- ♪ Give me the Bible ♪

>>Today we are blessed with a wonderful gift from God, the Bible. This book is God's living word. In its pages we are told, "For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword." It is in this book of books that we find the answers to all of men's questions and need. This morning, your area Churches of Christ welcome you to a program committed to that perfect law of liberty. ♪ Thy light shall guide me in the narrow way ♪

>>As we present "The Living Word". ♪ And promise, law and love combining ♪ ♪ 'Til light shall vanish in eternal day ♪

>>Now here is your host, Ray Sullins. ♪ Give me ♪

>>In First John chapter one, in verse four we read, "And these things we write to you that your joy may be full." Wow! Isn't that an encouraging verse? And here we learn that God has revealed Himself to us in His word that we might be what? A happy people. Welcome to our program this morning. It is great to have you with us for "The Living Word", and we thank you for choosing this time and for giving this time to God. As always, it will be our privilege this day to sing songs of praise to God as well as to study from His perfect word. And our hope and prayer is that we will each do our own part to make this time acceptable in His sight by doing those things that God commands of the faithful. But for now, as we begin our offering to God this day, will you bow with me before His throne in prayer? Our God and Father in heaven, we are so thankful for this another day of life, the great privilege that we have to be called Your children and to be workers and servants in Your kingdom, and help us this day as it is the Lord's day to be committed to worshiping You and giving You this day, giving you our time and doing everything that we do in spirit and truth according to Your perfect word. And, Father, we thank You for Jesus and we know that it's only through the great sacrifice that He made as well as His resurrection, that we have the hope of life now and eternally. And Father, we know these things are only available through Your grace, love, and mercy. Father, at this time then we again thank You and we ask that You'll help us to commit ourselves to this time before You in doing our very best. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. This morning we want to begin with a song which reminds us of what love and care that God gives us as we serve Him. However, it also encourages us to know that we can accomplish and do the things that God ask of us to be found faithful in His sight. So won't you join Him with the congregation at this time as we sing together "God is Love". ♪ Come, let us all unite to sing ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ Let heaven and earth their praises bring ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ Let every soul from sin awake ♪ ♪ Each in his heart sweet music make ♪ ♪ And sing with us for Jesus' sake ♪ ♪ For God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ Come, let us all unite to sing that God is love ♪ ♪ O tell to Earth's remotest bound ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ In Christ we have redemption found ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ His blood has washed our sins away ♪ ♪ His Spirit turned our night to day ♪ ♪ And now we can rejoice to say ♪ ♪ That God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ Come, let us all unite to sing that God is love ♪ ♪ How happy is our portion here ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ These promises our spirits cheer ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ He is our sun and shield by day ♪ ♪ Our help, our hope, our strength and stay ♪ ♪ He will be with us all the way ♪ ♪ Our God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ God is love ♪ ♪ Come, let us all unite to sing that God is love ♪

