The Ungodly

Well, if you have your Bible, and I hope you do, we're going to be in the book of Jude again today.
We are in an ongoing study through this second to last book in the Bible. You can turn all the way
to Revelation and then go back a few pages and you're at the book of Jude. And this is a book that
is all about recognizing and dealing with false teachers who come into local churches.
And I appreciate Charlie leading us in prayer this morning. In fact, I want to ask you as we start
this morning to think about the person you would identify as the godliest person you know.
Okay, I want you to think for a minute. Somebody should say, this person is probably the godliest
or one of the godliest people I know. Got somebody in mind? Here's the follow-up question.
What is it specifically about that person? that causes you to identify them as a godly person what
makes somebody a godly person i had some time to reflect on this this week and think about what are
the characteristics of godliness that we should be looking for or observing in somebody's life and
i don't have a comprehensive list for you but these are the things that kind of surfaced for me as
characteristics of godliness the first is that they are people who are self-emptying
self-emptying a godly person understands that each of us is wired to put ourselves first put
ourselves at the center of things to ask ourselves every day what is it that i want to what will
make me happy today a godly person recognizes this predisposition and empties himself or herself
instead of making himself or herself the center. You know the verse in Galatians 2.20?
It's a well-known verse. A lot of people have this verse memorized. It's the one that says, I have
been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself up for me. I had somebody, I kind of always thought about this verse.
It seems... metaphorical. I have been crucified with Christ. What's the metaphor there? Because I
wasn't physically crucified. And then somebody said to me one time, take the word I,
and instead of saying I, put the word self in there. And I read back through it.
Self is crucified with Christ. And I thought, well, that makes perfect sense. That's exactly what
needs to happen. I need to be dying to self every day. Didn't Jesus say that?
If any man would come after me, let him deny himself. take up his cross, and follow me.
So a godly person is self-emptying. He denies himself, empties himself.
The next thing a godly person does is he is spirit-led. So not only is he self-emptying,
but he's spirit-led. He's empty of self. He's filled with the spirit. He walks by the spirit
moment by moment. He manifests the fruit of the spirit in his life. Being spirit-led means we are
constantly realigning our thoughts, our priorities, our passions, our desires, putting off.
our passions and desires and putting on what God desires for us. That's what it means to be Spirit
-led. Sometimes we think of that in kind of a subjective thing, being filled with the Spirit.
It's just like, I'm going to be led by the Spirit, so Lord, lead me. I like to think of it this
way. To be Spirit-led means that the Spirit gives direction for your journey.
God has already given you the roadmap and the instruction manual on how to get there.
That's God's Word. You can't get to where the Spirit is leading you unless you've got the
directions, the roadmap, and the owner's manual. To try to get where God is trying to lead you
without the Word of God as your direction, you're not being Spirit-led.
The Spirit's never going to lead you someplace that the Bible hasn't already pointed you. Right? So
that's the point of what it means to be Spirit-led. It means that you're filled up with God's Word
and then your intent on where the Spirit is leading. Third characteristic of godliness I came up
with is somebody who is spiritually disciplined.
In 1 Timothy 4, verse 7, Paul says to Timothy,
discipline yourself. for the purpose of godliness and he compares it there to physical exercise and
you know guys who are disciplined in physical exercise who go to the gym and they do their workouts
and because when they do their workouts they know they get stronger they get definition they get
muscle tone all of that stuff happens or at least i'm told it happens i can't testify to it
personally right but That's how it's supposed to work. When you show up at the gym,
you get stronger. Well, when you discipline yourself spiritually,
when you show up at the gym and do the workouts that God's called us to spiritually,
you get spiritually stronger. That's spiritual discipline. In fact, that word, discipline yourself,
is a Greek word, gymnazo, which means we get our word gymnasium from it. It means show up at the
spiritual gym, do your spiritual workouts, and you will grow stronger spiritually. That's how it
works. And the spiritual workouts are disciplines like prayer, Bible study,
fellowship together, worship, corporate worship. These basic spiritual disciplines are how we get
spiritually stronger. In fact, Don Whitney, this is a good point that he makes.
