Well you can open up your Bibles to Ecclesiastes.
I don't intend to stay there
only make a point from there;
only draw forth a principle from there actually.
Ecclesiastes chapter 4.
Father, I pray that You would feed us
from Your Word,
totally dependent upon You
to make it convicting,
to make it powerful,
to reach our hearts,
and reach our consciences.
Lord, please reach our hearts,
our souls,
with this message.
I pray in Christ's name.
Amen.
I was really thinking about 2018,
that if that if I could preach a message today
that would somehow flavor this year for us.
that's what went into my thinking.
Ecclesiastes 4:9
It's really a proverb.
Ecclesiastes 4:9
"Two are better than one."
That's the preacher Solomon.
"Two are better than one,"
and he's going to tell us why.
"...because they have a good reward
for their toil."
And even like the Geneva translation
actually brings out that the good reward
is probably that they have a better reward
than they would have if they stayed separate.
That's kind of the idea there.
V. 10 "For if they fall,
one will lift up his fellow."
Now you can see the reality of that.
If these two guys are separate,
and one falls and can't get back up,
obviously when you're together with somebody else
and they can come help you and pick you up,
what's been accomplished -
the greater good -
is far beyond what the two could have
achieved separate,
because if they're separate and they fall,
and they can't get back up,
they've lost everything.
They've lost the whole day.
"If they fall, one will lift up his fellow,
but woe to him who is alone when he falls
and has not another to lift him up."
And you know that could be spiritually.
Undoubtedly, that's why the Lord has
put us all together in the church
to lift up one another.
Again, "if two lie together,
they keep warm,
but how can one keep warm alone?
And though a man might prevail
against one who is alone..."
Here you have adversaries.
One guy against another guy.
And you might be prevailed against by one guy,
but if there's two of you,
"two will withstand him."
And then he throws in the proverbial saying,
"a threefold cord is not quickly broken."
He actually takes it from one to two,
and then three.
A threefold cord.
The title of my sermon:
"A Threefold Cord."
Solomon's point is clear.
Two are better than one.
Not two separate, but when they're
brought together,
to get the advantage,
the two must be working together.
Their bodies must be close together
to retain the heat.
They must withstand a foe together.
And even more, if you take three strands -
like if you braided hair
or you took three threads
and you wound them all together
to create one cord,
the reality is it's even better than two.
And the thing is it's not quickly broken.
There's a strength.
Now, I totally intend to spiritualize
this truth today.
Totally.
The threefold cord is your life.
One strand in that cord: secret prayer.
Craig came very close to that one today.
It's right there with secret fasting.
That's one strand.
Because one of the things I want to emphasize today,
look, this prayer and fasting
isn't just for a week of prayer and fasting.
This is your life.
This is our life.
One strand: secret prayer.
But wrapped, brought close together,
the second strand: doing good.
Third strand wound in there:
self-denial.
(incomplete thought)
Listen, prayer without doing good
and without self-denial
has no feet.
It's no good to pray that God
make the Gospel advantageous to souls
in our community if we're not willing
to take that message to those ears of those people.
But you know what happens
if you have works without self-denial?
It's just cheap.
All it will result in is cheap, little
demonstrations of religion.
Brethren, if you try to do works without prayer,
they'll just be powerless.
It will be a demonstration of the flesh.
Prayer is our dependence on the Lord.
You wrap all three of these together.
You wrap them all together.
You see, the principle here is
they need to lie together
to really produce the warmth.
They need to be close.
You know, the thing here is
if an adversary comes
or if you're working and one of you falls,
the other one lifts up the other.
These lift each other up.
These bring strength to one another.
They prevail together.
That's the issue.
They fail otherwise.
But God helping us,
what I want us to do is -
look, I'm going to show you from Scripture
this threefold cord is absolutely
something that God wants us
with the hand of faith
to reach up and grab hold of.
Brethren, I just think
how fruitful we might be;
what a church we might be
if you really take this threefold cord
into the grips of your own faith;
lay hold on this
and seek to live this out.
The first strand in this threefold cord:
secret prayer.
Let's look at it.
Matthew 6:6
Let's go to Matthew 6
a second time this morning -
now this afternoon.
Matthew 6:6
"But when you pray,
go into your room..."
King James: "enter into thy closet."
If you ever wonder where that idea
of the prayer closet - it's right there.
"Enter into thy closet."
You see, again, just like with Craig
in the first message,
this is something that Jesus assumes
is going to be a reality in your life.
The closet. The secret place.
And notice: "shut the door."
Why do you shut the door?
Well, not just so that you're
not the hypocrite;
so that the people in the other room can't see you.
It's because this is about
shutting out the disturbances,
shutting out the distractions,
and just your soul
alone with the living God.
"Go into your room..."
"Enter into thy closet..."
"Shut the door and pray."
Don't get on your phone.
Don't get on your computer.
And if you don't have a place
that you can go to get away from those,
then you need to have one.
Many of you know
that Susannah Wesley -
her secret place was under her apron.
She put it over her head
and the children knew,
don't go there.
"Pray to your Father Who is in secret,
and your Father Who sees in secret
will reward you..."
And I'll just add openly.
Brethren, we're talking about
shutting ourselves away to God;
to where God and your soul
are alone.
Where we depart from here;
we go into the presence where
our own soul flies away to where He is;
where there's a connection.
