Dennis Tuuri

Uh the portion of God’s word which we meditate upon this day is 1 Corinthians 16:13-14. That’s the sermon text. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. 1 Corinthians 16:13 and 14. Watch ye stand fast in the faith. Quit you like men. Be strong. Let all your things be done with charity. Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you indeed, Lord God, that it is the way that we cleanse our way before us. It is the way that you use as your secondary means. Your spirit instructs us in the way in which we should walk through this word. We thank you, Lord God, then that you have promised us the gift of the Holy Spirit that he might indeed teach these words to us and more than that, write them upon our hearts by making them applicable to our lives, causing us to rejoice them.

We pray now, Father, that you would give us wisdom and understanding as we consider your scriptures as they relate to the topic of watchfulness. Help us, Lord God, to be watchful in our lives. And to that end, we pray your blessing upon this sermon, Lord God, that you would give us open ears to hear it. Open hearts to understand it. Let it smite us, Lord God, that it may heal us to the end that our steps indeed may be different as we walk forth from this place may be more watchful, more obedient to your scriptures, and more manifesting the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen.

Character is what the verses we’ve just read are all about. What is Christian character? It’s marked by these characteristics primarily. Character has been in the popular media a lot these last few days, weeks, and months. Rush Limbaugh, of course, is continually talking about character, trying to tell everybody before the election that it was an important issue. More people seem to be aware of that now, the importance of character, its relationship to civil magistrates.

The Tonya Harding incident as well has brought the issue of character before people in a very spectacular way here at least in our city and state. It is interesting in light of this some connecting these two however is that it seems like there is a significant portion of the population that doesn’t think character still doesn’t think character is important.

I heard a survey done that if Tonya Harding, even if she is part of the plot against the other skater, and I would remind you first of all that we do not know that. And please, you know, remember the scriptures in your own thoughts and in your conversations if you have them about this particular incident. Please remember the scriptures not to follow a mob to do violence. Hearsay is the mark of our age and rumor and slander and gossip. People love it and so it’s great for ratings, but it’s not good for the moral character of the nation or other people. It’s not good for your moral character to be swept up in judgments.

There are polls out how many people think she’s guilty, how many think she’s innocent personally. These are things are ridiculous. There’s no knowledge of facts at this point in time. But in any event, part of the survey that I heard said 20% of the people said that even if she was involved in this directly, they still think she should compete at the Olympics. This is an amazing thing.

It reminds me of what I heard several weeks ago when the various charges about President Clinton were circulating. I remember toward the end of the year there was one of the major heads of one of the major news agencies in the country on C-SPAN and he said well there are only two questions. The first is are these charges true? And the second is even if they are true do they matter? Does it really make any difference what he did using state troopers or whatever?

The fact is most people are very happy with his policies and his public performance now. And so these things are really at least many think irrelevant. You I watched that with astonishment. And I remembered I thought about, as I thought about many times, how could Rome have been so wicked and yet continued to manifest some sort of form of government? How could people support Caesars and senators who were so wicked and vile and yet I think that we’re seeing in the manifestation around us, again, not knowing if these charges are true, the point is that the population, a significant portion of it, is now at the place of saying that, well, we don’t care about his character.

We don’t care about public performance. We don’t care if a skater conspires against another skater to do physical damage. As long as the person can skate well on the ice or as long as the president can continue to give bread and circuses to the masses, that’s the only thing we care about. And so character, who cares? It’s not important to us.

Well, what about us? Are we swept up in this mood of the day? Or do we understand the very significant significance the scriptures place to Christian character? Been talking about this for the last couple of months. And of course, the scriptures repeatedly emphasize the importance of Christian character.

I mentioned before, I mention it again now, and if I think it’s important enough to mention again, it’s probably good that you listen to it again and consider it well, that Richard Baxter said that as important as his preaching was, and those of you who have familiar with his preaching know that it was important and powerful, that his catechizing was much more important. And as important as the catechizing was, his family visitation during catechizing was even more important.

But the most important thing Baxter said for his ministry in the context of the life that God gave him to live was his Christian character. That was the most significant thing that produced results in terms of the preaching of the gospel and the encouragement to people to live Christian lives. The character that God manifested through him as he became submissive to the will of God and demonstrated these things that we’re talking about today. Watchfulness and strength, courage, steadfastness, resolve and of course all things being undergirded with Christian love.

This is good news. This is great news for the man in the pew. I can look at Richard Baxter’s sermons and say, “Well, maybe someday I can preach like that or at least maybe not like that, but as effectively as he did.” But you know, most of you are not called to do that. And so, the fact that the thing that he said was most significant in his ministry was his Christian character should be a great encouragement to you.