Some people think that... just means you do the spiritual disciplines. In fact, if you're doing
them, then you're a godly person. But Don Whitney says, he's a professor at Southern Seminary,
he says, the spiritual disciplines found in Scripture are not marks of godliness in and of
themselves. The Pharisees diligently practiced many spiritual disciplines.
They even fasted twice a week. But Jesus considered this the epitome of ungodliness. The Pharisees,
just as many people today, saw the disciplines as ends, not means. They mistook the practice of
spiritual disciplines as godliness, not as the path to godliness. So you do your spiritual workouts
not to make you a godly person, but in doing them, God makes you a godly person. Does that make
sense? All right. The last thing that marks a godly person in my list is someone who is
sacrificially serving. Others. A godly person is someone whose life is characterized by this verse,
Philippians 2, 3. Do nothing from selfishness. By the way,
the Greek word there for nothing means nothing. Okay? Do nothing from selfishness.
Or selfish, or excuse me, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility,
count others more significant than yourselves.
Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
Now, the reason I started this morning with these four characteristics of godliness and what it
looks like to be a godly person is because in the book of Jude, Jude is saying that the false
teachers he's talking about who have crept into the church unaware, if there is one word we can use
to describe what is true about these false teachers, that word is ungodly.
They are the antithesis of what we describe as a godly person.
Back in Jude verse 4, Jude says these false teachers are ungodly men.
In verse 18, he says they are motivated by ungodly passions. And in between,
especially in the verses we're looking at this morning, he comes back to this word ungodly over and
over again. The Greek word is asabes. Asabes is the word.
word. You know, when you put an A on the front of something, that means the opposite. So an atheist
is somebody who is not atheist, who doesn't believe in God. Well, asabes,
the word sabes means worship. So this is somebody who is without worship, an unworshipper,
an ungodly person. The Complete Word Study Dictionary says about this word,
basically it means godless, without fear or reverence of God,
It does not mean irreligious, but one who actively practices the opposite of what the fear of God
demands. So a person can be religious and ungodly.
You follow that? Asabes, he says, is characterized by immoral and impious behavior.
A person who is ungodly is without worship, no fear of God, no reverence for God, no love for God,
marked by immorality and self-gratification. And the false teachers were characterized by these
things. So if the evidence of being a godly person is that you are self-emptying, spirit-led,
spiritually disciplined, sacrificial service, the evidences of ungodliness are that you are self
-seeking, you are appetite-led, You are spiritually undisciplined,
and you are self-serving.
Now, that's kind of sobering to look at that, even as we look at our own lives, isn't it? And we
think about our own godliness versus ungodliness. Are we self-emptying,
self-sacrificing, or are we appetite-led,
spiritually undisciplined, self-serving? I want to look at what these verses in Jude tell us about
these false teachers that Jude is writing to us about. We're going to look at verses 14 through 16
this morning. Let me pray for our time in God's word. God, we need you. We come to your word now,
needing your spirit to be our teacher.
So, Lord, we cry out to you and ask that you would give us focus, that you would keep us from
distraction.
that our hearts and minds would be in tune with what your spirit wants to say to us this morning.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Jude chapter 1, it's the only chapter, Jude verses 14 through 16. You follow as I read these verses
out loud. It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam,
prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of his holy ones.
to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all the deeds of ungodliness that they
have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken
about him. These are grumblers, malcontents,
following their own sinful desires. They are loud mouth boasters showing favoritism to gain.
Advantage. We'll stop there. May God add his blessing to this reading of his word. The grass
withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. We're going to look at three
big themes in this verse. The first is the certainty of coming judgment for these false teachers.
Not just for the false teachers. Judgment's coming for everyone. They're going to be severely
judged. The second thing we'll look at is the cause of the coming judgment for them. And then we're
going to look finally at more characteristics of ungodliness. So that's our outline for this
morning. Let's look first at the certainty of the coming judgment. This is actually the first thing
Jude says about the false teachers who have crept into the church. The first thing he declares
about them back in Jude verse 4, if you see it there, he says, these men have crept into the church
unaware and their destruction has been ordained from beforehand.
So the first thing he says is these men have come and they will face God's judgment.
