In Douglas Campbell's sermon, 'Children of God vs Children of the Devil,' he explores 1 John 3:4-10, emphasizing the distinction between the children of God and the children of the devil. Campbell highlights that the children of God do not practice sin, as sin is lawlessness and rebellion against God. Instead, they practice righteousness and have a new relationship with God's law, characterized by a love for it. In contrast, children of the devil practice sin and do not love God's law. The sermon stresses the importance of repentance, describing it as a gift from God and a sign of His work in one's heart. It is not merely about avoiding sin but involves a transformation where one despises sin and delights in God's law. Campbell warns that claiming to know Christ while living in continual sin is contradictory and akin to calling Christ a failure. The sermon urges believers to seek Christ, repent, and serve Him and others within the church community.

If you would turn with me to 1st John chapter 3. This morning I'd like to look at verses 4 through 10. First John chapter 3 verses 4 through 10. This morning, well, just a couple of weeks ago, I gave the elders a list of scripture and messages for the coming month. I imagine this morning this will have to just be a part one and so it's going to delay our plans but God is good.

Amen. 1st John chapter 3 verses 4 through 10 says everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and that in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning.

No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. Let's pray. Heavenly Father we come to you this morning praising you, praising you for you are holy, holy, holy.

You are not like us. You are separate. You are not capable of sin, and yet our flesh always drags us to the pit of sin. You're incapable of doing anything that's unrighteous. You're incapable of lying.

You're incapable of doing what's wrong, for you are the standard of what's right. You are love. You are truth. And Father, this morning as we ponder those things, Father, if we know you, it has to result in worship. It has to result in a longing to see your face, a longing to be like you.

Father, as we come to your word, it is our heart's desire, it's our cry, Father, that you would make us to be more like you, that you would deliver us from this this flesh, this bondage, and maybe Father, even these thorns that are always dragging us down, always holding us back. Father, would you this morning in your Holy Spirit deliver us from this dragging, deliver us from this bondage? Would you give us understanding? Would you further change our hearts to not only be delivered from sin, but God that we might despise it as you do, that we might truly be changed. Help us this morning Father as we come to Your Word.

That we might give You glory and honor we pray. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. Well This morning as we come to this text, the section that we see in verses 4 through 10, we have to come to an understanding the overall theme that I see in this is how to distinguish between the children of God and the children of the devil. One of the hardest things as believers, one of the hardest things as as elders in a church, is that we know that rightly inside the church we're surrounded by wheat and we're surrounded by tares, we're surrounded by sheep, and we're surrounded by goats.

And oftentimes they're very hard to distinguish between. If you remember, I didn't list this in the scriptures because I have way too many and so I'll have to split it up, but if you remember the parable of the wheat and the tares, it was that wheat and tares or wheat and weeds, these specific weeds, looked very much like wheat when it was growing up. And at some point maybe they were hard to distinguish between. And you might think that what you're growing is something really good. I remember when I was first the pastor here and and Rusty and Greg came over and I showed them the what I thought were peppers growing in my garden.

I was pretty proud of them. Wanted to see that, you know, I'm on an extremely micro scale. I'm trying to be a farmer too. I said, come look at my little garden. And they looked at it and I think it was Greg that said, well you got some good-looking weeds going there.

I couldn't tell the difference. But someone with more expertise knew right off the bat that that is his enemy that's growing there in my garden, and you better get rid of those. But inside the church it's not sometimes that easy. We do find here how we can distinguish between the two, but it has to also be in light of an infant Christian can look very much like the world. They can be very early in their sanctification.

They can struggle with things that you and I would think aren't something to be struggled with. But we come to this text and it's something very different. This text is striking to the heart of the matter. It's going beyond, it's not saying that none of us sin because we know we all sin, but in fact it's addressing the practice of sin, the practice of a continuance of sin. So let's look at 1st John 3, 4.

It says, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness, For sin is lawlessness. Now if you have the King James, and the King James is what I had this verse memorized in, it says, it words it a little bit differently, it says that sin is transgression of the law. So everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is transgression of the law. As you and I grew up learning different things, it's very often that we studied vocabulary words.

And when we come to the vocabulary word of sin, if we were to find anywhere in Scripture where there is a definition of the word sin, it's found here in this verse that sin is transgression of the law. I believe the ESV translates it just a little bit better, but it adds to the emphasis that sin is lawlessness. So first, to wrestle with this Greek word, we have to understand that sin is transgression of the law. What is the law? Ten commandments.

