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Our Christian Inheritance

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Intro…

Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone Baptist Church in Wylie, TX.

It is April 2020 and we are one month in to the new normal of working from home, keeping our social distance from one another, trying to learn how to be the church when we can’t meetup and can’t gather together for worship. So far, 2020 has shaped up to be a very challenging year and we are just 3 months in.

But in the midst of this challenge the promises that God has made to those who trust in Christ has not changed. That’s what I want to talk to you about today. Actually, I want to follow up on last week’s podcast where we looked at the first half of Peter’s introduction to his first letter.

Last week, we talked about the living hope that we have in Christ and how this hope motivates our worship of God, even in the face of trials. But this week, I want to look at the future hope that Peter tells us about; a hope that takes the form of our Christian inheritance.

I Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice,

Transition…

Now, one of the things that is important to keep in mind as we read this passage is that the main idea is the living hope that we have as believers in Christ. That’s the main point of this passage and all the surrounding truths serve to explain the depth of our hope. Our Hope as believers is not affected by the circumstances of difficult days because it is rooted in God’s mercy.

COVID-19 has taken our world by storm and it has caused panic in some, fear in others, caution in most; but whatever the outcome of our current situation, nothing can take away the hope we have in Christ. Our hope extends beyond this life and looks to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Our inheritance is being guarded by God’s power and it will be revealed to us in the time to come.

What exactly does this mean and how does it strengthen our hope in the midst of this trial?

Podcast Focus…

Let’s talk about the Power of Hope

Hope is a powerful thing. Hope causes us to get completely emotionally wrapped up in the prospect of something great happening even despite evidence to the contrary.

With hope in our hearts we can not only live but also endure great difficulty. Cancer patients fight to live because they have a driving hope that health is just around the corner. Soldiers battle on against all odds driven by the hope that soon the bullets will stop flying and there will be peace. Hope fuels in us a powerful desire to face the trials of life because hope holds out the promise of peace and rest.

But what is hope? I can’t remember who said/wrote it, but somewhere along the way I picked up this definition of hope. Hope is faith in the future tense. When we talk about having faith, especially saving faith, we are saying that we trust that what Christ did for us on the cross is sufficient to rescue us from our sin, bring us to God, and keep us there forever.

Our faith as Christians, is based on Christ’s person, Christ’s work, Christ’s teaching, and Christ’s resurrection. All of these things are in the past, which means that our faith looks back and says, “I believe these things to be true and I accept these truths as the basis of my hope.”

But hope is faith carried forward. Our faith not only has a past element but also a future element. We have hope that what took place in the past is true and that what has been promised us in the future is true and both of these will help us to live in the present.

And that is exactly what Peter wants us to do, to live in light of our present suffering with hope that helps us to overcome. Peter wants us to live in this present life of sorrow with one eye on the past (The finished work of Christ) and with one eye on the future (God’s promise of future rest for His people).

So the question we have to ask is, “What has God promised us?” and Peter says that God has promised us an amazing inheritance.

I don’t know about you but the prospect of receiving an inheritance has never been part of my expectation. It’s a really exciting idea but it’s just not something that I have put much thought into. My family is not wealthy so it’s just not part of my expectation, but every one of us would have to admit that the idea is pretty powerful.

For instance, imagine that you get a random phone call this afternoon from a number you do not recognize and rather than ignoring it you decide to answer the phone. Then as engage in conversation with the person on the other end you learn that you are the great, great grandchild of a very wealthy Texas oil tycoon who just passed away and left you a portion of his $5 billion estate.

The prospect of an inheritance like this is enough to completely change your outlook on life, but even if this was legit, how secure would such an inheritance be?

There are circumstances to life in this fragile and fallen world that would render this type of inheritance pretty worthless. For instance, what good is billions of dollars if you don’t have long to live? What good is money when what you need is a cure? Or to quote Jesus, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

The level of excitement and joy that wells up in our hearts at the prospect of an earthly inheritance should be magnified by billions as we consider the heavenly inheritance that God has promised us, because nothing can take His inheritance away from us.

Peter tells us that our Inheritance can never perish.

Have you ever had the opportunity to go back to a well-known place that you haven’t seen for 20 years or so, maybe a childhood home or something like that. When you were a kid it just seemed like that house was the most stable thing in the world. But after 20 years it just doesn’t look the same. The paint is dull, the roof is sagging, the vitality that was once there is now gone. It has succumbed to the slow decay of time like all things will.