This theme of God's judgment against the false teachers is something that comes up over and over
again in the verses that follow. In fact, in verse 5, Jude says Israel was judged by God when
they... showed a lack of faith and did not believe his promises. Verse 6, angels were judged by
God. When they abandoned God's authority to govern over them, they left their position.
And it says in the verse that they are now kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the
judgment of the great day. Verse 7, the men of Sodom and Gomorrah,
who followed their own lusts instead of obeying and honoring God, they're going to face judgment.
and a punishment of eternal fire, it says. Verse 13 says that these hidden reefs,
these waterless clouds, these fruitless trees, these restless waves and wandering stars,
the gloom of darkness, utter darkness is set aside for them. So judgment keeps coming up.
These false teachers will face a harsh and severe judgment from God.
It's a major theme in Jude. Anybody who thinks, well, God will be merciful to them in the end,
Jude is saying, no, he won't. They persist in their false teaching. They will face a harsh and
severe judgment from God. In fact, it will be a harsher judgment for them than it will be for
others. There are levels of punishment and judgment spoken of in the Bible. Some people are judged
more severely than others in the last day. And James tells us in James chapter 3,
not many of you should seek to be teachers because you will face a stricter judgment.
That's a sobering verse for somebody who gets up here and preaches every Sunday. I mean, you better
make sure that you're doing your best to represent God and his word correctly. Now in verse 14,
Jude is saying judgment is coming. for these false teachers.
And one of the ways we know that judgment is coming is because of the prophecy that comes from
Enoch. Look at it. It says, Enoch's prophecy in his day that the Lord will come with 10,000 of his
holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict the ungodly. What Jude is talking about here
when he talks about this day that Enoch pointed us to is the coming day of judgment, what the Old
Testament called the day of the Lord. It's the last day in history, the day when Jesus comes back,
and in that day, he will judge all humanity throughout history, including you and me.
We will stand before the judgment seat on the last day. In the book of Romans,
in chapter 2, chapter 1 of Romans kind of describes the downward spiral of moral...
devolution that goes on in people's lives and how people go from bad to worse to worse to worse if
they ignore God. It comes around in chapter 2, and here's what it says. This is Paul saying,
we know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
It is right of God to judge us for our rebellion against him. Do you suppose,
O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, That you will escape
the judgment of God?
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that
God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? So those who continue to sin and say,
well, God will be kind in the end, Paul is saying, no, no, no. God's being kind now, so you'll
repent now. so that he can turn his head in the end. And then it goes on to say,
but because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of
wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. This is just one of many places in the Bible
that talks about a coming day when a loving and merciful God, who is also a righteous and just God,
After years and years of patience and forbearance with sinners who reject,
rebel, are indifferent toward him, he will pour out his wrath on those who refuse to submit
themselves to him, to turn from sin and turn to him. In fact, read verse 5 again from Romans.
Put that back up. Because of your hard and impertinent heart. You are storing up wrath for yourself
on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
The false teachers in Jude's day, they have hard and impenitent hearts.
They are storing up wrath for that day of judgment. This is why the Bible warns all of us to be
careful that we don't harden our own hearts. You know the difference between soft-hearted and hard
-hearted, don't you? If you have kids, you know the difference between soft-hearted and hard
-hearted because your kids will come to you sometimes and they will, with their sweet voice, they
will say, Daddy, Mommy, will you... And the soft-hearted one is the one who gives in and says,
Okay, we can do that. And the hard-hearted one will say, No, go back to your room and keep
cleaning, right? That's soft-hearted and hard-hearted. That's the difference. When we come to God
with humble-heartedness, and we pour out our request to him,
God hears that prayer. And in Christ, he is merciful toward us.
The question is, when God comes to us with his instructions, are we soft-hearted toward him?
Or are we hard-hearted? God says, here's what I want. Here's what's best for you.
