in a world that's far from God.
It's a thing true in a world that's far from God.
And this is really a story about Daniel, the prophet.
And I think it's been a really good series so far.
We talked about Prayer the last time we did this series.
Now we're in this idea of speaking the truth boldly.
There is a movie that recently came out
in the last couple of years about Winston Churchill.
And it's a great, I love,
who likes history, I love history.
And Churchill is an amazing, amazing figure.
On June 4th, and the movie actually depicts this,
on June 4th, Winston Churchill had been the prime minister
for about a month and stood before the House of Commons
delivering what he became the best known speech of his life.
He declared, we shall fight on the beaches.
We shall fight on the landing grounds.
We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.
We shall fight in the hills.
We shall never surrender.
Did you like my delivery?
That was pretty good.
I could probably do better.
One man said, what just happened?
And I think someone had made this quote on it.
And in the movie they say it like right after the speech,
I think someone wrote this.
They said that, what happened?
He said that he called to arms the English language
and said it to war or something like that.
Basically talking about that speech,
how that speech impacted.
There was a bunch of people who were pacifists
that wanted to pacify Hitler.
And then there were people that knew
that they needed to go to war.
And that speech was instrumental in doing that.
But we tend to forget that this speech was delivered
after France had fallen to the Nazis.
And over 300,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated
from Dunkirk.
Churchill knew that the morale in Britain
was at an all time low and that the population
was celebrating because of the success of the retreat.
He had to help the nation remember
that they had not experienced victory
and that there was still much pain and suffering
and discouragement on the horizon.
He had the task of delivering truth
when truth was not necessarily what the people wanted to hear.
Have you ever had to deliver bad news?
Have you ever had the unfortunate responsibility
of holding up a mirror to somebody and saying,
this is what is, I'm not talking about a literal mirror,
but in the sense going, hey, this is what's going on
in your life and you have that phrase
that we all have used from time to time,
please don't shoot the messenger, right?
Where you have to speak the truth
and you speak it boldly and sometimes
that's not what people want to hear.
In a similar way, hey, don't get worried,
I'm not gonna do that to you tonight.
But in a similar way, Christians are called to stand for truth,
not just in practice, but verbally.
We're called to speak.
You know, it's one thing people talk about
like lifestyle evangelism.
And I'm all for lifestyle evangelism.
I think your lifestyle should support your evangelism, right?
I think that when you say what you say
that if people were to examine your life,
that your life should match what you're trying to say.
That being said, none of us do that perfectly, right?
All of us mess up in some way.
Here's a good news, part of our message
is that we're sinners, right?
And so that's part of what we teach people.
So when people talk about lifestyle evangelism,
there's this tendency to think that,
and it was kind of a popular idea at one time.
Hey, I should just live a certain way
and then if I live a certain way,
people will notice that I'm different
and they'll come talk to me and ask me about,
like, what do you have that I don't have?
And I'm sure that's happened at some point,
but for the most part, it's probably rare.
Here's what I want you to know.
To be faithful and to stay true for God
in a world that's far from God,
we've got to speak up for God.
We got to talk about the truth.
We got to speak the truth, as Ephesians 4 says, in love.
That's what we have to do.
This is what witnesses for Jesus do.
We testify about who God is and what he said,
regardless of how popular that message is.
And you know what?
Sometimes they do shoot the messenger, right?
Tonight, I want us to look at this idea
of speaking the truth boldly.
Would you give me the next slide?
It gives us our objective statement.
Oh, here's a good question.
When have you really appreciated someone's honesty?
Anybody ever get home and you look in the mirror
and you realize that a piece of the salad
that you had at lunch is still in your teeth?
Has that ever happened to anybody?
Yeah, and you're like,
Corey Kirschner talked to me all afternoon
and he didn't say one thing about the asparagus
sticking out of my mouth, you know?
We want, yeah.
So it's really good sometimes.
Hey, you got something in your teeth.
That's a helpful thing.
Here's the objective statement.
Next slide.
Being a bold witness for God sometimes means
speaking hard truth.
Sometimes you share the gospel with people
and they're so open to it, it's not hard.
