So if you have a Bible or device, I want to invite you to turn to first Thessalonians chapter four. We're going to read verse seven together. Then I want you to flip over, just kind of keep your fingers in Both places to second Thessalonians 2:13. So first Thessalonians 4. 7 and then second Thessalonians 2: 13.

When you, when you have it, if you would go ahead and just stand as we read and reason. You know why this is so important. Today the kids are in the room. I'm so appreciative of our next gen for Jen, for Timothy, for Crosby and what they do to pour into our students and our kids. And I'm just grateful that we can have Sundays like this where they come in the room.

Parents, I'm only going to preach an hour and.

No, really, Parents. Kids. Screaming does not bother me. I was a children's pastor for five years. It does not bother me.

In fact, I welcome it. But I do not have any dum dums or blow pops in my possession. So, kids, if you need that, I'm sorry. 1st Thessalonians 4. 7 reads, For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.

Let me read that again. For God has not called us, say, called us for the purpose of impurity, but sanctification. Now flip over to 2nd Thessalonians 2:13. It reads this. Same recipients, same church.

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord. Same language as in 1:4. Because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the spirit and faith in the truth. Let's pray, Father, as we dig into your word for the next few moments. As we've already studied a few weeks ago, let the word of God have its good work in us.

This is not the words of man, but the words of God. Do the work in us. In Jesus name, Amen. So let me just go ahead and invite you because, I mean, what better way to start the 251st year of our nation than to show up Tomorrow morning at 6am in this room and worship. No, I'm being serious, guys.

We can talk about the division in our nation and all the problems that we have, but I am very thankful this day that I live in the United States of America. I'm very thankful that we have the freedoms that we have to worship God. We're not subjected by our government to be in any kind of denomination. We're not subjected by our government right now. To be forced into any kind of government that forces us to worship a certain way.

But what if it comes someday? Will your faith stand that kind of persecution? Last week, when Kevin shared with you, one of the passages says that your faith might increase where you stand today. Where I stand today? On this day, after the 250th anniversary of independence Day, as we stand in need of walking in sanctification.

Now, hold on. I know there's kids in the room. Sanctification is one of those big words. We're not supposed to use big words in church, right? Well, I looked up photosynthesis and our third graders.

If you're in third grade, raise your hand or. You finished third grade. John. Mark. Thank you.

Do you know what photosynthesis is? Yes or no? If you can figure out photosynthesis, then the word sanctification isn't that hard. Especially if somebody would tell you what it is. I love how Leon Morris defined it and described it.

He said your sanctification points to the process of which holiness is in work. Our God is holy, and therefore God wants us to be holy. Well, what does it mean to be holy? It means to be set apart. It means to be made into something useful by the Master.

In New Testament language, he says, we are a saint. Now, that makes some of you uncomfortable. I wouldn't call myself a saint, but what the Bible teaches is that once you have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you are sanctified. You are a saint. That's what it means.

It's not that a church gets together and votes on who did it better than others. If you are saved by the grace of God and the Spirit of God lives inside of you, you are a saint. That's who you are. It's time for us to stop letting the world define who we are and be defined by what this book says we are. By what God says we are.

We are sanctified, filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus said, or John said of Jesus, I baptize you with water, but the one who comes after me will baptize you with spirit and fire. Why would that be important? Because of the impurities in my life need to be burned away so that I can stand not in the partial presence of God, but in the full presence of God, because he has made me holy. Say holy.

Say sanctified. See? That didn't hurt. Y' all used to try to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious when you were a kid. Why are you afraid of big words?

Get A dictionary sanctified. God's calling us to be resolute in that sanctification and to walk in that sanctification. Paul's already used that word peripeteo over and over again. Walking, living, behaving. All of those nuances of that word being encompassed in this book.

We're called to walk in the holiness of God. God lives inside of us. He's transforming our character to be like that of His Son. So therefore, as he is holy, he is making us holy, separate in the world, but not of the world. Thinking about The Independence Day 250 years got me thinking a little bit further back.