But Peter tells us here that our inheritance as born again Christians is imperishable. This word means that it is impervious to corruption and death. Our inheritance cannot perish. Our future as Christians, the future that goes beyond life in this world, is pervious to every form of corruption and decay. It is imperishable.

Our inheritance can never spoil

To defile something means to take something pure and to make it impure in some way. The Prodigal son spoiled his inheritance when he spent it all on sinful pleasures that did not last.

Some of us have experienced a huge depletion of our retirement savings. In a matter of days, the market crashed and the money we had watched build up over a period of years/decades was just gone. In a sense, our earthly inheritance has been defiled.

But Peter says that the inheritance that God has promised us is free from such defilement. It cannot be tainted by the crash in the market, nor can it be affected by our own sinful choices. The inheritance that God promises to us is impervious to defilement of any kind. On the day that we receive it will be pure and it will remain pure for eternity.

Our inheritance will never fade

Isaiah 40:8 tells us, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” Peter quotes this verse at the end of the first chapter to show the fading quality of the earth in comparison to the unfading quality of God’s Word. Flowers die and their beauty is forgotten. Israel’s inheritance was subject to the slow fade, but ours will never fade away.

Like an early spring bloom our inheritance will never cease to be striking in beauty. It will always exist in its most beautiful and vibrant form. We will never tire of it and it will never run out. It will never lose its pristine quality.

But how is it possible for something to remain in such a perfect state?

Our inheritance is in Heaven

It is an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you. In this instance we see the true nature of the difference that exists between our Christian inheritance and a worldly inheritance. Ours is kept in Heaven.

There is a reason that sin cannot affect it, there is a reason that time cannot take its toll. It is in Heaven, in the presence of God, and it is being kept there until the time comes for it to be revealed.

When will that be? Well, we don’t know, but we do know that it is ready.

Our inheritance is ready

The term ready implies that there is no reason for delay save the Father’s purpose. He is not laboring to build something for us so that we have to wait until He finishes the job, no our inheritance is ready. It is finished. Nothing needs to be added to it.

So why is it not here? Because the appointed time has not yet come.

2 Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

The great mercy of God has not yet claimed all of His chosen people and so the day of the Lord has not yet come, but it is ready and it is being kept in Heaven for us.

Our inheritance is kept for us and we are being guarded for it.

1 Peter 1:5 By God’s power (we) are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice,

This word guarded gives us the idea that God has provided a type of security that shields us until the times comes for us to receive God’s gift. We are under protective custody. God has promised to shield us from anything that might cause us to miss out on the promise that He has given us.

(Illus…Think of Israel on their way out of Egypt when the army of Pharaoh began to follow them. They were certain that the day would end with them being slaughtered on the banks of the Red sea, but God had other plans. He fought for them. Israel was told to stand fast so that they would see God as a shield around them. They would make it to the Promised Land because God would protect them until they entered it.

God delivered Israel from their enemy. He freed them from their slavery. He promised to give them a land of their own as an inheritance and He guarded them until their obtained the promise.

All of this is but a shadow of the greater work of redemption that God has done through Christ. Christ has not simply delivered us from our enemies, but from our sins. He hasn’t freed us from an earthly oppression but a spiritual one. He has promised us an inheritance that is greater in every way and He has promised to guard us and protect us until we acquire possession of it.

Why is this important? The same power that keeps our eternal salvation guards us as well. What comfort would it be to know that something beyond our imagination was waiting for us, if there was no hope of our ever reaching it? God not only promises us an eternal inheritance, He will guard us so that we will get to enjoy it.

Last question, how? How has this inheritance become ours and how are we going to be guarded by God to enjoy it? Is this a bait and switch? Having heard about this amazing blessing are we now going to be told how much we have to pay for it? No. This blessing does not come on the basis of our works, it is ours by faith.

Ed Clowney writes…

“God who works for us also works in us. Our faith is his way of keeping us; it is His gift. Why does God use faith as the instrument of his keeping power? Because faith is not our achievement, but our trust in God’s achievement.”

All that God has given to us, all that God has promised to give us in the future is a gift to be received by faith alone.