You know, that one of the great men of the past church said that the most important thing that he could engage himself in was the very thing you can engage yourself in. The demonstration of Christian character to shine in the light of a darkened world. So, it’s good news for you. But of course, on the other hand, there is always the other hand. As soon as you get over the exuberance of knowing that you can be like Richard Baxter in that respect and you can be like the Apostle Paul and the great men of the faith to exhibit Christian character, as soon as you get over the exuberance of that, the cold reality kind of slaps you in the face.

At least if you’re like me, realizing that your character is not as exemplary as the scriptures would have it to be, of course, and that you fall short in many, many ways. And so, it’s discouraging and depressing. And sometimes when we go through these character attributes of watchfulness and steadfastness, courage, strength, and love, it can be it should be properly convicting, but I don’t want it to be I don’t want it to somehow sap your strength for the battle.

I don’t want you to feel so falling short that you give up on these things.

I mentioned before that Reverend R.J. Rushdoony concludes and begins every year by the reading of Psalm 138 and specifically the portion of this that I preached out in the past as a new year’s message is the last verse. I’ll just read verses 7 and 8 of Psalm 138. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me. Thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me. And this is the last verse. The Lord wilt perfect that which concerneth me. Thy mercy, oh Lord, endureth forever. Forsake not the works of thine own hands.

Psalm 138 says that God indeed promises to perfect that which concerns his people. That means you, that means me, that means all of us individually, means us as a church. It means the body of Christ across Oregon, across the Pacific Northwest, America, and the world. God will perfect that which concerns us, and he will build Christian character into your life.

Now, we know that character usually comes about as a result of great trials and tribulations. James 1 tells us not to try to cut short trials and tribulations and difficult times because the end result is indeed the perfecting of our lives and it’s through the development of these character qualities. So all of which is to say that these are extremely important things and I think that in some ways maybe and I’ll I mentioned this last week that watchfulness is right at the heart of many of these other characteristics.

It’s listed first in these two verses in terms of the description of the Christian and character, what it should be like. It’s listed before strength and courageousness and resolve and love. Why? Because if you’re asleep, it doesn’t make any difference how strong, how brave, how resolved, and how loving you would be if you were awake.

Watch, to be watchful is to be awake. That’s what the word means. And it’s the original language is both Greek and Hebrew. The original word means to be awake as opposed to being asleep. So even if you have the ability to manifest these other characteristics. If you’re not watchful, if you’re not awake in terms of demonstrating these character qualities, then all the rest of them don’t do any good, do they?

If you’re asleep at the switch and you walk through your life in some sort of stupor, not looking at the opportunities God has given you to be strong, courageous, with resolve and determination and loving, then all the rest do no good. So watchfulness is extremely important in this list of Christian characteristics.

And we said that we should indeed be resolved. We should have resolve as Saul had on the road to Damascus to do God’s work. We should indeed have courage as Ananias had to go and minister if God calls us to those of us who those around the world around us who are enemies to walk into fearful situations as part of the Christian life and to speak forth the word of God against potential naysayers and those who would kill us as part of the courage we need and to be strong like the Apostle Paul was as he moved from strength to strength as he did battle in Damascus and Jerusalem wielding the sword of God’s word and all these things are supposed to be done on the Christian character Christian purity rather as Tabitha will demonstrate to us in a few weeks.

But behind all these things is watchfulness. Now we reviewed a little I’ll review a little bit last week what the basic overall pattern of scripture in terms of watchfulness is. The Pentateuch reminds us the text listed on your outline that watchfulness is related to keeping covenant with God. It’s related to the keeping of God’s law. It’s related to covenant faithfulness then and it is the thing that keeps us away from idolatry again.

So it’s very important to be watchful taking heed being alert to the context in which we live that we might obey God’s law, keep covenant with him, understanding of course that we have a mediator who the Lord Jesus Christ, we cannot keep covenant perfectly and yet we’re admonished to do that to be careful to avoid idolatry. And the motivation factor given for us in the Pentateuch is God’s personal judgment against idolaters who are not watchful.

Additionally, Exodus 34 tells us that we’re to be watchful in terms of relationships. We’re not supposed to be content with pluralism in our land. No, God says, If you’re content with pluralism, eventually your children will be taken off into idolatry through intermarriage with the pagans that you leave in the land round about you. And so to be watchful in our relationships, certainly with our enemies and also with our friends.

The gospels tell us a great deal about watchfulness as well. As I said, it’s really kind of at the center of what our Lord Jesus told us to do. And the gospel texts listed there remind us that we don’t know when the Lord will return is what he says. And as a result, we’re supposed to be watchful and alert and awake. Again, what that’s what the word means to be awake and awake for what is going on around about us.