This is what I was talking about
when I was talking about fasting.
Brethren, I find there are seasons
when something happens.
There is a connection with the Lord -
yes, there are times when it's difficult,
when I feel cold.
There are times when connecting with God
just - it seems like He's far away.
It seems like my thoughts are wandering.
I start to pray and then I wander off here.
Or I'm out walking somewhere,
and I see something,
and my mind's gone over there.
Or I start thinking about some situation
that I need to deal with
and it's difficult.
But there are other seasons,
there is a connection with the Lord.
That's the issue.
Your Father - He sees in secret.
He's there in secret.
Brethren, secret prayer is not to be
some mere duty of the Christian,
like taking out the garbage
or getting the oil changed on your car
where it's this check list.
You know, all the things I've got to do today.
Well, I need to make sure that I do that.
So you run over and you pray,
"Lord, I want this, this, this, this..."
Well, yeah, I did my prayer thing today.
Brethren, that isn't it.
We must consider secret prayer
to be one of the great works of our life.
When you think about your life,
do you even think that way?
Does that enter into your mind?
That when you think about the things
that you want to do well in life -
and you know this,
you know.
If you're ever going to do anything well in life -
you know, somebody's a chess champion.
Did that just happen?
Or they play the violin extremely well.
Somebody can play a sport.
Can you cook well?
Sew well?
Weld well?
Can you problem solve
issues on your computer?
Well, that's well and great,
but the question is can you pray?
Do you even regard this
as the great work of your life?
I mean, listen, when you have
the great apostle himself
coming along to those Gentile churches
and saying 1 Thessalonians,
"Pray without ceasing."
Craig's been dealing with the Colossian letter.
To the Colossians, he says,
"Continue steadfastly in prayer."
To the Romans, "be constant in prayer."
Listen to what God is telling you.
This man is under inspiration.
God is telling you,
be constant in this.
You know the words of Jesus Christ Himself
there in Luke 18.
He says (yeah, you can grab that brother);
What does He say?
He says that we need to be
steadfast in prayer.
"Men ought always to pray and not faint."
These are the calls of our Savior,
this apostle.
(incomplete thought)
It's like to everyone of the Gentile churches,
he needed to say this to them.
You need to pray.
Not just a little.
You need to pray constantly. You need to persevere in it.
You need to be about it. You need to not faint in it.
This is something that we need to give ourselves to.
How often do you think this way?
This is the great work of the Christian's life
that we pray, we pray, we pray.
Secret prayer.
The desire of secret communion with God.
Brethren, it's one of the great evidences
that you've become a Christian.
Listen. I prayed some
when I was a nominal Catholic.
But when God saved me,
I wanted to commune with Him.
I spent hours communing with Him.
Why? Something happened.
Something in the desires happened.
If you don't have a desire to be
communing with the Father in secret,
you need to go back and start over again,
because something's wrong
and something's broken.
But see, I know with a lot of you,
there's a desire there.
But you know what?
The longer we go on in the history of mankind,
and the more gadgets we develop
and devise and the way technology is
and the distractions of this world,
we are in the communication age,
and the problem with it is
all this communication floods us.
And I know there's a desire in some of your hearts,
but listen, if you're going to be
men or women of prayer,
you've got to be disciplined.
And you've got to learn to say no to things.
You are going to have to make time
in your day.
I'll tell you this,
when something is important to somebody
you can typically see
the level of importance that it holds
in a person's life by the sacrifices
that they are willing to make for it to happen.
And if you're not willing to make those sacrifices,
that says an enormous amount
about how important you think this is.
Strive, brethren, strive
to make this one of the great works
of your life.
This is your life: Prayer.
Constant. Always.
Secret place.
Do any of you not even have that place?
Whether it's under the apron, ladies...
whether you actually find a closet somewhere,
or whether it's out under the stars at night.
Is there that place in your life
where you go and shut the door?
If that's foreign to you,
listen, then stop.
Forsake your way.
Because if that's foreign to you,
the way that you are on
needs to be forsaken
because it's a bad way.
It's a wrong way.
It's a backward way.
It's a powerless way.
It may be very likely an un-Christian way.
The secret place.
"Men ought always to pray."
This needs to be our life's work,
no matter what else God has called you to.
You say, God has called me to do this and this and the other.
That's ok.
But God has called you to this.
And so matter what else He's called you to,
He has called you to make this a life's work.
Because, brethren, this is where
your life derives power.
When you watch people
in the Christian life,
and you marvel,
wow... what patience!
What holiness!
What power they have in their lives!
What power they have
demonstrated in some way!
Brethren, the power of God
is channeled into the Christian life
through prayer.
Prayerlessness does not produce power,
because prayerlessness is basically
avoiding God.
It's not going to God in the secret place.
And you're not going to experience the reward.
Brethren, you know very well this reality.
Moses' face shined only when
he was in the presence of God.
And I can use that.
You say, well, that's an Old Testament thing
and we don't actually go into His presence
in the Shekinah glory like he did.
Brethren, if that's what you think, you think wrong,
because Paul used that very example
and brought it out in 2 Corinthians 3 for us.
For you and I.
Because there's a reality in that truth
that when we behold the glory of the Lord
and when we're standing in this presence,
there is where the change takes place.
People that spend much time
in the presence of God
end up unlike people that don't
spend that time.
