And amen. Please take out your copy of God's Word. Turn to the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 12.
! Gospel of Mark, chapter 12. We're going to begin today in verse 35.
And as Jesus taught in the temple, He said,
and for His glory and for our good, we would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.
Let's pray together.
Father, we do praise You this day that You condescended to become an author,
that You used men who were carried along by the Spirit to pen words that have bearing for us today.
And so as we look at these three verses, this teaching of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
I pray that You will work a miracle in us, that You will, by Your Spirit, rightly apply the truth contained in these verses to our hearts.
Change us, Lord. Don't let us leave here looking like we did when we came in.
Make us more like Your Son so that His name will be exalted in the region we live in and in the nations.
And we pray this in the precious name of Christ. Amen.
So if we continue our verse-by-verse exposition of the Gospel according to Mark,
we are now in chapter 12, and this is Wednesday of the Passion Week.
We've been in Wednesday of the Passion Week for quite a mile.
We saw at the beginning of chapter 11 on Monday, Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
Tuesday, He takes over the temple by turning over the money-changers tables,
by stopping the court of Gentiles from being used as a thoroughfare.
And on Wednesday, He's kind of set up camp in the temple,
and He's been confronted by a number of groups of people,
the Pharisees with the Herodians, the Sadducees,
and then a scribe or a representative from the scribes.
And He's encountered these confrontations back to back to back.
Now, we kind of conclude those confrontations, which we did last week,
and you'll see in verse 34 of chapter 12, the very end, Mark records,
and after that, no one dared to ask Him any more questions.
These men, these religious leaders, the elite religious of that day,
were looking to make Him look like a fool,
and in turn, He had done the very same to them.
And so people have stopped asking Him questions.
They have recognized that this is a foolish thing to do.
Now, just in case you're wondering, as we've been in the text,
and I've repeatedly said it is Wednesday of the week,
and you're wondering when Wednesday will be over,
not until the end of chapter 13.
He'll be in the temple until the end of chapter 12,
and then He leaves the temple and continues to teach
some rather perplexing things in chapter 13,
which I am eager to dive into.
We find ourselves with these three incredibly important verses in front of us
as He turns now to teach those who are gathered,
specifically, in this case, the Pharisees.
How do we know this?
Because of a parallel text in Matthew.
Matthew 22, verse 41 and 42.
Matthew records,
Now, while the Pharisees were gathered together,
Jesus asked them a question.
So Mark records Him just beginning to teach,
but Matthew records that He actually was asking the Pharisees a question.
Now, others would have been gathered around Him at this time,
so others certainly would have been hearing the teaching,
but He's aiming this question specifically at the Pharisees.
And I think at this point, the value to us in recognizing this
is to know that, by and large,
these men would reject Jesus,
these religious leaders of the day.
These men were apostate.
They were not worshipers of God.
They thought they worshipped God.
They thought they were worshipping the right God in the right way,
but in fact, they were worshipping Him wrongly.
They were outside the faith itself,
and they were leading Israel in the same way.
Jesus has harsh words for them all throughout the Gospels.
He calls them repeatedly hypocrites, snakes.
He calls them a brood of vipers.
But He has not excluded them from responding in faith with repentance.
Here He once again turns to encounter them,
as we can see in Matthew 22 in this parallel text.
Luke records for us about a man named Joseph of Arimathea.
Most of you are probably familiar that this is the man who owned the tomb
in which Jesus' body was laid.
In Luke 23, verse 50 and 51, Luke records,
Now there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea.
He was a member of the council,
a good and righteous man who had not consented to their decision and action.
That was to crucify Christ.
And he was looking for the kingdom of God.
And so there were men numbered amongst these Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the scribes that did respond in faith to the call of Christ.
So here we see him doing that once again.
And he asks them this interesting question in Matthew.
What do you think about the Christ?
And followed with the question,
Whose son is He?
And they respond to Him,
this is in verse 42 of chapter 22 of Matthew,
the Son of David.
The Son of David.
So their understanding of who the Messiah was to be
is that He would be the Son of David.
And they were right in that.
But they didn't take it far enough.
They understood some of the Old Testament prophecy,
which we'll get to in just a moment.
But they didn't understand the completion of it.
In fact, the prevailing understanding of this day,
of who the Messiah would be,
would be an earthly man that would come
and He would conquer and reign in an earthly fashion.