Here's what will bless you. And we go, no. That's hard-heartedness. Do not harden your heart when
God is coming to you. and telling you what is best for you. That's what the scriptures are saying
here. God's kindness toward you is meant to lead you to repentance,
not for you to presume upon it and think, well, he'll let me off in the end. Hard-heartedness is
dangerous. When you are hard-hearted and unresponsive to God, you are inciting his wrath and his
anger toward you. Maybe not in the moment, but he is storing up wrath that will be poured out on
the day of judgment. In the moment, he is pleading with you mercifully, but there is a day of
judgment when he will pour out his wrath. It will be, for those who are in Christ, a great day.
It will be, for those who don't know Christ, a terrible day. In fact,
I heard somebody say, I've shared this with you before, somebody has said, if you know Christ in
this life, today, this life is the worst things will ever be for you.
If you don't know Christ in this life, This life is the best things will ever be for you.
You look ahead, you're either headed for the best or the worst. This life is just in the middle,
in the shadowlands. The day of the Lord, the coming day of the Lord, the day of judgment will be a
great day for those who are in Christ. It will be a horrible day for those who have rejected him
and rebelled against him and resisted and hardened their hearts toward God.
Which are you? Soft-hearted to God or hard-hearted? When you read God's word and he says,
this is what I have for you, you say, no, I'm not going to do that.
Or are you soft-hearted and say, yes, Lord, I'm surrendered to you. The verse in the book of
Hebrews that you should have ringing in your ears here is the one where the writer of Hebrews says,
therefore, as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart as in the
rebellion. Hardening your heart is rebellion against God. God will bring judgment on the rebels in
the last day.
When I think about my responsibilities as a pastor, there is nothing more pressing or more urgent
for me than to make sure you are ready for that day, to do everything I can to get you ready for
that day, the day of judgment. There are big days in everybody's life, your birthday, your
anniversaries, the day you get married, the day you graduate, you get a promotion. There are big
days. We celebrate big days. We have birthday parties once a year. We have anniversary
celebrations. All of that's right and appropriate. But those days will fade.
in a moment because the biggest day ahead for you is the day when you will stand before Jesus.
My job is to try to make sure you are ready for that day by saying be soft-hearted people to what
God is calling you to today so that when you stand before him and when the charges are read against
you that day, Jesus can say he's one of mine. Yes, it's true.
The charges are true. The punishment has already been received. I have paid it.
Welcome home. That's the good news of the gospel. If you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.
Repent, believe, surrender, follow Jesus, turn from your ungodliness, practice godliness.
Let me just say a quick word about the pronouncement of judgment that Jude gives us in verse 14.
This is from a prophecy from Enoch. Did you see that? And Jude tells us Enoch was seven generations
from Adam. There are actually two Enoch's early in Genesis. In Genesis chapter 4,
one of Adam's grandsons, Seth's first child, excuse me, not Seth,
Cain's first child. Cain's first child is Enoch. That's not the Enoch we're talking about here.
This is an Enoch who's a great, great, great, great, great grandson. I get all those right.
He's seven generations from Adam. He's mentioned in Genesis 5. The thing we know about Enoch from
Genesis 5 that's interesting, that makes him stand out, is that the Bible says he walked with God
and he was not. He was taken up. He wanted two people in the Old Testament who didn't die.
He was just walking with God in this life and God said, okay, come home. And he was instantly with
the Lord in eternity. The other one was Elijah who went in a chariot. Enoch just walked into the
presence of God. So he stands out. Now the prophecy of Enoch that's being quoted here,
do you know where that is in the Old Testament? Do you know where you find that? It's a trick
question. It's not there. This prophecy of Enoch that Jude is quoting is not in the Old Testament.
As best we can tell, This was a well-known prophecy about God coming on the last day with 10,000
angels to bring judgment on the earth. People had known this prophecy for years and years. It had
been passed around through oral tradition. It just never showed up in any of the Bible writings.
People would say, you know how back at the beginning? Enoch used to tell people that the Lord would
come with 10,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment. Everybody knew it and passed it around. In
fact, there was a book that was written a couple hundred years before Jesus was born that was
called, we still have fragments of it, called Enoch 1. It wasn't written by Enoch.