This is where we derive that power.
Brethren, you know what happens
when you go into the secret place?
Look, if you go and your mind,
your heart, your spirit lifts up to God -
something happens.
I'll tell you one thing that happens.
There's an awareness
that you're speaking to God.
And oftentimes what that does is
it produces an awareness of yourself.
Because it's a place where you come
and you put your conscience
under the very gaze of omniscience -
One Who knows it all.
Do you find that happens?
You go to Him and it's like
you're trying to talk to Him about something,
but suddenly your conscience is there
beneath His gaze,
and it's saying something's not right.
You see, when we're regular
in the secret places of prayer,
you know what it does?
You know what it does with your life
as far as purity and holiness?
(incomplete thought)
The secret place is the place
where we come and we confess.
It's the place where we come
and we lay down our pride,
our lack of gentleness,
our lack of faith,
our irritability,
our lack of patience.
It's that place where you cry out for help.
"Lord, take that away."
Have you ever been there?
Where it's like, "Lord,
You have promised in Your Word
to conform us to the image of Christ.
Lord, that's Your promise!
It's right there.
I read it in the pages of Romans 8.
You have promised that I'm predestinated
to be conformed to the image
of this firstborn Son.
You have promised in Your Word
to make us blameless
and make us holy.
You have promised that by degrees
that we are going to be conformed
to the image of this Lord
Whose glory that we see.
You've promised that."
It's the place where you go there
and you ask for power.
It's the place there, brethren,
where your heart is lifted up
and you adore Him for not dealing with you
according to your sins.
Do you ever go there
and you're just struck by all the blessings
that you have?
And by the fact that He has not
dealt with you according to the things
that you've done in your life?
And you're lifted up to the cross?
And Lord, thank You! Thank You!
It's that place of adoration.
Listen, brethren, it's a place of weeping -
weeping over your failures,
but weeping over just gratitude.
It's a place where you connect
with the living God.
Brethren, secret prayer
is where we meet God.
Don't let the busyness of this world
rob you of your God.
Brethren, don't you recognize
that the greatest thing we have in salvation
is our God?
It's like what are you going to do?
Live on the broken cisterns
when you have this fullness that is there?
Brethren, the rewards that come
when God says:
You go into that secret place.
I'm going to reward you.
Oh, you better believe it.
He created us.
He knows what the greatest rewards are.
He knows what most satisfies.
He knows what most brings joy.
He knows what's for our greatest good.
Rewards - the reward of the Father.
Don't let the cares of this world encroach.
Because I'll tell you this,
you know what happens -
have you ever read in Scripture
about those who get encroached upon
by the cares of the world?
Both places I read about it in Scripture,
it's not a good thing.
One is the cares of this world,
they encroach and there's no fruitfulness.
The other one is a steward
who goes about getting drunk
and beating his fellow servants,
and the cares of this world come upon him
and then the Lord Jesus returns,
and he's not ready.
You know what the cares of the world do?
They make you fruitless.
What do you think Jesus is saying?
You think that guy was ready to meet his Lord?
You think it's like he's just going to
get a pat on the back?
Well done, good and faithful servant?
Although, there were these minor things
like you were getting drunk all the time.
And the thing that all of this
is couched in the midst of is the cares of the world.
We may think, oh, the cares of this world,
to be distracted sometimes away from
secret prayer a minor thing.
Uh uh.
You're not ready to meet the Lord.
You're not ready.
Don't let the cares of the world
rob you of God or of His reward.
Listen to this. Just listen.
You know these words, but listen.
"Every one who asks receives.
The one who seeks finds.
The one who knocks, it will be opened."
Do you know what the reality is?
Those who pray most, receive most.
You know, if you look at your life
and you wonder, why don't I have what they have?
Ok, I'm not saying this works all the time.
There are times we ask for things
and the Lord doesn't give them to us.
But I can tell you this,
when you have promises like this,
that if you ask, you will receive -
everyone who asks receives -
if you notice that in the spiritual kingdom,
there are some people that have a lot more,
there is a good likelihood that they pray more.
You take Brainerd -
he was a missionary to the American Indians.
You look at his life.
You say, wow...
he reached heights.
But look how he prayed; look how he fasted.
And Edwards could say,
maybe not a single time
that he wasn't rewarded -
even sometimes the same day.
Brethren, you know what's happening
if you're not in that secret place
praying every single day?
You're robbing yourself.
You're robbing yourself
of how those times with the Lord
would transform you
into a greater likeness of Christ.
You're robbing yourself of beholding
more of the glory of God.
You're robbing yourself of the rewards.
You're robbing yourself of answered prayer.
Those who pray the most,
stand in the presence of God the most.
And just like it was with Moses,
they're going to have the most
glory of God shining from their faces.
Those who pray most walk where
other men don't walk.
They experience what other men
don't experience.
Listen, Jesus says if you love Me,
He says My Father will love you
and I will love you,
and He says I will manifest Myself to you.
But you're not showing much love for Him
if you don't care to spend time with Him.
But He says if you love Me,
it's going to be rewarded
with manifestations of Christ.
That's valuable.
Brethren, the great commandment
that Jesus gives to us:
Follow Me.
You say, oh, I thought it was love...
Yeah, it's hard to separate those two.
Follow Me. Follow Me.
He said if you would be My disciple,
you must follow Me.