He would come in a military way.
In fact, these religious leaders were positioning themselves
to be part of that leadership structure.
When He came and overthrew Rome,
they wanted to be first in line to have power
and to have prestige.
But instead, the Messiah comes
as a servant from a lowly town,
the son of a carpenter.
One who comes and lays down His life and dies.
Certainly reigns, but not in the way they thought.
They thought He was merely,
the Messiah was merely going to be a man
who would come to reign on earth.
But Jesus, rightly, is a son of David,
the Messiah.
Old Testament prophecy.
2 Samuel 7, verses 12 and 13.
God speaking to David said,
When your days are fulfilled,
and you lie down with your fathers,
I will raise up your offspring after you
who shall come from your body,
and I will establish His kingdom.
He shall build a house for My name,
and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever.
You see it in there?
Son of David, the Messiah.
Psalm 89, verses 1-4.
This is the psalm of a man named Ethan.
He writes,
I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever.
With My mouth I will make known
Your faithfulness to all generations.
For I said,
Steadfast love will be built up forever in the heavens.
You will establish Your faithfulness.
You have said,
that is, God has said,
I have made a covenant with My chosen one.
I have sworn to David My servant.
I will establish Your offspring forever,
and build Your throne for all generations.
And there are many other messianic prophecies
that speak in the same way.
That Jesus would, in fact,
be a descendant of David.
The people who encountered Jesus in His day
understood this not too long ago.
You'll recall in Mark 10, verses 47-48,
the healing of blind Bartimaeus.
And in those verses,
look at how Jesus is approached.
Verse 47 says,
And when He heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
this is blind Bartimaeus,
He hears that it's Jesus of Nazareth,
He began to cry out and say,
Jesus, Son of David,
have mercy on Me.
Verse 48,
And many rebuked Him,
telling Him to be silent,
but He cried out all the more,
Son of David,
have mercy on Me.
There's many other encounters
in the very same way
where people recognized
that Jesus was,
as the Messiah,
the Son of David,
that He was in the lineage of David.
Matthew takes great effort
to establish this
in chapter 1
of his Gospel account.
Matthew 1, verse 1,
the book of the genealogy
of Jesus Christ,
the Son of David,
the Son of Abraham,
working to establish
that the Old Testament
Messianic prophecy
is fulfilled
in the person of Jesus.
Verse 17 of chapter 1 of Matthew,
So all the generations
from Abraham to David
were 14 generations,
and from David to the deportation
to Babylon,
14 generations,
and from the deportation
to Babylon
to the Christ,
14 generations.
And He, at length,
in those 15 verses in between,
establishes that Jesus
is in fact
in the lineage of David.
So they were right
in that understanding,
but they did not
take it far enough.
And this is the point
that Jesus is making
in our text today
when He quotes from
Psalm 110, 1,
that He is the Messiah
and He is to be worshipped
as Lord.
Not merely a man
that would come and rule
as a king,
but He was to be worshipped
as God.
In the Old Testament,
God gives Himself
the name Lord.
In Hebrew,
the English pronunciation
being Yahweh.
In fact,
Lordship is an
Old Testament theme.
Over and over,
we are told that God
performs His mighty deeds
so that people
will know
that He is the Lord.
Whether that's
His people Israel
or those outside,
those who will be
destroyed,
who are not His people,
we see this as a theme
established again
and again
and again.
Let's look at some examples.
And I just encourage you
to be an active listener.
Don't turn.
Listen.
And write these down
if you'd like to look
at these references later.
Exodus 14, 4.
God says,
And I will harden
and I will harden
Pharaoh's heart
and he will pursue them
and I will get glory
over Pharaoh
and all his hosts
and the Egyptians
shall know
that I am
the Lord.
And they did so.
Deuteronomy 4,
35
To you it was shown
that you might know
that the Lord
is God.
There is no other
besides Him.
1 Kings
20, 13
in a prayer
to be delivered
from a king of Assyria.
And behold,
a prophet came near
to Ahab king of Israel
and said,
Thus says the Lord,
Have you seen
all this great multitude?
Behold,
I will give it
into your hands
this day
and you shall know
that I am
the Lord.
Psalm 83, 18.
Again,
some deliverance
from enemies.
Verse 18,
That they may know
that you alone
whose name is the Lord
are the most high
over all the earth.