>>Let's turn our attention again to the thought of happiness as we begin with our program. Are we happy as the people of God, as His children? Do we find true joy in the care, blessings, and promises of God? Well, some might question our happiness, but why? Well, if you look around the religious world today at those who profess to be Christians, many of them do not have smiles on their faces. It isn't any wonder why many wonder why someone isn't happy in Christ. Is there any doubt why many are turned away by the lack of ability that many show to really present the Spirit of Christ, not only in everything they do, but also in everything they say? If you think about it, we have so much to be happy about as those who are Christians. That's why the word joy is mentioned over 150 times in the Bible. In fact, in Galatians chapter 5, in verse 22, Paul even mentioned joy as one of the fruits of the spirit. Also notice that Paul told Philemon in chapter one and verse seven of that book, which is called by the name Philemon, he says there, "For we have great joy and confidence in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother." You see, we have joy for many reasons as the followers of God. However, at the end of the day, we find joy through God, our brethren, and even our own blessings and accomplishments for the sake of God according to His will. Another joy, which Jude mentions in his book, focuses directly on a privilege we will share as those who are faithful once we again do those things that God has asked. There we read, "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." That is in June chapter 1, and verse 24. Oh the joy to be presented by Jesus and even the throne of God our Father, but better yet think of the privilege we have as God's followers to stand even justified before Him, our loving God and creator receiving us and giving us the reward. As the old song says, "What a joy it will be" or "What a joy it will be when we finally meet our God." Finally, may we never forget the wondrous and great promises which bring us also great joy in Jesus Christ. Don't we have the hope of this life? Don't we have the promise of life eternal? Our God, you see, has offered us things beyond life, something which will last eternally. Are you ready to do what it takes to have this kind of joy today, but not only today but every day and even forevermore? The question then would be, are you following God's will? And are you obedient to his precepts so that in the end you'll be found not only as one who is faithful but one who has great joy, because they know that they are committed to God and therefore rewarded by Him also. Our topic today will again focus on our new series entitled "The Works of the Flesh". In our specific study of the day we'll deal with uncleanness. So please stay with us this morning and in just a few minutes we'll return and be led in these thoughts of the day. As far as our guest speaker this morning, we're happy to have Brother Trey Sullins with us. Brother Trey is a full-time instructor at the Bible Institute of Missouri here in Springfield, and we thank him for joining us this day. Now it's time to join in our second song of the day, the name of the hymn, "Unto Thee O Lord". ♪ Unto Thee, O Lord ♪ ♪ Unto Thee, O Lord ♪ ♪ Do I lift up my soul ♪ ♪ Do I lift up my soul ♪ ♪ Unto Thee, O Lord ♪ ♪ Unto Thee, O Lord ♪ ♪ Do I lift up my soul ♪ ♪ Do I lift up my soul ♪ ♪ Oh my God ♪ ♪ Oh my God ♪ ♪ I trust in Thee ♪ ♪ I trust in Thee ♪ ♪ Let me not be ashamed ♪ ♪ Let not mine enemies triumph over me ♪ ♪ Yeah, let none that wait ♪ ♪ Yeah, let none that wait ♪ ♪ On Thee be ashamed ♪ ♪ On Thee be ashamed ♪ ♪ Yeah, let none that wait ♪ ♪ Yeah, let none that wait ♪ ♪ On Thee be ashamed ♪ ♪ On Thee be ashamed ♪ ♪ Oh my God ♪ ♪ Oh my God ♪ ♪ I trust in Thee ♪ ♪ I trust in Thee ♪ ♪ Let me not be ashamed ♪ ♪ Let not mine enemies triumph over me ♪ ♪ Remember not ♪ ♪ Remember not ♪ ♪ The sins of my youth ♪ ♪ The sins of my youth ♪ ♪ Remember not ♪ ♪ Remember not ♪ ♪ The sins of my youth ♪ ♪ The sins of my youth ♪ ♪ Oh my God ♪ ♪ Oh my God ♪ ♪ I trust in Thee ♪ ♪ I trust in Thee ♪ ♪ Let me not be ashamed ♪ ♪ Let not mine enemies triumph over me ♪

