The Practical Side of Coming Out of the World

Good afternoon, brethren. I hope you're having a wonderful first day of Unleavened Bread. I hope you also had a delightful night to be much remembered. It's always a very special time of year, time for fellowship of a different type than we have normally, and I hope yours was delightful. Welcome also to those who are online. I have a question for you. Today is the anniversary of what great event. Now, all of us started celebrating that last night, Israel's coming out of Egypt. And I imagine it was a topic of conversation around the table. So last night we began the Days of Unleavened Bread, and we began commemorating Israel's coming out of Egypt. Israel's march, which took the entirety of these Days of Unleavened Bread, when we get to the last Day of Unleavened Bread, we will arrive on that last day at the point in time when Israel was standing on the opposite shore of the Red Sea. So this entire time period literally was spent in Israel's journey from Egypt out of Egypt. And Israel's march has become a metaphor for all time. So we simply use the term coming out of Egypt. And when we use that, we could probably call it church speak, as we use the term coming out of Egypt, we use that term understanding that we're describing the entirety of the process of conversion. In fact, not just the initial stages of conversion, but conversion all the way to the point, if we could borrow a term from Paul, of coming to perfection. When Christ died for our sins, He created a new metaphor. Now, the old one is still very valid and very useful, and we still use it. But when Christ died for our sins, He created a new metaphor, and appropriately so, because all the way up to the day of Christ, God was working with the people of Israel. Whether it was the house of Israel or the house of Judah, it was the descendants of Jacob. And with His death, He opened the door for all mankind to salvation. And so both Jew and Gentile, both Israelite and non-Israelite, with the death of Jesus Christ, now had an open door to come to Him. And as a result, Jesus Christ added a metaphor of greater scope coming out of the world. It meant the same thing as coming out of Egypt, but the audience was broader. Now, instead of just an audience made up of Israel, the audience was the entirety of humanity. And coming out of Egypt was more appropriately expressed as coming out of the world. Jesus Christ, and I'll back up. Last night, no matter where you were observing the Passover, excuse me, two nights ago, wherever you were observing the Passover in the United Church of God, a minister or two ministers sat in front of you, and to end that service, they read from Matthew 13 through Matthew 17. They read from the time that Judas left the room, and Christ began an intimate conversation with the eleven. They read all of His words, and then they transitioned to when His disciples were spectators, and they were allowed to listen to Christ praying to His Father. In that one span of time, from the time Judas left the room to the time that Christ rose, they sang a hymn and departed for the Garden of Gethsemane, the term the world was used more times than in any complete book in the Bible, just in that one conversation. Thirty-eight times in that conversation Jesus Christ spoke of the world.

Coming out of Egypt, or coming out of the world, two interchangeable terms is what these days are all about. It is the Christian challenge. When we talk, as Mr. Kelly did, about unleavened bread and putting leavening out, that simply is a subset. It is a more focused look at coming out of Egypt, or coming out of the world. How do you come out of the world? You leave behind the deeds, the actions, and the sins of the world. How are they pictured? Leavening. And so it adds simply that component. Coming out of Egypt for ancient Israel wasn't theory. Coming out of Egypt for ancient Israel was totally and completely practical. Pack your bags, spoil the Egyptians, load your carts, head east.

And from that night all the way to the end of the next week, continue in a movement eastward until at the very end you're standing on the eastern shore of the Red Sea looking back at Egypt, which you have left. So for them, and for all of their commemorations of the days of unleavened bread, when they talk about coming out of Egypt, it is a very literal and a very practical event. For us, it's very easy to be more theoretical. The practical side is harder to grasp. You're not walking anywhere. Your feet aren't moving in any particular direction. All of the movement is generated within here, not down here.