You notice when He came around to everybody,
James and John: Follow Me.
Peter and Andrew: Follow Me.
Matthew: Follow Me.
Rich, young ruler: Follow Me.
That was always it.
Follow Me.
Do you see Him out there?
Those of you that have read your Gospels?
That's why it's so important to be in the Gospel all the time.
Because you see Christ -
the One we're supposed to follow.
Let's follow Him.
Do you see Him?
Follow Him.
"He went up on the mountains...
Matthew 14:23
"...by Himself to pray.
When evening came, He was there alone."
Now think with me.
"He was there alone."
Where? On the mountain.
That was His closet.
Alone.
That's what shutting the door is: alone.
You're not alone today,
even if you shut the door
and you've got this buzzing in your pocket.
You know how the King James says
"quit yourself like men?"
Be a man!
Don't be some little slave of a cell phone.
Be a man.
You're going to have to be one
if you're going to be familiar
and make it the great object of your life
to pray like some of the men and women of old,
whose lives we cherish.
We're moved on when we read them.
But how do you think they lived lives like that?
Oh, if you looked at their prayer lives,
you'd have some idea.
Mark 1:35 "Rising very early
in the morning while it was still dark,
Jesus departed and went out
to a desolate place and there He prayed."
Hear Him.
A mountain by Himself.
A desolate place all alone.
Hear His words.
Do you see Him out there?
You know what He's saying to you?
Follow Me. Follow Me.
Luke 5:16 "He would withdraw
to desolate places and pray."
Luke 6:12 "In these days,
He went out to the mountain to pray
and all night He continued in prayer to God."
You find Him in these places
before the sun rises in the morning.
You find Him there in the afternoon
all the way till night.
You find Him there all through the night.
Desolate places.
Listen, if you want to excel at this,
you need to arrange your life around this.
It's not going to happen by magic.
Be resolute about this.
Make the sacrifices that are necessary
to maintain one or two or three times
of secret prayer every single day.
You say, two or three times?
I don't even do it once a day!
Then repent!
That's not praying constantly.
That's not showing up in the secret place.
That's not imitating Christ.
Follow Me. Follow Me.
Follow Me.
Brethren, I thought about this.
If I could take every moment
that I've ever wasted in my life,
and could have given it to secret prayer,
how different my life would be.
I mean just think of the greater sanctification
that you and I might have in our lives
if we took some of the needless,
unnecessary wastes of time out of our life
and replaced it with secret communion with God,
just how our lives would be different.
More answers to prayer.
Don't let your friends;
don't let your family;
don't let the cares of this world;
don't let your business;
don't let your pleasure rob you of God.
This is the greatest gift of all.
I'll tell you this,
those who have experienced God come close,
they know it.
They know it.
There's nothing in this world that compares.
There's nothing better.
If you say, I don't know that,
listen, if you love Him
and you give yourself to seeking Him,
He says He'll manifest Himself.
And if you're not knowing these manifestations,
it's not because He hasn't promised to give them.
Look, spend the time to find God.
Spend time - the time necessary -
to find God in ways that thrill your soul;
that cause you to drop on your face
because He's come
and the sense of His holiness
is enough to put you on the floor.
Because brethren, I'll tell you,
you have experiences like Isaiah had.
Yeah, I know he went to the temple;
he saw the Lord; he actually had a vision.
But when you have experiences
where God comes close,
it's life changing.
You ask how to pray?
Listen, I'll tell you from my own experience,
have the Word of God involved with it.
Oftentimes, going out -
I like to pray outside -
walking and begin to recite Scripture
that I'm memorizing.
Oh, that so primes the pump for prayer.
Mack Tomlinson - and I'm starting to do this now -
he has told me about praying through the Psalms.
I'm beginning to do that.
Tremendous help.
Think about the promises of God
when you pray.
Think about reasons as to why
God should give you what you're asking for.
Brethren, instead of starting your secret prayer
just running headlong into God's presence
with all the things that you want.
You say, I don't know what to pray for.
Just go and get in the presence of God
and begin to admit your faults.
Confess your sins.
Have a fresh look at the cross.
Because I'll tell you,
when you begin to go out
and you begin to confess,
and you're being transparent before the Lord,
you start to look to the cross afresh -
Christ's sufferings and His death for me -
you're right where the Spirit will help you pray.
So, that's one strand.
But hear me, don't get impatient here.
Second strand: doing good.
Brethren, Galatians 6:9.
Don't turn to these texts,
but just listen,
because I'm going to move through
some of these quickly.
But Scripture says, the apostle says,
"Let us not grow weary of doing good."
Or, "well doing."
We are to be well-doers.
"For in due season, we will reap
if we do not give up."
Do you remember what was said about our Lord?
"He went about doing good."
Again, He says, follow Me.
See, if we watch Him,
we find Him up on the mountain.
We find Him out in desolate places.
But keep watching Him.
Oh, that's good in itself.
That's doing good, but watch Him in between.
Watch what He's up there
getting fresh grace to do;
communing with His Father.
because then He comes down
from the mountain.
He comes away from the desolate place.
And what does He do?
A life just full of good.
That's it.
That's what it is to be His disciple.
Are you His follower?
That's what a Christian is:
a follower of Christ.
Do we follow Him?
Do we follow Him to the secret place
and then follow Him among the people?
