Matthew 7:24, the foundation is Jesus’ teaching, not man’s opinions, not cultural trends, have you ever heard someone say something that sounded spiritual, but it didn’t quite sit right. Maybe for a moment you thought that sounds good, this is why discernment is critical, because not everything that sounds good is true, 2 Timothy 4:3-4, we are living in that time. There are churches that reject Jesus’ teachings on sin, because they don’t want to offend, there are pastors who twist the gospel to fit what people want to hear and entire movements built on half truths that sound right, but lead people away from God. Be careful, the real Jesus is found in his word, not in human wisdom, not in modern interpretations, not in voices that claim new authority, John 8:31-32, if we hold to his teaching, nothing added, nothing taken away, we are truly his.
The danger, if we do not hold to his teaching, we are at risk of falling away, are you standing on Jesus’ true teaching or are you being influenced by voices that twist his word. Are you testing every message against scripture or are you accepting ideas, just because they sound spiritual. Holding to Jesus’ truth or are you following new revelations that lead you away, because in the end, only those who remain in his teaching, have both the Father and the Son, everything else is deception. When you face temptation, is there a real war inside you or do you simply give in, because it’s easier. When you look at your life from last year to this year, is there visible change or are you basically the same person, with the same set of unresolved problems, because if there’s no visible transformation, if there’s no real struggle against sin.
If there’s no notable difference between your life and the life of someone who doesn’t know God, then there are two possibilities, either the grace you claim to have received wasn’t real or you’ve turned it into an excuse for spiritual mediocrity and neither of those options is good. 1 John 3:6-9, we find one of the harshest passages in the entire New Testament, this passage leaves no room for comfortable interpretations, John isn’t talking about sinless perfection, he’s talking about practice, about habit, about lifestyle, he’s saying that someone who has genuinely been born of God, cannot live in sin as their normal state, not because it’s impossible to sin after being saved, but because the internal nature has changed.
God’s seed is inside and that seed produces different fruit, it produces hunger for holiness, it produces hatred of sin, it produces desire to obey, but none of this is preached, because it’s too confrontational. Because immediately someone will say, you’re preaching salvation by works and that accusation is the perfect shield against any call to holiness, any exhortation to live differently is catalogued as legalism, any expectation of visible transformation is labeled as adding works to grace and so the church remains full of people who know the doctrine of grace, but don’t know the power of grace. Who can explain salvation theologically, but whose lives show no evidence of it, so what does true grace look like, what does a life really transformed by God’s power look like, it’s not complicated, the Bible is quite specific about it, a truly saved person produces fruit. We’re not talking about attending church or reading the Bible for 30 minutes a day, we’re taking about character change, visible transformation in the way you treat others, values completely different from those of the world.
Psalm 23:4, your rod and your staff, they comfort me, to David, these were not symbols, they were survival, a shepherd carried two tools and each one had a purpose. The rod, a weapon of defense, the rod was short, carved from hardwood, often embedded with iron, it wasn’t used gently, it was a weapon, brutal, precise and deadly. With the rod, the shepherd crushed predators, wolves hiding in the dark, serpents waiting in the grass, thieves who crept close in the night, this was not symbolic protection, this was violent intervention. When David says the shepherd has a rod, he is declaring, God does not negotiate with what threatens you, he destroys it, because the rod represents God’s authority, his readiness to fight battles you never even saw.
The staff, a tool of direction, the staff was tall, curved at the end, crafted for guiding, not striking, with it the shepherd drew sheep close, redirected wandering paths, lifted the fallen, pull a lamb from danger without breaking it. The staff is gentle, precise and intimate, not a weapon, but a guide, the rod protects the flock from what hurts them, the staff protects the flock from themselves, because the greatest battles you face are not always external enemies, sometimes the danger is your own direction. David says they comfort me, this comfort is not sentimental, it is not God whispering sweet words to calm your nerves, it is comfort born of certainty, knowing God will confront what threatens you, that’s the rod, knowing God will correct what misleads you, that’s the staff.