And so it's very easy for us to live in the metaphor. We all agree that we need to come out of Egypt. We all agree that we need to come out of the world. There's no disagreement. We're totally with it. We're completely in sync. But what is it? What is it? Practically speaking, how do you measure it? What is practically involved in coming out of the world? I know that many of you are like me. I'm a very theory-tell-me-what-to-do kind of individual. I love theory. I have no problem with theory. I enjoy talking theory. I enjoy discussing theory. But at the end of the day, tell me what you want to see. Tell me what I can hold in my hand. Tell me what I can see with my eyes. Tell me what I can weigh and measure. In that respect, the question for us as members of the Church of God is simple. What is the practical side of coming out of the world? Not the theoretical. What is the practical side of coming out of the world? 38 times in that conversation with His disciples, Jesus Christ used the two-letter term, the world.

In most of those cases, it was a metonymy, a figure of speech. A metonymy, so that you can wrap your mind around what that word means, is a term that is associated with either a thing or a concept.

If you were a horse racing fan, you would say, I'm going to the track. Now, you're not going to the track. You're going to a horse race. It isn't simply you get in your car and go over there and stand in the grandstands at Santa Anita if you lived in Southern California, or this time of year, the Kentucky Derby is not that far away. You don't just drive up, go up, sit in the grandstands and say, I've come to the track. The track is a metonymy for the fact that I am going to attend a horse race. I don't know when the term came along. I had not heard of it until really the last four or five years, but there's a metonymy that people use regarding businessmen, and they talk of them as the suit. Now, they're simply saying, the person that you see on the street walking like I'm dressed right now is probably a businessman. And so they say, well, the suit said this, or the suit went here, and it's simply a term to describe a businessman. For Christ, the term, the world, was used in the same way. It simply meant the society, all the mass of humanity who choose not to let God direct their lives. So the whole sweep, all races, all languages, all continents, all of those to whom God is of no relevance. He's of no significance. He's of no importance. He isn't someone to listen to. They are the world. Turn with me to Romans chapter 8.

Because the bottom line to that particular group in society, those who do not see God as relevant, nor do they wish God to be relevant, they basically have created a world in which they are their own God. I do what I wish to do. I do it when I wish to do. I do it the way I wish to do. And I don't want someone else intruding into my life to tell me what I should or shouldn't do. Paul summed that whole spirit, the spirit of the world, he summed it all up very simply in a verse that all of us are familiar with. Romans chapter 8 and verse 7.

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God. In fact, it can't be. So he said the normal human mind is at variance. Enmity means at odds, at variance. You're here, I'm here, and I'm not looking for a middle ground with you. It's at enmity with God. It is not subject to God. In fact, it can't be. Without a transformation, that mind is not going to ask, what does God want from me? That's the world.

Let's go back to that evening and let's look at one of the scriptures, at Jesus Christ, or one of the scriptures that described the conversation that Christ was having. In this case, it's actually not the conversation. This is, I believe, after we have entered His prayer.

John chapter 17.

Mr. Sexton read these last night as a part of his portion of the service. In John 17, we get a good, solid sample of the metonymy, the world, as used by Christ. Verse 13, he's praying to his father, and he says, But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have joy, or my joy, fulfilled in them. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them. It didn't seem like the snow a few days ago was very friendly with us, but it had nothing personal toward any of us. If you had a tree come down in your yard, there was nothing personal there. If you had something else happen, it was nothing personal. The world didn't target any of you. The world is simply the globe spinning around, as God intended it. It's a metonymy. I've given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world. Notice he didn't say, off of the world, which would be a literal tangible move. He said, out of the world. Again, a metonymy. But that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

You know, there are a few people that live on this world that can say, I have been not of the world for a while, spending time at the space station. But in my whole life, I have been of the world. My feet have been on it. They always come back down on it. I've never lived anywhere else. But in terms of the metonymy, we're talking about something different. He finally says, as he ends it, set them apart. That's what sanctify means. Set them apart. And do it by means of your truth, the truth that is located within this book.

So Jesus Christ, throughout that evening, used the metonymy, the world, over and over and over again to speak of the society, to speak of all of mankind who have chosen simply to ignore him and his instruction and his commands.

So in regards to coming out of the world, brethren, practically speaking, how do you do it? If your focus for these seven days was, I want to be able to weigh, measure, and see literal steps out of the world, practically speaking, how do you do that?

