Is it ever good to be back with you today? It seems like forever since I've been here. Thank you for praying for the ministry last weekend in Kansas. Just a word about that, I went to speak at a Valentine banquet for a small church in a Kansas town. It's a rural church. Of course, about anything in Kansas is rural. It doesn't mean it's bad, it's just rural. I suppose they have 200, 250 people in the little town and 135 to 150 people are in that church.
They have one big event every year and that's their Valentine banquet. That is their major outreach. At the Valentine banquet a week ago Saturday night, they had almost 250 people out at the high school or the elementary school gymnasium for a very delicious banquet. I would guess that probably a fourth of the people there did not know Christ. Only the people in the congregation can buy tickets to the banquet.
They give the tickets away to their friends and invite them to come as their guests that night. The banquet's not cheap either. They packed it out. It was a great opportunity. One neighbor of ours from when I grew up was there. He claims to be an atheist. I don't think he's that dumb, but he claims to be an atheist and he had heard the gospel that night. I thank you for allowing me to be there and for your part in praying for the ministry.
Would you take your Bible and turn please to the two key passages for the theme that we're looking at, life's ultimate purpose. I'm thinking of 1 Corinthians 6 verses 19 and 20 and then 1 Peter 2, 9. 1 Corinthians 6 verses 19 and 20 say this, say this, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.
And then in 1 Peter 2, 9, Peter brings to us a complimentary passage and he says, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Thinkers of the ages have pondered the reason for personal existence. Why am I here is a question that probably crosses the mind of everyone at some time or another.
And the brevity of life makes that question all the more urgent. For life is short and it's important that I understand why I am here and accomplish that purpose. The Bible alone tells us accurately what the purpose of life is. Man's reason for existence is the glory of God. The reason that God created mankind back in the garden was so that man would be in his image, in his own likeness, and would thus glorify him on the earth through his rule, his dominion of the earth.
Life's ultimate purpose is to glorify God. And every dimension of life is involved in this. The last time I was with you on January 30th we talked about three dimensions. The dimension of salvation, for example. The reason for our salvation is not just to keep us out of hell, but it is to bring glory to God for all of eternity for his grace and his mercy towards sinners. We are to glorify God in the dimension of our bodies.
And the way that we treat our bodies, the way that we use our bodies, we are to bring glory to God, and two specific sins were mentioned in the context of 1 Corinthians 6, which is our key verse for that. Those sins are gluttony and sexual immorality. We are to absolutely avoid sins that dishonor the temple of the Holy Spirit, our bodies. Anything that destroys them, that breaks them down, anything that displays them in a lustful way is to be avoided.
And then we are to bring glory to God in the dimension of our lifestyle. Even in those areas where the Bible does not give a specific yes and no, the gray area, in those areas we are to bring glory to God by obeying the principles that we talked about the last time in some detail. Now this morning I want to look briefly at three additional dimensions of life in which we should be concerned to bring glory to God. First I want to talk about this morning is the dimension of our fellowship.
And the key passage for this is Romans chapter 15, verses 5 through 7. Now, may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus. That with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.
What we are going to say will primarily be applied to the local church, but it can as well be applied to your dormitory if you are a college student or to your room, to the house that you live in if you are a career person living with others. It can apply to your family, to your husband and wife relationship. I'm talking about all of those spheres in which we have fellowship with other Christians. How are we to bring glory to God in our fellowshipping? The answer is through unity.
Do you know that if you have a group of two, you are going to have a difference of opinion about some things? You know that pretty well, don't you, because of your own home if you are married. You and your wife may agree on a lot, but I bet you don't agree on everything. How much more true is that in a church where people come out of diverse backgrounds and bring to the fellowship of the church their differing opinions about things?
And sometimes even the way things ought to be done as well as perhaps some doctrinal peculiarities and the non-essential doctrines. And yet we glorify God, the Bible says, when there is unity in the church. He talks about with one voice glorifying the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we achieve that unity in our fellowship which glorifies God? The answer that is by each one of us subjecting his personal opinions about things for the good of the whole.