It was written by somebody who was writing about Enoch and adopted that. And it's not in our Bible
because it's not the Word of God. I mean,
you could read the book of Enoch and there's stuff in there that's not true. So it doesn't make the
Bible. who were paying attention to what's a lot of religious books out there which are the ones
that are really from God that's where the church came together and prayed and God said these are
the ones from me Enoch did not make the cut but this quote from that book of Enoch made the cut
because the Holy Spirit inspired Jude to say that's true this prophecy of Enoch It was apparently
an actual prophecy that Enoch, back seven generations from Adam, had prophesied and that had been
passed down throughout history. Which is interesting to think. It's the first prophecy in the Bible
spoken by a man. There's a prophecy in Genesis chapter 3 where God is speaking about the seed that
is coming. That's God giving a prophecy. But this is a man giving a prophecy. It's not in Genesis.
But if it's the first prophecy ever given by a man, It's interesting that the first prophecy given
by a man is God's going to come in judgment.
The first thing you need to know, God's coming in judgment. You better be ready and right for that
day.
By the way, there are other places in the Bible where extra biblical content is quoted and brought
into the scripture. What you see in the Bible you can count on, even if the source it comes from is
not a wholly reliable source. So that's just the story behind where this prophecy from Enoch comes
from.
So let's move from the certainty of the coming judgment to the cause of the judgment. The reason
that God is going to come to judge these false teachers and all of us, in this case, is because of
their ungodliness, the word we've already looked at this morning. They are being judged because
they are asabes people. They are people who are ungodly.
actually anti-God. Look back at verse 15. God is going to execute judgment on all and convict all
the ungodly of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of
all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. All and ungodly over and over
again. Four times. All ungodly. Ungodly people doing ungodly things in an ungodly way with ungodly
speech. False teachers were likely denying that judgment was coming,
that Jesus was coming back. One of the things that they were saying that was false is, Jesus is not
coming back. In fact, Peter tells us this in 2 Peter 3, where he says,
you know, there are some who are saying, where's the promise of his coming? Everything's going on
just like it's been from the beginning. Why do you believe Jesus is coming back? I don't see
anything. They were mocking the idea of the second coming. This was a part of their false teaching.
And Jude is saying, he is coming, and he will come, and it will be a terrible day for the false
teachers. It's a part of their ungodliness.
We understand that, you know, when people look around and say, I don't believe that God is going to
come in judgment. We hear this in our day, don't we? People say, well, you know, God is a loving
and merciful God. He's not a God of harshness or judgment. He's not going to judge people.
I mean, especially my nice neighbor who just doesn't believe like I do, doesn't go to church. God's
not going to judge that person and bring judgment on them. Look, it's hard for us to imagine,
I get it, that God would somehow consign someone to eternal hell when that person seems nice enough
to us. You feel that, don't you? I feel that. The reason it's hard for us to imagine is because we
minimize what rebellion against God is.
We think it's not a big deal. Okay, so my friend doesn't go to church. They don't follow God, but
they're a nice person. That should be good enough with God. No, you don't understand. To reject, to
be indifferent to, to rebel against God, this is a wicked thing. This is an evil thing.
It is worthy of eternal judgment because it is spitting in the face of the God who created you and
loved you and gave his son for you. To do that and expect that God's just going to wave his hand
and say, oh, you are a nice enough person. We don't understand what unbelief and rebellion against
God really is. If you want nothing to do with God in this life,
you want to run your own life, you're setting yourself up for that eternal pathway for your life.
It's not like when you die, you're going to go, okay, now I want God to run things. Right?
If you don't want him to run things in this life after you die, you're not going to want him to run
them then. The reason we're on this path now is to start to get us ready for what it's going to be
when we die and God says, welcome in, and he's in complete control.
We need to be yielded to his will today.
Let me just pause here for a second. I want to make a couple of observations about false teachers
in general as it relates to this and about their ungodliness. First of all, remember these false
teachers, Jude tells us, are covert. Their ungodliness is not necessarily on display.
They'll come into the church and you wouldn't pick them out and say, there's an ungodly one.
There's a false teacher. They're subtle. They're crafty. They are covert in their operation.
They slip in unnoticed. And second, I think you need to know that not all of the characteristics
that Jude is mentioning in here are true of every false teacher. We've got a long list of what
false teachers look like. Not all false teachers will bear all of these characteristics.
