This sermon emphasizes the heart of a true man or woman of God, characterized by faith, humility, selflessness, and a deep understanding of God's ways. It highlights the importance of genuine transformation through Christ, leading to a life of service, obedience, and seeking knowledge of God. The message underscores the significance of the cross, sanctification as a result of justification, and the continual growth in the knowledge of God for believers.

The heart of the man of God is the heart of faith, God-centered and selfless, a servant of God in public and in private. He realizes his life is not his own, but he belongs to the Lamb of God that purchased him with his own blood. So he walks in humility, holy, pure, sanctified, consecrated, doesn't flirt about with the nonsense of this world. Such a person is pleased to clean up the church when no one else is looking because they're not looking to be in a platform preaching. They don't need to be playing music to be seen. They're glad to serve God in this secret place. They give people a greeting when they come into the church for the first time. They go out of their way for the benefit of others. Such a person has been born from above. The power of the gospel has touched their heart and their works prove it to be so. Your works will never save you, but you do works when you've been saved. Sanctification is always the result of true biblical justification. If you've been saved there will be fruit in your life. Jesus didn't say by their great profession of faith you will know them. He said you will know them by their fruits and if there's no fruit there's nothing that's pleasing to God. The heart of him that has understanding, the heart of the man or woman of God, the young person of God is captive to a special type of understanding. We're not talking about some type of spiritual elite or mystical band that has a divine flame that keeps everybody else at a distance. This is God-given understanding. Once the heart has been touched and transformed by the grace of God, the understanding of the man or the woman of God delights in contemplating the Lord of glory in Christ and Christ crucified. There in two words we have all the divine wisdom summed up. Christ crucified. Where is your power O Lord? Where is your wisdom? He answers in Christ. Christ crucified. Let us boast of nothing else but this. We have nothing of ourselves so let us boast of nothing. Paul said in Galatians 6 14, God forbid that I should glory in anything save the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world has been crucified unto me and I unto the world. Our boasting is in him and the only understanding that is of only of any value is that which has eternal significance. Understanding the cross of Christ. But sad as it is to say contemporary Christianity for the most part, contemporary youth groups and churches have taken the cross out of the gospel. If you take the blood out of the message of the gospel, this book's not worth the paper it's written on. The cross is what unites Genesis to Revelation. The cross, the cross, the blood of Christ. This understanding is God given. This is more than rational understanding. We understand by God's providence that he was pleased to bestow upon man the gift of reason but reason only goes so far and no further. It ends with mortal man. The first law of rational thinking is that reason doesn't know it all nor does it even come closer. But faith in the heart brings a special type of understanding that transcends the realm of reason. Augustine once said don't try to understand that you may believe but believe that you may understand. Anselm said in the 11th century that faith seeks understanding. Did I not say if you believe you would see the kingdom of God? True biblical faith, true God-giving faith delights in the gospel, in the manifestation of God and rejoices in the deep waters of the truth of Christ. Understanding in God always grows in the knowledge of the grace of God. Such a person longs to contemplate everything from a biblical perspective. God biblically, Christ biblically, man biblically, sin biblically, salvation biblically, church biblically, the future biblically, everything conforming to the word of God. You must build your life in such a way that every single part of your life is on the firm foundation of the scripture so that in any given moment if someone asks you why are you doing what you're doing you can say because the Lord has spoken, the Lord has said this. Jesus said the wise man doesn't just hear his word he hears it and obeys it. He puts it into practice because I'm here to tell you you're building a house and I can tell you right now that the rain is going to fall, that the rivers are going to rise, that the winds are going to come and beat and bash against your house but if you've listened to Christ and you obey his word, come rain, come high water, come hail, your house will stand, your house will not fall because you're built on the king of glory, the Lord of hosts. Are you building on him or are you building on your own wisdom? True understanding will always show itself in obedience to God. I've met plenty of people told me they know God, that they're servants of God and then have watched their lives and they live like demons. They don't know the first thing about God. If you know God your life will reflect that to be true. If it was a criminal offence in Ulster to be a Christian would the authorities have enough evidence to put you behind bars? Does your life line up to what you profess? Do you walk the walk? The heart of him that has understanding seeks knowledge, seeks knowledge. We seek a knowledge that is complete foolishness to this world. We seek Christ and him crucified to the Greeks foolishness to the Jews a stumbling block but for us to believe he is precious, he is elect, he is that chief cornerstone placed by God himself and he that believes in him shall not be confounded. You see God doesn't grant you the new birth but you stay stagnant until the day you die. God's designed is that you grow in the knowledge of him. Paul sums this up most excellently in Philippians 3 when he says oh that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. In Philippians 1 21 he says for me to live is Christ he is all he sought that knowledge. Paul had an understanding heart, a heart of faith and so sought knowledge. A true born again believer will always seek God. If you're in love with someone you want to be with that person, you want to spend time with that girl, with that lad. Why? Because there's a love and the same in the things of God. If you love God there's passion for him, there's a desire to know him more. This knowledge is what sustains the life of the believer. It's a delight to know him. In the following verse of our passage the scripture says he that is of a of a merry heart has a continual banquet and the gospel is a feast for the child of God. You see somewhere along the lines we've got something mixed up and awful wrong. We've come to believe that the gospel is nothing more than a little life-giving potion that gives life to a sinner that's dead in transgressions and sins. But we've forgotten that the gospel is not only for the sinner but the gospel is for the saint. The gospel is for us to delight in, for us to rejoice in, in the greatness of our God. In this sense Christianity is pure pleasure from beginning to end. Christianity is not abiding, legalistic, pessimistic, sour-faced, back-crippling It's life, in life and all of its abundance. It's liberty, it's glory, it's excellence, it's virtue, it's pleasure beyond all measure. The ungodly look at you and think you suffer because you don't smoke their joints, you don't sleep about with their girls, you don't get drunk on their alcohol, you don't mess about with their nonsense as if it pains you that you couldn't do that stuff. But we've come to a greater knowledge, the knowledge of God, before we delighted in those things but now our delight is to contemplate Him and Jesus Christ. He has become our passion, He has become our hunger and our thirst and our all. And as we contemplate Him we are transformed from glory to glory. Are you being transformed? Does your life show that you've been marked by God? True knowledge of God begins with the fear of God and if you fear God you won't fear anyone else. If you've been confronted by the putrid reality of your stinking depraved condition of sin then count yourself blessed.