And I got to confess, there's a story I'm about to share that I learned something new. Maybe I heard it when I was a kid, but I was too busy tracing my hand and making feathers out of turkeys on Thanksgiving. What, y' all didn't do that as kids. You came home as glitter from head to toe. Jazz hands, you know.

In 1608, a small group of English Christians had come to a painful conclusion. They could not align with the religious political structure of England. England had voted to no longer be under the rulership of the Roman Catholic Church and formed the Church of England, the Anglican Church. However, what I learned was much like the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England was no different. It was corrupt, and they could no longer stay within it with good conscience.

But like any good government, they decided to persecute those who they could not control. Those of you that have been with me to Scotland have seen it firsthand as you walk on that mass grave of thousands of people who were burned or hung because they would not conform to the Church of England.

When they came to America, they didn't just come so that they could sing Kumbaya the way they wanted to. They came because they were being persecuted.

This small group of people known as they actually were, called separatists, not some kind of Star wars movie, but they left England and went to Amsterdam and lived in a city called Leiden. But unfortunately, because they had removed themselves from English culture in this more liberal and pluralistic area, their children began to lose their English identity. They were living in poverty, working in the textile industry. And after years and a decade, they decided we got to do something different. And they had heard about an opportunity to go to the Americas to start a colony.

And These Separatists, in 1620, boarded the Mayflower. See, I always thought they left England. Does that work? How many of you. Be honest.

How many of you thought the Pilgrims came directly From England. They were English, but they didn't start there. They partnered with the Virginia Company and were making their way to Virginia to start a new colony. They were given the boat, they were given supplies, and they didn't make it that far. They made it to Plymouth Rock.

These separatists formed the nucleus of Plymouth's colony settlement. They believed that the Church of England was so corrupted by its worldly practices and hierarchy that they had to leave the church or risk their own salvation. That's how serious they were. One author commented. What united them, these pilgrims, in their decision to leave England for a place where they could worship God the way they thought.

Most consistent with scriptural revelation was the conviction that to fail to act on what they knew to be true was to invite God's punishment for conscious sin. And they landed at plymouth rock on November 16, 1620, wanting to live, set apart, separate holy.

May we today draw the same kind of inspiration that we can't vacate the world. We can't become a monk and go hide in some mountain, on a hill. But in our behavior, in our faith, in our intentions and in our purpose, we can live lives separated from this world system, unto the kingdom of God that God has called us to.

How are your passions and purposes today? In line with what this book bears testimony to? How many of us, like would look at our life and go, you know, if this is the standard and I'm analyzing myself with it, most of us probably would agree we don't measure up.

God has called us, empowered us, and enabled us by His Holy Spirit to live holy, sanctified lives.

It is his will for you, it is his will for me that in being saved he intended to sanctify me and that by sanctifying me he is fulfilling the purpose of salvation. May God burn the world out of me and you by the fire of His Holy Spirit. Matthew Henry said, we must not only persevere to the end, we must not live just trying to get by in this world. We should want to grow better. No one in this room picks up a new hobby, a new skill, a new job, and don't try to work at it to get better.

Your faith is no different. I mean, I want to read this to you back in 3:10. He said, Day and night we keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face and may complete what is lacking in your faith. Kevin went on to share as he's talking about this idea of praying. He said, now may God and the Father himself and Jesus direct our way to you now Quote may the Lord cause you to increase.

Say increase and abound. Say abound in love for one another. In other words, that word abound, we're going to see it again in a second. The root of that word is a flower coming into full bloom. I got this plant outside and it is diseased with bugs when it blooms.

When we first got it at the beginning of or at the end of spring, I mean, it had some of the best blooms I've ever seen. Purple and kind of pink colored, but they would only bloom for a day and then they would rot and fall off. And if you caught it at the right time, you'd see it in full bloom. How beautiful it is. How many of you in this room feel like in your faith you've come into full bloom?