To do good. Doing good.
Do you know what sort of Jesus
you do not find in your Bibles?
We do not find the sort of Jesus
Who didn't smoke, didn't drink,
didn't watch R-rated movies,
didn't send His children to public school,
didn't come late to church.
We don't find that Christ.
You say what?
Listen, my emphasis is this:
you don't find this Christ
of negative emphasis
in the pages of your Bible.
Acts 10:38 doesn't say that Jesus
went about not doing evil.
That's not the Jesus of the Bible.
You say, what? You're saying He did evil?
No, I'm just saying that's not the issue.
So often you find religious people -
professing Christians -
"well, what's wrong with that?"
"Well, I don't do that."
You know, the typical fundamentalist attitude:
"I don't drink. I don't smoke.
I don't dance."
So?
You say, what, the pastor's saying you can?
I'm saying this:
we're called to be followers of Christ.
When you do spiritual inventory,
sure, it's good if you haven't
viewed pornography this week.
It's great if you haven't beaten your wife this week.
But brethren, those things are a given.
If that's the level at which
you're trying to live your Christian life,
my friend, you are missing the whole point
of why Jesus Christ saved a people.
Have you ever read?
He saved a people
for His own possession.
And what would chiefly characterize them?
The fact that they don't do bad?
Brethren, that they be zealous of good works.
That's it.
Get away from this negative-oriented
kind of Christianity.
You know you ask some people
about their Christianity,
and it's like it's all the negative.
It's all about what they don't do.
Listen, Jesus didn't save us
just to stop doing the bad things.
Of course He did that.
Of course, by the Spirit to put to death
the deeds of the body.
Of course that.
But doing good,
doing good -
this is the will of God,
that by doing good, you should
put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
In the same way, doesn't Scripture say,
"Let your light so shine before men
that they may see your good works
and give glory to your Father Who is in Heaven?"
Right there in Ephesians,
we came across it:
"We are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works."
Brethren, this is the heart and soul.
Again, when we talk about making it
a primary endeavor of your life to pray -
one of the primary endeavors of our lives
is doing good.
with so many people it's:
Well, I didn't miss church on Sunday.
Listen, church going - well, that's good.
Not forsaking the assembling together of yourselves is good.
But why do we come together?
To stir up one another to love and good works.
You see, that's the issue.
You being here - that's only to equip you
for the real work.
To go out these doors
and among one another
and among the world
out here in the midst of all this.
Brothers, sisters,
do good.
Let that be the banner that flies over your life.
Do good.
Don't just live your life not getting drunk,
then selfishly seeking
to live for your own profit
and your own good.
Look for every occasion to do good.
Look for opportunities.
In your secret prayer,
ask God, please, open doors.
It's amazing how many times
my wife has said
I asked the Lord for an opportunity
to evangelize and He brought it -
almost instantaneously,
like that day.
Right away.
I find that to be true too.
You ask the Lord for opportunities to do good,
the door will swing open.
Just ask Him.
Ask Him.
Brethren, we are one of the richest countries
that has ever lived.
Well, you say, there are oil countries
over in the Middle East.
That doesn't matter.
In light of all of human history,
we are one of the richest countries
that has ever existed.
The average person in this country
is so incredibly wealthy
compared to the poverty you find
in other places.
You know why you've been given those riches?
To do good with it.
The rich are told to do good.
Look for every opportunity.
Brethen, look around you.
There are needs everywhere.
You know the Gospel.
What a mess of good you might do
knowing the Gospel!
Look, we have that message
that men need to hear.
How are they going to believe
in a Christ that they've never heard of.
This is the message that empowered by God
is salvation unto men.
Jesus Christ - think about the good He did.
He went to the cross.
He laid down His life.
And He's actually made it
that with all that good that was done,
yet people will not believe
unless we do the good of taking
the message of that cross to their ears.
Otherwise, they die in their sin
and they perish.
Think about all the good we can do.
You have the Gospel.
You walk through this world
and you come back here,
one week, come back, one week, come back...
And if you're not taking
that fragrance of the Gospel out there,
look at all the missed opportunities
of enlightening the world.
Brethren, do good to men's souls.
(incomplete thought)
I know James was saying
we need to order some more business cards,
but we've got tracts.
Let's use them up.
No matter what the financial situation is,
use up tracts and we'll buy more.
Keep those things flowing.
Do good, brethren.
Do good at work, at play, at home, at school.
Relieve people's poverty.
Brethren, if you see suffering,
try to meet it.
Use the spiritual gifts that God has given to you
to help one another,
to serve one another.
Take what God has given to you.
Look for opportunities.
Look for the widow. Look for the orphan.
Look for missions.
Look, brethren, look.
Get your eyes opened.
We need to open up our eyes.
Look, this is not about you being comfortable.
God did not give you the riches that He gave you
in this world so that you can just
keep increasing your standard of living
and standard of living, and it goes up,
and you can wear nicer clothes
and live in nicer houses, and drive nicer cars.
It's not about that.
The rich need to be liberal.
Give and give more.
Go to the jails,
go to the college campuses,
go to the nursing homes,
get involved with this crisis pregnancy.
Brethren, pray for the women's Grace House.
Be involved in that as you're able to.
But have compassion on people.
Try to disseminate some sort of love
to everyone you meet.
If you're just thinking
how can I just show kindness?