>>Good morning and thank you so much for joining in again with us as we study God's word. It's always a pleasure to be able to do this and to look into the things that He's given us to know and the things that show us how to live and to be His people as we live in this life. We're looking now again at the works of the flesh found there from Galatians chapter five. And as we see the contrast between the way that God wants us to live and as is present in the works of the spirit, we find then those works of the flesh, those things that are constantly drawing at us, that are constantly trying to pull us away from what God wants us to do. And it's that internal struggle that a person has in their mind and in their conscience as the body and the flesh and the worldly things tries to get us to fall away from God. And yet those things of God are trying to pull us towards a better life, a way that makes better decisions and a way that looks unto Him for guidance and practice rather than unto the things that we want to do and however we want to live. And in Galatians chapter five, as we continue here to see what he explains to us, he says in verse 19, "Now the works of the flesh are evident which are adultery, fornication, and uncleanness" is that third item there or the second one that we're looking at in our series. And the word uncleanness is a particularly general word in the fact that it kind of can refer to a lot of different things. In fact, even as we look at the original language, it is literally the negative form of the word typically used for clean. And so as we in English might say if something is not clean, it's not clean, well, so in Greek they might say unclean as this word is used or not clean. And that's what this word is. And so you might imagine there if you take your car and you've just washed it off and all the dirt's gone and it's nice and sparkly clean, then you go and run it right into the mud. Well, it was clean and then it is not clean. That's the same word used here, unclean or not clean. It is something that is absolutely full of impurity, something that is absolutely dirty or absolutely corrupted in the way that it is presented and from the way that it is supposed to be. By the nature of this word, even it's actually somewhat of a comparative word as well, because something has to be understood what the clean state of it is to know what the unclean state is. And that's why we see here, even in Galatians chapter five, you've got the works of the flesh versus the works and the walk of the spirit and the fruits of the spirit as he even presents. So these things that are clean are set in opposition to these things that are unclean, and God wants us to be a people who are clean. not a people who are unclean. He wants us to be a people who look after the things that He has told us to live by, not after the things that are of a sinful nature. As we keep looking then what we wanna do is to understand this word better from the contexts that it is used in the Bible. If we jump over to Matthew chapter 23, there's actually one passage where Jesus used this, uses this word directly even to call out some people in the things that they were doing, in the way that they were living. If you look there, Matthew chapter 23, and begin with me at verse 27. He says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." Now, I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like too great of a description. These people here were presenting themselves to everybody and looking on the outside as if they were great, as if they were holy, as if they had it all figured out. These were righteous people, but on the inside what does Jesus say? These are unclean, full of dead men's bones even. Now we know as things that die, what happens to them? Well, they decay and they start to corrupt and they start to fall apart and smells start to come from those things. All the putrid, horrible things you could think about with death and decay, he's saying they're full of dead men's bones. They are unclean within themselves. Now notice even that contrast between what is presented on the outside of a person versus what's present on the inside. You know we have the saying, "Never judge a book by its cover" and certainly there's a lot of truth in that even when it comes to people, because it might be the case sometimes that a person presents this great image in the world and yet inside they're full of all sorts of evil things, and that ought not to be the way that it is. If we look even at these Jews and what they had been doing and as it says in verse two, the scribes and the Pharisees, these people that he's calling out, they were a people who were really only concerned with the physical things. They didn't really concern themselves too much with what God really wanted, the spiritual aspects of being a righteous person. They were worried about washing hands and they were worried about ancestries, and they were worried about the sabbaths that were to be kept in such a stringent nature, that even Jesus Himself wasn't allowed to show compassion and heal people on such a day as that. They weren't really focused on what was important. Think about it contextually. These people were in the presence of the Son of God Himself and yet they're worried about stuff that doesn't matter. That's why He calls them unclean. They're missing the whole point, because inside they were obsessed with materialism. They were obsessed with only the physical world and the here and now. They weren't living a righteous life. And so, too, we'll come back a little bit later but that can be a great danger for us as well to remember that we have to remain not only clean on the outside, wherein we show righteousness to those around us, but clean on the inside. God doesn't just want us to appear to be good, He wants us to also be good. Imagine you go to a car lot and you're gonna buy that car, used car or new car or whatever it is, you take it home and you realize, "Well, there's no engine in this car." I don't even know how you got it home in the first place but the problem is obvious, right? The outside looked great, they had it all sparkly, clean, they had it all nice looking but it's not gonna do what it's supposed to do. It's inside completely missing the things that it needs to have, and so, too, does it lose its purpose, does it lose its worth, we would also lose our purpose and lose our worth when we fill ourselves with what's wrong on the inside and only present those clean things on the outside. God wants cleanness inside. God wants cleanness outside as well, and to never have that uncleanness in our lives or that state of being not clean. We find that also in the Book of Romans in chapter one, another passage which is presenting to us this same exact word. Romans chapter one is a particularly harsh chapter from the Holy Spirit, not harsh in a bad way, like, that he shouldn't have said these things, but harsh in that He's coming against a lot of the wickedness and a lot of the sin in a very strong way, strictly telling people these things were not right and God was upset with them and even His wrath was poured out against them as it says. But if you look there at verse 24, what does he start to talk about? "Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves." In fact, this is the same word again that we find over there in our main text of Galatians chapter five, this word uncleanness. And if you'll notice the context surrounding this word what he talking about. He's talking about people that were committing all sorts of sins, removing the natural use of what God has given for places of marriage and other things relating even to murder, even to strife are found later there in the text. These people were caught up in all sorts of wickedness, and at the end of the day, everything they wanted to do would seem to be only whatever they wanted to do. You remember back in Genesis chapter six when God saw man from six, seven, and eight and right before that flood what it says that God observed in the world. He observed a world that was only concerned with evil, a world where every thought and intent of the heart is what it says was evil continually. In other words, these people were absolutely obsessed with doing what was wrong. That's uncleanness. This idea of a mind that's consumed with those things that are putrid, those things that are decaying not only in this life but certainly decay even into the next life. And people that get to that point have a long way to go to get back right with God, but nonetheless, it's a necessary process; a process wherein people need to make sure, we need to make sure that we remain clean in God's eyes. And therefore we find then the final things that we wanna look at in our study, from First Thessalonians in chapter two. There's another great passage here using once again this same word but notice how he words it to these Thessalonian brethren. First Thessalonians chapter two, and if you begin there in verse two, he says, "For even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the Gospel of God in much conflict. He reveals we weren't treated too well and certainly you can find that throughout the Books of Acts or the Book of Acts and all the travels that Paul did, especially, but so many others with him, constantly, they were mistreated. What does he say in verse three though? "For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit." What he says is that we were preaching to you what was right. We weren't preaching to you something that was unclean. And so many today have that problem as well that what we say, what we preach becomes what we want instead of what God wants. We have to make sure that our speech, that our message is the message of God and that we're speaking the things that He has presented to us. Philippians chapter four, particularly in verse eight, tells us how to do this, where we meditate on those things that are righteous. We wrap our minds up in the goodness of God. And we only consume ourselves with those things that God wants us to spend time in. That is the good things, the righteous things, so we never allow ourselves to dip into the unclean, allow ourselves to dip into those sinful aspects. If you look there, First Thessalonians chapter four, also another text where he starts to talk about these same things. And if you think about what God has done for us in this world, a world even like Genesis chapter six, and from that time basically the pattern has been the same. The scale seems to be different, but you still find that people are generally to have a tendency to be sinful. People turn away from God, and that's what Jesus is talking about even in Matthew chapter seven when He says, "Broad is the way that leads to destruction; narrow is the way which leads to life everlasting." But even though the world is like that and always has been like that, what do we find then as we move into First Thessalonians chapter four? We find a God who wants us to be His people so bad that even as Peter wrote that God calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Well, watch here what it is that God calls us into. First Thessalonians chapter four, verse seven, "For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man but God who has also given us His Holy Spirit." Now, that first passage is quite clear, that God called us to do those things that are right, to be a clean people. This isn't just a feeling or an emotion; this isn't a state of mind; this is also action connected to it. If we believe in God and we want to answer that calling of God, we've gotta live right lives, righteous lives, just lives. We've gotta be correct before Him. And the way that we do that is as we're talking about even here, to not be consumed with those things that are unclean. Follow these examples of Jesus, of Paul, of Peter of so many of these other great characters throughout the scriptures that show us a life of righteousness, a life that wants to do what God wants us to do, and a life that certainly does away with the sins of the world and does away with those things that are unrighteous. If you notice in that next verse that we read, verse eight, he who rejects this thing doesn't reject man, but rejects God. Now, certainly, when that final day comes, as Hebrews 9:27 says that judgment day, we don't wanna be the people who rejected the Almighty God. Let's focus ourselves to make sure that we live a life that is not unclean, but a life that is always clean before the Almighty God. ♪ I have decided to follow Jesus ♪ ♪ I have decided to follow Jesus ♪ ♪ I have decided to follow Jesus ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ Though none go with me I still will follow ♪ ♪ Though none go with me I still will follow ♪ ♪ Though none go with me I still will follow ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus ♪ ♪ My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus ♪ ♪ My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ I'll follow Him ♪

