still have the opportunity to do so.

You will not always have the opportunity to do so, and we think that we will. We're busy. We're getting stuff done. We're working on our rhythms. No one thinks that they're getting that call, that they have nine months to live until they get that call.

I've done a lot of funerals here, and I just want to encourage you guys, don't waste your time. We're not here that long. You realize that, right? We have a short amount of time to focus on what God has actually called us to. And I want to ask you today, like what.

What is getting your life? What are the things right now that you feel like? I'm spending my time here, I'm spending my effort here. I'm. I'm working really hard in these areas.

And if you're being honest, it doesn't really have to do with your own family, and it doesn't really have to do with the bride of Christ. And let's be honest, outside of your own family, what you do with the bride of Jesus Christ is the single most important thing you're going to do here. What you're going to work on for the kingdom and what Jesus loves is so freaking important, guys. And I want you guys to seriously consider today, am I by the spirit, embracing the tension that God has called me to by holding on to personal responsibility and corporate responsibility and together as a church, linking these arms, raising the standard and calling Colorado to Jesus Christ together, let me pray for us. Father God, I thank you for this text today that calls all of us to more.

And I thank you, Lord Jesus, that in you an infinite God, there is always more. God, I pray today in your grace and mercy that you would bless us, be with us, strengthen us and allow worship to pour through us. Lord God, as we abide in your spirit, use the tools that you've given us, Lord Jesus, and raise the world around us. We pray in Jesus mighty name. Everybody said amen.

Can we stand and can we give God praise this morning?