This past Saturday, I got to share the gospel with the lady
and she was ready for it.
She was excited.
Pastor, I want to learn what the Bible has to say.
Hey, I was pumped to give her the word of God.
That was an amazing thing.
Sometimes though, you're talking to people
and they don't want to hear it.
Does that mean that you don't say something to them?
No, we still have to be bold in our witness for God.
Tonight, we're going to see a situation where Daniel
has a situation where he may have been tempted
to not speak boldly but in staying true as a witness,
where is Daniel at?
Let's rehearse the context.
Daniel is one of the Hebrew children
who's living in Babylon.
He's been taken away from his homeland.
He's been brought to this foreign land
that we learned in the first week
that they wanted to change his lifestyle.
They wanted to change his dress.
They wanted to change the way he ate.
They wanted to impact his education.
They wanted to transform him.
And we say, and what we said in that first week is,
we got to make sure that we don't compromise
on the important things even when we're in a culture
that's far from God.
Brother Gentry talked to us about being prayerful
and how that Daniel was known as a person of prayer
when he's trying to stay true for God.
Tonight, we're going to see that Daniel has this example
of speaking hard truth, even when it would have been
very difficult for him to do that.
Now, let's go to Daniel chapter five, like I've told you,
and let's look at what is happening here.
It says in verse one,
Belchazar, the king made a great feast
to a thousand of his lords
and drank wine before the thousand.
Belchazar, while he tasted the wine,
commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels
which his father Nebuchadnezzar
had taken out of the temple, which was in Jerusalem,
and the king and his princes, his wives,
and his concubines might drink their end.
Let's just pause here.
Belchazar followed Nebuchadnezzar
as the next ruler in Babylon.
There was a leader change,
and Daniel now has this new king.
And in part of this scenario,
Belchachazar throws a party,
and it's not a very godly party.
This is a very pagan kind of party.
They are doing what people and parties in our day do.
They're drinking.
You guys see that in verse one?
They're drinking.
Wine, thousands of people there.
It says that part of what they did is they took
the priestly utensils that were used in the temple
that had been stolen and brought
as part of the booty of war, brought to Babylon,
and they're starting to party with the things
that would have been very sacred to the Jewish people.
Verse three, then they brought the golden vessels
that were taken out of the temple.
That's what we just read.
Verse four, they drank wine and praised the gods of gold
and of silver and of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
Somebody explained to me why that was,
what were they doing?
Those utensils, you're exactly right.
Doran said they were enjoying the spoilers
of what they had gotten, right?
What were the temple utensils made out of?
Gold, right?
So they took these utensils, these things that were used
to worship the God of the Bible.
You with me?
They brought them to this drunken party,
and now as they're drinking, they're using these elements
to worship what?
False gods.
They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold
and of silver, of brass, iron, wood, and of stone.
Is this a serious infraction?
Is this an offensive thing both to the Jewish people
and to Jehovah God?
It absolutely is.
Verse five, in the same hour came forth fingers
of a man's hand.
You say, Pastor Ben, what did this look like?
It looks like fingers.
What was the Adam's family, the thing?
I was a call thing?
Whatever it was, that's kind of what I imagined.
It's just like fingers, and maybe not the whole hand,
but it starts writing.
Verse five, and wrote over against the candlestick
upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace,
and the king saw the part of the hand that rose
out, and I'm sure he goes, I'm reading between the lines,
what is in my drink?
Right?
There's fingers writing on the wall.
Now I don't think that this is a hallucination.
That's not what's indicated here,
because more than one person saw it and understood it.
Verse six, in the king's countenance was changed.
What was his countenance before?
He's partying, he's drinking,
he's got all of his people there.
It's a big drunken party,
and they are praising their gods.
I think that part of what they're thinking is,
we're so much better than all these other gods.
Who are the gods of the Jews?
It's just part of what they're doing,
and then all of a sudden there's this writing on the wall,
and he goes from party into...
You ever have sirens, lights,
police lights in your rear view mirror?
Does that ever happen to you?
And what happens to your heart goes to your stomach, right?
It's like, oh, I think that's what's going on here.
