We do welcome to the pulpit this morning, Reverend Steve Gonzalez. He’s a member of the Great Lakes Presbytery, our presbytery, and the PCA. He serves as pulpit supply in the OPC and the PCA. He was a full-time pulpit supply at an OPC church for a year and a half recently. He’s the manager of a hospice chaplain service. a nationwide company. That’s his full-time job and ministers through that service. He lives in Mason, Michigan, just a little south of Lansing. He is a scuba diver and a table tennis coach, so some great interests there. But he’s preached here somewhere between five to 10 times over the last several years, and so we’re grateful to have the opportunity to hear God’s word through him this morning.

Well, good morning. It is a delight to see all of you again and to be able to worship our great and glorious God together. I’m trying to remember the last time I was here. I think it was within the last maybe year or so that that I’ve seen you here and all of you remain the same age. I think I’ve gotten older though. My hair is falling out and I’ve got more gray than I did last time that I was here. But it is good nevertheless to be able to be together and worship you. If you are visiting here for the first time, welcome. So good to have you here as we worship the Lord our God.

Revelation chapter 4 and 5 will guide our prayer of approach this morning. Let us pray together. Holy and righteous God, the one who is adored by the four living creatures, each with six wings, eyes all around and within, day and night, and never cease to say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. We declare this morning, Lord, along with the 24 elders, that you indeed are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. You are the creator of all things visible and invisible. Nothing has come into being without you first willing and declaring it to be, including each of us here this morning. And we confess that it would be impossible for us to come before you as our holy God and creator without the Lion of Judah, the Root of David first, conquering all of his and our enemies. And it would be to our utter ruin and shame were it not for the Lion of Judah to also be the very Lamb of God who was slain in our place, shedding his human blood in order to ransom a people from every tribe and language and people and nation of whom we belong. We come to you this morning not by our rights, but by your divine mercy and grace. Our praise this morning is weak, but your grace strengthens us. Our obedience falters, but your mercy lifts us up. Give us eyes to see and give us ears to hear what fills the heavens so that we might enter into your presence with awe, with humility, with reverence, with fear and love and devotion. anticipating that glorious and wondrous day when we are not left reading what is filling the heavens, but experiencing it. And then we will join with every living creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying, to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. Remember us, holy and righteous God. Leave us not behind, but draw us to your presence through your Son and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.

The reading of the law of God comes from Exodus chapter 16, Exodus chapter 16. And if you will recall in your history of Israel, Israel had just been delivered out of the bondage of Egypt’s control. And so they were beginning to make their wanderings in the wilderness. And it wasn’t but maybe three or just so days later after God had delivered them and saved them from Egyptian bondage that they began to grumble. God’s blessing and oh how quickly they forget and they begin to grumble at the same time. And it’s important to know as you hear the reading of this portion of God’s law, they weren’t starving. They had food. Nevertheless, they grumbled and they wanted to go back to Egypt.

Verse one of Exodus chapter 16. They set out from Elim and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the people of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. And then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I’m about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, at evening you shall know who it was that the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we that you grumble against us. And Moses said, When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him, what are we? Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord.

I’m amazed at God’s grace given to Israel in spite of their grumbling. And isn’t that true for us as well? Nevertheless, we have much to confess and repent. And yet, even in God’s goodness and grace, he lavishes upon us more than what we deserve. In light of God’s goodness, his mercy and his grace to us, how can we not go to the Lord in brokenness and repentance before him? Let us do so using the words to the corporate confession of sin printed for you in your bulletin. Let us then sincerely confess before the Father. Let us pray.

