— Brother Phil Enlow: Let me go over, just briefly, to read a scripture in 1st Peter. I believe it’s chapter 2. We scanned through, skimmed through 1st Peter recently, and talked about how God’s gonna judge the church first, and how that was an “honest assessment.”
But drop back to chapter 2, verse 1, because Peter has laid out the reality of what the Gospel is about. It’s a new heart. It’s a new spirit. It’s God’s power. It’s a new birth. It’s something miraculous, and those who have been born of that, now what? And so, that’s how chapter 2 begins.
“Therefore….” Based upon everything I’ve said up to this point, God’s called you. Look what He’s done for you. “Therefore…” talking to believers now, “…rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.” (NIV). Then he goes on, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word…” and so forth. (KJV).
He’s talking to Christians. Jesus’ words were not just directed at unbelievers who were masquerading as believers, or self-deceiving themselves that they were believers. He’s talking about everybody. And you know, in thinking about this subject, I didn’t come here with anything in mind or anybody in mind. I have absolutely no one in mind. There’s a principle here that I felt like God wanted to emphasize, and the closer I got to the service, the more I felt it. I felt like the Lord has just quickened this. I have a need. Anybody here have a need?
( congregational response ).
Yeah, we all do, because we are very good at deceiving ourselves and thinking we’re something that we’re not. We need God’s light to shine, not just in behavioral matters, but all the way down into the very depths of our being, because we don’t know.
But you know, there are so many things. Are we Christians all the time? It got quiet. You know, we know what to do when we come in here. We know to participate and smile sometimes and lift our hands and sing and smile at people and say, hi.
I wonder how many times people will say, hi, how are you doing, it’s good to see you, and then go out and start gossiping, or running somebody down, or slandering or all these things? See, these are human behaviors that the grace of God needs to address, that we need to recognize are part of the old nature, that we have been given a new nature to enable us to overcome.
But we’ve got to participate in this kind of stuff. He doesn’t say, just lay on your couch, and God’s gonna magically take all this stuff out of your heart. He’s saying, you need to do this. You need to recognize these things are in you, and you need to stop it, by the grace of God.
So I mean, that’s just one little example of how we come in and we put on a happy face, or we smile at somebody, but we don’t really have what we need, do we? Do you think that effects anything?
( congregation inaudible ).
Yeah. Jesus calls it leaven. I’m no baker, to say the least. I eat the product, but I don’t bake, and I don’t know anything much about it, other than I know that leaven is supposed to be something you put in, what? Flour? Something. But it has an effect that permeates the whole, and affects how it comes out, so what Jesus is saying hypocrisy is one of those things that’s like leaven. You get a little in there, it affects everything. God doesn’t want His people to be affected by something like that.
You know, we sang, ‘Desiring God’s Presence’. Well, praise God! That’s a good thing to desire, but is this not part of that? There are so many areas where we’re one thing under certain circumstances and another under different ones, and that’s not exactly a good thing.
How many people are Christians in here, but then, you get out there, and you’re in a different set of circumstances, and you’re different? How many are one thing when you’re around fellow Christians and another when you’re around the people of the world and your friends in that realm? Do you just become a chameleon and blend in with your surroundings?
We all have a tendency in that direction if we’re not careful. We need…God wants to have people who are 100 percent given to Him in the heart, where we are Christians 24/7. How many of you would go off to some distant…if you went off to some distant place by yourself, there’s nobody who even knows who you are, let alone being around fellow believers, are there things that you would do that you wouldn’t do if you were around them?
It’s a lot to think about, isn’t it? Is our behavior…how much is our behavior dependent on where we’re at and who we’re with? God wants people who are real. We need to be real, folks.
When you’re alone sitting in front of a computer, or sitting on your phone, of course, in these days, or your tablet, are you real then? Are you a Christian then? Or when you truly are alone, and there’s nobody looking?
I mean, we’re all tempted. We talked about that recently. We’re in an area, we’re in an age especially, a point in the age, when the Devil’s power is reaching, is approaching its zenith. We’re not quite there, but I don’t know how far we’re off. It’s getting there. And we’re gonna have to have what’s real down in here to stand up against that.
And God is going to allow His people to be tempted. Did He not do that with His own Son? We can’t sidestep facing the Devil and overcoming. Thank God it isn’t based on me. It isn’t based on my ability. It’s based upon the cross. It’s based upon One who not only died for me, He took me into the grave with Him! He came forth victorious over sin and death, and He sits on a throne! And He invites me to reign with Him.
That’s wonderful theology, but do we live it out? I’ve been in situations where the Devil has come around and tempted me to kind of let down my guard just a little bit. What do we think about? What thoughts do we allow to, not just get in our mind, but sort of percolate and think about, and they don’t take you to some good directions?