Mark 13:37, our Lord said to the apostles originally, but by extension to all of us, he says, “What I say unto you, I say unto all. Watch.” And so, he wants to make it very clear to you and me sitting in our pews this Sunday that this is what he says to us as well. He says it unto all. Not simply the rulers in the church or those who are entrusted with the special guarding of the flock, etc., but he says it unto all Christians. Watch.

You know, these are almost, you can put these almost in the category of being kind of a last word of Jesus to his disciples. He’s about to enter into his departure, his work on the cross for the sin of mankind to be then raised to the right hand of the father from whence he rules until every enemy is conquered. And he’s saying that when I go away, the most important thing for you to hear from me today is to watch and to be awake because I’m coming back.

I’m coming back to judge, to bless, and to curse. And so be watchful. And it’s very significant. I think that here he says in terms of his coming again in judgment and as well as in blessing, the most important thing he tells his disciples is to be watchful and to be alert. And so it is with us as well.

The epistles restress this importance of watchfulness. Ephesians 5 says that wherefore he saith, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, in Christ shall give thee light. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Be not drunk with wine where in his excess, but be filled with the spirit.”

Ephesians says that watchfulness, alertness, awakeness, and then a circumspectness of our life based upon that alertness is central to the life of the Christian in this world.

Additionally, the book of Revelation, we talked there about how Jesus said, “Behold, I come as a thief in the night. I will come to you quickly. Remove your lampstand.” He says that so we don’t misunderstand that the gospel references simply relate to his final coming in judgment. He says that there are intermediate comings as well to churches to remove lampstands to establishment or whatever. And so he takes that whole concept of watchfulness and alertness out of the idea of the final coming to the intermediate comings he has in our lives as well.

And so it’s very important he immunizes that command to be watchful and alert in our lives. His motivation given in the book of revelation is that he will indeed he will blot some out of the book of life. A failure to be watchful and alert is so critical and such a demonstration of the Christian life. The one who is awake as opposed to asleep who is alive as opposed to dead in the faith that the one who is not watchful he will blot out of the book of life at return as opposed to on the other hand he will serve those and confess with his mouth us who are watchful and alerts their blessings and cursings again stressed for us.

The context of this he says in Revelation 16 in terms of his coming as a thief that indeed neutrality itself just as we learned in Exodus 34 it’s not enough simply to alert and keep away from evil or to be alert to understand that we’re supposed to drive out evil in the context of our lives. And in Revelation 16 repeats the same thing. I become as a thief, he said. And the time of great evil that’s spoken about in Revelation 16 that characterized certainly Jerusalem in 68, 69 and 70 also characterizing the days in which we lived Jesus said that when he returns don’t be naked and so it’s not simply enough not to do the deeds of iniquity but rather to have you’re supposed to be clothed with the positive righteousness of Christ and the deeds and works of the saints that’s what the robe of righteousness is described for us in the book of revelation as so to be watchful that we might actually be involved in work deeds of righteousness not simply avoiding evil.

We’re not simply, you know, called away from something. We’re called to something. We’re saved to salvation and righteousness and demonstrating that character in the world in which we live. And necessary component of that is indeed watchfulness.

So, as after an overview, we began to look at the topical text. We said that one of the motivations the scriptures lays out for us for our watchfulness, the two primary ones, is the fact that we have an adversary. 1 Peter 5 says that our adversary, the devil, walks around seeking whom he may devour. So be alert. Don’t be asleep. Don’t leave an unguarded place because Satan will try to take advantage of that.

A great motivation to us. The one whose wrath and power are great stalks the earth on earth is not his equal. You cannot avoid his wrath without watchfulness and alertness and without as we’ll mention in a minute here prayer of course the reliance upon God.

But secondly the motivation for alertness as the Pentateuch accounts related and again in 2 Chronicles 19 says to fear the Lord your God. As a result of that take heed and do what he commands us to do. So it’s fear of God himself. It’s be our motivation for watchfulness and awakeness.

And then we said that at the beginning of our watchfulness according to the scriptures is our own selves. We must be watchful in our relationship to God. And in Matthew 24:4, our savior tells us to be careful not to be deceived by others. Take heed. But also in Deuteronomy 11:16, it says to take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived.

And we looked at the text in Jeremiah that says the heart is deceitful and wicked and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Can’t know your own heart. And so you’re supposed to be very watchful against selfdeception.

I don’t know if I mentioned it last week or not, but Jim Makavoy in one of his latest sermon tapes that I listen to anyway, I’m kind of a month behind us. said that, you know, if you find a Christian who is more concerned about deceiving himself than he is others deceiving him, that is a mark of true spirituality. And I think there’s a lot to commend that statement.