Brethren, sometimes it may just be
greeting somebody.
I mean, I'm not saying you have to
do a full three point sermon
to the guy that you meet at HEB,
but it might just be greeting him
and being nice to people.
It's good if Christians are just nice.
But see what happens is
when you begin to intertwine
those secret prayers with the doing good,
what happens is,
God brings power to that doing good.
I mean, He begins to bless it.
There begins to become a reward in it.
You know, brethren, there are some things
we do that don't touch men's hearts.
And there are some things that do.
And the difference is God.
The difference is Him.
And it may have to do with the difference
being in us, but He's able to make that difference.
It comes back to Him.
Brethren, you only get one life here.
And the reality is,
look, if we had two or three
or five or ten lives,
we might waste one of two of them,
but you don't have that.
And we're to be zealous.
And you remember how it is on the end.
Brethren, what was Jesus looking at?
He was looking at the good that people did.
I was hungry and you fed Me.
Brethren, go do that.
I was in jail; you came.
Brethren, go do that.
Go do that.
That's what He's going to be looking for.
Because you know what?
That's just like the things He did.
He did good.
And He tells us: follow Me.
He was zealous of good works
and He wants you to be.
Not mediocre, brethren.
Not mediocre in good works.
He really wants you to pour yourself out that way.
Don't live your life so cheaply
where you're just going around
asking all the time:
what's wrong with this? what's wrong with that?
It's just so cheap.
Brethren, you know what the reality is?
When you go into that secret place,
you can pray,
"Lord, I know it.
I know I can be insensitive.
Take away this hard, selfish,
insensitive heart.
Make my heart full of love for people."
Now, the last one.
The last thread.
Bear with me.
Don't get impatient here,
because this is critical.
Threefold cord - it's when they're all wrapped around.
Listen, if there's not self-denial,
you will not make the disciplined
decisions necessary to get into that prayer closet.
If there's not self-denial,
like I said before,
any good works you do will be cheap
(incomplete thought).
You know the greatest good that Jesus did
was laying down His life at that cross.
The greatest good are the things
that cost us the most,
usually.
Self-denial.
Craig brought up: it's dangerous.
It is dangerous.
And he hit it right on the head: motive.
Self-denial is dangerous
because on the one hand,
the Apostle Paul actually said
people who are seduced by demonic spirits
are going to preach abstinence -
whether that be marriage or food.
Now, you know what the interesting thing is,
abstinence from food
is like lent,
or Catholics who can't eat meat on Friday's.
We look at that and we say,
well, that's demonic.
Then here's Jesus over here saying,
"when you fast..."
I think you know that's not demonic.
But isn't it close?
Abstain from food is what people teach
who have been influenced
by these seducing spirits.
Abstaining from food is also taught by Jesus.
How do we bridge that gap?
Because there's self-denial involved.
Listen, Craig alluded to the passage
in Colossians 2.
You know what Paul warns about?
He warns about man-made religion.
Don't taste. Don't touch.
Have you ever read that?
He warns against asceticism.
Who knows what asceticism is?
It's self-denial. It's self-mortification
of the body.
And he's actually warning against it.
And yet the same apostle comes along
to the Corinthians and says
right at the end of 1 Corinthians 9,
I beat my body and I keep it under.
But you see brethren, the thing is here,
it's all got to do with motive.
Self-denial.
That's the last strand that I want to bring out.
This needs to be interwoven
with secret prayer, with doing good.
Yes, it's fraught with dangers,
but the reality is, brethren,
Jesus Christ said this to us -
in fact, I want to read you Paul's words
before I tell you what Jesus said.
He said, "I do not run aimlessly.
I do not box as one beating the air,
but I discipline my body
and keep it under control,
lest after preaching to others,
I myself should be disqualified."
King James says "cast away."
The reality of that is not standing the test.
And you know what he's saying?
He's saying that I beat my body
and I bring it under control
and I say no to it
and I don't let it master me,
because in the end, I don't want to be cast away.
In the end, I don't want to perish.
Brethren, you know what I love about Paul?
He's never the hyper-Calvinist.
"Oh, well, I'm saved, so it doesn't really matter."
"Well, if I'm one of the elect, I'm in, no matter what I do."
You know, he didn't think that way.
He recognized this,
you need to recognize what he's saying.
He's saying I recognize that my body
has such appetites that if I give myself
into those I may perish at last.
Listen, Jesus said this:
"If anyone would come after Me,
let him deny himself,
take up his cross daily..."
That means die.
Cross - death instrument.
Die daily.
"...and follow Me."
See, we keep coming back to that.
Follow Me.
Follow Him to the secret place.
Follow Him in being zealous of good works.
Follow Him in - you talk about self-denial -
He wasn't born into a wealthy family.
He could have been.
He was born into some degree of poverty.
He went to the cross.
His own ease?
He said, I did not come to be served.
I came to serve.
I came to pour Myself out for others.
That's the example that we have.
John said, "Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains alone."
You want to be fruitful? There's dying.
Death brings fruitfulness.
Dying to self.
Deny self.
Carry the cross daily.
Brethren, let's face it.
By nature - I'm talking about our lost states -
we're soft. We love pleasure.
You know what?
You could say, what about
the guy that goes into the military
and he becomes a seal.
Does he like just soft things?
No, he likes the honor.