Almighty and merciful Father, you lavish your benefits upon us, but we complain and grumble. You provide for all of our needs, but we are never satisfied and only want more. We chase after the riches of this world, but do not invest in eternal things, where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. We think it is better blessing to receive than to give. Forgive our sin of ingratitude with which we have repaid your goodness to us. Turn us, O merciful Father, from our sinful thoughts and attitudes and make us long for your kingdom and righteousness. And then we will sing your praise and glory in Christ’s name. Amen. Dear friends, if you confess out of the sincerity of your own hearts, God assures you through his word that your sins have been completely forgiven. From Psalm 51, let us then respond together. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 26, Deuteronomy 26, verses 16 and 19. So fast forward from the earlier Old Testament reading of the law. Now the law had been given at Mount Sinai to the people of Israel. Here we find Israel standing in the plains of Moab, just about ready to cross the Jordan into the promised land. And so the Lord, through Moses, reminds them to commit themselves to obey the word of the Lord. God had delivered them from Egypt. He had saved them, just as God has saved us from our sins. And yet he commands us to follow and obey him. And this is where we find Israel just before they get ready to enter into the promised land.

Deuteronomy 26:16-19. This day, the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all of your heart, with all of your soul. You have declared today that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules and will obey his voice. And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for His treasured possession, as He has promised you, and that you are to keep all His commandments, and that He will set you in praise and in fame and in honor, high above all nations that He has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as He has promised.

What a wonderful testimony of God’s peculiar love that he gives to us. He calls you his treasured possession. Think about that Monday morning when you dread going to work or when you’re in some conflict in life or struggling. I am still, and it doesn’t change, belong to the Lord. I am his treasured possession. From Matthew’s Gospel beginning in verse 25 of chapter six, Jesus says these words,

Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. If you have a copy of God’s Word, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 4. 1 Timothy chapter 4. I’ll be reading verses 1 to 5, 1 Timothy chapter 4 verses 1 to 5. I just want to mention next week we will be looking at the life of Joseph and how he reacted to the news of Mary being pregnant as we look at the approach of Advent. So that will be next week. But while you’re turning to 1 Timothy chapter 4, I wonder if you remember this phrase. Don’t smoke, don’t chew, and don’t go with girls that do. Remember that? How about these? A penny saved is a penny earned. Honesty is the best. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man wealthy and wise, right? The apple never falls far from the And then my favorite one, it is what it is. That’s right. Well, not only are these phrases memorable, they’re also powerful. We’re told what is good and bad. We feel good when we follow them, and we feel guilty when we don’t. They can also lead to bad theology. Phrases or statements that sound good on the surface, but, well, as they say, the devil is in the details, right? Well, Paul is concerned about bad theology that is creeping into the church in Ephesus. There were so-called Christians who took pride in abstaining from the pleasures and enjoyments of life. It makes you more holy, Christians thought. To the onlooker, it really looked impressive. It looked like they had their life all in order. They lived by rules. But underneath the surface, there was a cancer that was growing and attacking the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so it begs the question for us this morning. Does being strict make us more holy? What do you think? Well, let’s see what Paul says.

1 Timothy 4:1. Now the spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

Let’s pray together. Holy Spirit of God, you are the living and the true spirit. And we know that Satan, the author of deception, opposes your word with all of his might and attacks it with lying tongues and false teachers. And so give us insight and wisdom to discern through your word that which is true from that which is false. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.