As you consider all that is going on in the world today and how your life has been affected by it, remember that God has promised that the future for His people is brighter than we can imagine. This world is not our final home and the pains of this world will not follow us into the next. In fact, the brokenness of this world is going to end and when it does the future that we long for will no longer be our hope, it will be our reality.

Let the wonder of our inheritance as Christians give you comfort today and let it stir our hope for the days to come

Conclusion…

If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.

Thanks for listening.

 

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Our Living Hope

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Intro…

Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone Baptist Church in Wylie, TX.

It is still March of 2020 and we are in week 2 of shelter-in-place orders as a result of COVID-19. Things around us continue to be up in the air and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can use a little gospel encouragement right about now. So, this week I want to talk to you about the hope that we have as Christians, or as Peter refers to it in the first chapter of his letter, Our Living Hope.

I Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice,

Many of you have heard of or even read the opening section of John Piper’s book Let the Nations Be Glad. There’s one powerful paragraph that goes like this,

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.”[1]

The worship of God is the ultimate goal of the church and it is also the goal of our life. When Peter writes in verse 3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” he is calling us to worship. The word bless means to worship or praise. It means to express gratitude toward God and to express joy in what He has done.

Then Peter goes on to tell us what God has done. In other words, he tells us why we should worship God.

Transition…

We should worship God because of who He is and because He is the One who has given us hope in Christ. We worship Him for His mercy, for causing us to be born again, for giving us a living hope and we worship God because of the inheritance that He has promised us.  

Let’s look at each of these things in turn.

Podcast Focus…

1. We worship God because He has given us hope in Christ.

"A man can live three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes without air, but he cannot live three seconds without hope”

Hope by itself is a powerful thing, but our hope in Christ is the most amazing hope there is. Our hope is made up of flesh and bones that came back from the dead. Our hope is in Christ himself who lived and died and rose to live again. But we need to remember that we didn’t always have this hope.

Ephesians 2 reminds us that at one time we were without hope in this world. Before God brought us to Christ, we were dead in our sins and we had no hope of saving ourselves from the wrath to come. But now in Christ Jesus we have a living hope.

He is our Lord, Peter says, which indicates that we aren’t simply dabbling in religion, but we are submitting to Jesus Christ as Lord. We worship God because He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2. We Worship God for His Mercy

V. 3 - According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again

The definition of mercy is a kindness shown to someone when it is within one’s power to punish them. For God to show us mercy means that He withholds from us the wrath we rightly deserve. He owes us nothing but judgment, and yet He holds back that judgment from us.

God’s mercy is the divine restraint that keeps Him from unleashing the righteous wrath our rebellion demands.

Notice in the text that God’s mercy toward us is great. We are the recipients of His abundant mercy. Our God is merciful and this means that His desire and ability to withhold what we deserve is like a storehouse so full that it is constantly overflowing the top (Lam 3:23). God is full of mercy toward us, the mercy He has for His people will never run out and we praise Him for this.

But there is another side of the coin when it comes to mercy.

Divine justice demands that our sin be punished, which means that for God to withhold punishment is to short-circuit His justice, unless the punishment we deserve is poured out on another. That is where Jesus steps in. Friends, this is what makes the gospel so beautiful.

You see Jesus stepped in to receive the justice of God that we deserved. He bore the wrath for you and me, so that we could be free. So, we worship God for His great mercy.

3. We Worship God for Our New Birth (3)

On account of God’s great mercy, He has caused us to be born again. The first time we heard about the new birth it came from Jesus in John 3. He told Nicodemus that in order to see the Kingdom of God one must be born again. In our first birth we were stamped with the image of Adam, but the new birth emblazons us with the image of Christ. This new birth is given to us as a gift from God. He is the cause of our new birth.

But why do we need to be born again? The Bible teaches that by nature we are dead in our sins and children of wrath. This is what our first birth in Adam has afforded us. We need to be brought from death to life and Paul tells us how this happens in Titus 3.

Titus 3:4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit

We weren’t born again because of our good works; it was God’s mercy that fueled our new birth. The new birth is not the result of your prayer, or your baptism, or your trip down the aisle to talk to the pastor. The new birth is the work of the Holy Spirit in you.