>>Let me thank you again for choosing to be with us this day for "The Living Word" program. It is always our hope and prayer that we have all benefited from this service that we have offered to God. And let me invite you back every Lord's Day morning at 7:30 as we give this time once again to our Creator. But for now, let me ask you if you have any questions or comments about today's lesson. Maybe like a free transcript or free CD or DVD of the program or possibly we could assist you with free Bible materials or free Bible correspondence courses. No matter what your need is, please feel free to contact us at the following address: The Living Word, 2540 North Kansas Expressway, Springfield, Missouri, 65803. Many of these items are also available on our website, that address thelivingwordprogram.com. Or if you prefer, you may call us at 417-869-2284. May we strive to be a pure people as children of God that may be found acceptable in His sight and thus recipients of His great blessings and promises. Let's all strive for purity and cleanness daily as the faithful of God.

>>Our prayer is to help the world know more about God through this television program. "The Living Word" has been brought to you under the oversight of the elders of Kansas Expressway Church of Christ in Springfield, Missouri with the assistance of the following area Churches of Christ. ♪ Seek and save the lost ♪ ♪ Give me the Bible ♪ ♪ Holy message shining ♪ ♪ Thy light shall guide me ♪ ♪ In the narrow way ♪ ♪ Precept and promise ♪ ♪ Law and love combining ♪ ♪ Till night shall vanish in eternal ♪