Let me ask it differently. How many of you want to come into full bloom? How many of you want to see the potential that God might have in your life if we would just yield to the sanctifying power of His Holy Spirit? I mean, it lights my fire to think about looking across this room at the potential. When I look at these 5 year olds and these 10 year olds and even some of you that are in your 70s, you know, God's not finished with you yet.

At the great potential of the people sitting in this room, listening online that may be traveling this week and what they can do for the cause of the gospel in this world when we're yielded to the holy sanctifying work that God wants to do in you. It's a good work, it's not a bad work. I'm going to come back and reference that word again because we're going to see it a couple more times. In fact, look with me at verse number one. I want you to notice in verse one and verse 12, there's the word excel, ex, c, e, o.

In the new American standard, it's excel. It's the same word in Greek and it's the same word for abound. In other words, what Paul is calling them to as he transitions in the book, he's been calling them to know, to draw from their knowledge bank what he had shown them, how he had lived, what he had done, how he worked with his hands. We're going to hit that one again in a minute. And now in chapter four and into five, he's giving them practical instructions of how to live, how going back to 2:10, so that they would walk worthy of the God who called them.

You see, let me suggest this to you. You are filled with the Holy Spirit. If you're saved by. But you have to participate with said Holy Spirit for it to do its work in you. We, as Romans, Chapter 6 said, must present our members unto righteousness.

Righteousness lives inside of me, but if I keep my hands and my feet inside, it's no good. I won't move anywhere and I won't do anything. He's called you me to live out the life that he died for. And that freedom. That freedom isn't an excuse to do whatever we want to do.

That freedom isn't the reason to keep wallowing in my sin. I was thinking about it as I was praying yesterday and this morning I said, lord, I'm just a worm of a man. And God said, you know what the difference is, actually? You're a caterpillar. Worms keep wallowing in the dirt.

But I've called you unto transformation.

What is the potential? I can tell you what the potential is in your life. You want to hear it? Do you want to hear the potential for your life? I don't know how much of the notes I'm going to get to.

I'm going to watch my time. And when kids start screaming, we'll wrap it up. Is that an agreement now? To him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly beyond anything I could ask or think according to his power at work in me. Folks, we set the bar way too low in what God can do in our lives.

No wonder we struggle with depression and anxiety. We burn ourselves out because we're trying to do the work that God wants to do for us. And we get depressed when the results don't come. Because I'm the one that wants the glory. Maybe if I just stepped back and yielded myself to what God wants to do, in fact, doing me so it affects other people, it'd be like Pilgrim William Bradford wrote, a great hope, an inward zeal that they had to lay some foundation or make some way there unto.

I love that word thereunto. I'm gonna use that all day today for propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ to the remote part of the earth. And then he goes on to say, but even as stepping stones unto others for performing the same. Guys, we're stepping on the stones that the pilgrims brought over here. We're stepping on the stones of all of those who fled that persecution and came to the United States in hope that they could take the gospel to the heathen, to the nations.

What saddens me sometimes when we've gone on those trips to Scotland is it Scary. Scotland used to be the sender of missionaries and now it's the recipient thereof. And America's not too far behind because God's people stay silent, not necessarily in speaking out what they think is right and wrong. Because we're not speaking out the gospel, we're not speaking it out in how we live, what we're going to do. When we look at this passage, I want you to notice that there's going to be two issues that Paul's going to address.

He's going to address and I promise you this is G rated parents, sexual or immorality. You're going oh no. And how we treat other people.

Out of all the things that he could address, he decided I need to address the one thing that's a hang up for a lot of you.

And I need to address how you're treating each other in your life today. I just said a minute ago, God wants you to reach your full potential. Well, let's look at the reverse of that. How are you in relation with the opposite sex and how are you in relation to how you treat other people?