The Spirit brings life where there was death. He opens our eyes to see the truth of the gospel that we hadn’t seen before. He gives us a new heart of flesh replacing the heart of stone, and the result is that those who possess new life will respond with faith and repentance.

Faith and repentance are not the cause of our new birth; they are the evidence of it meaning that we praise God for our new birth.

4. We Worship God for Our living Hope

What does Peter mean when he tells us that we have a living hope? What He means is that the source of our hope is not an idea it is a person. This would have been especially important to Peter, because of his own life experience.

Perhaps you remember that before Jesus’ crucifixion, Peter had boldly claimed that he would stay by Jesus’ side even though all the other disciples ran away. But the reality was that Peter ran away as well. He denied Jesus. He failed His best friend. He failed to keep his promise and then Jesus died before Peter had a chance to make it right. The crucifixion robbed Peter of hope.

But the resurrection of Jesus was a life-changer for Peter. When the girls came in from the tomb on Sunday morning and told Peter that it was empty, can you imagine what this did to his heart? His hopes had been dashed to pieces, but this news was enough to cause hope to flicker in his heart again.

Peter heard this news and then flew out of the door to go and see for himself and when He saw Jesus His hope was restored. But it was a new kind of hope. It wasn’t a false hope, a misplaced hope, a blind hope, a fond hope; it was a living hope.

Peter’s hope was not based on an idea it was based on a person, a person that was and is alive and for whom death has no hold. So, when Peter writes to us about our living hope he writes from personal experience. His hope is alive because his hope is in Christ and Christ is alive.

Sure, there’s so much going on in our world right now that it is easy for us to forget what God has done for us through Jesus. It’s easy for us to let our hope fade a little bit, or even a lot. But passages like this put our real-world difficulties into eternal perspective.

Yes, our lives have been sort of turned upside-down due to Coronavirus, but God truly turned our lives upside-down when He began to work in our hearts through the gospel. Yes, there is much for us to think about and plan for with all that is going on, but we can’t forget about God’s mercy.

We can’t lose sight of the fact that we were born into this fallen world, but we have been born again in order to prepare us for the world to come. This world and all of its trials are not the ultimate expectation for us, we have a living hope in a living Savior, who died but rose again.

And we have an inheritance that is to come that we can hardly imagine. We will look at that next week, but I hope this little bit of encouragement has been helpful to you today.

Conclusion…

If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.

Thanks for listening.

 


[1] J. Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad (Baker Academics) pg. 17

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Making the Best Use of the Time

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Intro…

Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone Baptist Church in Wylie, TX.

It is March of 2020 and we are our city, our country, our world is in the grip of the Coronavirus. This has been unlike anything that I have experienced in my 43 years of life and I’m guessing that you can probably say the same thing. This is truly an unprecedented experience for me and as a result I’m asking a lot of questions to try and figure out what I should be doing.

I think it is wise for us to stay calm and remember that God has not been taken by surprise by all of this and if we are familiar with Scripture, we shouldn’t be all that surprised either. Disease is a common feature of life in this fallen world. When Adam and Eve sinned they unleashed a corruption upon this world that has thoroughly affected every molecule of our existence so that plagues, disease, sickness and even death are normal.

But living in self-isolation, self-quarantine, and not being able to buy toilet paper or bottled water is not all that normal for us. So, what are we to do?

Transition…

As Christians, how are we to live out our day to day lives in the midst of this Coronavirus outbreak? Last week on the podcast, Breck, Jeremy and Mark joined me and they helped us to gain a basic understanding of how we should think about this virus and our immediate response to it as Christians.

Today, I want to continue down that same path but I want to get a little more specific. I want to look at Colossians 4 with you and I want us to consider how we should approach our days in the midst of this current health crisis.

Col 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Podcast Focus…

This is what our day to day life as a Christian should look like.

I. Devote Yourself to Prayer (v. 2)

Col 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

There is quite a bit for us to consider in just this one verse. But the imperative, the word of command that Paul gives us here is that we should be praying. Yes, I know that you are frustrated about people hoarding resources at the grocery store, and I know you might be frustrated with people who appear to not be taking this virus all that seriously, but don’t spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about that, spend more time in prayer and while you’re praying be thankful.