God's moral law is the Ten Commandments. When we break the commandments, we are transgressing the law. When we lie, we sin. When we steal, we sin. When we commit adultery, we sin.

When we bow down before idols, we sin. When God isn't first in our life, we sin. When we take God's name in vain, We sin. When we don't honor our father and mother, we sin. When we murder, we sin.

When we covet, we sin. Did I get them all? I missed one. Oh, when we don't honor the Sabbath to keep it holy, we sin. And so this morning, as you have known, if you've been here for very long, You'll notice that I come to this all the time and I bring this up very often and I say, have you ever told a lie?

And many of you probably go home and you say, Pastor Doug said it again, he asked us again, did we ever tell a lie? We know that we all tell lies. And here he is saying it again. But what I am trying to do when I do this is to bring you back to the very simple definition of sin. It is, have you sinned?

The modern American man doesn't believe that he's sinned. He thinks that he probably has, but he's not that bad of a guy. Therefore, everyone goes to heaven in his mind. All people are good. All people go to heaven.

Yet, when we look at the definition of sin, God's definition is very different than modern man's definition. God's definition is you break the law, you sin. I was extremely discouraged this week over something very silly, because I don't even remember what it was on the internet. It was something about the people that drive the speed limit and how terrible they are and how inconsiderate they are of people that need to get somewhere. And there's something within me that sees us very black and white, and I say, what do you mean they're terrible?

And they're in the comments, there's all these, well these do-gooders, they don't care about anybody but themselves, anything but showing how good they are to the world. But in fact, if you and I have a biblical worldview, we know that transgression of God's law is sin. Transgression of civil law is still sin. Now obviously there's jurisdictional things there that we must wrestle through, but at the very basic looking at civil law, if there's a sign that says speed limit 55, I believe God expects me to drive 55 or under. And the fact that 99% of society hates me for that, I can chalk up to, I believe it's just saltiness.

They don't like it. I guess in this instance I didn't realize how much the world hates people like me and my driving skills. And I often warn people, I will drive but I will warn you, I drive like an old man and I like it that way. So I'll ride with you if you'd rather unless you scare me and then I'm driving The sin is lawlessness It's not it's not a comparison It's not a well Adolf Hitler as far worse than me. So God surely is going to see that I'm a good guy.

That's not how civil law works. Today, if you're driving home and you get pulled over for driving 56 and the officer writes you a ticket for it, which they have done this before. I'm not going to say that's that's kind of unlikely, but it is possible and if he gives you that ticket you will have to pay the fine. And if you go to court you will have to pay the fine and the court costs. It's how law works.

Our laws are not very black and white, but simple laws are black and white. God's law is black and white. Sin is lawlessness. If you've lied, you've transgressed against your Creator. You have broken His law.

You've went against what He said is good. But this verse continues on. This is just the very basic understanding. That sin is transgression of the law. But if this goes on and it uses this Greek word that can also be translated to lawlessness, and this can also be understood as rebellion, that everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness, they practice rebellion against the God who says, thou shalt not lie.

It is more than just breaking a simple rule that even telling a white lie is in rebellion to the God who says, thou shall not lie. To steal a pen from the bank is in rebellion against the God who says, thou shall not steal. It's not just little. God is perfect. It's not that you just sin against someone small.

And we've talked about this much in the past and just briefly, if I go to a homeless guy on the street and I go up to him and I say, clean yourself up, and I smack him in the face, people would be in shock over that. And hopefully, there are people that would stand up and say, you do that again, and you're going to mess with me. And rightly so. But that might be the extent of my punishment. I might just be threatened to not do it again.

You go to the police officer in town and smack him across the face and see if you only get a warning. He'll probably invite you over to a special place where He'll let you stay the night. Try that to the President of the United States. We might not hear from you again for a while. Amen?

The only thing that's different in these scenarios is the person on whom you've sinned against. And while we say it's just a little white lie, it's that you are sinning against the God who created the sun, the solar system, created everything and gave you air to breathe and gave you food to eat and all these things. And you've sinned against Him. That's why none of this is little. Telling little lies is not little.

Stealing little things is not little. The confusion comes when you confuse who the sin is against. When I steal Brody's ink pen, The sin is primarily against God who says, Thou shall not steal. Take this through the commandments. Thou shall not commit adultery is not a sin primarily against your wife.