I want to throw up a caution flag before I start telling you how. It is a very natural inclination of humanity to want to travel in either one ditch or the other. I'm reminded over and over again of Jesus Christ's statement, where he said, straight is the way and narrow is the path that leads to eternal life. Straight means difficult, and narrow means narrow. So he said, it is not an easily navigated path, and it is quite narrow in terms of scope. And that's the road that we've been called to follow. Because of its narrowness and because of the difficulty of the path, it is very easy to end up in the ditch. Unfortunately, as human beings, it is easy to either live in the ditch of pride, arrogance, indifference, selfishness, or to flop over in the other ditch of self-abasement, feeling inferior and unworthy, and discouraged. And neither one of them is a reasonable or a realistic place for those of us in this room celebrating this holy day to be. It just simply isn't. It isn't where God sees us. So, let's look realistically and practically at our journey out of Egypt or out of this world.

Let's visualize a figurative map as it were a AAA trip tick, where God has given us our start point, and we simply flip each page to see where we're going the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. But let's start with the starting point. Let's just say over here, just off the stage, we could plant a sign that says, Egypt.

And all the motion is coming from my right to my left, parading toward the Kingdom of God over in this direction. Now, in this continuum, from Egypt being the end of the carpeting before the stage starts, and the Kingdom of God being somewhere off in that direction, where are you standing as a start point? Well, you're standing on the stage. You are a Son of God.

At the point in time that God called you and you responded, you began a movement, and that movement has led to a name. You are children of God. That's how He sees you. That's who you are. Regardless of how righteous you are, regardless of whether you have warts or you don't have warts, and spiritually speaking, we all have our warts, God says, these are my kids. These are my children. And so we're on the stage. You know, we tend to look at the parable of the soils, the wayside, the stony, the thorns, and the good soil.

We tend to look at that abstractly, at arm's length. I don't know that many people stop and say, well, where am I? Am I in the thorns? Am I wandering around in the rocks? Where am I? Those of us who visited new perspectives at the day and time where most of the visit time we ministers spent was visiting brand new people. During the latter part of the 60s, the majority of my time was spent with brand new people, meeting them for the first time, working with them incrementally and gradually toward the place where eventually they began attending services and were looking toward baptism.

That consumed the majority of my time, and it consumed the majority of every pastor's time. It didn't take very long. Once you became a full pastor and you had the responsibility of a church, or even if you were an assistant pastor working with a pastor, it didn't take that long in that environment to come to understand that all these letters that came from Pasadena and then were forwarded to you to make contact with these people, all of them expressing a desire to become a part of this way of life, that the reality was when you began to sit down with them and you began to tell them what this life actually was practically.

That when it came to standing in the baptismal with this person beside you, it was probably going to be somewhere between one in eight to one in ten of those who said, this is where I want to go. Who had studied long enough and hard enough to say, I want this way of life. And then when you sat down with them and you said, open your Bible and let's talk about what this way of life is practically speaking.

Seven out of the eight ended up by the wayside. Or on stony ground. Or among the thorns. And about one out of every eight to one out of every ten made it all the way to the good soil.

Just being here, brethren, says you are already in route out of the Bible or out of the world. If you were brand new, now I'm looking at people who have been walking, people have been walking for a long time in many cases. But if you were brand spanking new, if this Passover was your very first Passover, you would already be in route out of the world.

And it's no small thing to walk away from the world in all the way that God requires. In essence, that's what I was saying to you when I said when we would lay down for people what God required as the evidence that you were walking out of the world, one by one by one, people would say, I can't go there. Well, I don't think I need another visit. Well, I can't do that.

And so people we were rooting for and cheering for all the way down the line, you would watch them fall by the wayside. And one out of one out of a ten or one out of an eight would say yes, yes, yes, yes, and eventually become a member of the church. You know, it doesn't matter whether you're first generation, second generation, third generation, the challenges you accept are the same. I fully understand the challenges faced by the first generation are unique in the sense that they're coming from an absolute ignorance of this way of life and having to face it for the first time. Where every generation after knows what this way of life is. But the challenges of making the decision are not really that different. Picture in your mind for the next minute or two, picture in your mind somebody standing at that corner of the stage, walking across in front of me that direction. And many picture them for each thing that I bring up, taking one step.