Again,
Isaiah 37, 20.
So now,
O Lord our God,
save us from His hand
that all the kingdoms
of the earth
may know
that you alone
are the Lord.
Ezekiel 6, 7.
Last one.
And the slain
shall fall in your midst
and you shall know
that I am the Lord.
So this is a theme
that's established
all throughout
the Old Testament
that God is Lord.
That is,
that He is to be worshipped
with all that we have.
That He is to set
direction for us.
We are to lay aside
our self-direction
and pick up His.
That we are to follow Him
with everything
that we are.
But it doesn't end there.
Lordship is also a theme
in the New Testament.
In fact,
the New Testament Greek
word for Lord
is applied regularly
to Jesus Christ.
A couple of examples.
1 Corinthians 12, 3.
Therefore,
I want you to understand
that no one speaking
in the Spirit of God
ever says,
Jesus is accursed.
And no one can say,
Jesus is Lord,
except in the Holy Spirit.
Philippians 2,
verse 10 and 11.
So that the name of Jesus,
every knee should bow
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth,
and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ
is Lord
to the glory of God,
the Father.
John 20, 28.
This is after Thomas
touches the risen Christ's side.
Thomas answered Him,
my Lord
and my God.
In fact,
I would argue
that the great theme
of the Bible
is the Lordship
of Jesus Christ.
That the redemption
of our souls
is ultimately
about bringing us
back into a relationship
with Him
and changing our hearts
so that we can
worship Him
as the Lord of all.
These men
failed,
by and large,
not only to recognize
that the Messiah
was not merely
the Son of David,
but that He is,
in fact,
Lord.
And so Jesus
gives them
a little sermon.
Did you know
that Jesus
was an expeditional preacher?
I bet
that you guys
wouldn't mind
if my sermons
were as short
as His this morning.
Jesus quotes
from Psalm 110,
1.
Now this is
a massively
important psalm.
In fact,
it's quoted
more than any other psalm
in the New Testament.
I'm going to read to you
Psalm 110,
verses 1-4.
It just sets
a little more
context for us.
Remember
that these men
in the hearing of Jesus
would have
fully understood
this psalm
and beyond it.
They just didn't get
the implications
of it.
They had wrongly
applied this psalm
and Jesus corrects
their thinking
in this way.
So I'm going to read to you
Psalm 110,
verses 1-4.
The Lord says
to my Lord,
sit at my right hand
until I make
your enemies
your footstool.
This is what Jesus
quotes.
Verse 2,
So this is a little
broader context.
text.
And just as a bit
of a side note,
let me just show you
some of the places
that this is quoted
elsewhere in the New Testament.
Peter quotes from this psalm
in his sermon
on the day of Pentecost
in Acts 2,
34-35.
Paul quotes from this psalm
in his explanation
of Jesus' resurrection
and subsequent reign
in 1 Corinthians 15,
verses 27-28.
The writer of Hebrews
quotes from this psalm
a number of times
in making his case
that Jesus is superior
to angels
in Hebrews 1-13
and in teaching
Jesus' supremacy
over the present priesthood
in Hebrews 5-6,
7-17,
and 7-21.
That is,
that Jesus is
a priest
king.
This is something
that was forbidden
all throughout
the Old Testament
and the only other character
we see in the pages
of Scripture
that was both
a priest and a king
is a rather obscure character.
One who is a priest king
over the city of Shalom
whose name was Melchizedek.
And he shows up
after Abraham's first
battle conquest.
Abraham gives to him
a tenth of all the spoils.
There's a prayer prayed
over Abraham
and he leaves
and he doesn't show up again
until the pages of Hebrews
under the inspiration
of the Spirit.
So we see this priest king
in this function
and then we see Jesus
functioning in this way.
Some, I think, wrongly
have said that was
Jesus himself
in Abraham's day.
It doesn't really matter.
The point being
that Jesus now
makes propitiation,
makes sacrifice
on our behalf
the perfect sacrifice for us,
stands in the gap
between us and God
and also rules over us
as Lord.
And this is what this psalm means.
It's such a beautiful psalm
speaking of the coming Christ.
And Jesus very simply says to them
using really basic logic,
verse 37,
if David himself calls him Lord,
how is he merely his son?
This is the way
to understand this.
How is he just his son?