He's like, what in the world?
Verse seven, the king cried aloud
to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans,
and the Seussayers, and the kings spake,
and said to the wise men of Babylon,
whosoever shall read this writing
and show me the interpretation thereof,
shall be clothed with scarlet
and have a chain of gold around his neck,
and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
So apparently there's writing on the wall that he does it,
it's in a different language, he doesn't understand it.
What is it that he's saying?
And so he calls in all the people
that should know such things,
and says, promotion available if you figure this out.
So verse eight, then king, all the kings, wise men,
but they could not read the writing
nor make known of the interpretation thereof.
Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled,
and his countess was changed in him.
It got even worse, it went from like,
okay, what does that mean?
Oh no, like now he's angry,
and his lords were astonished.
Verse 10, now the queen,
by reason of the words of the king,
and his lords came into the banquet house,
and the queen spake and said,
oh king, live forever, let not thy thoughts trouble thee,
nor let thy countess be changed.
There's a man in the kingdom,
in whom is the spirit of the holy gods,
and in the days of thy father light,
and understanding, and wisdom,
like the wisdom of the gods,
were found in him whom the king Nebuchadnezzar,
thy father, the king, I say,
the father, thy father, made master of the magicians,
astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers.
For as much as an excellent spirit,
and knowledge, and understanding,
interpreting dreams, and showing of hard sentences,
and dissolving of doubts,
were found in the same, who is it?
Daniel.
Now let Daniel be called,
and he will show the interpretation.
Now, what's interesting about this,
is that as they were talking here
about three aspects of our witness, right?
He's, there's been this message that's come,
revelation from God has been written on the wall.
Okay, that's what we're about to see.
Nobody can figure it out.
All the wisest people in the kingdom can't figure it out.
So they call Daniel, why?
Because Daniel had a reputation, who's with me?
Daniel had a reputation.
There was someone that said, hey, this guy walks with,
and she says, is her theology right?
Her theology is not right.
What does she say?
Yeah, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods?
You know what that is?
That's her trying to explain what his reputation is,
and her language.
She doesn't, she believes that there's a bunch of gods.
You know, can I tell you,
I'm listening to missionaries this week.
I just came back from a pastoral,
the Baptist Church Ministry Network National Meeting.
That was this week, and I talk into missionaries.
You guys might remember Russ Turner.
He came a few months ago, or within the last year,
and we took him on for support.
And he was talking about all of the idol worship
that goes on in the jungles.
He goes into the jungles,
and there's all kinds of idol worship
that goes on in those jungles,
and there's all kinds of supernatural, weird,
spiritual activity that happens in there,
according to him, or at least things
that people perceive that way.
And so much of, in the Bible,
it talks about how that, a lot of times,
what's behind the idol worship is demons, right?
And so this is what they know,
this is what they've been deceived by,
but she knows that Daniel has been used by God before,
verse 13.
So then was Daniel brought in before the king,
and the king spake and said,
unto Daniel, art thou Daniel,
which art of the children of the captivity of Judah,
whom the king, my father, brought out of Jewry.
Here's the first thing I wanna show you
about being bold and speaking for the Lord.
Number one, the walk behind your witness.
The walk behind your witness.
When you live the way God wants you to live,
when you are growing the way God wants you to grow,
when you get into the word, until the word gets into you
and begins to transform you,
then when you have the opportunity to witness,
you're gonna be more bold and witnessing
because your walk matches your witness.
Because there's not some reason for you not to speak up
because you're already walking with the Lord
and God's already indwelling you and empowering you.
So here you have Daniel, and in verse 13,
the reputation has gone from his queen to the king.
He's saying, hey, are you this Daniel, everybody?
Verse 14, I've even heard of thee,
that the spirit of the God is in thee
and that the light and understanding
and excellent wisdom is found in thee.
And now the wise men, the astrologers,
have been brought in before me
that they should read this writing
and make known unto me the interpretation thereof,
but they could not show the interpretation of the thing.
Now, one of the things that's really important,
I don't wanna mishandle the word of God.
A narrative is there because it's teaching a story.