And in your mind, try to picture how far they have moved from there to there by each of those steps that they took.

It doesn't matter whether you're first generation or whether you're a later generation, if the boss comes to you and says, I expect you to be at work Friday night. We have overtime and we've got quotas to meet. I expect you to be here Saturday.

You've got a decision to make. And when you tell the boss in whatever way you tell him that that is something I can't do, you just did this.

You just took one step out of this world.

If it comes down to the place where the boss draws the line in the sand, because many of you have been at the address that I just mentioned, and God graciously allowed you to keep the job. But there have been an awful lot of people where the next step was for the boss to say, you will be here, or you're gone. And you said, I'm not going to be there.

And the next Monday morning you were looking into one ads for a new job. Second step. Among first generations, it was far more obvious, but every second-generation person has to face the same thing. You may have talents, you may have skills, you may have interests and passions that lean a certain direction career-wise. But in the Church of God, many a man and woman has reached a place in time where they say, the things that I like to do and the things I'm good at can lead me down career paths that I can't take. I can't go there. That career is not compatible with what I believe.

People have sacrificed careers. People have sacrificed promotions.

It's not just a few jobs that have a spiritual glass ceiling. Now, there's no glass ceiling there as far as the employment world goes, but there's a glass ceiling there when you say, I can fulfill that role under God's conditions. And the company says, no, you fulfill that role under the company's conditions. And they say, I can't. They're incompatible. Well, then you've gone as far up the career path as you're going to go. You've just bumped your head on the ceiling, and you, knowledgeable of that, say, you know what? Bumping my head on a spiritual glass ceiling is preferable to stepping outside of God's protection and going back into the world. So, take a third step.

You're a teenager.

You've got Friday Night Lights, the famous name for when all the football games are. This is prom week. We were looking at getting a reservation at a restaurant to eat in sometime this week, and they said, oh, we don't have anything. This is prom week. Oh, okay. All the activities that are on Friday or Saturday.

You're a teenager. You're not even yet out of your home. Your folks may leave some of these decisions to you. And you say, you know, I may only be 16, but I can make my own decisions. I've made my own decisions. I have my own direction. And if I have to choose between disobeying what I know as God's laws or obeying God's laws, I'll obey God's laws. I'll miss the prom. I will miss the football game. I will miss this. I will miss that. Another step out of the world.

We all come from different backgrounds. I came from a farming family that ate every single solitary end of the pig.

And not to made you a very weird person. As my family was coming into the church, we had a large family gathering at my grandparents' farm, and we spread around between my grandmother, grandfather, my mom and dad, an aunt and an uncle, and that would have been six kids. We got two picnic lines, and the one over on the right, all the hot dogs are beef. On the left, everything is pork, so be sure you know which line to go down. Well, nobody informed all of our relatives who could care less. And as a result, by the time some of us at the end of the line got there, there was no beef left because those that ate pork handily didn't know that that was beef and that was pork, and they ate all of them. And we'd laugh about it. But we kept it among ourselves because for them to understand that we would no longer eat pork, or how in the world.

My first pastor was in Mobile, Alabama, and welcome to the world of seafood. Some wonderful, wonderful fish, but unfortunately it's clams and oysters and lobsters and shrimp and all the stuff that you can't eat.

Some people give a shrug at that. Family can be downright insulted when the favorite dishes that they prepare you're refusing. Not an earth-shaking event, but take another step. out of the world.

Clean up your speech. Drop the four-letter words.

Take a good, hard look at that anything that takes the name of God and uses it casually is a violation of the commandment that says, do not take my name and use it in a useless manner. And you do it. From that time onward, there's the delight of being able to carry on conversations with people of the like mind, and there are no foul words and no exclamation with God's name involved.