Just a son of flesh,
right?
That would come and rule
in the way that David ruled.
He would rule in a much more
mighty way
as a priest king.
David recognized
the coming Messiah
as his Lord.
This is the pressing point
that Jesus is making.
David got it.
He got that the coming Messiah,
the one that would be
prophesied to be
one day of his lineage,
was the coming Lord.
What you believe
about Jesus
is the most important thing
about you.
What we believe
to be true about Jesus
is the absolute most
important thing
about us.
There are many
erroneous understandings
of who Jesus was
or is,
depending on the understanding.
Muslims believe
that he was a prophet,
a real man.
He existed.
He was a prophet.
He had wise things
to say from God,
but he was merely
a predecessor of Muhammad.
Jehovah's Witnesses
believe that he was
not God incarnate,
but a created being.
In fact,
they believe that he was
Michael the Archangel
before he was recreated
as a perfect man.
Mormons,
those known of
the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints,
believe that Jesus
was a, again,
created being,
a man who became
a God,
and therefore they believe
that the same can be true
of them.
Many evangelicals
believe that Jesus
is their homeboy
to their everlasting shame.
And evangelicals
also want to separate
the recognition
of Jesus as Savior
from their devotion
to Jesus as Lord.
Two separate things.
And I say to you
that the two
are inextricable.
They cannot be separated.
If Jesus is,
in fact,
your Savior,
then he is,
in fact,
your Lord.
Now,
in Romans chapter 10,
some of this
misunderstanding,
verses 9 and 10,
upon a simple reading
of it,
Paul writes,
now in this
is in the midst,
remember,
of him talking about
God's sovereign purpose
over saving a people,
his elective purposes,
that he has moved
the gospel from beyond
the Israelites
to the Gentiles,
but yet he's still
including Jewish people
in this.
Paul says,
chapter 10,
verse 9,
because if you confess
with your mouth
that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart
that God raised him
from the dead,
you will be saved.
And then verse 10,
for with the heart
one believes
and is justified,
and with the mouth
one confesses
and is saved.
And so they want to say
that simply making
a profession
is salvific.
Simply saying
that I believe
that Jesus is Lord
is in and of itself
salvific.
But if you really look
at these words,
the word believe,
every time it's used
in the New Testament,
it's one Greek word,
and it's written
in the indicative mood,
which means that
the writer's portraying
something as actual,
something that's actually
carrying out
and having real effect
versus intended.
So we may believe,
I think most of you
have probably flown
on planes,
but for those of you
who haven't,
I'm sure you believe
that planes do fly.
You've seen them fly.
But it's not really
a belief in this verb's sense
until you get on the plane
and let it take off.
If you didn't believe
you'd get back
off the plane,
at least I hope you would,
unless you're just a fool.
But it has real effect.
It's working things out
in your life.
There's a result
of the belief,
something that is tangible,
something that can be measured.
But people try to pull them apart,
and I think this often happens
because of our experience
in American evangelical Christianity.
Many of you have had
this experience.
You come to faith.
You believe you come to faith.
Maybe you do.
Maybe you don't.
This is a big wrestling
in your mind.
But you come to faith
at a very early age.
You're taught the gospel
in church and at home
at a very, very early age.
And you give some response.
You give some opportunity
to respond to the gospel.
But then what happens
is the church shelters you
for decades.
pulls you in
and protects you
from the world
and maybe teaches you
some things about being moral,
like be obedient like Abraham
or be brave like David,
but doesn't really press you out
into the world
and see that as a Christian,
you are automatically
given a mission
in this world.
So there's an equipping period
of 15 to 25 years.
Someday you'll be grown up enough
in your faith
to begin to work with God
in the world.
This is a great shame.
What does it take
to be equipped to share
the good news of Jesus Christ?
If you're a believer,
you have it.
The Spirit of God
and the gospel,
which I hope you know
because you responded to it
in faith.
You have this equipping,
but we sit around
on our hands
just waiting
and waiting
and waiting.
And so there's a fear
for many evangelicals
that we're going to tend
towards a works-based salvation
if we're saying to people
in these settings
that there must be
something tangible.
There has to be fruit.
If you're going to be
a good tree,
there has to be fruit.
Is this not scriptural?
So what they want to do
is say,
you can just say
that you're a good tree
and that's good enough
for us.