Just last night as our family gather together for prayer, I asked my kids what they were thinking and how they were feeling about all that is happening in our lives right now. One of my sons mentioned that he missed his friends and that he was sad that he wasn’t going to be able to play baseball. Now, he doesn’t fully understand all that is going on in the world, but he knows that his world has been shaken up quite a bit. So, we spent some time talking about that.

But we also spent a few minutes talking about all the things that we should be thankful for. Most of us should thank God that we aren’t sick. We should thank God that we still have food to eat. We should thank God that we have generous neighbors who love us and care for us. We should thank God that mom and dad still have jobs, and if that doesn’t hold up, we will still have roof over our heads.

We should be thankful that we have a church family who loves us, misses us, prays for us and who is eager to serve the needs of our church body. We should be thankful that we have God’s Word in our hands. We should be thankful that through technology we have the ability to worship with our church family from home, the ability to see our loved ones faces, and to continue to minister to one another.

Brothers and sisters we have much to be thankful for. So let’s heed the instruction from God here to pray steadfastly and to do so with thankfulness. Perhaps, you should turn off the TV news for a little while, pick up your bible, and spend some time in the word and prayer. I don’t think you’ll miss anything.

That fear of missing out is real but we should take some instruction from Jesus on that. There was never a busier man in the history of the world than Jesus. He was the Savior of the world but that didn’t keep Him from walking away from everything in order to pray.

Let me give you a couple of examples of this from the life of Jesus.

Mark 1:35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

Luke 5:15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would often withdraw to desolate places and pray.

Over and over, we see in Jesus’ life that the demands on his time are growing but He withdraws from all the demands and busyness in order to pray? Does it surprise us that Jesus withdraws from the crowds to pray?

I don’t know all the reasons why Jesus prayed so much, even in the face of great demands but we can probably put together a short list:

1. Jesus prayed this way because He loved communicating with the Father

2. Jesus prayed this way because He needed guidance and comfort which He received from communion with God.

3. Jesus prayed this way because His task was great and He needed spiritual help which He gained from fellowship with God.

4. Jesus prayed this way to set an example for us to follow and the example is that prayer is as common to the life of God’s people as singing is to a mockingbird.

Prayer was as common to Jesus as our morning coffee is to us. It’s the way he started the day and the way he finished the day. Deadlines didn’t get in the way of prayer; they drove home the need for more prayer.

The pace of our lives is set to constantly try and make us hurry up, but God wants us to slow down. He wants us to remember that He is God and we are not. He wants us to rest in the fact that though we do have weighty responsibilities we should also remember that we can’t do it alone.

John Piper writes:

“The very spirit and essence of prayer is dependence. So, even when we are not speaking consciously to God, there is a deep, abiding dependence on him that is woven into the very essence of our faith. In that sense, we are praying. We are experiencing a spirit of dependence continuously, and that kind of disposition is, I think, right at the heart of what God creates when he creates a Christian. There should be a spirit of dependence that permeates all we do.”

So here’s the first application for us in how to live for Christ today; rather than allowing your schedule, your iPhone and your inbox to drive you toward irritability, selfishness and stress; allow those things to drive you to prayer. Build prayer into the rhythm of your morning as consistently as coffee. Voice your dependence upon God. Ask for His help in keeping a watch on your heart and life.

But there is something specific that we should also be praying for…Gospel Advance.

II. Pray for the Gospel’s Advance (v. 3-4)

3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Now, one thing that we need to know about this particular letter of Paul is that he is in prison while he is writing it. He is in prison for preaching the gospel and here we see him asking the church to pray for God to enable him to…preach the gospel. This man lived with a sense of gospel urgency that was incredible.

Paul is asking the church to pray for one of two things: either he is asking for God to open the door of his prison cell so that he can take the gospel out into the world. Or, he is praying for God to open the hearts of his hearers so that they will see their need of Christ and will repent and believe. Either way, he is calling on the church to pray for the gospel to advance and bear fruit, and he wants to be a part of that.

Do you find yourself at a loss for what to pray for right now? Probably not! We are praying for healing fo the sick. We are praying for protection for our loved ones. We are praying for God to remember His mercy in the midst of all the panic, and disease and death.

