- ♪ 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. ♪ Precept and promise, law and love combining ♪ ♪ 'Til night shall vanish in eternal day. ♪

>>Now here is your host, Ray Sullins.

>>For our citizenship is in heaven. Good morning and thanks for choosing to be with us this day for the Living Word program, and we're excited that you have given this time to God that we might do those things according to His perfect will and that we might accomplish what He has asked according to His purpose. Our commitment this morning is to give God our very best by singing songs of praise and studying His perfect Word. So I hope and pray that we'll all do our own part to make this time acceptable in His sight. 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, for Father, we know that all good things come from above, and Father, we are thankful that we also have the great privilege of having all physical needs provided for us as well as all spiritual things, that we not might not only know You but be able to live and move about and work every day in Your kingdom, and do those things that are according to, again, Your perfect will. And Father, help us this day in spirit and truth to give You our very best, that we might show You how much we love You by obeying Your commandments and by worshiping You in a way that You have commanded as well. And so Father, we thank you for the gift of Jesus, and we know the meaning of that sacrifice in the heart and life of every Christian and those who love You. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. This morning, we want to begin with a song of praise that reminds us of the great care that God has for the faithful. Ultimately, we know that if we strive to be faithful, God has promised us eternal life. So at this time, once you join in with the congregation as we sing together "Hide Me, Rock of Ages." ♪ Oh Thou blessed rock of ages ♪ ♪ Rock of ages I am ♪ ♪ Trusting now dear Lord in Thee ♪ ♪ Dear Lord in Thee I'm trusting ♪ ♪ Keep me till my journey's ended ♪ ♪ Journey's ended, keep me ♪ ♪ Till Thy blessed face I see ♪ ♪ Hide me, O blessed rock of ages ♪ ♪ 'Til Thy blessed face I see ♪ ♪ Thy face I see in glory ♪ ♪ When the storm around me rages ♪ ♪ Round me rages, blessed ♪ ♪ Rock of ages hide Thou me ♪ ♪ Keep me when the storm clouds gather ♪ ♪ Storm clouds gather, keep me ♪ ♪ Till the sun comes shining through ♪ ♪ Comes shining through the shadows ♪ ♪ Keep me till my work is over ♪ ♪ Work is over, keep me ♪ ♪ Till I bid this world adieu ♪ ♪ Hide me, O blessed rock of ages ♪ ♪ 'Til Thy blessed face I see ♪ ♪ Thy face I see in glory ♪ ♪ When the storm around me rages ♪ ♪ Round me rages, blessed ♪ ♪ Rock of ages hide Thou me ♪ ♪ When my journey is completed ♪ ♪ Is completed, Savior ♪ ♪ And there's no more work to do ♪ ♪ No work to do, O blessed ♪ ♪ Savior guide my weary spirit ♪ ♪ Weary spirit, to that ♪ ♪ Happy land beyond the blue ♪ ♪ Hide me, O blessed rock of ages ♪ ♪ 'Til Thy blessed face I see ♪ ♪ Thy face I see in glory ♪ ♪ When the storm around me rages ♪ ♪ Round me rages, blessed ♪ ♪ Rock of ages hide Thou me ♪

>>Oh for a home with God, a place in His courts to rest. What a wonderful thought we find in this song that we sing from time to time, and in fact, isn't that what our Christian life is all about? How blessed we are to have God, a God who loves us, who loved us, who has loved us enough to offer us great blessings and has made sacrifices and even promises in the future. On the other hand, how privileged we are to live lives and to show God how much we love Him through our service and commitment to what He has asked of us in the Bible. In the Scriptures, we find many writers that teach of our opportunity to obey God. However, all the writers of the Bible, we find those who really emphasize it even more than others. Paul gives us some of the clearest thoughts along these lines. Remember what he said once by the Holy Spirit in Romans chapter 12 verse one, beginning. There we read, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." We are commanded, you see, to be a living sacrifice, not like the world, but actually different from the world, thus striving to be Christlike. I also love what Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse one. That simple verse says, "Imitate me just as I also imitate Christ." You see here once again that we have it right when we are exemplifying the things that Christ did and when we are imitating the life that He left us as an example to follow. Now the only problem is is that we must realize that no one ever said that it would actually be easy to accomplish this task. In the Bible we actually find quite the opposite as a warning. James said, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials." That's found in his book, chapter one and verse two, and we also notice that if we read on in that text, we'll see the fact is that we will suffer trials, but when we suffer them is really where the most interesting part of the discussion lies. When we are living for Christ and doing His will, and the things according to the will of God, God is with us each and every step of the way, so no matter if we suffer or when we suffer, we know that God is there. Also notice what Paul further said in 2 Timothy chapter