Jesus is your Savior
if you say you're a good tree.
And at some point
in your life,
embrace Him as your Lord
and begin to bear fruit.
We cannot separate
the two things, beloved.
They cannot be
separated apart.
There's this great emphasis
in our time
placed on conversion
at the neglect
of discipleship.
The Great Commission
is for us to go
and make disciples.
There's this great emphasis
on growing in breadth
and not being concerned
at all about growing
in depth.
If you're going
to follow Jesus,
you cannot simply
follow Him
to the end of an aisle
and stop there.
It does not work
that way.
And this is what Jesus
is saying
to the Pharisees.
They were going
through the religious motions.
Some of them
were the right motions.
Just done
with the wrong
motivation.
Right?
We are to
empty
ourselves.
Self-determining.
We no longer
worship us.
We now worship
Jesus
as Lord.
This isn't new
at this point
in the text.
He said this before.
Turn back to Mark
chapter 8.
beginning of verse 34.
And calling the crowd
to Him
with His disciples,
He said to them,
If anyone
would come after Me,
follow Me,
Be My disciple.
Let Him deny Himself
and take up His cross
and follow Me.
Oh, you can meditate
on this for your
entire life.
Verse 35,
For whoever would
save his life
will lose it.
But whoever loses
his life for My sake
and the Gospels
will save it.
Empty ourselves
and follow Jesus
to go wherever
He goes.
And beloved,
there is so
much example
given to us
of the way
in which Jesus
functioned
and the places
in which He went
that we have
plenty of growing
to do
in this regard.
Listen to Paul's
exhortation
in 2 Corinthians 13.5.
Examine yourselves
to see whether
you are in the faith.
Test yourselves.
Or do you not
realize this
about yourselves
that Jesus Christ
is in you?
Unless indeed
you fail
to meet the test.
What is this test
that we're being
exhorted to do?
I have sat
under many,
many preachers
that want to make
this test
the remembering
of a date
and an activity,
an action.
Tell me that's not
works-based.
Right?
Write it down.
Oh, write it down
in the front of your Bible
so if you ever have
a doubt,
you can look
at that page
and then you'll know
that you're found
in Christ.
That you've declared
yourself a good tree.
Phariseeism.
This is a message
from the devil.
Air conditioning.
Right?
On a train ride
to hell.
This is not good
for people to hear.
What is the test?
The test is fruit.
And we're exhorted
to do it.
Now hear me,
the works do not
save us.
But the works
are the evidence
of God's salvific work
in our hearts.
If I asked you
this morning,
how do you know
this morning
that you're alive?
None of you would say,
because I have a birth date.
Let me share my birth date
with you.
You would give some evidence
to that fact.
Well, I'm standing
in front of you.
Look, I'm doing the things
that living people do.
Right?
Descartes would have said,
I think, therefore,
I am.
Right?
None of you would go,
well, I have a birth date.
So, of course,
I'm alive.
This is foolishness
and this is what is happening
in our churches.
Turn to 1 John 3.
The great effort
of John's first letter
is to give us
a lens by which
to hold our lives up to,
to compare to.
How do we test ourselves?
How do we know?
1 John 3,
beginning in verse 4.
Everyone who makes
a practice of sinning
also practices lawlessness.
Sin is lawlessness.
You know that He appeared
in order to take away sins
and in Him there is no sin.
This is Christ.
Verse 6.
No one who abides in Him
keeps on sinning.
No one who keeps on sinning
has either seen Him
or known Him.
Little children,
let no one deceive you.
Whoever practices righteousness
is righteous
as He is righteous.
Whoever makes a practice
of sinning
is of the devil
for the devil
has been sinning
from the beginning.
The reason the Son of God
appeared was to destroy
the works of the devil.
No one born of God
makes a practice
of sinning.
For God's seed
abides in Him
and He cannot keep on sinning
because He has been
born of God.
By this it is evident
who are the children of God
and who are the children
of the devil.
Whoever does not
practice righteousness
is not of God
nor is the one
who does not love
his brother.
We are all indicted
by these words,
are we not?
So we need to wrestle
with this a little bit.
Right?
All of you who are perfect,
raise your hand.
No one, right?
None of us, right?
We have been set free
from sin
and yet we continue
to sin.
The great struggle
of Paul
in Romans chapter 7.