Because see, in the beginning of this, he's going to talk about our relationship with God, that God has called us to walk pleasing to him. And then he's going to address this idea of how I'm sinning against others and how I ought to be loving them all the way to the end of this. Of how it's going out there and impacting even those, even those that are outsiders, the lost, those that don't know Jesus.

Hebrews 12:14 reads, pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. Our relationship hinges on the sanctifying work of God in our lives. So does it need to be serious? This is something serious, ladies and gentlemen. This is not a joke.

This is not another trite. Okay, there's a box I can check off. You can't sanctify yourself. You can only yield to the work being done in you. And it's a participation in.

God has called you to walk, to live, to behave according to that sanctification. I'm going to tell you at the end of this message, we need to start acting like we belong to God.

We have that freedom that we can live out our faith here. We don't have to have church in an underground cellar. We don't have to run from the police. We don't have to fear that the police are going to bust in this back door. Maybe they need to to scare us into that place.

Where we'll analyze our faith and say, is this a faith that will endure no matter what? Let me get started. Point number one. Here's how we respond to the Holy Spirit. This is how we respond.

This is a. This is a how to message. And every one of these points begins with the word Excel. The first thing we need to do is we need to excel by persisting in godly obedience. Let me read to you again from two weeks ago in 2:12 so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

It's God's purpose for you and I to walk in obedience. You can't obey in and of yourself. You don't want to. Till the Holy Spirit changes your nature, you don't want to. But if you have yielded to the saving power and grace of God, then now you have been enabled to want to love the Lord and to do what pleases Him.

Listen to the text, verse one. Finally, then everything he has said up to this point, all of the you knows that build up to this point, the reminders that Jesus is going to come and he's going to judge. He's coming soon. He says, finally. Then brethren, we request and exhort you parakaleo calling alongside in the Lord Jesus, that just as you received instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God, just as you do now, excel even more, you could read this and go, well, God, is my good not good enough?

Well, your good was never good enough. Let me just go ahead and bust that bubble for you.

It ought to be our everyday pilgrimage to wake up and ask the question, lord, how can I please you today? Hebrews 11:6 says that without faith it is impossible to to please God because He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

We ought to get up every day and just wonder like, all right, here we go. I want to persist in obeying you today. Now, are you going to do it perfectly? And everybody said no. But persistence presses on even when you stumble.

Persistence presses even when you miss it. Persistence continues even when nothing works out the way you planned. It's called discipline. We must excel. Go beyond, exceed the count, come in to our full bloom and let the beauty of the glory of the Lord shine through of us.

Some of you today have yet to see what joy in full bloom and faith in full bloom might look in your life. It's kind of like when you, you know, I have an app on my phone that I can go and scan a plant. Like I said, I've Got this plant outside and now that plant's covered with sevens dust. I know. Probably the worst thing I could do, but it was cheap, quick and easy.

But now my blooms are coming out. They don't have holes all in them. They're beautiful. I left a tomato plant with Laura's dad and he took a picture of it, says, you got a tomato. That thing's beautiful because I fed it like every week.

I think it's about this big cantaloupe tomato. But I can scan with this app and it can suggest to me, maybe you need to put a little baking soda around the plant. Ph might be off. Guys. If you could take that same app and, and scan your life and see where you're lacking in your faith, what would it show?

And maybe that's where you then go, all right, God help me excel there. Maybe it's in your Bible reading, maybe it's in your church attendance, maybe it's in your giving. There's a reason all these disciplines exist, because as we practice spiritual disciplines, it draws us in to connecting into the presence of the Holy Spirit. But when I deny those disciplines or I get off of those disciplines, I pay a price. I wilt, I go unattended.

I become fruitless.

See, the opposite of this is point two. If I'm going to excel in godly obedience, then I need to abstain from ungodly passions. Parents, I promise you this is going to be G rated. But I also can't sidestep this and I just want to encourage you. Parents, parents, you need to start talking about sexuality with your kids now because there's a world waiting to tell your kid what sexuality should be.