It's against the God who says, thou shall not commit adultery. And then Jesus further clarifies it and says, if you're having thoughts in your head and playing these things out with women who are not your wife, you sin against the God of the universe. It is a big deal. Control your minds. You are sinning against the God of the universe.

And verse 134, it makes this illustration of everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. We can't leave out this word practice, because we know that Christians sin. You might not believe this, and I'm sure you do, because you've known me well enough by now your set your pastor sins Your pastor has been also and tears over his sin in front of people Right, it's It's something that I hate within me, and yet my flesh is always ever pulling me towards it, always trying to get a grip. Have you wept over your sin, Christians? Have you wept over them?

If you haven't, you don't understand them. You don't understand the depth of them. You don't understand the offense against the holy God who saves you if you would turn from them and trust in Jesus Christ. But this verse says a practice, and that's really the theme of what we're going into. Everyone who makes a practice, everyone who dives into it, everyone who thinks sin is okay, that everyone just has a little bit of sin, and therefore this sin or that sin is okay for me because it's not like I'm hurting anyone.

Are you making a practice of sin? Do you make a practice of stealing? Do you make it a practice of stealing? Do you make it a practice of lying? Our culture that we live in is a lying culture.

I have watched people lie for the sake of lying. I have known things and I'm saying outside of this church, hopefully none of you do this in this church, I have asked people maybe the color of a car that went by and I knew what the color of the car was and it had no implications on anything and this person told me well that was a yellow car just for the sake of lying that is what a depraved heart does and we live amongst a culture who lies. And you're taught even in school, if you want to get to the top and be the CEO of a company, you better get good at lying. And if you're gonna be a lawyer, you really better get good at lying. If you want to be a politician, you better be the chief, because nobody's going to elect a guy that tells the truth.

This is the cry of our culture. And we serve the God, the King of the universe that says, Thou shall not lie. And brothers and sisters, if God ever calls you into politics, you better not lie. Spend all the money you've got, lose miserably, but don't lie. Don't lie because you will stand accountable for the God of the universe.

Those who make a practice of sinning are in rebellion. Brothers and sisters, are in rebellion. And brothers and sisters, we live in a culture that has a mainstream Christianity that has delved into mysticism. It's the same thing that John is trying to deal with. That as Christians, you can be just like the world.

You can act like them. You can lie like them. You can do everything just like them, but because you said a prayer one day, or you came to church on Sunday, then everything is good. And that can't be farther from the truth. And John makes that abundantly clear.

You cannot make a practice of sinning and also claim to know Christ. They are incompatible. So as we look at God's law, we have to understand that Christians have a different relationship with God's law than the world does. When I was young in my Christianity, I had read several books and talked to people about different things, and especially dealing with youth ministry, this always came up that why would any young person want to be a Christian? After all, it just seemed like Christians just had lots of rules to follow, and why would I want all of these rules to follow?

And there are some of you, I pray not, but I believe that it's likely there are some of you who still have this relationship with God's law. That maybe you try your best to obey it, but it's begrudgingly. It's because this is what I've, you feel like this is what I've got to do because this is what God expects of me but look let me show you what is the Christians relationship with the law or more specifically what is the Christians relationship with the Word of God look at Psalm 119 verse 34 it says Give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. This is the heart of David. Remember David, the man after God's own heart?

What is it that he desires? He desires to keep God's law. He desires to observe it with his whole heart. In Psalm 119.77, sorry, Psalm 119.77 says, Let your mercy come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight. Are you seeing a different picture painted?

The Christian isn't one who just subjects himself to a bunch of rules. The Christian is one who has changed. Their heart is changed by God to begin to love His law, to begin to love His Word. Psalm 197 says, Oh how I love your law, it is my meditation all the day. Romans 712, so the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Romans 722, for I delight in the law of God and my inner being. Friends, do you delight in God's law? This is a dividing line between true Christians and false Christians. False Christians try to obey God's law legalistically. True Christians begin to love His law.

They begin to love Him. We desire to follow His law, even when it goes against what our flesh would try to convince us is something we don't like. We would ponder on it, and we would begin to love it because in fact God is changing our hearts. It's that we follow it, we desire Him, we draw near to Him because we love Him. Romans 7 22, for I delight in the law of God and my inner being.