This body of death
that he carries around
that draws him
into the things
that he doesn't
want to do.
And this is the nature
of Christian living.
This ebb and flow
of righteousness.
Seasons even
that we go through
in our Christian lives.
And so John
is not saying to us
that if you sin
you are not found
in Christ.
There's a status,
right,
that is given to us
by our faith
in him.
But the general
trajectory of our living
should be towards
righteousness.
I don't know if
everyone in the room
can see the bald
cypresses outside.
Do you see this orange
tree that's blocking
that entire window
right there?
There's two of them
on either side
of the sidewalk.
And these are really,
really neat trees
called bald cypresses.
And most of the year
they're very green
and beautiful.
They're a deciduous
pine tree
and they turn
this beautiful orange
color for like a week
and they drop
all of the needles.
Likely,
next week
there will be not
a single needle
on either of those
two trees
and they'll all be
all over the ground
desperately needing
to be cleaned up
from the sidewalk
down there.
A really fascinating
tree.
A good portion
of the year
these trees look dead.
Totally lifeless.
If you didn't know
what they were
you would definitely
cut them down.
You'd go,
this looks kind of
like a pine tree
with no needles on it.
It's definitely dead.
Our lives are that way
at times.
No real experience
of the presence of God
in our lives.
We just seem to love
sin so much
appearing dead.
I've been coming
to this building now
for quite a few years
and I can tell you
that the general trajectory
of these trees
is that they're alive.
Every year
when they look dead
I know that they're not dead
because they continue
to grow
and year by year by year
they get a little bit bigger
and they encroach
on the building
a little bit more
and a few more branches
have to be pruned off of them
so that we can walk
down the sidewalk
and the roots
continue to advance
across the playground
and pop up
from time to time
across the playground
like I know
that they're alive
because of the general
presence of life
in those trees.
So John's not saying
to us that we have
to be perfect
in every way
but that we should be
generally hating sin
and generally
loving righteousness.
if this isn't true of you
then you are not
found in Christ.
You have not
recognized Him
as Lord.
You've added Him
as a slip of paper
of fire insurance policy
that you folded up
and you stuck
in your back pocket
which is of no value
to you whatsoever.
If your heart
has not been changed
if you have not
been propelled
by the work
in your heart
of the Holy Spirit
to follow Him
to worship Him
as Lord
then you are not
found in Him.
Repent
and believe.
Repent and believe.
Pray that He would
do a work
in your life
like that.
And for those of us
who have recognized
Him as Lord
but yet deal with
the day-to-day
how do we continue
to submit ourselves
to Him as Lord?
I have to say
that that very question
which I know
none of you asked
but I posed it to you
as well
demands the point
that I'm making.
Those of us
who are found
in Christ
who call Him
Savior and Lord
should know
how to follow Him.
He has spoken
to us
by His
Word.
This is the way
in which we came
to Him
by the work
of the Spirit
in our lives
that we would
continue in that
and that we would
go to His Word
to know Him.
This is the way
in which we continue
to submit to Him.
Young people
so many of you
want to know
the will of God
for your life
but it has really
nothing to do
with Lordship
and submitting
yourself to Him
day by day
week by week.
It's really just
because you want
answers
and it is your hope
that if it's God's answer
that it's going to be
a good one
that's going to work
out favorable
for you.
Self-serving
in that way.
You don't submit
yourselves daily
to the Lord
and say
what would you
have me do
in this day?
What major
should I have?
Who should I marry?
Where should I live?
Where should I invest
in church?
Who should I be
sharing the Gospel
with?
Your search
serves your ends
and not His.
Many of you
want to know
the will of God
but you don't
know your Bible
and He has revealed
His will to us
in the Scriptures.
Our Lord
has written us
a book.
We should know it.
Why do we neglect
this so much?
Recognize
that there is a battle
a war being waged
within you
to get you away
from this book.
To hear God speak
day by day
by day
and submit yourself
to what He would
have you do.
Practice
the revealed
will of God.
All that other stuff
the petty stuff
who you'll marry
where you'll work
where you'll live
where you'll go to church
will all sort out
in the end.
Submit yourself
to the Lordship
of Jesus Christ.
Stop being
self-determining
and then always
submit
to Him.
This is what it means
to be a Christian,
to be
a disciple
of our Savior
and Lord
Jesus Christ.
Let's pray together.