The world is full of bad theology. A TV preacher of prosperity says, be healed. Jesus died for all of your illnesses. A radio preacher presents a distorted view of Calvinism that makes Christians begin doubting their faith and their salvation. Magazine articles and books confuse Christians as to whether justification by faith alone in Christ is really enough to be saved. The signs and wonders movement overshadows the need for people to repent from their sins. The lies of Mormonism hide behind the truth of family values. Denying ourselves and taking up our cross is irrelevant in the face of America’s obsession with personal rights. Our culture’s value of tolerance makes us shy around others, whether Jesus is the only way to God. Bad theology is all around us, more than what we realize, just as it was in Paul’s day. And so Paul is giving instructions to his young pastor, Timothy, on how life in the church looks, how it should look. And so he warns Timothy that there’s some bad teachings that are creeping into the church, teachings that sound good on the surface, but they hide the rip currents beneath. And this rip current takes them out into the sea of confusion and causes them to sadly abandon their faith. So going back in time six years earlier, the Apostle Paul told the elders on the beach there in Acts chapter 20 that, “savage wolves will come in among you and they will not spare the flock. They will distort the truth and draw away disciples after them.” Fast forward three years after that time on the beach, Paul warns the Colossians against accepting the error that Christ’s atoning work on the cross needed to be supplemented. It wasn’t enough just to trust in Christ, you had to prove it by doing good works in order to be saved. And so the question really is, how in the world did they get to this point? They started off well, what happened? How did they get to this point? One of the growing movements in Paul’s day was asceticism. Asceticism was gaining popularity among the general populace. Ascetics taught that true happiness and perfection in life was obtained by abstaining from the comforts and pleasures of life. In other words, their mantra, the ascetics mantra was, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, do not, not, not, not, not, abstain from every pleasure. That’s how you can be happy and that’s how you can reach perfection in your life. Now, this was a worldly teaching at that time. And so Christians got to thinking, hey, that sounds pretty good. Our culture is going down the tubes and we need a little more abstaining. We need to become more strict. And so certain teachers, knowing that there was a growing number of Christians, began embracing this worldly value and started applying this to Christian belief and practices. And so what they began to do was they began to equate holiness, holy life, holy living, with strictness. The more strict I can be, the more holy I must become, or I must be. If you want to be more holy, abstain. Learn to say no to the comforts and pleasures of life. There was a tsunami approaching on the church’s horizon, and Paul saw that. and he had to address it with Timothy. It’s easy to think, abstaining, saying no, saying no to the pleasures of this life, this world. It’s easy to think, you mean like the Amish? No, like me, you, us. Have you ever noticed that we are very good at creating rules that we can keep? We’re good at that. It makes us feel good. It eases our conscience. And then we use these rules to control and manipulate other people. Be like me. Do what I do. And then you will be holy. Our passage says that Paul is distinctly informed by the Holy Spirit. We don’t hear that often in the New Testament, but here it’s, Paul makes a point to call this out. Paul was distinctly informed by the Holy Spirit that the error in Colossae is now spreading and developing even in the church in Ephesus as indicated in verse three. If you look at verse three of our text, There were those teachers who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. So you can find people in the church today who grab hold of the latest fad, the latest idea, and become so obsessed with it. With the recent emphasis on the environment and healthy eating, ideas and practices can be assumed to be biblical when in fact they’re not. In our recent election cycle, who you are to vote for has risen to biblical mandates and has become a litmus test whether one is a true Christian. How do we get to that point? Paul is greatly concerned about the effects of asceticism penetrating the church. It was sneaky, it was subtle, but nevertheless it was a movement that was growing in the church. And so the Apostle Paul writes in Colossians 2:23 these words, that man-made rules, quote, can have an appearance of wisdom with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body. And then he goes on to say, but they do nothing to save us. But beneath the surface of these lies, lies a cancer that eats away at the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the sufficiency of Christ alone to secure our salvation. So here’s what’s happening. Reason, not God’s word, but reason determines the truth. I have a friend, his name is Ian, and he wrote a book called The Rational Way. And because he’s my friend, I’m reading it. He says that we don’t need an outside authority like God, or even like the Bible, to tell us what truth is. Truth can be arrived at through human reason. We don’t need an authority outside of us. And so my friend likes to remind me often that the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz has been revealed for who he really is. He brings that up quite often. Now you