Friends, if this change hasn't happened in you, you should be greatly alarmed, because Christianity isn't a religion of obeying. Let me rephrase that. It's not one of simply forcing yourself to obey. It's one of obeying because you desire to. And if you don't desire to, it's a very clear indication that God has not changed your heart.

Paul Washer says it well in one of his sermons. He says, someone tells me I've got a new relationship with God. I ask them this question, do you have a new relationship with sin? Because the evidence you have a new relationship with God is that you have a new relationship with sin. Friends, do you have a new relationship with sin?

Do you begin to despise it? See, you will never weep over your sin until you despise your sin. You'll never weep that you did this or that, or offended somebody, or stole something, or lied to somebody. You'll never weep over it unless you begin to despise it? Are you transgressing God's law?

One of the most dangerous things that I hear people say, I'll maybe bring something up about somebody, you know, whatever it is, I'll say, hey brother, I saw you at Walmart, and it was a little bit strange because I saw you putting things into your pocket. And do you know what I hear? I've never had to say that to anybody in this church. But do you know what I hear most often when I address things like that? I hear very often, well, everybody sins, you know.

If that's your attitude, You should be deeply alarmed. Everybody does sin, but the believer, the genuine believer is grieved over it. They weep over it. And in fact, they will do whatever it takes to repent because they have a new relationship with sin. It's not just that everybody does it, it's that I do it and I've sinned against the one whom I love.

Now in theology when we look at sin it's defined here simply that sin is transgression of the law, and we would call that the sin of commission. And young people, if you remember this, I'll give you bonus points. I'll ask you in a couple weeks. It's the sin of commission. It's things that we do that we transgress God's law.

But when we look at that theologically, we have to understand—and this is sometimes where there's a very much silence or lack of understanding, that on the other side of this is a sin of omission. And that means things that I should have done and I didn't do. Look at James 4.17. It says, so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. So we have the sin of commission, we have the sin of omission.

In today's world, in modern Christianity, we find that people are doing very, we think that people are doing very well if they can just show up to church three or four times a month. And yet, God isn't calling us to just show up to church. In fact, Christianity is a very life change. Your master changes. The one calling the shots in your life changes from you, your God before, to the God that was crucified on the cross and now devoting your allegiance to the one true God of the universe.

Is He your King? Is the first commandment now true in your life that He is number one? That what He cares about is more important than what you care about? When I look at your life, when I look at your schedule, when I come to the conclusion that God is number one, when I look at your wallet, when I come to the conclusion that God is number one, and I am not a money preacher, And I'm not saying you have to give all your money to the church. That's not what I'm saying.

But if I looked at it, would I come to the conclusion that God is number one? God never intended the church to be a group of elders and deacons who do all the work and so everybody can show up and partake of the supper. God's called all of you to a function. God's called all of you to a work in Christ. You are all servants of Christ.

Is your life being lived that way? For me, this is one of the hardest, because it's very easy for me to, it's very easy for me for you to give me a list of items and for me to avoid those items, but in this it takes much prayer. It takes much understanding that I don't often see the things that I should do. I don't often know of the things that I should do. I don't often know of the things that I should do.

It takes diligence, but again it also takes a heart that desires to be obedient. Are you serving Christ? Are you serving your church? Are you loving the people sitting next to you? I'm not saying, when you look around this room, I'm not saying are you serving your friends, but the person that you know the least in this room, Are you loving them too?

Are you serving them too? There is much we can repent of when we come to this verse. I have struggled much in my time with those, or for those, now I'm not saying this church, but in all churches We have a great man of God. And let me gather my thoughts before I just ramble. But yesterday I was blessed to spend some time with Tom.

And there are some people in this church, you have sent him cards, you have encouraged him, and Tom, unable to get out of his bed, is literally coming to tears with how much that has meant to him. It is such a blessing. Know that it is such a blessing for your pastor to hear of these things going on. But I would tell you this morning, This is not the normal thing in most churches. The normal thing in most churches is for even an elder of the church, they would give their life to Christ, and then sometime they would go off to the nursing home, and things would go well for a month or two, and then they would soon be forgotten and after maybe just a few years a lot of the people in church don't even know who this guy is anymore let alone that he's at a nursing home.

Brothers and sisters this is sin of omission. I am blessed with hearing so many good things. Be encouraged, but if you're not this morning, look around the room, find someone you don't know well, love them, Bless them. Amen. Amen.