In other words, instead of saying, well this is the way that I see it for the good of the whole. In those areas that are non-essential we say, well you know that's not the way I would do it, that's not necessarily the way I see it fully, but I'm not going to let that bother me. I'm going to seek to maintain the unity of God in the fellowship of our church. It is the maintenance of that unity that glorifies God. Unity glorifies God and conversely division dishonors God.
Now I suppose every one of us who is very old and who has been in more than one church could testify today of what it's like to be in a church where there is disunity and dissension and division. It's just very open and at other times it sees and bubbles and boils below a seemingly a calm surface.
Whichever way it's expressed, whether it be through gossip and innuendo or whether it be through open rebellion as sometimes seen as annual business meetings, disunity dishonors God, and as a child of God, as a part of a fellowship, I must do everything I can to see that disunity does not develop in the church and dishonor God. To put it on the positive side, I must do everything that I can to preserve and to guard the unity of my church.
In Ephesians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul tells us how we do that. This begins the practical application of the book of Ephesians. And as he begins applying the doctrines, he is already expounded. The Apostle says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
I want you to notice that he calls the unity here the unity of the Spirit. I cannot create unity in the church, nor can you. Unity is produced by the Holy Spirit. When He is in control of lives, then unity is very natural. But when the Holy Spirit is quenched or grieved by sin, then disunity erupts. And so its presence or its absence depends upon the church's and the individual's relationship to the Holy Spirit at any given moment.
It is the unity of the Spirit that we are to seek to preserve, not create. How do we preserve the unity of the Spirit? He begins in verse 1 by telling us that it starts with a walk or a conduct of life that is worthy of our calling. Essentially what he is saying here is that unity in the church begins with a personal holiness in the lives of its people. In other words, a separation from sin, a care to be sure that sin is not dominating in the life. That is how it begins.
That is how the Holy Spirit is able to produce unity when people are living in obedience to the Word of God. But it is accompanied by humility. Humility is putting others before oneself. It is lowliness of mind. He talks about gentleness. Gentleness is the same as meekness. It is not weakness. The gentleness, as someone has said, is power that is under control. It is that temper of Spirit that does all things without murmuring and complaining, as the Apostle says in Philippians chapter 2.
It is that willingness to subject myself to others. He talks about patience. The word patience means to abide under a load. It does not mean to be free from it. It means to bear up under the load. It is the opposite of despondency and discouragement. Oh, how discouragement brings disunity to a church. When people get despondent over some situation, it is the foothold for the devil to get in. It is true in homes. It is true on campuses. He talks about loving forbearance.
And here the word means to bear with, to endure. It is long-suffering. It is the opposite of anger. Anger is a sin. Oh, there is such a thing as righteous anger, but do you know even sinful anger boils beneath the surface of so many lives? And when the life is pricked, that anger begins to spurt through and sometimes even to explode. This word is the opposite of anger. My friend, if you are angry toward another Christian, you are in sin. And the Holy Spirit cannot use that to produce unity.
Rather, He uses loving forbearance. And He says, through all of these, we are to be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit. I want to ask you a question.
In all of the realms, the dimensions, the spheres of your fellowshipping with other believers—maybe it is a Bible study on some night during the week, maybe it is your growth group, perhaps it is the church, the small church, your dorm, your campus, your roommate—in all of those spheres for your fellowship, are you seeking to preserve a unity within the bond of peace? That glorifies God when you do. You say, yeah, but the other person—no, my friend. It's not the other person. It's you.
That's where the responsibility is. It's me. We, each of us, must guard the unity of the Spirit. If there is anything I am jealous for in our church, it is this—that we maintain this unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Now having said that, does that mean that we should have a Chamberlain-like attitude, peace at any price? I watched a film last night on public television, which some of you may have seen, regarding the outbreak of World War II and the trace Hitler's rise to power.
