Fellowship in the Word

Announcer: Today, on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Bill Gebhardt: It's part of the mind, emotions, and will. And you know what the free will is? You know what it loves more than anything in a sinful person? Freedom. I love freedom. I can do what I want to do. I can do anything that I want to do. I have free will.

He said, "Yeah, that's why you won't come to me. You think you're free." He said, "Because you have forgotten me. You completely forgot me. You see, and once you do, you're so prone to drift." He said, "Can a virgin forget her ornaments or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number."

Announcer: Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church, located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world.

Bill Gebhardt: We have three enemies in the Bible; it's called the world, the flesh, and the devil. There are three enemies. Now, they speak constantly to our mind, emotions, and will. Constantly. It’s always happening. And by nature, because we have a sin nature and we have a new nature, but by our old sin nature, we buy into what it says. You see, we buy what it says: "Yeah, that's who I am." And then we can justify our sin before God.

The example I use: think of David. Okay, now, scripture says it was the time of the year where the king should go out to war. David's king. And by the way, he's a tremendous warrior king. He didn't go this time. "I'm staying here." Wonder why? I wonder why he's staying home? Well, I think you know why. That was no accident that he walked up on the roof. He’d been planning that for some time. He's probably thought about that before.

So he goes up on the roof and he just happens to see Bathsheba bathing on an adjacent roof. Look at that. And something's beginning to happen to David. He sees something starting to happen to him. He says, "Go and get her and bring her to me." Whoa. So you know what happens. Then it turns out Bathsheba’s pregnant.

"That's difficult. I can handle that. Bring Uriah her husband back." And they told Uriah, "Hey, I know you’ve been at the front, fighting away. Go spend some time with your wife." That way everyone will think you made her pregnant. Ah, Uriah said I’d never do that. He's a Hittite. Here's the man after God's own heart's telling a Hittite to go be with his wife and the Hittite has more resolve than David and said, "I would never do that. The other men are still at the battle."

So then David says, "I need a plan B." So he brings in his general and says, "Okay, the next time you have a big thing and we say charge, put Uriah in the front. When we all run forward, stop at one point, let him run, and then he'll be killed in action. And then everyone will think that he still made his wife pregnant." Now how low can you go? But he did.

Now what is going on in his mind? "I meditate on your word day and night." David wrote those words. Was he meditating on God's word? Not at all. You see, not in any sense. He probably rationalized that, "Hey, look, I'm king. I can do anything I want." Or he might have said, "Who's going to hold me accountable? I'm king."

And by the way, to understand how much he thought of that, for one year he never even confessed the sin, until God sent Nathan to make him confess. What happened to David? His flesh. His flesh. You see, that's the way this works.

James 1:14 says this: "one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust." There's no sin in temptation, but there is once it becomes lust. You see, once it becomes lust, now that lust and that desire takes over. And the next thing you know, you find yourself sinning.

And one of the reasons you do that is you've now are comfortable with it because you hold on to the distorted image of yourself that you were before you became a believer in Jesus Christ. And so a lot of times you don't even feel, in any sense, this idea of guilt. That's the way this whole thing works, this idea of lying to ourselves. Bart's right; we lie to everybody.

Now, I want to show you how this can be magnified in a much larger group. Go with me to Jeremiah chapter two in the Old Testament. Jeremiah chapter two. This is an amazing chapter. And if you've read it and know it, you'll know it's amazing. If you haven't, you might be a little bit shocked at the language that is used here. But it is very, very clear what God is trying to say. Jeremiah two.

"Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Go and proclaim," he said, "in the ears of Jerusalem, and thus say, thus says the Lord." He says, "Jeremiah, go to Jerusalem and prophesy." Jeremiah is a prophet before the exile going into Babylon. He's a pre-exilic prophet. Now, his job is to try to stop Israel from what they've been doing and turn Israel back to God. He fails, but God even told him, "You'll fail, no one will listen to you." And he does fail. But that was his job.

So notice what he says. "Thus says the Lord: I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, and your following me in the wilderness, through a land you had not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord." He said, "You know what? I remember you when I brought you out of Egypt after 400 years of slavery. I remember how happy you were."

By the way, do you remember when you came to Christ? Do you remember that? Do you remember how you felt when you understood the grace of God? Your sins are forgiven. Wow! Free indeed! I mean, wow! God says, "Yeah, you remember it, and then you forgot it." You see, then you ended up forgetting it.

That's exactly what he says. He says, "the first," he said, "of his harvest. All who ate of it became guilty; evil came upon them, declares the Lord." I protected you. I protected you there. He says, "Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord." Now, this is interesting what happens. The first thing is they ignore God. But notice what happens secondly here.