It's telling, it's giving you history.
This is what happened.
This passage is giving us an account
of something that actually happened.
I believe that this is history.
I believe that this actually happened
because I believe the Bible is the word of God
and that's how it's teaching it.
Does anybody here agree with me about that?
Okay, but let's look at the principles
and the application here, okay?
The principle that I wanna show you
is that there is this walk behind Daniel's witness.
He wasn't invited to the party.
He wasn't out there drinking.
He wasn't doing what he shouldn't have done.
He was even in some senses kind of a part of the people
that they were making fun of.
As they're drinking out of the temple,
does that make sense?
He's saying, aren't you the people that we brought captive?
Right?
And here's what's interesting.
When it came down to it, all the people that he thought
that they respected in their culture,
the astrologers, the idolaters, they didn't have any answers.
And can I tell you it's the same in our culture?
There's a whole lot of people that say
that they're offering answers and at the end of the day,
the answers don't work because they ain't true.
Not good grammar, but it's true, right?
When it comes down to, okay, I need to know what's true.
Now they go get a man of Jehovah God
and they bring him in.
Okay, let's keep going.
Now the wise man, they couldn't do it.
Verse 16, I have heard of thee
that thou canst make interpretations, dissolve doubts.
Now if those can't read their writing
and make known to me the interpretation thereof,
thou shalt be clothed with scarlet.
Scarlet actually read the other day about this scarlet.
There was a certain kind of snail worm
that they would crush the worm,
which isn't really interesting.
We'll talk about that later.
Okay, but that's where they would get the color for the dye,
right, that then they would make into robes,
which made you have to have a bunch of these snails.
You don't grow snails, right?
I mean, not like crops, you gotta go find them.
And so it was really expensive to dye,
like something like this, super expensive
because the only way to get that
is to have this really difficult process.
So to give somebody a scarlet robe,
that's like something that only royalty would have, right?
Kind of a similar principle as with who remembers Joseph
and the code of many colors, right?
Like when you're surviving every day
and that's how you do life
is just give us this day our daily bread.
You don't really have the resources to think about style.
Are you with me?
Think about style.
Some of you think more about it than others, right?
I don't even get a chuckle from some of you, come on.
Right, but my point is, this is an expensive thing.
So you're saying if you can figure this out,
we'll give you scarlet, you'll give you gold,
you'll be the third ruler in the kingdom.
I love this, verse 17.
So you've got the politics going on.
This is the king, there's political revolt.
Then you have a party and you got the profit.
We've covered all of that.
Now let's look at number two,
not just the weight behind your witness,
now let's look at the words in your witness, okay?
Now we got to how do we actually talk?
Look at verse number 17.
Then Daniel answered and said,
before the king, let thy gifts be to thyself
and give thy rewards to another,
yet I will read the writing unto the king
and make known unto him the interpretation.
What was he saying?
Keep the scarlet, keep the gold, I don't need a promotion.
I'll just tell you what it says, huh?
He wants to give God the glory in it for sure.
And then the other part of it is,
I don't know, maybe this is part of it,
how quickly they, well, we'll see.
Go down to now, now go to verse,
we'll just keep reading,
O thou king the most high God gave never conceder,
thy father a kingdom, and majesty and glory and honor.
And for the majesty that he gave him,
all people, nations, language,
trembled and feared before him,
whom he would he slew.
What is he saying?
Whom he would he slew?
If he wanted to kill somebody, he did.
Whom he would he would keep alive?
And whom he would he set up and whom he would he put down?
But when his heart was lifted up,
and his mind hardened in pride,
he was deposed from his kingly throne,
and they took his glory from him.
What's that saying?
When he thought he was the man,
that's when he became the beast,
and we know what happened there.
And he was driven from the sons of men,
and his heart was made like the beast,
and his dwelling was with the wild asses.
They fed him with grass like oxen,
and his body was wet with dew of heaven,
till he knew that the most high God,
here it is, what was the point of him going through all that?
Till he knew that the most high God
ruled in the kingdom of men,
and that he appointed over it whosoever he will.
What is he saying?
The king who came before you had to learn a lesson.