You know, Brother Thomas used to use the illustration all the time, a bird may land on your head, but if that bird comes back and starts building a nest, that’s a different story. Every one of us has bad thoughts. Every single one of us have thoughts that come to us that aren’t from God, but do you sort of nurse that and nurture it?
Is there a spirit of unforgiveness that enables you to just take in thoughts that kind of flow out of that, create bitterness? Just one example. I mean, human nature is something else, and we’re gonna have to get the victory over it through the cross. Thank God, we’ve got a basis.
But, you know, our young people, this is not focused on them, but it’s an obvious example, because we all have been there. Are we one thing in church and another thing in school? If you’re in school, if you can even get there these days. But you know what I’m talking about. Do we just go along because we’re more concerned about what people think of us and whether they accept us?
You know, we don’t have to be religious nuts, but my God, if we’re just like the world, where is the light coming from in this dark hour? We need to be His people. As I said, we don’t have to be self-righteous, religious, rule-keeping kind of people. That’s not the spirit of it, that’s not the heart, that’s not God’s heart. But oh, if He doesn’t make us different….
See, Jesus didn’t despise the sinners. He actually reached out and spent time with them. He didn’t wallow in their sin, but He let them know that there was hope! He opened a door of hope for people who felt hopeless based upon the system.
You know, we talked about how the scribes loaded people down with all kinds of, with a heavy burden they couldn’t possibly carry. And it was all their rules about what you’re supposed to be to be righteous before God. And it was all a big fat lie! There are these poor people, the victim of all these self-righteous, religious people, and Jesus reaches out to them and lambasts the religious people.
I’ll tell you, that’s still God’s heart today. There’s a lot of religion. I thank God for everyone that’s really His. He’s got His people, but I’ll tell you what, there are gonna be a lot of surprises.
You remember the man that talked to Brother John B and Brother Thomas that one time. There will be three great surprises. There will be people in heaven you didn’t think would be there, and there will be people absent that you thought were gonna be there. The biggest surprise of all is that you’re there!
You know, God sees the heart—God sees the heart. He sees everyone’s heart here. He sees those who are in a weak place, and the Devil has gotten a hold in areas of your life because of conditions that are down here like what we’re talking about. There are areas of little compromises. Little, I can do this because nobody’s around to see me.
You know, I’ve had the Devil tempt me in that kind of a way at times, and I’ve had to stop and think, yeah, here I am. Nobody’s seeing me. It’s like I’m standing naked on a lit stage as far as the unseen world is concerned. God sent His angel to watch over me. What am I putting the angel through? What does he think about all of this? I’m not hiding anything. I’m certainly not hiding anything from God. He not only sees my actions, He sees my thoughts, and He sees the motives that are behind my thoughts. We need the Lord, folks.
( congregational amens ).
We need Him in ways that are deeper than we have perhaps thought. The Devil has so many ways of compromising believers. David was a man after God’s own heart, wasn’t he? It’s interesting how some of the things that he says…I mean, you could go through the Psalms and see many things he said, but I’ll just pick a couple that we know.
Psalm 19, I think, was one of them. David’s attitude, he first talks about the heavens declaring the glory of God and how amazing and powerful He is, and he comes down in 7 and following and talks about how the law of the Lord is perfect. In other words, the Word of God is what we need. This is what we need to make us what we ought to be.
He talks about the ordinances of the Lord, down in 10, “They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold…” (NIV). David valued the truth of God above gold and silver and anything that he could have, any treasure he could have had in the world. Do we value it that way? We need to. Oh, my God. Praise the Lord!
All right? “They are sweeter that honey, than honey from the comb. By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors?” Who can discern his errors? Which one of us is so wise that we can say, yeah, this is not what it’s supposed to be. I’ll tell you, God has to convict us.
The truth of the matter is, there are things that probably exist in every one of our lives that we are oblivious to what’s really going on. We need God to shine His light deep down in our hearts so we know the truth. I do. I don’t want to go along fooling myself. My heart’s deceitful, my natural heart. God’s given me a new one. Thank God, my only hope.
“Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.” I think the King James calls it “secret sins.” There are things that nobody else knows about, and that would apply to every believer, not just the ones who think they’re believers that aren’t, but I mean real believers.
There are things about ourselves that nobody else knows about, but God does. And here’s David, a man after God’s own heart, reaching up and saying, oh God, forgive my hidden faults, the things that nobody knows about.
Are you concerned about things that nobody else knows about, but that you’re convicted about because they’re wrong? That’s a pretty good sign if we can feel that way about our own behavior. Or do we just concern ourselves with our appearance before somebody else?
I’ll tell you, we need to have a heart like David that says, this doesn’t have anything to do with what other people think. This has to do with what You think. I want to be real. I want to have the kind of heart that I need to have, and I can’t do it unless You help me.
“Keep you servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.” And then his prayer: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”
That’s a pretty good prayer, isn’t it? Because this gets, this ignores…I mean, if we have this, everything else will be what it’s supposed to be. The world will hate us, and God’s people will love us, the ones that really love Him.