So far we've seen that these false teachers may be men or women who reveal that they are false
teachers by undermining. the essential message of Christianity. Some people will do this subtly.
They undermine it. Rather than saying, I don't believe Jesus is the Messiah, they will say,
well, let me ask you a question. If Jesus is all-powerful, what about this?
What about that? Why does this happen? Those are legitimate questions for us to wrestle with,
but when the answer starts to lead people away from Jesus, we've got a problem. That's a false
teacher being subtle in their questioning. They may reveal their nature by being sexually immoral
people, but not every false teacher is a sexually immoral person. They may reveal themselves by
doubting... word they may show their apostasy by rejecting authority these are some of the things
judah has told us to be on the lookout for he's cataloged a whole variety of sins here that may be
ways that people are manifesting ungodliness in their heart but you shouldn't presume that all of
these things will always be true about every false teacher some of them will be true about some and
less about others someone can be a false teacher and not be sexually immoral Someone can be a false
teacher or somebody may be sexually immoral and not necessarily a false teacher. We have to be
alert to this. Here's the point. When you see these characteristics showing up in somebody's life,
when they're not wanting to yield to God's authority in their life. when they are sexually immoral,
when they are casting doubt on the scriptures. When you see these things, the yellow flag should go
up and you should say, I need to be careful with that person. I need to watch out for that person.
I need to make sure I'm not being too influenced by that person. And then stand back and see what
happens with that person. Finally, I think we need to recognize most false teachers are themselves
deceived. So most false teachers are not sitting down and saying,
you know what I want to be when I grow up? I want to be a false teacher. I know I'm lying to
others. But I can't help it. No, these are people who are themselves deceived.
I'll give you a very quick example of what this looks like. I saw this on social media this week.
This was posted by somebody who actually came to Redeemer in the early days.
Here's what he said. He said, I want to show you what God is not and what God is. He put up a chart
on social media. Here's what it looked like. He said, God is not a male authority figure. God is
the infinite well of creative source energy.
I'm not even sure what that means.
Then he said, God is not a specific religion or a set of beliefs.
He said, God is the natural unwritten design of the universe.
God is not judgmental of those who don't believe. God is generating love and abundance whether we
accept it or not.
God is not something that exists separate from ourselves. God is the interconnected web of all
consciousness.
I'm pretty sure that the person who posted this on social media really believes these things.
He's not somebody who said, I'm going to be a false teacher and put this up and try to deceive
people.
False teachers are most often the blind leading the blind. They are most often people who have
fallen into error themselves and now they're leading other people into that same error. And they
wind up being strongly committed to and openly committed to their blindness. We ought to pray for
them. We ought to love them. We ought to ask God to reveal himself to them and to wake them up,
to shake them out of the strong delusion that they are under.
Because if they persist in what they're doing, if this person persists in what he believes,
there is a day of judgment ahead that will be a severe day of judgment for that kind of a
perspective.
I want us to move to verse 16 and look at, the additional characteristics of a false teacher here.
And we're just going to be brief. As I got here, I thought, I don't have time to unpack all of
verse 16. This would be good as we move toward Thanksgiving anyway, to look at verse 16.
False teachers, the additional characteristics of a false teacher. These were true about the false
teachers in Jude's day. These are grumblers,
malcontents.
Following their own sinful desires, they are loud mouth boasters showing favoritism to gain
advantage. Five characteristics listed there. And four of the five are about sinful speech that
comes out of the mouth from the heart. As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, the Bible says. They are grumblers,
malcontents, boasters, and flatterers.
And we're going to come again. As you think about Thanksgiving, are you a grumbler, a malcontent,
boaster, flatterer? Any of these things true about you? Here's all we'll say about it this morning.
Two things. First, these things in this list are not petty things. They are serious.
These are some of the things for which God will bring judgment. Some of us think grumbling is not a
big deal. I mean, everybody grumbles, right? Didn't get my coffee order right at Starbucks or
whatever. It's easy for us to slip into grumbling and we think, well, that's just everybody
grumbles. No, Jesus never grumbled.
Jesus never grumbled.