The lesson he had to learn was that he's not better
than the one and only true God.
It might be that he said,
you don't have to promote me or give anything
because you're not gonna like what I have to say.
Right, after this I don't think
I'm gonna get any kind of promotion.
Look at verse 22.
And thou his son Obel Shazzar has not humbled thine heart,
though thou newest all this.
What is he saying?
This isn't a new story I'm telling you.
You knew this, but yet you're being prideful.
But you lifted up verse 23,
thyself against the Lord of heaven,
and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee,
and thou and thy lords, thy wives,
and thy concubines have drunk wine in them.
Now has praised the gods of silver and gold
and a brass iron wooden stone,
which see not nor hear nor know.
What is he saying?
You're praying to false gods.
You're praying to made up gods.
And whose are all thy ways hath thou not glorified?
And the God in whose hands thy breath is,
what is he saying?
The God that's giving you life,
the God that's sustaining your life.
You're praising gods that don't even exist
with utensils and utensils and utensils and utensils.
And even exist with utensils that were used
to worship the God who's holding the very breath
that you breathe in you.
You're prideful, you're arrogant.
This is what you're doing.
Then was the part of the hand,
then was the part of the hand sent from him,
and the writing was written.
Here he has to give the king really bad news.
Now probably what was true of Nebuchadnezzar
was also true of Balthasar.
What was true of Nebuchadnezzar before he was humbled?
What did it say?
Who he wanted to kill, he killed.
Who he wanted to keep alive, he kept alive.
That was part of Daniel's answer to him.
He says, I think Balthasar, if he's in the same position,
he could do the same thing.
Who thinks maybe Daniel would have been tempted
even a little bit to kind of sugarcoat what he said?
Anybody think that could happen?
Did he sugarcoat what he said?
Not even a little bit.
He just was plain.
And I think we have to be wise as serpents
and harmless as doves.
But I think people need to know the truth.
Are you with me?
I think we need to speak the truth in love.
Are you with me?
That's what needs to happen.
So now we look, not just at the words of our witness,
now let's look at the weight of your witness,
the weight of our witness.
Here's where he gets to it.
Now he has the interpretation, verse 25.
And this is the writing that was written,
Meanie, Meanie, Techo, Eupharston.
I may not have said that exactly right,
but we'll read it.
This is the interpretation, verse 26, of the thing.
Meanie, God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.
Techo, thou art weighed in the balances
and art found wanting.
Perez, thy kingdom is divided
and given to the Medes and to the Persians.
Then commande Belshazzar, and they,
this is amazing, what do they do?
Then commande Belshazzar and they clothe Daniel with scarlet
and put a chain of gold around his neck
and made a proclamation concerning him
that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
And that night was Belshazzar,
the king of the Chaldeans slain.
Pretty amazing.
And Darius the Median took the kingdom,
being about three score and two years old.
Daniel gave the interpretation,
he told him straight, he says, this is what God has done.
Meanie, Meanie is a verb meaning numbered or appointed.
It emphasizes a final and full count.
He's saying, you have been numbered.
Techo is referred to weighing metal on a balance scale.
So he's saying, you're supposed to weigh this much,
but you don't weigh that much.
You don't weigh that much, king.
You're supposed to be substantive.
You're not.
And so because of that, you've been found wanting.
This is, you farsen as the plural form of Perez,
which refers to something being broken apart
and shared, it's being divided.
What's Daniel doing?
He's getting the interpretation from God,
but he's declaring what God has said and
what's the result?
What God said is what happened.
Daniel's promoted and Balthasar is slain.
Kind of crazy in it.
Now, very similar word for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God.
How many of you guys ever heard that?
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
We kind of have a similar message to tell people.
You've been weighed and found wanting.
The wages of sin is death.
There was an attorney that spoke last night at our meeting
and he said, how are you gonna continue to do evangelism
in the coming days?
This is just what he said.
I don't know if I agree with his evaluation totally,
but this is what he said
and I don't know that he's totally wrong either.
He said, there's a lot of people depending on live streaming
on getting stuff out there, social media.
And he said, guys, that's going away.