Continuing on in 1 John, maybe we'll end after this one. 1 John 3, 5, you know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. This is in reference to Christ. Let me read it once more. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin." Now, in just basic theology, we visit this very often.

You and I, you can't be saved unless you understand this about Christ. That in Him is no sin. He was the spotless lamb that was slain on our behalf. He was the perfect sacrifice. If Christ had any sin of himself, he would have to pay for his own sin.

And yet, because in him there was no sin, he could take the punishment for your sin if you would turn and trust in him. He's the only way to heaven. There is no other perfect sacrifice. We're reminded in the Bible that in the Old Testament, the sacrificial system that was set forth was only a pointer be the perfect sacrifice. That although God is serious about sin, demonstrated by the the streams of blood flowing from the temple.

This wasn't just slaughtering one animal, this was all day long slaughtering animals. And blood, I have to believe there's streams of blood just flowing from the temple as a proclamation to the world that God is serious about sin. And this morning, understand, if you think lying is some little thing, look to the streams of blood that was required to simply cover it, not to forgive it, but to cover it, until that time which the sinless Lamb, the sinless Son of God, would come and be the ultimate sacrifice. And without this sacrifice, without the wrath of God being poured out upon him in your place, you will be left in your sins on the day of judgment, and you will get what you rightly deserve and what I rightly deserve. The question this morning is, are you trusting in the sacrifice?

Has he changed your heart? Has he drew you near? Looking at this in a verse just a little bit later, in this text we begin to understand that Christ not only came to pay the debt for sin, His goal also was to deliver you from sin. Look at 2 Corinthians 521. It says, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

It's further illustrated as we've looked several times in Ephesians 5 25 through 27 it says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." Now understand this. We find in this text that while Christ—and this is amazing—while He died for our sin, he also in his will died that we might be sanctified. It's actually the work of Christ on the cross was even more than to die for your sin. It was even more than to take the punishment for your sin, but it's that in His will He has also paid the price that you might be sanctified from your sin, that you might grow in holiness, that you might be set free from the slavery of sin. And we find this very clear and throughout Scripture.

And my question this morning, when we look at mainstream Christianity, we see this where you can just say a prayer or do this or that, and you can live like everybody else, and everything is good because when you were 12 years old, you came to VBS and came forward. That is extreme. That's so contrary to Scripture, but it's even contrary to the work of Christ. Because Christ in His work says, He came to purify the church. So my question this morning to you is, If you have come to know Christ, if you have repented and put your trust in Him as your Savior, and He has saved you, we see that the next progression is that you become more and more and more like Him.

Because that is His plan. And so when I look out to someone who says, I'm a Christian, I just don't have time for all that stuff. Or, you know, this is how everybody else lives, surely it's good enough for God. My question to you is, are you saying that Christ is a failure? Because it's exactly what it's saying.

If you can say that you can become a Christian and continue to live just like the world and behave like the world? You're saying one of two things. You're either saying You don't know Christ at all, you just don't know that. Or you're saying he's a failure. It's extremely serious.

The practice of sin for a Christian is completely contradictory. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense in light of Scripture. It doesn't make sense in light of Christ. I'm not saying you don't.

I'm not saying you're perfect. But the continual practice of sin, and then to aggravate it, the self-justification of sin is to call Christ a failure. Because the Word of God says He will purify you. In fact, if you go down the road of discipline, the Bible says God will discipline those whom he loves. If you are genuinely born again and you try to stay on the world track, he probably is going to knock sense into you and you're not going to enjoy it.

If you're living as the world does and he's not doing that. He's either a derelict father or you don't know him. He hasn't saved you. And this morning, and I'll jump clear to the summary of where we've been. This text makes it clear how we're to look at the children of God versus the children of the devil.

We see that the children of God, number one, love His law, and they love the truth. Two, they don't practice rebellion or lawlessness. And three, they practice righteousness. And we'll hit on that more next week, and we've hit on it today. They don't practice the sin of omission, they practice righteousness.

The children of the devil, on the other hand, they don't practice righteousness. They serve themselves. Secondly, they hate the law. They do not stand in the truth. They're liars.

And it's In a sense, it's why it makes the weed and tears sometimes hard to differentiate between, because the tears continue to cry out, I'm wheat, I'm wheat. Either to deceive the one who reaps, or to deceive themselves, to make themselves feel better, to feel like on the day of harvest that they will be amongst the grain, and yet they're just weeds. This morning I would ask you, are you a child of God? Have you turned from your sin and trusted in Christ? See, we say this a lot, that you have to repent.