need to know my friend is not a Christian, as you can imagine. but there are Christians who are no different. They elevate opinions or ideas or preferences to the level of biblical mandates or commands or standards. And so what you have when reason becomes your center of authority and that which determines authority, you have man becoming his own savior, his own savior. The ghost of asceticism still haunts the church today in very subtle ways. The savage wolves that Paul referenced in Acts chapter 20, well, they’re here. They’ve arrived in full force. They are persuading people to abstain from marriage. They’re telling them what to eat and what not to eat, certain foods. I don’t believe in this passage that Paul gives us an exhaustive list and tells us everything that they are saying that we must abstain from, but I think it’s probably the two most prominent ones that Paul addresses to young Timothy. And the ultimate source of these teachings really kind of can sound alarming. The ultimate source of these teachings is evil spirits, demons. Paul doesn’t try to be politically correct. He calls it like it is. He says it like it is. These teachings are mediated through humans, or as he calls them, hypocritical liars, those who deliberately contradict God’s truth. Their rigorous rules and their wisdom is a mask that only hides their deceptive hearts. They look good on the outside, but their hearts are far from the gospel of Christ. And Paul says that their consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. What a visual picture that is. burns all the sensitivities, all the nerves. They can’t distinguish then between right and wrong. They are self-deceived, and as such, they’ve become their own moral evaluator. Although they look spiritual and godly on the surface, they’ve abandoned salvation through faith in Christ alone. And they’ve said, you’ve got to do this if you really, really want to be saved. And you know what’s sobering, and it really gets us to think and even examine our own lives as well, is that savage wolves can be sitting right beside us at any time, just as they were in Paul’s day. They can be Sunday school teachers, Bible study leaders, they can be pastors, they can be parents. They equate being more holy with being more rigorous. in their rules. They’re dangerous because they can actually be quite convincing and quite persuasive. And as a result, many are held at their feet in bondage. For God has left our conscience free from the dictates of man. Now, I don’t think any one of us sets out to display an holier-than-thou attitude. We’ve heard that phrase before, a holier-than-thou attitude. We’re certainly quick to denounce this, but in subtle ways, when we begin to elevate good ideas or good practices to a biblical level and expect people to follow them, then what we are inadvertently saying, if you really want to be holy, you must do this. You must embrace this practice or this idea or abstain from that. Listen, if your godly living and practices exceeds that of Christ, that is to say, if your holiness outpaces Christ, then you are unrighteous and unholy, period. That’s what the Pharisees tried to do. They tried to outdo Christ and his holiness. Joshua Shute, the Puritan preacher, said, quote, Beware, if God is not first in his glory, our own glory will be our downfall, close quote. So what is Paul’s answer to these people who elevate their holiness? How does Paul advise Timothy in dealing with this dangerous or honestly, should I say demonic influence? How can you and I guard against modern asceticism? Well, the apostle Paul instructs Timothy in three different areas, and no doubt they became subjects of sermons that Timothy would preach to the people. The first thing is this, that Paul reminds Timothy and therefore reminds us. Everything that God created is good. Let that sink in. Paul goes right back to creation. After each day of creation, God saw that what he had created was good, and he declared it to be good. Now I know it’s hard to see how mosquitoes are good until you learn that they are great pollinators of flowers. But everything that God created, he said, is good. Secondly, as Paul brings out in our passage, because everything God created is good, we don’t have to apologize for receiving and enjoying that which God says is good. God wants us to enjoy his creation. I mean, our short of catechism says that our chief end is to glorify God and what? Enjoy him forever. Enjoy the creator. God calls us to enjoy him. and all that he has created. Whether it’s food, beaches, marriage, or sex, God calls us and invites us to enjoy that which he calls good, or simply the pleasures of life that reflect truth, goodness, and beauty. We are to enjoy. That means we can enjoy our house, we can enjoy our car, our boat, our Legos, and even our Twinkies. God’s created all things for our enjoyment. But here’s the difference, and this is what can lead us astray if we’re not careful, if we’re not on guard. And this is the third thing from the Apostle Paul to young Timothy. Everything that we enjoy must be returned to God in thanksgiving. Think of a boomerang. Remember the boomerangs? You know, you throw it out and then it comes back to you. Everything that God boomerangs to us, we return to him with thanksgiving. We give him thanks for all things that he has done. Everything that we enjoy must be returned to God in thanksgiving. This is what separates us from the world. They don’t desire to do that. And so we as Christians must be different. How that translates in practical things in our life? Your 401k, your investments, the money that you have, you hold with open hand to God. That’s what