But if you haven’t thought to pray for an open door for the gospel, you should. Pray that the gospel would be declared and that more people would be born again. The heartbeat of the Christian life is the gospel, that we are saved from our sin and the wrath of God because Christ took our place on the cross. We deserved death and judgment, but in His mercy God applied the blood of Christ to our account. We are saved by faith in Him and when we truly come to an understanding of this gospel reality we want others to know it as well.

So let’s be faithful to pray for the gospel’s advance and let’s also be faithful in our part to advance the gospel. Don’t neglect to preach the gospel. Teach it to your children. Share it with your friends. Comfort your family with the truth in the hopes that all will see their need of Christ and believe. Pray for God to make the gospel clear and undeniable. Pray for your lost loved ones and ask God to open their eyes and hearts to the gospel truth.

Yes, there are many things going on in your life that you should pray about. There are big decisions in front of you and you should be praying for God for wisdom, guidance, patience, and confidence. There are things going on in the lives of others that you should be praying about: sickness, uncertainty, marital problems, struggles with sin, etc. But there is one major thing going on in the world that we should be praying about all the time and it’s the need for folks to hear the gospel and be saved.

1. Devote Yourself to Prayer, 2. Pray for the Gospel’s Advance…

III. Live Wisely (v. 5)

5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Be wise in the way you act, especially toward outsiders/unbelievers. Paul assumes that we are going to encounter unbelievers in our daily lives and because of this he wants us to make the most of our time with them. How are we supposed to do that? By conducting ourselves with wisdom.

Now this is going to be a challenge for us because at a foundational level we are more prone to feeling than we are thinking. And wisdom requires that we think our way through life more than we feel our way through life. Most of us, not all, but most of us have more of a tendency to elevate the importance of how something makes us feel over the importance of whether or not it is right and wise. There is room in our lives for both but notice that Paul doesn’t say that we should walk in emotion toward outsiders. He calls for wisdom.

Christian Wisdom is the mental capacity to understand and function according to Biblical truth. As Christians we should govern our conduct with unbelievers on the basis of Biblical wisdom.

So, what constitutes Biblical wisdom?

First, it begins with a proper fear of God which means we stand in awe of God and we give appropriate respect to His Word. Our lives are oriented around our Creator God as the center and source of all things.

Second, we let the word of God/Christ dwell in us richly, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another. We read the Bible. We study the Bible. We listen to sound teaching and we let all that we learn shape our view of the world, of family, of others, of life.

Third, process through the decisions in your life with the fear of God and the Word of God as the guiding principles. Some decisions are simple because the Word of God is clear.

Let me give you a few questions to help us make decisions when it’s not so clear what to do.

1. Is this spiritually beneficial to me personally and to the gospel generally?

2. Will this decision make God look glorious or will it slander His name?

3. Will my actions be affecting others in a sinful way or a godly way?

4. Does this violate God Word? Is it illegal?

5. Can I do this in a way that glorifies God?

6. Can I do this in a way that shows love and concern for others?

7. Am I following the example of Jesus to help reconcile sinners to God?

Christ calls us to walk in wisdom with outsiders and not waste our time with them. In other words, we should make use of every opportunity to magnify Christ in our relationships.

And when we do speak up we should speak of grace and with grace…

IV. Speak Graciously/Powerfully (v. 6)

6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

The way we feel or think in the moment is typically going to come out of our mouths because the primary way that we communicate is through speech. One component of the command for us to walk in wisdom is to exercise self-control in the area of our speech. Paul says that we need to let our speech be filtered through grace and seasoned with salt.

To speak graciously means that we speak with care and concern for others. We aren’t simply wanting to be heard or to get our words out, we actually long to show grace to others in our speech. 

There is a connection between the attitude of our hearts and the way we communicate with others. For instance, if you are an angry person it is going to come out of your mouth. If you are a bitter person, the people around you know it because of the way you talk. If you are a person who has come to understand and enjoy the grace of God, then that grace should flow out of your mouth to others.

For our speech to be salty means that we should speak in a way that makes an impact. This doesn’t mean that we master the art of the one-liner but that our words have an impact on a person’s heart. I think the best way that we can do this is to be so thoroughly familiar with the rudimentary truths of the Christian faith that when we open our mouths, we speak the truth in love.

So, devote yourself to prayer with thankfulness. Pray for the gospel to advance in the world and through your witness. Live wisely and speak the truth with love and grace.

Conclusion…

If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.

Thanks for listening.