And it's starting earlier than you think. If you have teenagers, parents, and you don't think your kids haven't seen stuff, done stuff, you're a fool. They are. And they're being taught. TikTok is teaching your kids stuff.

Social media is teaching. Their friends and their peers are teaching them stuff. Your kids are hanging out with kids that are going unattended and unsupervised. They're showing them all kinds of things. So you make a choice.

Do you want to teach them or do you want somebody else to? He says in verse two. For you know what? Commandments. I love this word, commandments there, because this literally means spoken words that you were given.

We were given to you by the authority of the Lord or through the Lord, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality. You cannot sidestep that you cannot dodge it, you cannot redefine it. It says that your sanctification is directly connected to sexual immorality. So let me give you the G rated definition. If you are a dude, God intends you to be with a female for life in marriage.

And if you are a lady, God intends for you to be with a man for life in marriage.

Adam said, this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She will be called woman because she came out of man. Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will become one flesh. Jesus said, whatever God has joined together, let no man put asunder. When you stand in front of me or another pastor and you make a commitment to one another, you're not just making it to one another, you're making it to God.

The reason some of your marriages are struggling is because you've forgotten you promised it God first.

That was a mouthful.

What that means, kids in this room, is that God someday in your future most likely will have someone for you to marry. And you need to wait to act married after you're married.

Can I meddle? Teenagers. This lie about living together before you get married, it's a sin. You cannot put the cart before the horse and expect God to bless it. Because when you stand in front of a pastor and you make those vows, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, If you want to plug your kids ears for a moment, you can.

It does not involve sex.

Back in that culture in that day, women were few. So even in the in the town of Thessalonica, there was probably a lot of extramarital activity going on. In fact, in Roman law, if a man caught his wife cheating on him and did not divorce her, they would charge, arrest and stone him for being a pimp.

Your kids will forget that word.

Guys, turn your devices off. The more you look at stuff, the deeper the hole gets. You will never be satisfied looking. Ladies, consider how you dress. Stop trying to attract the eyes of other men other than your own husband.

If you're not married and you've crossed the lines and acted like you're married and you're not, God can restore your purity and you can commit right then to save yourself. To me. Aren't you glad you came to church today? You can't get around it. He said abstain from sexual immorality.

That that is his will. It's not the only part of God's will for your life, but he's called you unto Sanctification. What are you going to do with it? Paul would write in 1st Corinthians 6:18 to flee, run from immorality. So kids, make a commitment today to save yourself to marriage.

Parents, you can talk about sexuality with your kids and not talk about the particulars of the birds and bees.

But if you don't, somebody will.

There are wolves just waiting and looking and watching. They want to pull your child, your teen, into some godless relationship.

And you think it's college professors. No. The first blame for kids falling out of faith when they graduate is the absence of parents teaching them, bringing them to the house of God so they can hear the word of God preached, to be studied in group, studied together, discussed, processed, chewed, eaten, absorbed, internalized. Yes, I had a week of vacation and I slept a lot. Lot.

I have not had much caffeine, guys. I'm just passionate about it. It's destroying lives. And the sad part is if you keep going down in this text, you'll see that point three really goes with point two. But we defraud other people all the time.

Point three says excel by not taking advantage of other people. How do we do that? We take advantage of them first in manipulating them in a sexual way.

Some of you dudes in this room, you used to be players.

You talked to three or four different girls at the same time and you had one goal in mind. Don't you hide from it.

Some of you guys that are looking. Can I give you a point of conviction? When you're looking at stuff online, that's somebody's daughter who got sucked into sin. Oh, that God would birth in us a conviction that we're looking at death. And if I'm going to play with death, it's going to bring death in my life.

Guys, this is why he's saying my sanctification is intricately attached to sexual immorality, but also in how I treat other people. He says, and that no man transgress, in other words, cross boundaries or defraud his brother, exploit in a way that benefits me. Because the Lord. Alright, kids, now let me flip this. I'll get a little comical for a moment.