Not that social media is going away,
not that podcasting is going away,
not that YouTube is going away,
but if you speak the truth, even if you do it in love,
his thing is eventually they're gonna get all the haters
and the bigots off of social media.
You're saying, wait a minute, I'm not a hater or a bigot.
Do you believe there's only one way to God?
Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way?
There's people that think that's hateful and bigoted.
Do you believe that there's some things God calls sin
and that we don't get to compromise
about what God calls sin,
that whatever God calls sin is sin?
Yeah.
And our message has to be
that whatever God says, we believe.
And if God says it, then we ought to believe it
and we ought to declare it to people.
Which doctor do you wanna go to?
The doctor that finds the mass
and when you go say what is this mass mean,
he goes, it'll be fine.
Or do you want the doctor that's like,
you've got a mass and it's gonna kill you?
But here's what you have to do.
Who wants the second doctor?
I don't want the doctor that ignores
and doesn't give me bad news
because he's worried about how I'm gonna react.
I want the doctor who's gonna tell me straight,
give me the best, do you agree with me?
If that's true in the physical world,
isn't that true in the spiritual realm?
If I die physically, that's one thing,
but if I die spiritually, that's a whole other thing.
It's appointed on the men,
wants to die and after this the judgment.
All have sin and come short of the glory of God.
And sometimes even with believers, it's hard.
Go real quick, Galatian.
I'm gonna show you a couple things.
Go to Matthew chapter 18 verse 15.
Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone,
if he shall hear thee that has gained thy brother.
But if you will not hear thee,
then take with thee one or two more
that in the mouth of two or three witnesses,
every word may be established.
And if he neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church,
but if you neglect to hear the church,
let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.
Now, couple questions.
What kind of sin is the kind of sin
that makes us respond in this?
Do you guys see the process in these verses first?
Do you see a process here?
If someone's overtaken in a fault,
you go between you and him alone.
That's the first step.
Then the second step is you take two or three with you.
Why do you go to step two?
I would say it did work.
And why I say it does work
is because sometimes we have sin.
Here's my issue.
I know I'm confusing you.
No, I don't want to confuse you.
There's not certain sins that are a part of what we,
because it's this sin we do this process.
Are you with me?
It's any sin.
What's the issue?
The issue is not what sin it is.
The issue is having a heart that lacks repentance.
That when someone holds the mirror
of the word of God up to us, right?
That if there's something that's there,
we say, you know what?
I am gonna submit to what God says
and I'm gonna respond to it.
Does that make sense?
Now, there's also sometimes
that when you have a relationship with somebody
and it looks like they're doing wrong,
you go talk to them and you say,
hey, this is what looks like going on in your life
and you do it.
The reason why you do it alone is because you might find out
that what you perceive as sin wasn't sin at all.
Does that make sense?
Can that happen?
And I'm really struggling because this person,
that seems like that we're at odds,
so I'm gonna go talk to him.
And the reason why it's so important to go
between you and him alone is because if you start going
to seven other people, it's called gossip.
You're creating more problems.
Then you go over to this other person and you find out,
oh, even if they were wrong, you get it right,
but now six other people are offended for you.
Do you get it?
The issue though, isn't what sin it is.
The issue is, do we repent of sin?
And this isn't like day one, day two, day three.
This is there's a season of us like we're trying to
deal with this and then we go on to two or three.
They don't hear it, then you take it to the church.
But the point is, instead of everybody thinking about it
and everybody talking about it, what's the loving thing
to do?
The loving thing to do is, I care about you, I love you.
And the whole point of this is not to beat you over the head
with what you did, the point of it is,
so that we would be restored so that we could gain our brother
or our sister.
Another verse, are you with me?
Go to Galatians chapter six.
Galatians chapter six, verse number one.
Verse one, brethren.
Why is he using the word brethren?
It is right, who's writing?
Who's writing?
Paul, who is he writing to?
The church of Galatia.
He says, brethren, you know, if God is my father
and Jesus is God's son and I'm gonna join here with Christ
and he's my big brother and if you guys are sons and daughters
of God then you're my brothers and sisters.
Are you with me?
So he's talking to Christians.