It says, "What injustice did your fathers find in me, that they went far from me and walked after the emptiness and became empty?" Here's what God is saying when you drift away from God: "It’s not my fault. Not my fault." That's what he's saying in Israel. "Accuse—what did I do wrong?" God didn't do anything wrong.

Sometimes people are kind of funny because when they're talking about in other instances, too, they always say to me sometimes, "You know, I’ve been praying but it seems like God moved a long ways away from me." He did not move. You moved. You see, when you feel a distance between you and God, that's you moving. God said, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you. I'm here all the time." You see, that's God. This is his promise. "I'm here."

Well, notice he says this, and then he says, "You can't blame me." He said, "They did not say, well, where's the Lord, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, who has led us through the wilderness, out through the land of deserts and the pits, through the land of drought and of deep darkness, through the land that no one crossed and where no man had dwelt?" You never even asked where I was.

Why didn't they? Desire. The sin and drift away from God. That's why. Who are they? They are God's people. How do they see themselves? Completely not as God's people. You see, what are you? Child of God. Do you see yourself as a child of God? Do you see yourself that way? No. Not when we start drifting. No.

So, notice as he goes on. He said, "I brought you into a fruitful land to eat its fruit and its good things. But you came and defiled my land and my inheritance, and you made it an abomination." Wow. Jesus said the same thing to us in a different way: "I have come to give you life and to give it to you—" grudgingly? No. Abundantly. "I've come to give you the best life you could ever have. And you've forgotten it completely." You see, you've completely forgotten it. That's the truth of God's mirror. "I've come to give it to you. Here it is." "I'm ignoring that. I'm thinking in a different way with my desires."

He said, "The priests did not say, where's the Lord? And those who handle the law did not know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after the things that did not profit." It wasn't just you; all the leadership did the same thing. A whole nation of people just drifted away from God. "We're done with you. We're going to ignore you. We're not going to be your people."

Now, go down to verse 23 with me. This is how desire completely can take over. "How can you say, I am not defiled? I have not gone after the Baals." We're capable of this. Whenever you find yourself in sins, what's your first natural response if someone else sees? "I didn't do that. No, I didn't do that. I didn't do it. I'm not defiled. We're God's people."

But they're in sin. You see, he says, "You're in sin, and you say you're not God's people." He said, "Look at your way in the valley, know what you have done." Now, it's kind of interesting: the valleys are often places—the peak tops and the valleys are where they make offerings, but they don't make them to God, they make them to idols.

Now he gets very explicit. What does this look like to God who loves you? What do you look like when you drift from God as a child of God to the God who loves you? Here's his description: "You are a swift young camel entangling her ways. You are a wild donkey, accustomed to the wilderness, that sniffs the wind in her passion; in the time of her heat, who can," he said, "who can turn her away?"

Now, I remember many years ago reading this from a guy who was writing a commentary on it and he translated a little bit different. You know what you are when you've really drifted away from God like they did? You're a she-ass in heat. That's what you are. Now, tell me, in the natural world, tell me how much love and romance exists? None. Well, what happens when an animal goes into heat? Yeah.

In fact, in another place in Jeremiah, he says, "You would back up against anybody as a wild donkey." He's talking to people here. What are they doing? What they want to do. From their desire. This is what they want to do. He says, "That's the way you are." He said, "All who seek her will not become weary. She's easy to find. You can't miss it."

He said, "In her mouth, they will find her; in a month they will find her. Keep your feet from being unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, it is hopeless. No, I have loved strangers, and after them I will walk. I'm enjoying this." Wow. Then he goes on and he says, "A thief is ashamed when he's discovered, so the house of Israel is ashamed when they're discovered."

That always tells you something about our depravity. When do I feel shame? When I'm found out. When I drift away from God, I feel shame when I'm found out. And I've seen it over and over, Christians who really—they'll cry a lot of crocodile tears when they're caught. When should we? When we've sinned.

You remember see how Paul said it? Paul's life was nothing like what I think David was doing like that, but Paul said, "I find myself doing things I shouldn't be doing and I don't want to do those things." Paul was immediate about his response. But these people have no immediacy. They have no shame at all.

He said, "The only time they're ashamed now is I've now told you what you've done and there are going to be consequences and we hate consequences. We love sin, but we don't like consequences. But the problem is, consequences always come with sin. You can't escape it. That's the way it works."

So he then says, "They, their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, who say to a tree, you're my father, and to a stone, you gave me birth." You gotta love this. What's he talking about? Idols. Trees, wood. Stone, stone. Guess what all the idols are made out of? Wood and stone. So they pick up their piece of wood and say, look what he says right there, "You are my father." And then they pick up a stone and they say, "You gave me birth." You see, you're giving your meaning to something other than God.