Now, our savior does tell us to be watchful that no one deceive us, but we’re much more likely to be deceived ourselves. And of course, if you’re deceived yourself, then all the watchfulness against others who may deceive you is all misplaced, isn’t it? It’s of no use.

And so, I think that’s correct. One of the essential marks of true spirituality is an alertness to our own selfdeception, our own wickedness and vileousness of our hearts. And so, the need then to fellowship with other Christians, to pay attention to the witness of God through his spirit, his word, and very, very importantly, his church, the body of believers.

That’s where God tests these things and reveals to us how much we really don’t love people. We It’s easy to say you love people when you’re sitting in your home and kind of just thinking about them abstractly or remembering what they may be like, but to actually get involved with people on a regular basis and to talk to them and communicate to them makes it much more tough. And also, you realize they probably don’t love you as much as you’d hope they would.

Well, in any event, the need to be very alert so that our hearts be not deceived to admit to ourselves our sinful proclivity for selfdeception and then to be on the guard and be diligent and alert and wakeful to that and to then take steps to avoid it is extremely important.

We’re to be watchful in terms of our relationship to God. We talked about his law, the need to obey his law, the need to love him with all our heart, soul, and mind and to serve him as well pointed out in the outline in the text for you in Joshua 22:23 and Deuteronomy 12. Deuteronomy 12 tells us to be watchful how we worship, what we do with our offerings, our tithes, and what we do in terms of how we go about worshiping God. Is it according to our own will or is it according to the witness of the church and the church as dictated by the scriptures? Of course.

And then we said that in the proverbs there’s very practical instructions for watchfulness relative to be watchful relative to our own body. Now you know this is by way of metaphor of course but still it is very important. We’re supposed to keep our heart with all diligence. Proverbs 4:23, keep your heart with all diligence. And it could be literally translated, keep your heart with all keeping. It’s a repetitive statement there that reminds you of a double whammy, so to speak.

To watch your heart is the source of all evil. Our savior tells us out of it flow the problems. But also into our heart, what fed into it is also part of what comes out of it. Garbage in, garbage out.

And so in terms of watching our heart with all diligence, we’re to watch our eyes, our lips, our feet and our ears. In the scriptures, we’ve gone over those references. Very important to ponder the way of your feet. Very important to not let your eyes see things that are improper for it to see. Very important, very, very important to put a guard, a watch on your lips before you say something. Think about it. You know, that’s it’s that simple to put a watch on your lips to understand that you must consider what you say and you must think about what you say before you say it. That itself would get an awful lot of people have an awful lot of trouble.

And so it’s we need to put a watch upon our lips. We need to put a watch upon our ears as well. It’s very important we don’t just let our ears hear whatever people may want to pour into our ears.

I mentioned it before, but my brother Michael has a young son who’s an extremely accomplished artist. He was a wonderful picture. Well, it’s a horrifying picture really of a man’s face. And on this side, it looks kind of normal, but then there’s like a serpent speaking into his ear. And this side of his face, his eyes are wild, his hair is maniacal, he’s terror and horror and kind of a maniacal appearance on his face.

Well, the scriptures want us to have that kind of image of what slander and gossip and hearing the wrong things can do to us. It is poison. And we love that kind of poison. It’s poison that’s put in the context of something beautiful. And so, we must be very careful what we hear.

You know, kids songs are so useful so often. And certainly here, the thing that kept coming to my mind, and I might have mentioned it last week, that little kid song, you know, be careful little eyes what you see. Be careful little eyes what you see. If the father up above is looking down in love. So be careful little eyes what you see. Be careful little ears what you hear. Be careful little feet where you go.

And this is a good way to remind ourselves. Simple children’s song to remind ourselves of the importance of pondering what we say, what we look upon, what we hear, and then also then where our feet go. And as a result of that to keep our heart at the issue the issue of all the rest of our lives. Keep it with quite a bit of diligence.

Micah 7 says you must be careful in your speech even to your wife particularly in times of evil and trouble and those are the times in which this country is involved with right now and so these apply very much to us.

Okay then we’ll pick up the outline now with new material beginning with our finances and this is related to the keeping of ourselves our relationship to God and the various activities of our life what we see be here put our feet to do etc. And then we also to be watchful according to our finances.

Matthew 6 verse 1 commands us to take heed be watchful or alert that you do not your own before men to be seen of them otherwise you have no reward of your father which is in heaven. We’re to be careful that the motivation for even the things that we do in the best with the best possible motivation hopefully to giving of alms to help people with the resources God has given to us Even in that, we must be extremely watchful lest sin enter in.