three and verse 12. There we read, "Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." Again we have confirmed here, those who follow the will of God, those who are striving to do right will suffer in this life. So think of all of those in the Bible as well who suffered when they were doing God's will. Often they were beaten and imprisoned and laughed at and spit on and humiliated, and on and on we could go. However, what was their stance for God? They stood strong, and they did it for the sake of Jesus Christ. But you might ask, how can we be happy when we really think about the fact of sufferings that will be coming our way? That is a good question and the answer is, when we suffer for the sake of Christ, we will be blessed by Christ, and ultimately we'll even receive the crown of life in heaven when this life is over. Read with me from 1 Peter chapter three and verse 14. The Bible says, "But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed." You see, those who are obedient to Christ will be blessed. Finally, hear God's word in James chapter one and verse 12. There the Bible says, "Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him." You see, if you really love God, what will you do? Keep His commandments. And although we know we will suffer for the sake of Christ, remember that all who are worthy to suffer are also worthy of the final reward. This morning, we'll be continuing our series on the works of the flesh. Our specific topic this day is outbursts of wrath, so please continue with us this morning, and after our next song together, we will return with this study from God's Word. As far as our guest speaker this day, we're happy to have Brother Trey Sullins once again. Brother Trey is a full-time instructor of the Bible Institute of Missouri, and we thank him for joining us this day and look forward to him leading us in our thoughts from God's Word. But for now it's time to return to our songs of praise, the next hymn, "Blue Skies and Rainbows." ♪ Blue skies and rainbows and sunbeams from heaven ♪ ♪ Are what I can see when my Lord is living in me ♪ ♪ I know that Jesus is well, and alive today ♪ ♪ He makes His home in my heart ♪ ♪ Never more will I be all alone, since He ♪ ♪ Promised me that we never would part ♪ ♪ Green grass and flowers all blooming in springtime ♪ ♪ Are works of the Master I live for each day ♪ ♪ I know that Jesus is well, and alive today ♪ ♪ He makes His home in my heart ♪ ♪ Never more will I be all alone, since He ♪ ♪ Promised me that we never would part ♪ ♪ Tall mountains, green valleys ♪ ♪ The beauty that surrounds me ♪ ♪ All make me aware of the One who made it all ♪ ♪ I know that Jesus is well, and alive today ♪ ♪ He makes His home in my heart ♪ ♪ Never more will I be all alone, since He ♪ ♪ Promised me that we never would part ♪

>>Good morning, and thank you so much again for joining with us as we study God's Word and continue our service to Him. We've been looking out over the last few weeks the works of the flesh, and we've seen a great many things that God has told us to stay away from and things that will lead us away from God if we keep them in our lives, and so we're commanded by God to remove these things. Well, we've come now to the next one on our list, and that being from Galatians chapter five and verse 20. If you'll read with me again, of course beginning all the way up there in verse 17, he talks about the lusts of the flesh which war against the spirit that God wants us to have, and then verse 19, he says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, and then, "outbursts of wrath." And it is that phrasing there, outbursts of wrath, that we want to focus our time on at this time. This phrase, outbursts of wrath, is actually one word in the original Greek language in which it was written, and it is the word thumos or thumos, and basically it means something where you are passionate in your anger. Other synonyms to it might be heat or even might be the idea of boiling up within yourself. It's an interesting word, because in the English, you might have noticed they've added to it some supplementary words to get the point across, outbursts of wrath, and that really does capture the connotations of this original word. The idea is when something happens and then the person reacts with an immediate, almost explosive reaction of anger or wrath. It's something where it, as soon as it happens, the person is instantly triggered off and loses control of themself. And you might even notice it's set amongst a list of a whole lot of things that aren't good, and so certainly, it's something as well that a Christian, a follower of God ought not to have in their lives. You might notice in our world today, we have some similar terms. We might call it a quick or hot-tempered person, somebody who has a short fuse, even, and that really is the idea of this word. Now notice as we talk about this word wrath, wrath isn't necessarily and inherently a bad thing. God has wrath throughout the Scriptures and we find Old Testament and New Testament where His wrath is used even for justice and for good things. So the problem here is that this wrath is not used in a way that is proper. It's not reasonable, it's not rational. It's irrational. It is not based upon