Is the avenger before Iron man ever avenged God is the avenger. That gives me hope and comfort that when some young lady has been taken advantage of, God will avenge that. If not now, when they stand before him in judgment.

But the reverse is true. Don't be shocked, young people. If you start acting married before you're married and your relationship goes south, that's God's judgment because you have taken things out of order. If you're living, if you're joining me online, I'm just going to give you some coaching right now. If you're living together and you're not married, you need to get married.

You need to separate. You need to separate for a period of time until you can enter together in the bonds of matrimony and make the commitment to God that you're making to one another. Point number four. I'm going to go faster, kids. Y' all are doing good.

Excel by yielding to the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the hinge pin. This is the center. Everything is built on this. For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity.

Now, here's the beauty. Remember what I said the word excel meant? It meant to come into full bloom. Do you know what the root of this word impurity means? To be like a plant that has shoots growing off of it and no one's pruning them.

And therefore the plant is unfruitful. You either are full, in full bloom, or you're unpruned. You are either fruitful or you're not fruitful. And it is intricately tied to how you're walking in sanctification. So here, let me warn you, as he did them.

So whoever rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gave the spirit to you.

Remember what he said back in two, that it wasn't the words of men, it was the words of God. If you receive that, it works in your life. Can I give you some good news? Y' all want some good news? God can prune you.

God can cut those little shoots away that are not being fruitful. But you've got to come to him in faith and repentance. You got to turn away from this godless pursuit of things in your life. Well, nobody saw me. It must be okay.

I'm not hurting anybody else. You remember what he said in Ephesians, chapter 5:18? He says, do not be drunk with wine, which leads to dissipation.

Those of you that practice drunkenness, you pay a price. I don't know any other sin other than sexual immorality that Paul addresses so directly. It leads to dis. A patient's waste. You are yielding yourself to be controlled by a chemical rather than the contrast, he said, but be filled with the spirit, yielding yourself to be controlled by him.

Some of us need to pray. Psalm 51.

Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me and I'll be Whiter than snow. God, create in me a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit in me. I think we need to pray that to make us prunable. Is that a word?

If it's not, I just smithed it. And I can because my last name is Smith. Number five. Let me hit these real quick. Sell by expressing godly love to others.

Verse 9. He says, now as to the love of the brethren, Philadelphia, you have no need for anyone to write to you. That's deep. God is saying, because the spirit of God lives inside of you. I don't have to teach you this.

You should already know. Kind of sounds like John 13:35. By this all men will know you're my disciples if you have love for one another. He gave the permission world to judge us by how we love one another. My gosh, the world is judging us hard now.

And we deserve it.

We deserve it, guys. We need to treat each other with brotherly agape love, he said, for indeed, if you practice it toward the brethren, if you do practice it, you are practicing to all of those in Macedonia. That's widespread. Can I just ask you a question? I mean, I know we do some great events.

VBS was awesome, night to shine. We've got the marriage conference coming up in a few months. But I don't want to be known by our events. I don't want to be known by our buildings. You know what I want to be known by?

By how we love one another. If we get that right, everything else falls in place. Why? Because it's a work of sanctification, sustaining for immorality and loving one another. And that then affects number six.

Excel by peacefully pursuing a strong work ethic. He says, make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you. Let me summarize that very quickly. What they were doing is they were not working. They were expecting somebody else to take care of their needs.

And they were going house to house gossiping about other people. Busybodies. You're either going to be busy working with your hands or you're going to be a busybody causing trouble.

I say this with respect. I had a relative, let's leave it at that, who loved to pit people against one another. And she would call them up and say, do you know what so and so said about you?

And it would stir it up, guys. That's exactly what they were doing. In fact, they didn't take the lesson well, because in second Thessalonians 3, 10, 12. He has to address it again. He says, for even when I was with you, we used to give you this order.

If anyone is not willing to work, then he should not eat either. Now I'm meddling, right? Some of you have lost jobs, and that breaks my heart. There's a difference in somebody losing a job and trying to find one than somebody who's just expecting other people just to give them a handout. Some people can't help it and they need help.