Another step out of the world. Stop abusing alcohol. Stop smoking tobacco. Stop using recreational drugs. Many people can say, well, I never started. You know, thank God for the blessing. But for the many people who have said, I have been down that path one degree or another, and I have turned my back on and I've abandoned that path.

One more step down the road.

View, act, and treat sex as something only for marriage. And then when that day comes, remain loyal to the one to whom you are married for the remainder of your life. Another step out of the world.

You just did one of the steps. Probably did it so automatically that you didn't think about it. You gave a Holy Day offering. Now, God said regarding tithes, I own this planet. I allow you to live on it. You owe me rent. And I call it tithe. I would also like to see your attitude and your spirit by free will. That means you control this offerings. I think many of us don't even think about it. We take our little green envelope, before we come, we fill out the date, the location, and the amount. We may, it wouldn't be unusual to sit and say, well, what can I put in this year? What can I put in in this Holy Day? That's normal. But will I or won't I? You don't even think there. That's long, long disappeared. Another step out of this world. For the first generation, it's a powerful and significant step to walk toward this room on this day for this reason, rather than be here tomorrow.

That alienates you from your entire family.

That can be the cleavage line between we really don't want anything to do with you and your practices. Another step out of the world.

As I said, brethren, we tend to walk in the ditches. In this particular case, I'm referring to the ditch of not graciously giving and receiving credit for the amount of journey already taken. Now, if that were done pridefully, you'd cancel it all out, wouldn't you? If it were this, if it were this, you'd have canceled all 10 steps. But when that is just simply who you are, it's a considerable journey already out of this world.

Look at it from the other side, 1 Peter 4.

When you make a commitment from the heart, it is genuine, it is sincere, and it's determined. You don't think with motive. You simply do because it's the right thing to do. And sometimes it can come as a little bit of a shock how it's viewed elsewhere.

1 Peter 4, verse 3.

For we've spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles when we walked in licentiousness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, abominable idolatries. In regards to these, they think it's strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation speaking evil of you. Now, this is the radical end. This is the hardcore end. You may have left a softer core end of this world, but no matter which it is, you will end up with somebody with some degree of disagreement saying what kind of oddball decision did they make? Why did they become weird?

Peter just simply said they don't understand it. They're not going to understand it. Live with it.

Now, all of us are there.

If you're on a workplace where people enjoyed elbowing one another, you can end up with everything from the good-humored elbowing to the not-so-good-humored elbowing of giving you the jab and the ribs to say, oddball, why are you doing this? Oddball, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that weird thing?

When it's good humor, do you give the back and forth? When it's not, you just quietly take it and carry on. There's another step in the search for a balanced approach to coming out of the world. That step is to examine yourself practically. You know, this time of year, probably one of the most magnetic scriptures in terms of glomming onto the mind and holding on to it, I don't know how many times over the years I've had to explain to somebody who has taken this beyond what was intended and say, okay, let's look at it as it's being stated. In 1 Corinthians 11, when the Apostle Paul is talking to the Corinthian church, that famous portion is that portion that says, let a man examine himself. That's verse 28. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 28, let a man examine himself. And that's the part they see in bold letters. You know what the rest of it is? They see in bold letters. This business of being able to eat and drink judgment or damnation, depending on what translation you're using, because you haven't discerned the Lord's body. You examine yourself, well, that's one thing. The cautionary that doing this improperly, this is the worst case result that can come from it, that's sobering.

You know, brethren, there will never come a time where a truly converted person will stop examining themselves during the Days of the Lone Bread. That's the way we're geared through conversion. It's the way we should be geared. You'll never stop examining yourself, but examine yourself realistically.

I'll ask a question. Are you a Corinthian?

I hope there's no one here that could actually answer that yes.