Mr. Chamberlain of England made a drastic mistake by seeking peace at any price with Hitler. If he had courageously stood up against Hitler and checked his cruelty and his hatred earlier, who knows what the outcome might have been. But because he sought appeasement and compromise upon appeasement and compromise and peace at any price, history records those awful years of a world war. The same thing can happen in a family or in a church. If we put peace and unity at any price, we're in danger.
If we say, I'm going to give my children anything just so they don't scream and yell—peace and unity—that's a mistake, right? It's those seeds that ultimately destroy the family. And the same thing is true in a church. We are not to seek after peace and unity, for example, to the ignoring of church discipline. In fact, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, the apostle rebukes the Corinthians. Oh, they felt like they had peace in their fellowship. Actually, they didn't have much.
But he says, you are bragging and boasting about the fact that you are including in your church someone who is living in open sin. He says, you ought not to be bragging about that. In fact, he says, I exhort you when you are gathered together to remove that person from your fellowship, to turn him over to Satan. Now, why? Well, for the purity of the fellowship and for the repentance of that one who is living in sin.
And, in fact, in 2 Corinthians we read the man did repent, and he was restored to the church. But he would not have repented if the church hadn't taken the stand that it needed to and removed him from the fellowship. And later on in the verses, the apostle says, do not associate with any so-called brother if he be guilty of living in open sin. Those are strong terms, but there are limitations to seeking after peace and unity. It is not to be to the ignoring of church discipline, for example.
Nor should peace and unity be sought after to the inclusion of unbelievers in our associations and our fellowship. In 2 Corinthians, the apostle makes this clear in chapter 6, verses 14 through the end of the chapter. In fact, it goes into chapter 7. And essentially what he says is this, do not be bound together with unbelievers. Now, why does he say that? Because what fellowship does darkness have with light? They have nothing in common.
This is a day when people say that, well, if they call themselves Christians, let's seek to put our arms around them and let's just love them. And if they're not saved, well, then maybe they'll get saved. My friend, that is not the attitude of the New Testament. In fact, if you look at Ephesians chapter 4 carefully, you'll notice after he says, we're to preserve the unity of the Spirit, he goes on to say that that unity is based upon doctrine.
He says there is one Lord, one God, one baptism, one faith, and so on, right? So unity is based upon doctrine. We are told today that unity is based upon love. Wrong. Love is essential for unity to take place. But there can be unity only when there is doctrinal agreement on the basic things, not talking about the non-essentials. We are told today that we need to associate with unbelievers to do the work of the Lord. Maybe they'll get saved in the process.
That's in contradiction to the clear teaching of God's Word. So there are limits, you see, to fellowship. There are limits to our seeking after unity and peace. It's not to ignore church discipline. It's not to include unbelievers. Fellowship has to do with Christians. The larger that we become and the more diverse that we are as a grace church, the greater the possibility exists for disunity. And that's why it is so very important that all of us seek to glorify God in our fellowshipping.
I'd like for us to think about another area, and that is the area of our giving. Second Corinthians chapter 9 is our key for this. I'm going to ask you to look at beginning in verse 6. I suppose that chapters 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians form the largest body of revelation in the New Testament dealing with our giving. Beginning in verse 6 of chapter 9, 2 Corinthians, Paul says, Now this I say, he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully.
Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion for God loves, a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every good deed. As it is written, he scattered abroad, he gave to the poor, his righteousness abides forever.
Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in everything for your liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God. Now the needs of the saints here were the needs of the Jerusalem believers.
In persecution they had want, the Apostles taking a collection from these churches in Asia and in Europe to take to the saints to supply for their needs. And to the Corinthians he goes on to say, for the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing through many thanksgivings to God.
Because of the proof given by this ministry, they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for the liberality of your contribution to them and to all, while they also by prayer on your behalf yearn for you because of the surpassing grace of God in you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. Now in these verses the Apostle says an awful lot about giving. One of the things he says is that the attitude is important.