godly things, but rather it's based upon things that are fleshly and earthly. Remember, these are the works of the flesh. It's an uncontrolled anger that has no bearing in the life of someone who wants to be a follower of God. Some other examples of this, which is often a good way to understand the words that we see in the Scriptures because we're seeing them being translated through languages, is to look at other examples. And so Luke chapter four and verse 28 shows us one such example where this same word is used in a different context. Now, Jesus had gone back to the city of Nazareth and had gone into the synagogue as was His custom and was even reading from the book of Isaiah. A Bible or a book of scriptures was handed to Him, and so He reads from Isaiah, and He begins reading about how Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah to come, and the Messiah to come was going to help the people of the day. And that's essentially what He read. He begins to explain to them how He had come for this purpose, how this was what He was going to do. And he even gets down there into verse 25, 26, and 27 to say even that as Elijah was even rejected in his home and how there were so many around Elisha who were suffering, and yet it was only those who were outside of his home country who often were healed by the works of God through Elijah. Well, you have here Jesus, the very Son of God, and yet he was going to be rejected in His own home, rejected even by those who should have known Him best to see the righteousness of God and to see even God Himself walking in the feet of Jesus. And yet this was their reaction. Luke chapter four, verse 28. "So all those in the synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath." Notice what this wrath does to them. "And rose up and thrust Him out of the city, and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff." And then it says, "Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way." These people were so caught up in a moment of anger, of outbursts of wrath, they lost all control. They were about to murder a man because He told them words they didn't like. It's absolute foolishness, and yet it makes no sense that they reacted this way. After all, He's telling the truth. But even if He wasn't telling the truth, to murder a man because you don't like the words He's saying, certainly that's not rational. Certainly that's not something that a person of self-control will do. You might notice also in the book of Acts in chapter 19, there's another great bad example of people doing these things, and using this exact same word, the Bible describes how these people were. Acts chapter 19 there again in verse 28. Skipping reading the context for sake of time, you've got a very similar situation. Paul and the other companions who were with him had been going around and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were at the city of Ephesus now, and a certain man named Demetrius riled up the crowds in the city of Ephesus to come against those preaching Christ. The main reason why is his whole livelihood was caught up in idolatry. You see, he was a silversmith who primarily worked in making idols, and so these people coming and teaching a message that removes idolatry would lose him his whole life, as far as his work is concerned. He didn't like that and so he riled up these crowds. Notice what verse 28 says. "When they heard this, they were full of wrath and cried out, saying, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" That word full of wrath there actually is a few words in the Greek language, but wrath is the same one, thumos, that we're looking at here from Galatians chapter five, verse 20. Notice what this wrath caused them to do. "So the whole city was filled with confusion and rushed into the altar," or, "rushed into the theater with one accord, having seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul's travel companions, and when Paul wanted to go into the people, the disciples would not allow him," so they again do a very similar thing. Now, thankfully, this one was stopped before the point of trying to murder people, but they grabbed them against their will and hold these who are preaching Christ against their will and try to shut them up. They're so mad about the things that are being said, they lose all control. This word, outbursts of wrath, again has no place in the life of a godly person. What are some of the things that we can do to avoid this kind of behavior, to avoid ever having this word in our hearts and minds? Remembering again that wrath isn't necessarily a bad thing. Remember, even Jesus flipped over the money changers' tables in the temple because they were doing things that were wrong. Wrath has its place when it's godly, but controlled, rational wrath. Outbursts of wrath have no place in the Christian, because they have no control. They have no rational thought to them. They are absolute confusion, as this text even tells us here. You might think about some things that we can do. The first thing that we could do to help with this is to remember that these things have no place in the Christian. In fact, in Ephesians chapter four, it tells us in a list of similar sins, like Galatians 5:20 has, it says, "Put