And we’re doing something for the wrong motivation. And so, we blacken what could be potentially a very good deed and a manifestation of the spirit in our lives. The spirit motivates us to love others and to use our resources for other people. But the flesh wars against the spirit in our flesh. We turn that very impulse to give and to somebody else. We turn it into a wicked thing, to do something, to receive reward of people, to be seen by them by what we do, and as a result to be rewarded by it.

And this is so much true that we see references in the scriptures that indeed don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing. In other words, people frequently and it is a proper thing to do to avoid this temptation. Give in confidentiality. Only tell the deacon of the church the money may be given to help somebody for instance or the officer. Not tell anybody in some cases just simply do things anonymously.

That’s a way to avoid this. But even there of course if your motivation is selfish to think oh what a good boy am I. You know Now that again there you don’t even have to let people know what you do and it can and sin can enter in. So watchfulness relative to motivation.

But Luke 12:15 also tells us very importantly in the context of our culture. Our savior tells us to take heed be watchful alert watch all what’s going on here and beware of covetousness for a man’s life consists not in the abundance of things which he possesses.

So to be very watchful relative to our finances relative to covetousness. putting an undue source of well-being in things that surround us and wanting those things improperly for a sense of security. It’s interesting. I watched an interview the other night with Charlie Rose and Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and you know just kind of many other things directed movies etc. and he said and he’s 52 that you know that he’s what he’s really learned is that the important thing in his life are the people in his life and all the rest of it means nothing.

The only important thing of the relationships he has with people and I think you hear that a lot of from people coming out into their 40s that you kind of go through a cycle in the in your fallen state that is in our culture it’s seem to be very fallen state you go through a cycle particularly in the context of our culture where when you grow up and you move from teen life into adult life in your 20s and 30s you have an emphasis upon acquisition of things around you and then those things of course don’t bring satisfaction and so then people naturally sort of gravitate to the most important thing around them the people and they begin to realize that they’ve really pursued the wrong things by pursuing things and they pursue relationships with people.

But of course, if God is gracious to you and opens your eyes, you recognize that even that is vanity and even those relationships are touched with sin. Apart from getting at the essence of what satisfaction and purpose for living comes from, that’s our relationship to God in heaven. And so hopefully with people, this is frequently the cycle God will take them through that then they will recognize the jadedness of their relationships as well. And they come and they providence of God and his grace to being convicted of personal sin and brought to a relationship with God himself.

Now I think that so what Crichton says is half true that it is certainly true that relationships with people are far more important in the context of our world than things in a way. I mean these are the eternal relationships we have and it’s very important in the context of our households which are very busy for homeschoolers many things going on many activities and we can really treat our children and our wives and our husbands as just sort of a means to end to have prosperous lives and we just get caught up in the in the swiftness of our lives and we forget that these relationships in the home are absolutely vital.

These relationships will of God’s grace and the election of our children continue on into eternity and we’re going to feel very badly at some point in time the way we treat each other. So that’s certainly true, but it’s not true if by that you think that somehow the rest of us is totally unimportant. Things are important. Our savior is not telling us here that material possessions are somehow bad. You know, the Bible does not posit some sort of sacred secular distinction in terms of material versus immaterial things.

The Bible says God created the world. The world was good. Everything in the world is good. Gold’s a good thing and it’s much to be desired, but only if it’s properly understood that is a reflection of the glory of God. And so things are important. And God wants us to exercise dominion not simply through the conversion of people, but through taking the garden that God has placed us in the context of and beautifying it.

It was important for Adam and Eve to get rid of weeds and to have beautiful things grow in the context of the garden of God as part of their job and that wasn’t unimportant. It wasn’t the only thing that was important was their own personal relationship. Things are important but only in properly understood in relationship to God and then his primary image bearer man and then the secondary image bearer that God has given to us the created order after that.

And so if these things all flow forth the knowledge of God then we’re in good shape. And so we be watchful in terms of our relationship to things our relationship to people that we not be brought into to covetousness for these things. Our life doesn’t consist in our possessions. Our life consists in our relationship with God and then the possessions and people can be understood in proper relationship.

Now I said this is particularly important in the context of our culture because our economy is totally driven well this is my observation. This is not of course gospel here but my observation is that our economy is I shouldn’t say totally more and more driven by covetousness and covetousness alone. You cannot walk through a week or probably a day unless you’re really cloistered without having some appeal to your covetousness being thrown at you through the printed media, radio, television, whatever it is.