He said, "That's what you're doing. For they have turned their back to me and not their face. But in time of their trouble, they will say, hey, how about a rising and saving us now?" And that's what they do over and over again. The whole book of Judges is that. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes, so they would drift away from God. God would send a judge, he'd bring him back. As soon as they got back, they'd say, "Isn't God great?" then they go drift away again and it repeated the cycle over and over. But notice once they're there: "Now God, where are you? I need you to save us."

God says, "But where are your gods which you made for yourselves? Why don't you ask them?" He says, "Let them arise if they can save you in the time of your trouble. For according to the number of your cities are your gods. You have innumerable gods you believe in. Have one of them save you now."

"Why do you contend with me? You have all transgressed against me, declares the Lord. In vain I have struck your sons; they accepted no chastening. Your sword has devoured the prophets like a destroying lion. I chastened you; you didn't care. You kept on sinning. I sent prophets to speak to you, and you killed them because they spoke to you."

"O generation, heed the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of thick darkness? Why do my people say, we are free to roam; we no longer have to come to you?" There's the great statement of something. It's called free will. It's part of the mind, emotions, and will. And you know what the free will is? You know what it loves more than anything in a sinful person? Freedom. I love freedom. I can do what I want to do. I can do anything that I want to do. I have free will.

He said, "Yeah, that's why you won't come to me. You think you're free." He said, "Because you have forgotten me. You completely forgot me. You see, and once you do, you're so prone to drift." He said, "Can a virgin forget her ornaments or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number."

Two great images. One is when a Jewish girl was a virgin as a young teenager, she wore an ornament. And everyone who saw her with that ornament said, "There's a virgin teenager." And that was considered to be something in her culture. In our culture, it's almost a disgrace. Our culture views it completely different. But that ornament told you something.

Well, how about this, though? The next statement he uses is "or a bride in her attire." I'm just guessing here. Any of you ladies that are married, can any of you have any idea what you were married in? What your dress was like? You all forgot, right? I never met a woman who did. Why? "It’s my wedding day." You see, why'd I look in the mirror so long? "It’s my wedding day. Look at my dress." And I'm not going to ask for hands, but how many of you from decades ago still have that dress hanging somewhere? Why? "That’s the day I got married."

You see what he said? And yet you'll never forget your wedding dress, but you can forget God. That's what he's saying. "Why do you forget me? How could you forget me and what I've done for you?" That's his point, and it's a tremendous point in what he does. So you can see this possibility of us just drifting away from God.

So what I want to close with is here, I just want to ask you a few questions. Here's the first question. But I want you to think about it. Who am I? I mean, really, who am I? That's an important question. Ask yourself with that question: what part in my past with my parents, my friends, who am I from my past?

Then ask yourself the other part of the question: who does God say I am? Who am I? Who does God say I am? Now how do you think about yourself? What do you think about yourself? Where's your identity? And for so many of us, it's back to what happened; the mirrors of the world's got us. "That's who I am." But you're not. That's what God's trying to say. You're a new creature in Christ.

How much have I allowed God's word to renew my mind? How much? You see, is God renewing me? Am I listening to that, or is the world, the flesh, and the devil constantly speaking into my soul and my will and my emotions and my mind, and it takes me to drift away?

And we all know it's true. You remember all the old cartoon shows? Remember there's a devil in one shoulder, right? And there's an angel in the other, and they're whispering in your ears. But I can tell you this with most people, I think if you're going to flick someone off, it's going to be the angel. We listen to the devil because it speaks to my sinful desires, my independent free will to sin. You see, that's what he is saying.

The third question and last one: how do I justify my sin against God? By the way, and don't deny it; we all do it. Everybody justifies her sin. If any of you ever said something and you knew you sinned against someone and then you saw a response and what'd you say? "I didn't mean it that way. I didn't mean it that way." Really?

Or one of my favorites as a teenager: "Hey, everybody else was doing it. All my friends were doing it." You see, how can I justify my sin? "I have needs. I have needs." There's my justification. You see, that's a good question to ask yourself: how do I justify my sin against God?

Next week, I'm calling this part two, but what I want to talk about is how far can I drift away from God as his child? And by the way, we have a word for it in our language, but I hope that word becomes more meaningful to you next week. It's called addiction. That's how far we can drift. Let's pray.

Father, it’s such a foundational truth and yet so few of us even think about it: our identity, who we really are. And you like your word as a mirror to tell us who we really are. And yet we ignore it. We simply don't believe it. And we believe a mirror that we've established our whole life, a mirror that distorts the truth of who we are now.

And because of that, Father, we are prone through our own desire to ignore you, to drift away from you, and to sin against you. Father, I pray as we go through this week and next week, we begin to examine ourselves in a meaningful way so that we can live the life that you've designed us to live, a life that brings glory to you and so much good to us. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Announcer: You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you'd just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well.

At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana, 70006.

If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcno-la.org. That's F-B-C-N-O-L-A dot O-R-G. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons.

You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember you can do all this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcno-la.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.