away these things," and it even has the word wrath there again, the same exact Greek word. Put away these things, because they're not to be found in a Christian. If we take a moment, the second thing we can do is to take little time. You know, we have the old saying, especially in our culture in the US, just to count to 10. When something happens and you're about to lose it, there's a lot of truth in taking some time. Count to 10, remove yourself from the situation. Whatever you've got to do, do not react with that moment of anger and wrath. Let a few moments pass or even more time if needed and come back to the situation to handle it with your rational thought. There's nothing wrong with that, and we don't need to react with these sorts of outbursts that God doesn't want. Another thing that we can do is to remember that there's no fruit in this. Think about what they did to Jesus. They're about to kill the Son of God even in that moment because they're so upset with Him. Absolutely no fruit. They're gonna murder a man because they hate His words. It's a shame. In the Book of Acts, we just read the same thing. They were taking these people against their will and who knows what they would have done, because they lost all control. There was no fruit in their actions. They didn't even know why they were gathered, as is the word confusion is indicating there, but they were caught up in the wrath. You see, a Christian is to be one who is controlled, who is rational. The last thing to think about here is from Romans in chapter two. Another text there, right after listing all sorts of manners of sins in the Scriptures, Romans chapter two and verse eight tells us this very thing here. Romans 2:8 says, "But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation, anguish on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek." You notice the people that behave, the word indignation in Romans 2:8 is the same word wrath that we're talking about from the Greek. It was translated a little bit differently here, but the idea is the same. The people that behave with this kind of mindset, with this kind of behavior, they're not thinking about God or what God wants them to do. They're only thinking about themselves. Certainly we've been in situations like this before, where we are caught up in that moment of absolute anger, and you're trying to control yourself to not react. In those moments, if you remember, I'm not the only one here. There's other people involved. I need to keep myself reined in and behave properly. Then we can hopefully control those things, because the alternative doesn't care who's in the situation. The outburst of wrath mindset, it doesn't matter who's there or what's there or anything. You'll say and do whatever comes to mind because that's what that wrath controls you to do. Now, again, as we talked about even there, Ephesians chapter four, verse 31, that oh-so-powerful passage which explains to us just as even Galatians chapter five and verse 20 does, that these things ought not to be in the heart of the Christian. We'll finish there with Galatians chapter five again, and what he's explaining to us in verse 21. He's finishing the list and he says, "Of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time passed, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." See, if we remember what God wants us to do, take the time that we need and only be fruitful as God's Christians, we have a place in his kingdom. ♪ You'll stand at the bar on high ♪ ♪ Someday your record you'll see ♪ ♪ Someday you'll answer the question of life ♪ ♪ What will your answer be ♪ ♪ What will it be, what will it be ♪ ♪ Where will you spend your eternity ♪ ♪ What will it be, oh what will it be ♪ ♪ What will your answer be ♪ ♪ What will it be ♪ ♪ Sadly you'll stand, if you're unprepared ♪ ♪ Trembling, you'll fall on your knee ♪ ♪ Facing the sentence of life or of death ♪ ♪ What will that sentence be ♪ ♪ What will it be, what will it be ♪ ♪ Where will you spend your eternity ♪ ♪ What will it be, oh what will it be ♪ ♪ What will your answer be ♪ ♪ What will it be ♪ ♪ Now is the time to prepare, my friend ♪ ♪ Make your soul spotless and free ♪ ♪ Washed in the blood of the Crucified One ♪ ♪ He will your answer be ♪ ♪ What will it be, what will it be ♪ ♪ Where will you spend your eternity ♪ ♪ What will it be, oh what will it be ♪ ♪ What will your answer be ♪ ♪ What will it be ♪

>>Again, let me thank you for choosing to be with us this morning. I hope we've all been encouraged through our time spent together, and please remember that you're invited to join us every Lord's Day morning as we commit this time to the service of God. 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, 65303. 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. As those who are the light of the world, may we learn to control our actions and words so that we will not be guilty of sins like outbursts of wrath. Are you behaving like a true child of God today?

>>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 the Kansas Expressway Church of Christ in Springfield, Missouri, with the assistance of the following area Churches of Christ. ♪ To 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 ♪ ♪ 'Til night shall vanish in eternal day ♪