It drives advertising drives everything else. Tocqueville noted this in his correspondence about America that if there’s one thing that would ruin this country, it was men’s covetousness and their desire for gain and prosperity. And indeed, that’s right where we’re at. And you know, if the whole nation converted tomorrow and all repented of their covetousness. And even if the church of Jesus Christ, professors of the Lord Jesus tomorrow really became alert to this verse to be watchful relative to covetousness and stopped allowing covetousness and a desire for possessions to drive them, the economy would probably collapse within days.

I mean, we’re we’re like a hamster now in the wheel, you know, and we’re running running. And if it stops, that wheel blade’s going to hit that hamster and he’s going to get hurt real bad. But that’s what people have to do. We’ve got to accept God’s judgment against our economy by getting off that treadmill of covetousness and debt. And there will be a price to pay. It’s not going to be pleasant when that finally is brought to pass in this country.

But it’s something we must do in being obedient to God’s word. And I would implore you as I implore myself at the end of this last year, beginning this year, a time of resolution making, a time of, as Richard said, breaking old habits, creating new ones of righteousness, evaluate yourselves relative to your covetousness. It’s by evaluating your financial standing. Where are you in relationship to personal debt?

Are you getting better? Are you getting worse? Or are you staying static? Debt is now not always, but debt is usually I would say, you know, I wouldn’t want to give a percent, but predominantly debt is a thermometer that God gives us of covetousness in our lives. It’s really that simple. Covetousness, improper covetousness, desires things that we cannot afford. And God gives us, you know, you don’t got to worry about what to buy tomorrow if you don’t have money to buy it.

God gives us a lot of peace from the kind of covetousness frenzy that fills our nation by giving us the restraints of our pocketbook. But Satan disturbs that peace by giving us in that pocketbook credit cards. I don’t think they’re wrong in and of themselves if you pay them off, but they’re easy means for Satan to thwart the secondary means of God’s restriction on our finances of how much money is in our pocket by spending what we don’t have by spending tomorrow’s labor today eating up the future for present gain and so usually your sense of personal indebtedness is a measure of your covetousness and it’s an excellent thing at the end of the year to look at the barometer and see what it reads are you subzero still or are you rising up in terms of assets positively God says that in certain You don’t want to be covetousness over possessions, but he does say that the righteous should indeed leave an inheritance for their children.

And so analyze your own financial well-being and see it as a measure of possible covetousness in your life. And so take heed, evaluate, be alert recognizing the importance of this to the Christian life, that particular element of our character.

Well, our life doesn’t consist in the number of possessions. And you may have a good balance. Your thermometer may be in the positive as opposed to the negative, but Still there are other things in life you must be watchful of. And certainly that the one of the central things in the lives of most people is our family.

And we have in Deuteronomy 4:9 the admonition to be watchful to yourself and to keep the commandments lest you forget the things which you’ve seen and lest you depart from thy heart all the days of thy life. But teach them thy sons and thy sons. God says we’re supposed to be watchful relative to our personal obedience and that connected to that watchfulness is a watchfulness relative to our children to instruct them in the faith.

And of course, these verses are quite familiar to homeschoolers. We take a great deal of comfort from them and we should that God is doing a good work in our hearts and our lives by having us instruct our children and hopefully our children’s children as well based upon the word of God in all things. And so that is something to be commended. We’re to be commended for by God. And I think we can say as Nehemiah did, remember me for the work that I have done in this area.

It is a difficult task and it doesn’t seem as hard the first year or two or maybe it does. You think you get the handle after the second or third or fourth year. But believe me, as those of you who have been homeschooling for a long time know the grind and it can become that can be very discouraging. But please know from God’s word that when you walk in obedience to texts such as this that his blessing is upon you, you’re doing a good thing.

But even here we must be watchful and alert in terms of the education of our children into our analyzing them to thinking through them to help them evaluate themselves to teach them this principle of watchfulness.

And secondly, the scriptures also say in terms of our lives and our family that Malachi 2:15, he warns us to take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. So we’re to take heed also in our relationship to our mates, our wives specifically, but by implication of course the wife toward the husband as well.

And so the scriptures tell us that in our spirit, we must be watchful. These things will have if we’re not watchful, we will just sort of find ourselves by way of drift dealing treacherously against the wife of our youth. That’s what the scriptures I think mean here. And so we must be alert to our relationship to our children and to our wives men very importantly to think through that relationship on occasion.

I don’t mean you have to think about it all the time, but I do mean that there should come regular times in your life when you sit down and think through and the quietness of a room or whatever it is, how well am I working with my children? What changes need to be made? How well am I relating to my wife? Am I making sure that I’m not drifting off dealing treacherously with her somehow? Am I not trusting her? Am I becoming embittered against her?

