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South Bay SDA Church

Jeremy Arnall

The Importance of Being Earnest

Just the fact, I mean, we may not even speak every week to 1 another as, you know, you may not speak to a particular person in the congregation necessarily that often from week to week, but seeing them at church, worshiping together, There's something powerful about that.

My twin brother and I grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, Candler to be specific.

We went to the Mount Pisgah Academy Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And during the years there, I mean, we went there since we were probably around 4, 3 or 4 years of age.

There were some people that I would see at church from week to week.

I mean, even prayer meeting, you would see these folks there from week to week.

And even though I don't think, I don't remember going to their house maybe once, I don't know.

And we didn't necessarily always talk from week to week, but I remember they would take note of us, especially when we were little, and even when we were older, we would communicate.

And as I have now grown, and I still look to them, I see in them an example of what a church family looks like.

Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

And I just want to welcome them here this morning.

I was a kid, they were adults, and I watched them from week to week, faithfully coming to church.

Lily Tomlin said, I've always wanted to be, whoops, I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.

What summarizes your life, your calling, your purpose?

Better yet, who or what has defined this for you?

Has it been defined by circumstance, by those around you, by yourself, or has it been defined by God?

Or perhaps it all seems a bit fuzzy, as though your life has never been clearly defined by an overarching calling or purpose upon your life.

Is there congruence between what you profess to be and who you actually are.

Setting out from Hamburg, Germany 1 day to give a concert in London, violinist Fritz Kreisler had an hour before his boat was to set sail.

He wandered into a music shop where the proprietor asked him if he could look at the violin that he had in his arm.

He then, the proprietor that is, then vanished and returned with 2 policemen, 1 of whom told the violinist, you are under arrest.

As Kreisler's boat was indeed about to set sail, there was no time for prolonged dialogue or explanation.

Kreisler asked for his violin and played a piece he was well known for, to which he then stated, are you satisfied?

You see, it's easy to profess your identity.

It's quite another thing to have the experience to back it up.

Title of the message this morning is The Importance of being earnest.

Dear Lord, please, please wash us and cleanse us.

Open our eyes, open our hearts that we might receive a blessing from you.

Lord, forgive us for where our desires are too weak and perhaps where our desires are too strong.

Would you reorient us, would you recalibrate our compass that we might face you.

Help us to this end we ask in Jesus name, amen.

When speaking along the very practical lines with regards to our walk with God, we can often be criticized by those who you might call spiritualizers.

That is, we live in a world today, and perhaps it's nothing new, but all the same, we live in a world today where we hear this notion of being spiritual, Not religious.

I'm not so much into religion, but I'm spiritual It's as though they equate being spiritual as something that is more noble than being religious thus they suggest that religion is akin to outward show or form, while spirituality is to be in touch with the divine.

This language, while enticing or perhaps attractive to some, perhaps in part because it comes with less regulation, if you will, or instruction, is no doubt dangerous.

The thinking appears to go again that to be spiritual is to be about relationship and grace, whereas to be religious is to be about church and law.

And thus in our society, We see that to be spiritual is desirable, whereas to be religious is often associated with that of hypocrisy or legalism.

When we pit these terms against each other, a tactic that the devil is very astute at.

When we put them together, we're simply returning ourselves to the agnostic way of thinking, or the gnostic, I should say, way of thinking from the past.

Paul fought against Gnosticism in his day, and that was the belief that said that the spiritual realm is holy, and the physical realm, well, it's sinful.

The thinking went that sins of the flesh were allowed, for they were of the physical realm and would 1 day all be destroyed anyway.

But the spiritual realm, or what they sometimes referred to as the soul, was eternal, immortal.

And they strictly tried to separate the soul from the physical or the body.

Thus there was the separation of the soul and the body long ago and it still is being conducted to this day, this thinking.

Now don't get me wrong, It is true that religion without love is dangerous.

That judgment without love is frightening.

But in the same way, love without religion is meaningless.

Any married couple will tell you that love without expression and commitment is meaningless.

So it's important to consider the importance of being earnest, of the discipline and effort that is necessary when it comes to the spiritual walk.

The Scripture points to this, it appeals to this, and notice with me, 1 Corinthians 15, therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, that your labor, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Or 2 Thessalonians, but as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in what?

Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart." 1 Peter 3, for it is better if it is the will of God to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Or he who endures to the end shall be saved.

Revelation 14, 12, perhaps a familiar 1 to Adventists.

Here is the patience, or the same word is there used as endurance.

Here is the patience or the endurance of the saints.

Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

Earnest effort, doing good, endurance, and determination.

These are the necessary characteristics of the redeemed.

Not suggesting that it is by these means that we somehow merit salvation.

I am saying that it comes with the territory.

Notice it says, only by earnest determined effort and faith in the merits of Christ can we overcome and gain the kingdom of heaven.

It comes with effort, with earnest effort.

Indifference in the Christian life is a manifest denial of the Savior.

God does not take man with his own natural feelings and deficiencies and place him right in the light of the countenance of God.

No Man must do, no, I'm sorry, no, man must do his part.

And while man works out his own salvation with fear and trembling, it is God that worketh in him to will and to do of his own good pleasure.

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The Importance of Being Earnest

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