Of all the pastoral epistles that Paul wrote, Corinth was the bad boy. There is nobody talked to by Paul like he talked to Corinth. Corinth had problems that no one else had their finger pointed at them by Paul in the same manner. So when I ask, are you a Corinthian? Consider what Paul was not happy with. He had a congregation split, lining up behind ministers that they had placed in competition with one another. I was sent in 1974 to a congregation, and they told me, you are going to a problem congregation. There were two pastors before who were very, very different, chose to plant a flag in the ground, members lined up behind them, 20 or 30 members left because of the bad example of two church pastors. In this case, you had a congregation in Corinth that was trying to put the pastors in those positions. Paul was saying, I don't want anything to do with it. They were proud over their own level of sophistication. They were Greeks, they were Corinthians, they were wise.

Paul very subtly was letting them know in the first couple of chapters, if you think you're wise by the world standards, you're a fool. They were living with and not disturbed by gross sexual sins that Paul said not even the Gentiles who will do anything will do what's being done, and you all know about it, and nobody in the congregation seems to be upset about it. He said, you're a church where the members are going to court, suing one another. He said, you're a congregation that has very little regard for the conscience of members within your congregation.

He says, when you keep the Passover, some of you can't even walk home, you're so drunk, and others can hear their stomach growl. And for the icing on the cake, you stand around with your fingers and your lapels and say, my gifts and my talents are better than your gifts and your talents.

Are you Corinth?

When you read, examine yourself, then do it. When you read about eating and drinking damnation to yourself, stop and consider the audience and the practical deeds and actions of the audience Paul was talking to.

I will say, unfortunately, brethren, in the last three years during COVID and other problems, we've moved backward, not as a congregation, as an entire church. And as we talk among ourselves, it's not just a church, meaning the United Church of God, but churches, both Sabbatarian and elsewhere, have allowed themselves to be pulled into the hatred, the bickering, the infighting, and all the rest.

And there's been some movement backward toward Corinth, at least in one, if not two, category. So as I am trying to get you to see you're not Corinth, I also want you to see that some of Corinth decided to come back and live with us.

The next step in coming out of the world is to ask the simple question, what is your mindset? What is your mindset?

Mindset is your inclination. You know, if you want to know your mindset, and I'm not saying this lightly, I'm saying if you want to know, I mean really want to know your mindset, ask a really close friend sometime. Now, you may find a close friend says, I'm not sure I want to lose my friend. I may not tell you what he or she sees as your mindset. Mindset is your mental attitude, your inclination.

This week, this week in the life of Jesus Christ, at the end of the first part of the week, because he was resurrected within the days of Unleavened Bread. So, the end of the first part of the days of Unleavened Bread for Jesus Christ was a place where he planted a flag. That he was asked about mindset, and he said, just planted my flag in the ground, now you know my mindset.

In his interrogation by Pilate, I'm not going to have to turn there, you know the scripture. It's Matthew 18, 36. Pilate said, are you a king? And he said, yes, I am. But he said, my kingdom is not of this world.

So, the 38 times he talked about the world before he was arrested in the garden didn't end. It continued with Pilate, and he said, my kingdom is not of this world. This isn't mine. This isn't where I am. This isn't where my emotions are. It isn't where my head is. It wasn't where my heart is. Some 30-some years later, writers argue about whether it's 33, 35, 38. 30-some years later, the book of Hebrews was written, and the best known chapter in that book is chapter 11, called the faith chapter. One of the highlights of that chapter is the fact that everybody in this chapter was seen as planting their flag in the same place that Jesus Christ did before Pilate.

Enoch didn't fit in this world. Noah condemned this world. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were sojourners, just passing through. And all of them, in addition to these men, were summarized in verses 13-16, where it said, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come, part of this world, they would have had opportunity to return.

But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country, and therefore God is not ashamed to call to be called their God. That's a powerful statement. God is not ashamed to be called their God because of a declaration they made about the world.

Powerful.

You know something, brethren? When you read Hebrews 11, in the context of what we've been talking about, there is an inverse relationship between faith, the subject of this chapter, and involvement in the world. One grows in equal proportion to the decline of the other. It's a very simple mathematical issue.

A very strong, a very literal, inverse relationship.

Let's end with the faintly marked trail.