The scriptures warn us not to be embittered against our wives, to understand that while he makes them functionally subordinate to us and he makes them physically less strong than men, yet he warns us of the danger of thinking that somehow they are some how inferior to us. And I said this before, but I think it needs to be said again that in our culture, as much as feminism is a wicked doctrine from the gates of hell, nonetheless, I think that the reason one of the reasons that it is able to exert itself in this country is that in man’s fallen state, he has no natural ability to correctly relate to his wife and to the other sex.

Man hates the differences. We’ve talked about this before, and in this culture, there is a great deal of male uh what do you want to call it? I guess sin toward females in our culture. I believe that in pagan cultures, men always devolve. They don’t evolve. And in pagan cultures and as this country becomes more and more pagan, men will increasingly force themselves upon their wives at various wicked ways upon other women as well.

And so we have the rise in our country of rape, for instance. But certainly most don’t go that far. But still in terms of mental attitudes and in terms of uh intimidating people and it’s very easy for husbands to intimidate wives and it’s and it’s easy to do that and not understand that you’re doing it. It’s very difficult to remember how intimidating a man can be to the rest of his household in the context of the households in which we live stronger bigger usually louder voices etc. more authority and power in the Christian household where they know that they must submit to the father eventually and so it’s very easy and must be very watchful that we not become embittered against our wives that we not treat them unkindly but remember that they are indeed joint heirs with us of the gracious gift of life and the scriptures tell us that if we don’t remember that then our prayers to God are hindered we don’t know how to pray right so regularly evaluate be watchful well relative to your wives to your children of course men you know regularly evaluate or wives rather regularly evaluate your relationship to your husband is it you know submission is never an easy thing and Submission is something that is taught in lots of different ways.

It’s certainly a biblical teaching. But over time, you know, that attitude of submission can start to degenerate in a wife and can start to go away. It’s easy when you first get married to you study the roles of husband and wife. But over the years, it can become very difficult thing unless it becomes one of those patterns or habits, the ruts of righteousness as the scriptures talk about, and instead usually what happens is we degenerate into the ruts of unrighteousness, a failure to submit or a submission grudgingly, which is really no submission at all.

It’s it’s maybe obedience, slavish obedience, but it’s not res it’s not rejoicing in the direction that God gives the wife through the husband. You know, I thought about this that as as couples get older frequently they can get more and more disillusioned with each other of course and think they really deserve a better mate. But you know what do we really deserve in terms of mates? we don’t deserve any mate at all.

You know the result of our if we look at it on the basis of our sin and who we are. are then we deserve somebody who would torment us all the time. That’s that’s what we deserve from God. So I don’t care, you know, how difficult you think your particular marriage might be, how difficult you think your particular wife may be to live with or your particular husband may be to live with. God says they’re a blessing to you.

And God says that he in his providence has brought you together with that person that they’re your helpmate, the helper ideally suited to compliment you. And so you know, you want to be very careful that at the heart of your relationship with your mates and your children there’s a thankfulness to God for them. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care what they’re doing in the content. Now, if they’re excommunicate, that’s something else.

But if they’re in the pale of the faith, if they’re members of the church of Jesus Christ, even if they’re not, the scriptures say, still you to be submissive and loving. And so, and so, you know, you must be at the core of your relationship to be watchful relative to your attitude of thankfulness to your mate. If you don’t have this, then everything else kind of is of is of no use in terms of your relationship.

As we said before, as you know, in terms of Richard’s sermon and breaking bad habits, you don’t know what your habits are if you’re not watchful and alert to them. It’s evaluation. It’s watchfulness and evaluation that produces then the new directions, the new desire for new habits of righteousness to walk into in this new year that then require, of course, resolve, courage, strength, and love. But all of that begins with an evaluation process.

And so, evaluate yourselves, evaluate your relationship to God. Evaluate your relationship to what you do, hear and say, etc. Evaluate your relationship to the monitor that God gives you in terms of covetousness relative to your finances. Evaluate at the close of a year, beginning of a new year, your relationship to your children and your wives. And then the third area, evaluate your relationship to the church.

And here again, there are much scriptures that relate to watchfulness in terms of the body of Jesus Christ. First of all, the scriptures tell us very carefully that, and this is an important caveat in terms of what we’ve been saying, the importance of character is opposed to doctrine. In 1 Timothy 4:16, take heed unto yourself and unto the doctrine, continue in them. For in doing so, thou shalt save thyself and them that hear thee.

So the scriptures tell us in terms of church life to be careful to doctrine, to theology, to an understanding of God’s word, the teachings, the very the essential teachings that God’s word uses to reform our lives. You must take heed to them.