But who cares what the world thinks about me if I am pleasing to Him? That’s where we’re going, folks. We’re gonna have to be willing to lay down our lives if necessary for this Gospel. That’s what it cost Jesus. That’s what it cost all of the apostles accept John, and they tried to kill him. What was it? They boiled him in oil or something, and he didn’t die. God preserved him.
You think about what it costs to serve this God. But it’s worth everything to be born again, to be His. Praise God! Paise the Lord!
I thought about another scripture that David wrote. I think it’s in Psalm 86. And again, I’m not gonna go through the whole thing, but he’s talking about how wonderful the Lord is and how he calls on Him in the day of trouble. But down in verse 10, for example, “For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God. Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth.”
Teach me Your way, and I will walk in Your truth. That gets down to how we live. That’s not just how we live in open relationship to one another. That’s how we live when we are alone, and nobody knows what we’re doing or what we’re thinking, about or going off and doing something.
But he says this: “Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” An undivided heart. You know, James, the book of James talks about people who are double-minded. Under certain circumstances, they’ll think this way, but you put them in another set of circumstances, they’ll think a different way. Folks, we need one way of thinking, and that’s God’s way. We need to have an undivided heart.
Oh God, we are so good at putting on a front for ourselves mostly, but God wants to deal with the other things. Are we one person here, or are we another person in the home? It’s not an uncommon affliction. We need God’s mercy, God’s grace to help us regardless of where we’re at, to be His 100 percent. Thank God!
Well, you know, you take a man like David, and you realize even David messed up royally. Of course, he was a king, but, I mean, he really messed up. He got in such a condition that he committed adultery, committed murder to cover it up, and then, it was something like a year later, he still had no clue what he had done and what God thought about it. Wow!
But do you see where the leaven gets if you let it work? It can take you a long way out of the way. But the one thing that you see in David that you do not see in the Pharisees is a heart that repents. Thank God!
You think about what it meant to be a king. You had the power of life and death. How many prophets went to kings, told them the truth and wound up being killed for it? But here’s the prophet going to David and telling him about his sin, and pointing his finger in his face and saying, “Thou art the man.” (KJV).
You think about David’s reaction. You see where the heart really is. Instead of lashing out, he humbled himself, and there we have Psalm 51. And you think about some of the things that he said there. I’ll tell you, I want to have that kind of heart.
None of this that we’re saying about this morning is about perfectionism. God knows we’re not. God knows we have needs. That’s why He’s addressing this. That’s why Peter said, lay aside these things. Stop being hypocrites.
Reality is, we’re all hypocrites more than we would like to admit. We would like people to have a…to project an image that would cause people to think a certain way about us, but is that entirely in harmony with the reality? God wants us to be real. That’s a good title, by the way, if somebody wants to write that down. “Be Real.”
David says in verse 10, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (NIV). David saw the problem. He just didn’t say I messed up in my behavior. Oh, God, forgive my deed. He realized where the deed came from.
Do we? Do we recognize where our…what it is that causes our thoughts to go in a way they shouldn’t, our secret actions, the places we go on the computer? I mean…it touches everything. Or the attitudes that we have toward people that cause us to run them down and talk about them.
Boy, it has gotten quiet. Is this truth? Is God concerned about this? Does He love us and want to help us? Folks, God wants to clean up the leaven in our lives. He wants us to be real. He wants us to be Christians, whether we’re sitting here, whether we’re outside, whether we’re at work, in school, or absolutely by ourselves, or in another country totally by ourselves and nobody knows us, and we could theoretically do anything and nobody would care. We want to be just as real in every scenario. We don’t want to be real here and then get to the home and be somebody different. We need God’s help.
( congregational amens ).
There’s not a bit of condemnation, but we need to be honest that we need God’s help. But He’s promised it, hasn’t He? What an awesome Savior that we have!
But do you see what Jesus was getting at? The leaven of not understanding the difference between what I am on the outside, and how I see myself and other people see me, and what’s really in the heart.
If we don’t have something that’s real down in here, we don’t have anything, and we need it, and it’s available. Let’s look to God with an honest heart and say, God, You fix what’s broke. Help me. Help me to be honest. Help me to be like David and say, search me, Lord. Do what You’ve got to do. Just work in my life and accomplish Your purposes.
But I praise God! We don’t have to live lives of pretense. God wants us to be real. We don’t have to act real super-spiritual. God wants to make us ourselves but free from all the things that are so wrong with the human nature.
And I understand it’s an outworking of a process, and we’re far from perfect. We need to accept each other and all of that. But we also need to be on that journey and recognize, hey, I haven’t gotten to a certain place, and I’m one the good guys. I got it nailed now. We’ve all got room. We’ve all got leaven that we need to get out so that we can be what God wants us to be. Praise God!