He likes the attention.
But see, we're like that.
If it makes us look good,
we'll make some denials
if it makes us look good;
we'll make the denials to be
this kind of athlete over there,
because we want that applause.
But by nature, we are honor seeking.
We are the kind of people
that we seek self-gratification
and applause and pleasure.
That's what we are.
Brethren, the reality is
that when we get saved,
I know that the cross of Jesus Christ
has dealt our selfishness a mortal blow,
but you and I know it's not dead yet.
That principal is still -
that's in operation within us,
and that's why Paul has to come along and say,
I beat my body.
I give it a black eye.
I keep it under.
And that's why you get Jesus
coming along and saying,
you need to die.
You need to deny yourself.
Why? Because, brethren, I'm telling you
just like I mentioned that in regards to Paul,
there is something in our appetites
that is willing to carry us away
if we give place to it.
This is what it is about the Spirit of God
and putting to death the deeds of the body.
It is by this Spirit,
you are putting to death something
that needs to be put to death.
There's something in our mortal bodies.
It likes softness.
You know, one of the things today
with all the wealth that we have,
we have so much softness.
And we don't really even think about it,
I'm afraid.
We are able to keep the temperature
within very narrow bands 99% of our life.
And we scream like -
I know it's graphic -
I just think of Bob Jennings talking about
people screaming like stuck pigs.
But we scream bloody murder,
like my mom used to say,
if we just have to walk from the door
out to our cars and it's 30 degrees.
Oh, it's so cold out here.
We are so soft.
The temperature, the humidity...
And our food.
We are a pampered people.
That's just a reality.
My great uncle came back from
fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.
He came in on like day four or five
after D-day,
and he fought behind Patton.
And I went and talked to him -
he and his wife were in their 90's,
sharing the Gospel with him
over in Tennessee.
His wife said when he came home
from the war, he slept on the ground
in the backyard.
Because he had been so used to that
during the war,
that getting in a bed was unheard of.
We need some of that in us.
Because brethren, we're soft.
Doesn't it seem like they're figuring out
how to make clothes softer?
And towels softer?
And if you would have heard
how we cried when we went to Mexico
because the water wasn't exactly
the right temperature in the showers?
Right, Pete?
I mean, we are soft.
And brethren, if we're going to
live this Christian life
with the kind of sacrifices that
we need to be making,
brethren, you need to deny the self.
And listen, motive has everything to do with it.
If the motive is, oh yeah,
I'm going to make these sacrifices -
so it comes back to the fasting thing.
You see, fasting fits right in
with all this self-denial.
If you do it because you want to be seen of people,
and you want to put a notch in your spiritual belt,
and you want to make sure everybody knows.
Listen, I have a friend I went to high school with.
He's now a Jesuit priest.
He let the whole world know,
right on the Internet - I saw it there.
I was kind of finding out what's going on
with his life.
He tells the story publicly in front of the whole audience
about how when he was a kid in elementary school,
he'd walk - this is back when I knew him.
I used to be his neighbor.
And he put rocks in his shoes.
Why? Well, that's what Catholics do.
This self-mortification.
But the thing is, he had to tell everybody.
I'm not talking about the things
that you go and broadcast.
Paul was setting himself forth
as an example, but he didn't tell us
exactly how he did, what he did -
that's not the issue.
But brethren, we need to
look at our lives.
Look, I'll tell you this.
It doesn't help us to make things
more comfortable, more soft.
So often we can get this, you know,
we're in this day where we have
so much wealth.
We can eat exactly these right things.
All these diets, well,
it's in the name of health, and I'm going to live longer
and I'm going to be healthy.
But I'll tell you this, if all the pampering
makes you soft spiritually,
it's not helping you.
You might live a little bit longer,
but that's not what we need.
We don't need to live longer.
We need to live better while we live.
Brethren, don't go after
all the self-pampering in this life.
Don't do that.
Hudson Taylor.
Brethren, there was a reason
before he went to China,
he went into the inner city.
And he was eating the very meagerest of diets.
And you know this. You've heard it.
He slept on boards.
And he lived in poor housing
in the slums.
Why? He was preparing
to go to China.
And he recognized this.
He recognized that if he's going to
make it over there
being all lavished with the best food
and the softest clothes
and the nice house,
which really is how he grew up;
he wasn't going to do well over there.
(incomplete thought)
You say, well, Hudson Taylor did those things.
I'm not a Hudson Taylor.
Yeah, but the thing that we have to recognize
is how did Hudson Taylor get to be
where he was a Hudson Taylor
and accomplish the things that he did?
There was a lot of self-sacrifice;
a lot of self-denial.
Now, I don't know where I came across this,
but I believe that this was John Piper
that basically pointed out -
he was taking fasting, again,
which is a form of self-denial,
and he put fasting
and young people
struggling with pornography
into the same little message.
And I made a slight little effort to find it,
but I just don't know where it's at.
But you know what he said?
He said you take young people today
who are so wired
to just gratify everything.
We get sick. We take the medicine.
Get sick. Go to the doctor.
Soft.
We're supposed to get out of bed.
You know the Scripture says,
"consider the ant."
The ants often out there -
these fire ants around here are often
out there - you wonder,
how did all those piles get out there?
Well, the reality is,
they were at work
when a lot of us were still in bed.
Get out of bed.