And when the children of Israel grumbled, what did God do? He disciplined them,
which is what I hope you do when your kids grumble. I hope you discipline them. I hope you move in.
and train them not to grumble grumbling is a serious sin so is flattering so is being malcontent so
is boasting these are serious sins that's why i'm going to come back to these these were
characteristic of the false teachers and their disciples are they characteristic of us we'll talk
about that later on here's the other thing i'll say this week the extent to which any of these are
present in your own life will be an indication of the extent to which you are being influenced by
either your unrestrained flesh or by false teachers in your life. If you're a grumbler and a
malcontent, that's coming from somewhere, either from your sinful heart or because you're listening
to other grumbling malcontents.
You need to be careful what you're watching on TV. A lot of grumbling malcontentedness going on on
TV. You've got to be careful what you're reading on social media. There's a whole...
a whole social media site that's committed to grumbling malcontentedness, right?
Maybe that's why they changed it to X. I don't know.
Don't excuse or minimize these things. If God speaks to you and says,
you know what? You're prone to malcontentedness, to grumbling. Do not harden your heart.
Soften your heart. Own it. Confess it. I love you guys' testimonies because these guys are standing
up and saying, I own this. This was true about me.
I'm not going to try to minimize it or hide it. When I did that, everything went bad for me.
I'm going to own it and say, yes, this was true about me. By God's grace, it's not controlling me
anymore, right? And that needs to be the case for us with our grumbling. You want to be free from
grumbling and malcontentedness and boasting and flattering? You need to own it. This is a problem
for me. You need to confess it. You need to turn from it.
And you need God's grace to change you. As a child of God, this is not who you ought to be.
And the question comes back to what extent are you actively seeking to grow in godliness in your
life? Some people I know who are Christians are Christians, but they're not pursuing growth in
godliness actively. They're kind of just floating along with the stream. What are you doing to
actively pursue growth in godliness in your life? If you want to be protected against being led
astray by false teachers, the way to do that is to be actively engaged in growing in godliness.
The way to stay on the right path is to be moving down the right path, not to be just standing idle
at the crossroads and going, oh, well, I hope it goes okay for me today. And if you're asking
yourself, okay, so how do I pursue godliness? How do I grow in godliness? I'll just say this.
We'll talk more the next time. But don't try to do it alone.
Don't think I can do this on my own. I'll just grip my teeth. No. When you say that,
Satan smiles. He says, I got him. I got her. No,
you need to team up. You need accountability. You need other people in your life. You need to hold
one another accountable. You need to come to the men's meeting on Tuesday night this week and get
with the group of guys where we're dealing with our stuff. Or get someone who can meet with you one
-on-one. Just get an accountability partner and regularly check in with one another. How are you
doing? How are you doing? What are the issues? What are we dealing with? Get someone who, pick up a
book you can go through. A book that will challenge you, not just in what you think, in how you're
living your life. And I'll just give you a suggestion. Get this book by Jerry Bridges and go
through it with somebody. Have we got it? Yeah. It's The Discipline of Grace.
It's a great book that'll help you understand how you can live a spiritually disciplined life by
grace and grow in godliness. Here's what you need to know. Pursuing godliness in your life will
protect you against false teachers. Failing to pursue
godliness in your life will leave you vulnerable to false teachers. If you want to be protected
against false teachers, be growing in godliness.
If you're not growing in godliness, you're in danger. Pray with me.
Lord,
these are sobering words for us to think about and to consider this morning. I pray that your
spirit would press these truths home to us as we need to know them and hear them.
Lord, I pray that we would be men and women committed to pursuing godly living in our own lives,
that we would not be content with where we are, but that we would want to grow in the image and
likeness of your son. Each one of us needs that, Lord. Would you prod us in that direction and then
protect us from the false teachers who would seek to disrupt us,
lead us astray. Lord, I pray again this morning for any who are here who have not surrendered their
lives to you. who would look at this text and look at what we're talking about and say, my heart
has been hard toward God. I have not been soft-hearted. I have wanted to run my own life,
and I have resisted and rebelled and pushed against him.
Lord, would you do a work in that person's life today?
Show them the ugliness of their sin.
Draw them to yourself.
Bring them into your family.
We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.