He says in verse 7, let each one of you do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion. In other words, as I give to the Lord it is not to be with a grudge saying, boy I wish I didn't have to give that much. Nor should it be with compulsion, you know with your arm twisted out of socket, so that you feel coerced to give. But he says rather let it be cheerful or hilarious is the word, right? In other words, as the offering plate is passed we are all just to laugh.
Sometimes we cry, but God wants us to be cheerful in our giving. There should be an overwhelming overflow of joy as we have the privilege of giving to the Lord. But I will tell you something else that is important. The amount is important too. For he says in verse 6, he who sows sparingly shall reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully shall reap bountifully. In other words, and he is applying this to giving money.
He says if I am sparse in my giving, if I am miserly in my giving, then the blessing that I get from God is likewise going to be sparing. But if I am generous, if I sacrifice, if I give liberally, then God is going to pour into my life the abundance of His blessing. It doesn't mean that God is committed to make us a millionaire if we give a lot of money. That's not the thought here, though some people try to twist it to that.
He is simply telling us that if we freely and cheerfully give to God in a liberal way, and the amount is large, then God freely with a large heart pours blessing into our lives like we could never imagine. Not only that, but as we faithfully give, it says in verse 10 that God will multiply your seed for sowing. In other words, as God sees that I know how to give this amount, then He is going to multiply my ability to give so that I can even give more.
That's one of God's basic principles for giving and stewardship. How does our giving glorify God? Well, in the first place, it meets the needs of others, causing them to thank God. That's what He says in verses 11 and 12 and 13. He says, because their needs are met by your giving, they are going to glorify God. Secondly, He says that as we give, we will learn what sacrifice is all about.
And that will help you and me to understand how wonderful, how indescribable is the sacrifice that He made for us. I think that's why Paul concludes with verse 15 as he does. He says, thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. How do you begin to describe the sacrifice that God made so that we can be saved? How can I begin to understand it? The answer to that is I begin to understand it when I learn what sacrifice is myself. And one way I learned that is through sacrificial giving.
That's one reason I'm glad for this theme, this sub-theme to our campaign right now. Not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice. My friend, that is a good paraphrase of what he says in chapter 8. It's not that everybody gives the same amount, but that we all sacrifice to the same degree. That's God's way of teaching us what sacrifice is all about. And as we learn that, it glorifies Him. And then as we give, God has glorified as we learn to trust Him to meet our needs.
Romans 4.19 is a verse that is so often taken out of context. What does it say? My God shall what? Supply all your need, right? According to His riches and glory by Christ Jesus. Does that mean that God commits Himself to supply the need if I'm unfaithful in my giving? It does not. If you look at the context there, the apostle says, Philippians, my goodness, you have given once, you have given again to meet my needs. I can't believe it. I'm overwhelmed by it.
Now, I want you to know I've learned to be content whether I abound or I have nothing. But he says, you have given to the ministry that God's given to me. There's no way I can repay you for it. But my God will supply your needs. You see how he uses that? He says, you've given sacrificially and God is going to supply your needs according to His riches and glory by Christ Jesus. Let me just share with you a brief personal testimony about stewardship.
I did not grow up with much teaching on stewardship. I can remember in high school thinking that I had really done a lot when I gave an occasional dollar or five, whatever, and put it in the offering plate. I felt like that was my part. When I got into college, there still was no teaching about stewardship. I can remember many times sitting in church and the offering plate would go by.
Everybody else was putting money in, so I pulled out my wallet and got a dollar bill out and I watered it up so nobody could see the amount. It was green. It was a bill. It could have been 10. It could have been 100. But nobody could tell because I put it in such a way that the figure wasn't clear. Then I would drop it in the offering plate like everybody else. I did that really to save myself from embarrassment. Do you ever identify with that?
Then when I went to be an assistant pastor at the church in Covington, Pastor Wearsby got me aside and he said, Brother Call, as they say it in the South, you're now in the staff of the church and you need to set a good example for our people. This is before I gave anything there and he had no idea what my practice was. He said, now in this church we teach tithing and we expect you to tithe as an example. I wasn't getting rich. I was single.