Brethren, if a person, let's see, back to it.
If a man be overtaken in a fault,
does that sound like Matthew 18?
If there's something that's wrong,
overtaken means they're taken down.
They've done something, their life is not working
like it ought to, they're not right with God,
they're broken in their relationships.
Galatians six one says, if a brother be overtaken in a fault,
ye who are spiritual?
Now here's a question, how do you know if someone's spiritual?
Save for sure.
Good job, Matt, high five, Matt, nice.
Can I submit that Galatians five, verse 22,
just four or five verses beforehand,
might indicate who's spiritual.
But the fruit of the spirit is, what's the first one?
But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,
long suffering, generalist goodness, faith,
meaning the temperance.
Wait, who's not spiritual?
People who are still in the flesh, who's in the flesh?
Can I submit to you that you go back to verse 16?
Look at Galatians five, 16.
This I say then, walk in the spirit
and you should not fulfill the loss to the flesh.
Loss to the spirit, the spirit against the flesh.
Verse 19, now the works of the flesh are manifest,
which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, adultery, witchcraft, hatred, variance,
emulations, wrath, strife, sedition,
terraces, envies, murderings, drunkenness,
revelings and such like.
Okay, so when he says in Galatians six one,
he who are spiritual, he's already defined who's spiritual.
Right?
If someone's overtaken in a fault, what kind of fault?
The faults described as the loss of the flesh.
Anybody here ever do the loss of the flesh?
Okay, everyone's that's not raising their hand
is in the flesh right now.
We all do it.
We all do it after you're saved.
Yes!
Maybe that's where I came up with a dessert idea.
I don't know.
Are you with me?
He says, if someone's overtaken in a fault
and they're not functioning the way they ought to,
do the awkward thing.
Speak the truth boldly, but do it as a spiritual person.
What's the first fruit of the spirit?
Love!
I'm not coming over and beating you over the head
with the Bible.
I'm coming with love.
Restore such a one.
There's a passage in Matthew chapter four.
Remember when Jesus is calling the disciples?
He says, follow me and I'll make you to become fishers and men.
If you read Matthew chapter four,
he talks to two guys, Peter and Andrew,
and it says that they were cast into the world
and they were fishing.
It says that he said, follow me, I'll make you fishers and men.
The next two verses, he says that John and James and John,
the sons of thunder, that they were mending their nets.
The word for mending is the same exact word in the Greek
as the word restore in Galatians six.
You can't catch fish with broken nets.
If the nets don't work, you're not gonna catch many fish.
And the job of loving people who are exhibiting
the fruit of the spirit is to have some awkward conversations
and to love someone enough to go,
it seems like you're hurting, it seems like you're not functioning.
It seems like something's not going well.
You're not functioning, it seems like something's not going right.
And I care about you and I love you and I may be wrong.
How do you do it?
In a spirit of meekness, considering yourself
lest you also be tempted.
So this isn't like, let me tell you how I'm so much better
than you at this.
No, it's, man, I've struggled with this too.
Or maybe I don't struggle with this,
but I struggle with this, this, this and this.
But I'm here to help and I'm here to love you
and not to destroy you.
Does that make sense?
One more spot, Ephesians chapter four.
You guys have your Bibles?
Galatians, Ephesians chapter four.
Verse 11, and he gave some apostles and some prophets,
some evangelists, some pastors and teachers
for the perfecting of the saints.
The word for perfecting there is catartizmos.
The word for mending and the word for restore are catartizo.
So these are from the same word.
It's just a different form of the same word.
The word for perfecting is maturing, equipping, restoring,
growing, furnishing.
Does that sound like they're helping?
Are you with me?
He gave leaders in the church who gave us the word of God
and talking about apostles and prophets.
The Bible, the leader takes the revelation of God.
I don't have any special revelation from God
that you don't have.
I got the same Bible you do.
Are you with me?
But they take that word and they use the word verse 11
for the perfecting of the saints.
Who does the work of the ministry?
For the work of the ministry.
Is the work of the ministry just the pastor?
It's for the saints.
Who are the saints?
Saints mean sanctified one.