Is it wrong to want to help somebody? Absolutely not. Is it wrong to be helped from time to time? Absolutely not. Some people absolutely don't have the ability to work and they need to be helped.

And we should be helping widows and orphans like that. Isn't that what James wrote? But he also is saying, if you've got the ability, you need to do it. Why? Because it keeps you from meddling and gossiping.

Some of us need to stop talking. We need a new place for conversation. And we need a new subject of conversation. I mean, you have all permission tomorrow to go and hang out with your buddies at McDonald's. What you don't have the permission to do is that preacher.

Who does he think he is?

I don't know who I think I am. Yeah, I do. I'm a child of the king. And if you want to point out the negatives in me, go ahead. That's just a reminder of how much grace I need in my life, because I'm not perfect.

But then that gives me also the opportunity to pray for you because that beam that's in your eye is really big.

You need to get the beam out of your eyes so you can see the speck in mine and help me get it out. Don't sit there taunting because it's in there. That's like when your kid got a splinter in their finger. You were there like, nanny, nanny. You deserve.

You deserve to have that splinter in your finger. I told you to stop running across that deck barefoot. What does a good father or mother do? You get that splinter out.

We need to pursue a strong work ethic. Finally. I've already given you this point. Let's wrap this up. Excel by acting like you belong to God, he says, so that you will behave properly.

That word is paraphrase. That you will walk properly, that you will live properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. See, because when I work hard, I'll have excess. And if the Lord lives inside of me, and I am, by sanctification, wanting to love my brother, I want to Give. You see how that works?

We all live in relationship with each other. We give and we take. But loving one another is hard, is it not? There's some acts of love that are harder than others. Like one of the hardest acts of love is to forgive somebody.

I would probably contend it's the hardest. But did he not just call us to do that? For God has not called us for the purpose of unfruitfulness, but to come into full bloom in our sanctification. Can I challenge you today to make that your goal? To be resolute in the holiness of God so that it will result in life defining character.

When they penned the words of the Declaration of Independence, they said this. We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal, equal opportunity. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Can I summarize that a different way? That's countercultural. It's universal responsibility. God has given me life. And what am I going to do with it?

What am I going to do with my life? Am I going to continue wallowing in the sin that Jesus died for? Am I going to leave it? Am I going to try to discover the areas where I lack faith and let God build that faith up? I don't care if you're 5 or 90, God still has purpose for you.

Well, I just can't anymore. No, you can stop saying you can't. God can do exceedingly, abundantly. Let's walk in his will. Let's walk by his spirit.

Let's walk in his holiness. Let's live. Set apart the mission the pilgrims had and let the gospel impact us so that we can impact the world. So let me summarize our applications. How could you excel in obedience?

How can you guard yourself against immorality? In what ways are you taking advantage of other people? What do you need to confess today that's keeping you from letting God prune stuff out of your life? Who? Today could you go and show lavish love, maybe forgive somebody?

How is God leading you to leave behind busyness?

How much do you look like God's kid? That's the call today of sanctification. Kids, guys, can we just give kids a round of applause? They did good. They didn't know I had two weeks worth of preaching to make up for.

So it's all good. But would you stand with me? I don't know how God's leading you this morning, but we want to give you an opportunity to respond to this message in some way if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior please do not leave this place until you come talk to somebody about how Jesus can save you from your sins and give you eternal life if you would confess him as Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead repenting of your sins, turning to him he will give you the freedom you seek. Maybe today something convicted you in this message. No I'm not living a holy life.

I've got trash in my life I've not reached my full bloom but I want God, I want him to do that. But you know what it's going to take? It's going to take some pruning and pruning hurts. Maybe you need to come today and just kneel down at this altar and say God give me the strength to let you cut away and burn away like the chaff whatever it is standing in my way. Lord speak to us this morning lead us in Jesus name Amen.