You know, as you walk along, out of Egypt and out of this world, I wanted you to see practical things that God respects and appreciates as He calls you children. These are not lost on Him. These are not something that He just says, well, that's a given, that's an automatic, they should have done that. These are precious, and they should be treated that way as precious. But as we walk along toward the kingdom of God, we can go from things that are more concrete to things that are more abstract. And you know, all of us, as we walk that path, we walk a path that can get fainter and more difficult to really concretely see its right and left boundaries as we go. And it requires of us to really lean upon God more to illuminate that path and make that path visible. In 1 John 2, you have a statement that has no ambiguity to it.

But if somebody said, will you tell me practically how to practice this? I would say, now we're entering the land of the more obscure. 1 John 2, verse 15. Mr. Sexton read these scriptures, Passover. And so we've been through here recently. Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in this world, number one, the lust of the flesh, number two, the lust of the eyes, and number three, the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. How do you measure yourself in that regard?

That's a tough one. That's a tough one. That's not as easy. Let's get the easy one out of the way, the pride of life. When I retired, I had pastored for 50 years, and in those 50 years, I had seen very, very, very, very few examples within the Church of God of pride of life. It's one of the gratifying things. It's just simply something that's not there. Pride of life means strutting your stuff, chest out, bragging all over the place, and living ostentatiously. Let me show you what all I have. Let me show you by the things I have, how important I am.

My wife and I went to an auto show in Portland, and she caught me standing in front of a Lamborghini, and she said, I've never seen that look on your face before.

And I laughed, and I said, well, it's an awesome vehicle. I mean, this is a phenomenal car. But I said, don't misread the look on my face. Seeing it and appreciating it is one thing. I would have no idea what to do with it if I owned it. I wouldn't have a place to put it. I wouldn't have the ability to maintain it. I wouldn't have. It's so nice to look at, and that we can walk on.

Ostentatious says, I don't want one. I want two or three. I want people to see in everything I do how important I am. Brethren, I am grateful in all the congregations I have served that I can close my eyes. And that's simply not a quality that is there.

The others, the pride of the flesh and the pride of the eyes, those two terms are genitive in the Greek. It means of, not for. In other words, it's not the lust for the flesh. It's the lust to satisfy the flesh. Well, it may be food, it may be clothes, it may be mansions, it may...you know, whatever it is. It is...and the best I can do for you in this regard is to say, and I realize it's inadequate, but the best I can do is to say what is being talked about here, because lust in the pure sense just simply means a high level of emotion. It's even used positively, biblically, not often, very rarely, but it's a lot of emotion and a lot of energy in a particular direction. When that energy and that emotion causes you to care less about God, you are now in the world of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes. When it competes, and when that competition causes God to drop in importance, and this, whatever it is that your eye wants or that your flesh wants comes up, you've now entered John's world. For those who want a catalog, I'd go back to Galatians 5, the fruits of the flesh. If you want something more tangible than I can give you, go back to Galatians 5, verses 16 through 21. That's the best I can do, as I said, for instances. The antidote, if you take a medicine as an antidote to the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, is what Mr. Sexton mentioned a couple of weeks ago in a sermon. We talked about the Great Commandment of the Law. You can't love God with all your heart and all your might and all your soul, and then, not vertically, but horizontally, and then love your neighbor as yourself and be governed by lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes. The two of them cannot coexist. So if you want an antidote, I don't necessarily like to use the terms that are created outside the church, but the old WWJD, what would Jesus do? What would God do? How would Jesus do it? How would God do it? Ask yourself the questions and then respond accordingly. It's the best antidote you can have to allowing the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes to govern where you go. Well, brethren, we have six days ahead to celebrate coming out of the world. Look at the practical steps ahead of you. Study as it were your AAA trip tick as you're walking through the days of Unleavened Bread. During these days, take time to thank God for the progress He's granted you so far and ask Him to continue giving that guidance so that that journey goes all the way to the place where, spiritually speaking, you're standing on the other bank of a spiritual Red Sea.