Repentance is actually a gift from God, too. You can't repent without Him. It's actually His work as well. And so it's really, if you have not repented, it's a sign that He's not working at all. And friends, if that's true of you, if you are living in sins of commission or living in sins of omission, If this is true, you should be greatly alarmed, and you should draw near to Christ.

Draw near to Him. Read His Word. Seek Him until He changes you. Seek Him until you know that you found him. Seek him until your heart begins to say, I love his law.

I love his word. I love it. And when it contradicts what the people at the colleges and all these things are saying, I still love it and I still believe it, because He is truth. And He has, in His Scripture, He's even said, He uses foolish things of the world to confound the wise. Men throughout history have always risen up and they say, we know more than him, we know more than your book, because we have science and we have this and we have that and all through history over and over you see these men fall into disaster.

You see the Word of God over and over and over again, confirm that it was right all along. You find men who say, for instance, not that far back, well, we don't even know that there was ever a Jericho. We can't find anywhere in all of the Middle East any signs that there was a town that was destroyed by fire. So obviously your book is wrong. And yet just a few decades later, well we've kind of found this town And there's a very thick amount of char in the ground to a certain level.

It's almost as if fire came down from heaven and destroyed this town. And friends, our faith doesn't even come from that. But I'm telling you this morning, if you put your faith in the scientists over Scripture, you will be amongst all of those in the past who God has confounded, whom he has made look foolish, because he uses foolish things to confound the wise. This is our truth. This is it.

It's more truthful than your feelings. It's more truthful than what the latest fads are. It's more truthful than the latest scientists. It's our truth. And this truth says you can't know God and make a practice of sin.

If you're doing this, repent. Seek Him while you have time. Seek Him until you have found Him. Seek Him until He becomes all things to you. And brothers and sisters, on that day you will find great joy.

Yesterday as I talked with somebody I was at a funeral and visitation and visiting with Tom and the thing that was brought up and went through our mind is we're all going to die. We think of doctors, you know, decisions with doctors and treatments and funeral arrangements and all these things, and we can think that we can delay all of this, but we can't. God is in control, He is sovereign. Friends, young people, I've buried young people. Middle-aged people, you might think you have two decades or three or four.

I've buried middle-aged people. None of us are guaranteed another day. Don't delay this. Seek Christ while you have time. If you're living in a pattern of sin, repent.

Brothers and sisters, if you're not, Continue to beat your flesh into subjection. There's nothing more important than serving our King. Begin praying this week. How could I serve him better? How could I serve his church better?

Your pastor would love it if you pounded on my door and said, I want to do something, I just can't figure out what it is, what do you need help with? Or I feel like God's calling me to do this or that or whatever. It's way better news than I Don't know whatever my average thing is I think my average thing is my computer is acting up And that's obviously you're my friends I want to help you But more important is your relationship with Christ. And then, If you're enthralled by the sin of the world, I can tell you from the other side, it's only deceived you. The grass is greener on this side.

Doesn't look like it from your side, but it's greener on this side by a long ways. Trust Christ, amen? Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.

Thank you for all of my friends here today. Thank you Father that every Sunday I get to come forth and share your word and in front of friends. Father, there are none in this room that I don't consider my friend. Yeah, Father, that has driven me for a deep desire that they know you deeply. Father, for all of us, may we be ever as Paul, and seeking, and aspiring, and wrestling with our flesh, that we might beat it in the subjection, that we might glorify you.

Father, draw us near. Father, it doesn't matter if the Elveston Church is ever noted in history books or anything like that. But God, may our hearts, may our desire be that we be holy unto you, that we glorify you, that we know you and love you deeply. Father, in that I know that you you change the world, you work through those whom know you, and so Father if that be your will let us glorify you amongst the earth. Father, if I have friends here that don't know you, if it's just a charade or if it's just an act, or if it's even a struggle that maybe they're not even trying to act, Father, I pray that you would draw them, that you would give them new hearts, that your name would be glorified in the greatest miracle of all the earth, that you saved someone, that you've given them new desires.

And Father, for this church, I pray that we would be a church that loves, that we don't Make it a practice of committing the sin of omission to where we're not loving our brothers and sisters as we should, but that you're glorified in how we love each other. Father, we thank you In Jesus' name.