True comfort doesn’t come from the absence of danger, it comes from the presence of a shepherd, who is both warrior and guide. This is why some of you feel Divine pressure in this season, it’s not rejection, it’s redirection, if God has been correcting you, if doors are closing, if attitudes are being challenged, if habits are being exposed, that’s not punishment, that’s proof scripture reveals, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, Hebrews 12:6. Correction is not God pushing you away, it is God pulling you closer, the rod keeps what wants to destroy you at a distance, the staff keeps you from becoming your own destruction, together they whisper, you are defended, you are directed, you are not alone.
The danger, if we do not hold to his teaching, we are at risk of falling away, are you standing on Jesus’ true teaching or are you being influenced by voices that twist his word. Are you testing every message against scripture or are you accepting ideas, just because they sound spiritual. Holding to Jesus’ truth or are you following new revelations that lead you away, because in the end, only those who remain in his teaching, have both the Father and the Son, everything else is deception. When you face temptation, is there a real war inside you or do you simply give in, because it’s easier. When you look at your life from last year to this year, is there visible change or are you basically the same person, with the same set of unresolved problems, because if there’s no visible transformation, if there’s no real struggle against sin.
If there’s no notable difference between your life and the life of someone who doesn’t know God, then there are two possibilities, either the grace you claim to have received wasn’t real or you’ve turned it into an excuse for spiritual mediocrity and neither of those options is good. 1 John 3:6-9, we find one of the harshest passages in the entire New Testament, this passage leaves no room for comfortable interpretations, John isn’t talking about sinless perfection, he’s talking about practice, about habit, about lifestyle, he’s saying that someone who has genuinely been born of God, cannot live in sin as their normal state, not because it’s impossible to sin after being saved, but because the internal nature has changed.
God’s seed is inside and that seed produces different fruit, it produces hunger for holiness, it produces hatred of sin, it produces desire to obey, but none of this is preached, because it’s too confrontational. Because immediately someone will say, you’re preaching salvation by works and that accusation is the perfect shield against any call to holiness, any exhortation to live differently is catalogued as legalism, any expectation of visible transformation is labeled as adding works to grace and so the church remains full of people who know the doctrine of grace, but don’t know the power of grace. Who can explain salvation theologically, but whose lives show no evidence of it, so what does true grace look like, what does a life really transformed by God’s power look like, it’s not complicated, the Bible is quite specific about it, a truly saved person produces fruit. We’re not talking about attending church or reading the Bible for 30 minutes a day, we’re taking about character change, visible transformation in the way you treat others, values completely different from those of the world.
Psalm 23:4, your rod and your staff, they comfort me, to David, these were not symbols, they were survival, a shepherd carried two tools and each one had a purpose. The rod, a weapon of defense, the rod was short, carved from hardwood, often embedded with iron, it wasn’t used gently, it was a weapon, brutal, precise and deadly. With the rod, the shepherd crushed predators, wolves hiding in the dark, serpents waiting in the grass, thieves who crept close in the night, this was not symbolic protection, this was violent intervention. When David says the shepherd has a rod, he is declaring, God does not negotiate with what threatens you, he destroys it, because the rod represents God’s authority, his readiness to fight battles you never even saw.
The staff, a tool of direction, the staff was tall, curved at the end, crafted for guiding, not striking, with it the shepherd drew sheep close, redirected wandering paths, lifted the fallen, pull a lamb from danger without breaking it. The staff is gentle, precise and intimate, not a weapon, but a guide, the rod protects the flock from what hurts them, the staff protects the flock from themselves, because the greatest battles you face are not always external enemies, sometimes the danger is your own direction. David says they comfort me, this comfort is not sentimental, it is not God whispering sweet words to calm your nerves, it is comfort born of certainty, knowing God will confront what threatens you, that’s the rod, knowing God will correct what misleads you, that’s the staff.
True comfort doesn’t come from the absence of danger, it comes from the presence of a shepherd, who is both warrior and guide. This is why some of you feel Divine pressure in this season, it’s not rejection, it’s redirection, if God has been correcting you, if doors are closing, if attitudes are being challenged, if habits are being exposed, that’s not punishment, that’s proof scripture reveals, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, Hebrews 12:6. Correction is not God pushing you away, it is God pulling you closer, the rod keeps what wants to destroy you at a distance, the staff keeps you from becoming your own destruction, together they whisper, you are defended, you are directed, you are not alone.