I still wasn't getting rich on the salary I was being paid. Now I'm told because I'm on the staff I need to tithe. So maybe with less than right motives I began to tithe. But you know as I began to do that I began to have joy in doing it. We practiced that for a number of years and then God began to open my understanding to stewardship to see that tithing really is not His basis for giving in the New Testament.
In fact tithing as we were sometimes taught it wasn't even His basis for giving in the Old Testament. And I began to see that there was giving beyond that and that actually giving should be based upon sacrifice and free will and grace. And so our family began to practice giving more than a tithe. I don't say that to pat us on the back, but simply to show you the progression that we've been through, the learning experience that we've had.
And I want to tell you that it's a great joy to give to God. We're entering into a campaign now because we have great need as a church for expansion. And our family we've been praying about what God wants us to do and I'm not about to tell you what that amount is. That's between me and God. And yet God has laid a figure upon my heart which will be a sacrifice for us and it ought to be. It will probably be the most we've ever given to a ministry that we've been involved in.
And I don't begrudge that because frankly I see the need as much as anybody and I want God to be glorified in this ministry. Are you glorifying God in your attitude about your giving? Is God glorified in the amount that you give? Where to glorify God in every dimension? And then I want to close by talking about a third dimension and that is the dimension of suffering. First Peter chapter 4 is our key text for this. This will not be long.
Verse Peter 4 verse 14, if you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Verse 16, if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God. You know there are times when suffering means death. Jesus in John 21 said three times, Peter do you love me? And just after he said that to Peter, he went on to say how Peter would die.
And the next verse John puts this comment, he did this to signify by what death he should glorify God. There are kinds of suffering that are different than that. There are times when physical affliction, disease, to a Christian is suffering because of the limitation or the uncertainty of it. Glorify God in your suffering. There are times when it involves mockery. There are some of you that can't stand to take a position for righteousness on your campus because others would make fun of you.
Are you willing to suffer as a Christian? There are times when it involves physical deprivation or a spiritual burden like Paul had when he said besides all these things I've suffered, I have the burden of the care of these churches. That's spiritual suffering. Whatever kind of suffering my friends you're involved in, glorify God in your suffering. It's not always by death, but sometimes it could be.
We think in this land it can never happen, but I'll tell you what, after seeing that film last night and getting a deeper insight as to what was in the minds of the German people when Hitler came to power, I believe that we are ripe today in our society for another Hitler. You say, come on. I'm serious. We are ripe for another Hitler. The thinking of our society is such that one like Hitler could step into power just as he did back in the early 1930s.
For that matter, we are already sacrificing human life and flushing it down the drain, a million and a half babies every year. Where is the protest in our society? Where was the protest in the 40s, late 30s about the killing of the Jews? We're as quiet as the Germans were then. We are ripe for another Hitler, and it was not long after Hitler consolidated his power that anyone who could resist what he wanted was incarcerated or put to death.
How long do you think it would take a Hitler in this land to, for some national emergency, lift the Bill of Rights and begin to close down churches and to arrest Christians because their positions are contrary to what he wants to enforce in his amoral society? Don't think it so far away or so impossible. Are you willing to suffer to that degree? That's thought provoking. In your suffering, glorify God. Whatever the cost, it'll be worth it.
I suppose the greatest tragedy in life is to live it and to miss its purpose. My friend, its purpose is to glorify God. Are you glorifying God in your fellowship, in your giving, in your suffering? If not, what decision do you need to make? What action do you need to take today so that God is truly glorified in your life? Father, I pray that you'll apply this message as it needs to be, and it needs to be in every life.
I pray that none of us will live life and miss what it's all about, only to stand some day before the judgment seat with tears and regret. But help us now to live soberly and righteously and godly in this present age, for the glory of Jesus Christ. We pray in His name, amen. I'd like for you to take your hymnal and turn with me to 436.