it means. I can’t spin it. That’s what it means. We must hold all things open with open hands to God himself. We must avoid obsession. The obsessive idea of we must get more. I mean, that’s an American idea. More is better. We must avoid that obsession. Practicing Christ-like identity instead of striving after our worldly identity and acceptance. Simply put, the truth that Paul was promoting was that God created all things for our enjoyment through thanksgiving. God is not some ogre God. He wants us to enjoy that which he has given to us as a gift. Now here is the thing that a lot of people don’t make that connection until you go to the scriptures and you find it. Living a holy life means living a life of thanksgiving and gratitude for whatever God gives to us as gifts or whatever circumstances God brings us into. That is holy living. Is it abhorring and saying no to sin? Absolutely. It does mean that, to live holy. What is often missed is that enjoying and thanking God for his gifts is actually holy living. And that’s Paul’s message to Timothy and therefore to you and me. God’s gifts to us to enjoy are actually made holy by the word of God in prayer. Look at verse five. Paul says, Verse four, for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. And then verse five, for it, that is those gifts that God has given to us, it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. Isn’t that amazing? You think about that. It is made holy by the word and by prayer. A couple of chapters later, Paul tells Timothy to remind his congregation to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. So let’s be clear here. Paul is not advocating hedonism or self-absorption in the pleasures of life. That’s what the world does, and they do it very well. Rather, it’s the thankful acceptance of God’s good gifts that is being defended. It’s actually God’s goodness more than our human freedom that Paul is defending. Even through the conduct that he is defending that’s very human, like marriage and eating all foods because God created them and calls them good. I mean, think about it. What came from God is returned to him in Thanksgiving. What a phenomenal plan. It’s simple, it’s basic, it’s profound. But the natural man or these hypocritical liars are not able to pour out their hearts and thanksgiving to God. Why? Because they focus on thanking themselves. They pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. And they think they are really something because they’ve achieved what no one else can. They focus on themselves. But Paul says something sort of just kind of turns the blade a little bit and said, these people who are liars, they know better because they know the truth, but they ignore it. That’s in verse three. And so Paul’s admonition to Timothy, as well as to you and me this morning here, is to enjoy the good gifts that God has given to you, but to do so with open hands. Everything that you have, God has graciously loaned you, given to you. And so it’s only right that we hold everything with open hands before the God. He’s good to give them to us, and he’s also wise when he must remove them from us. A regular practice of open hands keeps us from worshiping created things instead of the creator. You know, this is really a good reminder for us as we approach Thursday with Thanksgiving Day. Even before we were a nation, the first Thanksgiving Day on the North American continent was proclaimed by Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Plantation after the Great Harvest of 1621. But then in 1789, before some of you were born, okay, President Washington appointed Thursday, November 26th, as a day to give thanks to God for the establishment of a form of government necessary for safety and happiness. Even human government is a gift from God and is inherently good. Even though human sin can corrupt it, which it does, but human government is good. We find that from passages of scripture. Remind us that this is something from God’s hand. They are God’s servants. G.K. Chesterton, I’m not sure if you’ve heard that name before. He was an English essayist. and biographer, wrote something in his notebook that is really amazing to think about, and it really captures, I think, what Paul is saying here. And he writes in his notebook these words. You say grace before meals, all right, but I say grace before the play and before the opera. I say grace before the concert and the pantomime. I say grace before I open a book and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing. I say grace before I dip the pen into the ink.” Close quote. I think what Chesterton’s point is is that God is to be thanked for everything that he created. and everything that we are to enjoy. From marveling at a beautiful snowfall that’s coming soon, to a delicious chocolate cake that you might eat later on today, and even for a stinging, annoying mosquito. And so embrace the good blessings of God, enjoy them, but never let a blessing slip through the cracks. without offering thanksgiving to God. Let’s pray.

Our Father in heaven, we have certainly much to learn and many ways in which to grow and to mature of what it means to live holy in an unholy world. But we pray, oh Lord, that you would help us to look upon that which you have given to us with thanksgiving Help us to enjoy that which you have given to us with thanksgiving. Help us not to complain or feed any spirit of discontentment in our life, for that would not reflect a life of gratitude. Grant us your spirit that we might do what we cannot do in our own strength nor in our own ability. And so we pray and ask through Jesus Christ, our Savior, in whose name we pray, amen.