That's one of the self-denials.
Just get out of bed.
You don't need to sleep ten hours a day.
Get out of bed.
Stop with all the softness.
Take up the cross.
But Piper said these young people -
instant gratification;
instant.
I mean, again, I've been reading
Adoniram Judson.
He oftentimes would board a ship
and because of tides and winds,
they would often sit there for three days.
Can you imagine if you got on an airplane
and you had to sit on the airplane
for three days before it took off?
Again, we'd all be screaming like...
what's going on?
We'd get off the airplane.
We'd find some other way.
We don't have patience for that kind of thing.
We want our food now.
We want it the way it is.
Send it back.
It's not cooked just like I want it.
It's not the right temperature.
You know what?
When you have young people that are wired that way,
you have parents that give them everything.
Oh, you want those clothes? Here, have those clothes.
Oh, you want that cell phone? Here, have that cell phone.
And more and more,
you know we get away from agricultural life,
and this is one of the struggles I've had in the city.
It's like putting the children to work is hard.
And so you grow up with this pampered generation,
that knows very little about hard work,
about getting out in rough conditions,
and what happens?
You've so trained those young people
to say yes to their appetites,
that when their body says:
"I want sexual gratification."
It's just like, "yep!"
Just right there.
Brethren, if I could desire something
of this church that there would be -
not the kind of self-denial
that you want to parade,
so that you could tell people
like putting stones in your shoes.
But brethren, you don't need the softest towel
You don't need the softest clothes.
You don't need the most comfortable shoes.
You don't need the most comfortable temperature in your house.
You don't always need to eat all the fancy food.
You don't need to live in the nicer house,
or have the more comfortable car.
You know, it can almost be like,
that automobile doesn't have air conditioning.
We need to fix it!
Well, you know, that isn't necessarily something
that needs to be fixed
for your automobile to do
what automobiles are supposed to do.
Look, I'm the first one to like air conditioning.
I know the heat down about kills me.
But brethren, we are soft.
And the truth is that
there's decisions that we can make
to keep our body under,
like Paul did.
Take up your cross daily.
Adopt a course of habitual self-denial.
Basically, what Piper was getting at is this:
When young people
actually develop the habits of fasting -
that kind of self-denial -
it makes it a whole lot easier to say no
to these bodily appetites when it comes
to sexual problems.
And I just wondered hearing that,
huh, I wonder if a poll could be taken
and everybody was totally honest
and we knew all the facts,
if the young people most likely
to fall into some kind of sexual temptation
are likewise the ones that are least given
to fasting.
I wonder if that correlation is real.
I suspect there's reality to it.
You see, the fat guy
who says, "oh, my stomach hurts," -
I mean, that's one thing.
Being overweight - that's a good indication
that you're not saying no
to these bodily appetites.
You see, the thing is,
when you have secret prayer
and doing good
and self-denial,
oh, brethren, that is a threefold cord
that is not easily broken in the Christian life.
Because what it will do
is it will free you to make sacrifices
even when it's uncomfortable to do good.
And you surround all that with prayer
and bringing down the power of God,
brethren, I'll tell you what it will produce,
it'll produce the kind of life that we find in Christ.
And may God help us to have
as much of the life of Christ
and the strength of His life in our lives
that is mortally possible
for men and women like us who've been saved
to make us as much like Him as possible.
Deny yourselves.
You know what Scripture says.
Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
Is that a denial?
It is.
Make time for prayer.
Is that a denial?
Rather than doing the pleasurable things?
It is.
Take more time in fasting
even beyond this week.
Make this a year of prayer and fasting.
Is that a denial?
That is a denial.
Jesus talked about all forms of denial.
Take the lowest seat.
Don't seek the places of honor.
Serve the Lord in ways that nobody else will know.
Die to yourself that way.
Die.
Go do good things.
Give in ways that people don't even know you do it.
Make sacrifices that nobody else sees
but you and the Lord.
Saying no to your flesh,
even when by all rights,
you could pamper it.
I'm not saying eating a bowl of ice cream,
having a piece of lemon meringue pie...
but you know what?
There can be times and places
when you say no.
We're not going to that party.
We're not going to that get-together.
You know, several years back,
an Assemblies of God church
just south of Monterey asked me
to come down and preach at a missions conference.
I knew that was risky going in.
But, I had a group of people there
and they all wanted to jump and shout
and clap and scream,
and I kind of killed that right off.
But I said to them -
this was a bunch of people
that didn't even have their Bibles.
And look, I had to be honest with them.
I said we're having a missions conference
and you don't even have your Bibles.
I said you're not fit to go.
This group at large is not fit to go.
I said you know the people that end up
making a difference is when
all the other young people are over here
hooting and hollering and having a good time;
it's the person that makes the sacrifice.
They go grab their Bibles
and they go off by themselves.
That's the person who's going to
end up turning the world upside down.
Self-denial.
Sacrifice.
Threefold cord.
Oh, brethren...
Make an immediate beginning.
Here it is 2018. A good mile marker.
If there's something that resonates
in your own conscience,
don't procrastinate.
Immediately. Immediately,
make the determination.
Monday morning - different.
Re-order.
Brethren, this is our life.
Threefold cord.
Not easily broken.
Strong life.
Father, I pray,
help us.
Give us grace,
in the name of Jesus Christ, I pray.
Amen.