If you're saved, you've been sanctified.
If you're saved, you've been set apart.
You're not going to hell.
You're going to heaven.
Are you with me?
You're not.
If you're saved, you've been sealed by the Holy Spirit.
You're endowed by the Holy Spirit.
You're a saint.
And he says the perfecting of the saints,
the maturing of the saints for the work of ministry,
for the ever fighting in the body of Christ,
that we henceforth, what does it say?
Until we all come to the unity of the faith,
knowledge of the Son of God, into a perfect man,
under the measure of the stature, where am I at?
I'm just quoting.
Measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, verse 14,
that we henceforth be no more children,
tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine
by the slate of men and cutting craftiness,
whereby they lie and wait to deceive.
One of the marks of an immature,
one of the marks of an immature believer
is that they're blown about.
They don't know what the Bible says.
There's false teachers that are giving them lies
and they're going back and forth
and believing this person and that person.
And it's like, you don't need to be gullible.
You need to be grown up into the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
He says, you don't need to be like that.
The perfecting is for, verse 15,
speaking the truth in, okay, I messed you up here.
Verse 15, what does a mature ministry look like?
What does a spiritually mature,
someone who's perfected for the work of the ministry,
what does that look like?
Verse 15, but speaking the truth in love
may grow up into him in all things,
who is the head, even Christ.
The point of the sermon is this,
that God wants us to speak the truth boldly.
Do you get the theme?
Do you get the theme of the sermon?
Okay.
If we're gonna be, if we're gonna stay true to God
in a world that's far from him,
we gotta know what he said
and then we've gotta have the Holy Spirit filling us
and equipping us as we're in the Word of God and know it
and he's changing us from the inside out.
As that happens, there's gonna be times with lost people
where we're gonna have to speak truth to lost people
that they don't wanna hear.
If you can't get them lost, then they can't get saved.
If they don't believe they're sinners,
what do I need to be saved from?
Are you guys with me?
So if you're gonna be used by God and be effective for God
and stay true to God and someone who's been saved,
you have to be able to look at a person that doesn't know Jesus
and say, God loves you, but you're his enemy
because God loves his enemies.
Your sin has made you an enemy of God.
We've all fallen short of the glory of God.
You have been weighed and found wanting, right?
So you have to do that with lost people.
But for people who are saved, all of us,
if you don't raise your hand on this, you don't get it.
Do any of us need to ever be confronted about our sin?
We all do.
One of the dangers of being a pastor, can I just tell you?
Is that not people don't always want to confront the pastor
when he's done something wrong.
And I can tell you, you guys already know this.
I'm a sinner.
I mess up.
I don't want to get too personal, but there's been times
in the last week that I had to, with tears,
ask my wife to forgive me.
Because I'm a dude.
I'm a husband.
We mess up.
I messed up at church.
You send in the church?
Yeah.
Because I'm here all the time.
It's bound to happen, right?
And my wife confronted me about it in a godly way
with a spirit of meekness.
I know she loves me, right?
And I had to, I had to, I need that.
You need that.
And if we're going to be a healthy church,
we can't crucify each other when we mess up.
We have to speak the truth in love.
We have to speak the truth with a spirit of meekness
considering ourselves, lest we also be tempted
because we mess up.
Does that make sense?
And the whole goal is not to make them feel bad.
The goal is what?
Restoration.
The goal is you're not functioning the way that God's
wanting you to function.
God called you to be a fisher or a man,
and you got a broken net.
Let's help mend the nets to bring you back to full function.
So that you can be the parent and the husband and the wife
and the Christian and the employee,
the Sunday school teacher, the I want a leader,
the D group that you need to be because this world is dying
and going to hell.
And we need every Christian we can functioning for the Lord
because we have a world that is not staying true to God.
And there needs to be some people that have a weight to their
witness that are willing to look people in the eye and say,
I love you.
I care about you.
But this is what the truth of God's word says.
And I can't be the doctor that ignores your tumor.
I can't be the person that ignores what's going to kill you.
You get it?
We got to speak the truth.
We got to speak it in love.
God help us to be that.
Help us to be that.