Hebrews 2 says, “Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip.” And here the context of course is the Old Testament. And the church of Jesus Christ needs to hear this today across America to take heed that you not let the things which we have heard prior to the revelation of the New Testament slip. And that’s what’s happened. The Old Testament has slipped because of a failure of the church to be watchful relative to the teachings of the Old Testament. Of course, the complete canon.

So the scriptures tell us that first of all our watchfulness be to doctrine. Doctrine informed by the entire word of God. And so it is important that we as a people both individually and as a corporate community here are watchful to the doctrines. This is one of the reasons by the way that the constitution, the uh handbook for members, the explanatory notes, the introductory booklets that we’re working on are so important because they’re a way to keep watchful and diligent about what God has brought us to over the last 10 years.

The scriptures here say if you’re not watchful and taking heed using some mechanism of evaluation to make sure you don’t forget things they slip away. They slip away from you. And here at this church, things slip away. You know, we don’t want to have an undue reliance upon paper documents other than the word of God. We don’t want anything to supplant that. And I get very nervous when I hear about uh and this is a regular occurrence at in different denominations where talks are given and evaluating and understanding the secondary documents.

It’s like the secondary documents are being preached from or something. I understand the need for that. But we want to make sure we don’t put an undue reliance upon secondary standards as opposed to the primary standard of God’s word. But on the other hand, those secondary standards are very useful to keep us watchful and alert to not letting things slip that God has instructed us from the scriptures on.

So doctrine. But secondly, we’re to be very watchful in terms of the covenant community itself. Our attitude toward other believers. Matthew 18 says to take heed that you despise not one of these little ones. For I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my father which is in heaven. That’s the verse where the doctrine of guardian angels comes from by the way. But the primary point of the verse of course is that the guardian angels are given as a motivating factor to us to see the little ones in the church very to esteem them highly and to not to think lowly of them somehow and overlook them.

By way of application of course as Matthew 18 goes on to make application to discipline and the church, it’s very important that we have a correct attitude toward each other in the body of Christ. Be watchful toward our attitudes toward each other and discerning what they are properly.

Hebrews 3:12, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God.” We’re to be watchful in our attitude toward each other. We’re also be watchful relative to seeing if each other begins to depart from the faith. There’s a proper application of that. Again, I think this is one of the critical things the church of Jesus Christ needs to hear and come back to.

In this country, you know, churches are kind of like safe sanctuaries. Certainly, the church should be a sanctuary where the good news is preached, but it doesn’t mean that people’s lives are ignored by everybody else in the context of the congregation. In this church, we’ve taken some heed to try to encourage and admonish people who seem to be falling short in a particular area maybe. And that’s taken us by some has been over the years by not by many, but by some with a degree of taking a front or offense at that.

But the scriptures are very clear that we’re to be watchful relative to each other, lest there be found in any of us an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.

Hebrews 12 goes on to say that look diligently lest any man in the context of your church. The implication fail the grace of God lest any root of bitterness spring up springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. I’ve talked about this before recently the root of bitterness is the heart that departs from God in the context of the covenant community and that root of bitterness grows and affects the entire covenant community.

And so it is important for the well-being of the church to be watchful in terms of our attitudes toward each other, understand people’s shortcomings, their weakness, or their strength, but also be watchful that any root of bitterness pop up in the context of the covenant community. And so the scriptures warn us about that over and over again.

We’re to be watchful in terms of the church then. and then also the scriptures tell us in Galatians 6:1 to be watchful in disciplinary matters to be alert and wakeful to problems that may happen in the context of discipline. Galatians 6:1, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such in one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, watching yourself, being alert to yourself, lest you also be tempted lest you also be tempted.”

Now, the traditional way of looking at that is that, well, you’re going to deal with, you know, you’re trying to help somebody who may have slipped into the sin of adultery. You got to be careful that you’re not tempted to become adulterous as well. And I think that’s certainly true, but it doesn’t restricted to that, I don’t think, in the context of Galatians 6:1. There are lots of temptations that can enter into men’s hearts in the context of disciplinary actions. Many, many ways in which to stumble and fall, and I don’t it’s not my purpose today to enumerate them all, but simply to admonish you and admonish myself.

We must be very careful to guard our hearts when dealing with disciplinary matters in the context of the church. And so we’re to be watchful relative to our relationship to God, to our family, to our covenant family as well, the church. And you should regularly be evaluating your relationship to the body of Jesus Christ, to its doctrine, to its members and community and fellowship, and third to its disciplinary matters.

That I would admonish you as well by way of implication that you must be evaluating your ministry to the body of Jesus Christ. The scriptures are quite clear that and we talk about this every time we have an ordination that the scriptures teach in every believer ministry that the officers of the church are given to organize the church for ministry and action not to