This sermon emphasizes the journey of faith and dependence on God, highlighting the importance of endurance, proven character, and ultimately giving all glory to God. It discusses the process of facing trials, developing perseverance, and offering up our lives as a fragrant offering to God. The goal is not just moral character but to reflect Christ and His love, understanding that hope in God's love never disappoints.

We talked about faith last week as depending more and more on God. The alternative to standing on the promises of God is standing on our own. That's the choice. So our life should be an increasing life in which our dependence on the promises of God is growing until we come to the end of our life and we are only standing on the promises of God. My dad has said once that he loves, he wants to experience every one of the promises of God. Every single one, none of the promises of God where he's lost out because he was standing on his own. That's our dream and desire too to experience every one of the promises of God that we may not miss out on any one of those joyous moments. I titled my sermon today called The Pathway to Perfection, a daunting title you might think but I want to show you my understanding of it and it follows from last week's sermon if you were not there. I'm speaking about, I spoke about faith and this is to come right behind that. Just to give you a summary of those who weren't here, faith, I took Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6 to describe what faith is, faith, Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6, without faith it is impossible to please him for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. It is impossible to please God without faith. I called it the worst sin to come to God without faith. Whether you believe Jesus to become a Christian, whether you're already there, the thing that God is looking for you the most is not good works, not trying harder, but faith. And I describe what faith is there as from that verse that first of all we must understand that he who comes to God, so we're acknowledging that God is there and we're coming to him, we must say that we must believe that he is. And I said it's more than just saying that he exists because if I'm coming to somebody by definition I'm saying that he exists. But to say that he is is to say that I is not. Do we have that kind of faith where we are coming to God or we are embracing the reality that God you are, I am not. So in the way I speak my sermons I should speak in such a way that more and more people see God is and I am really not. And we must sing that way and we must live our lives that way that God you are, that is faith. I am not. I am helpless. I am totally dependent on you. If you were to give way I would surely give way too. It's one thing to say it, it's one thing to know it, it's another thing to live it. And the second half of it was he is a rewarder of those who seek him. And it is I will get him. I will have him. It is a statement of full confidence. Not at all worried whether we will, God will you, will I get you? You will get him. The question is do you want him or do you want it? His stuff, anything that else that he's not promised to every one of us. He's promised us his person, his character, his freedom from sin. He's not promised us all of his gifts. He gives some to some and he gives some to others. But we can have great confidence that he wants to give us himself and his person which is freedom from sin. So what is faith? To summarize from last week, faith is total dependence and full confidence in God. It is from that that I want to talk about today, to go on that to say when we start off with faith as the greatest sin, how do we take that faith and proceed down this pathway towards perfection? And I want to go to Romans chapter 5 to talk about that. Now if you don't know the book of Romans, humans have organized Romans into different chapters and Romans 1 through 3 talks about how we are sinners and that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. That's all the way up to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 4 deals with faith and justification, which is a big word, just means just as if you've never sinned. Grab a hold of that. Just as if you've never sinned, Paul says you've got that because you have faith. Because you depend on God, because you fully depend on God and have confidence in Him alone, God looks at you in Christ as if you've never sinned. Not as if you were sinned and forgiven, even more than that, that as if you had never sinned. That is what justification means and Romans chapter 4 talks to that, comparing ourselves with Abraham, our father in the faith, who calls, he talks about God who calls things into existence that never were before. It is based on that that we now look at Romans chapter 5 and we start with reading with verse 1. Romans chapter 5 verse 1, therefore having been justified by faith, by faith, by dependence on God, by confidence in God, we now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace by which we stand. Grace is the power of God to overcome sin primarily. Even the grace we get to overcome whatever sin you're dealing with is by faith, is by dependence on God, is by in confidence with God, not by you working it out and trying harder and this and that, it's by depending on God more. It's working out your ability to depend on God more. By faith we now have the grace in which we stand and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And I want to just underline that word, in hope of the glory of God. I dare say most of us just swing by that statement thinking that's a nice lot, a lot of Christianese. I don't know what that means but I think it makes sense. We exult, we take great joy, we rejoice greatly in our hope, in our longing, in our desire, in our primary ambition of what? Of the glory of God. What does that mean? That means that every Christian must take great joy in saying, God you must get the glory alone. I take great joy in that being my greatest ambition, that being my greatest desire. So if my startup company is not looking like it's going to go public anytime soon, I still can have great joy in exulting that God I hope you're getting the glory through what I'm doing. I can have great joy in whatever circumstances I'm doing because I'm saying God you are, I am not. It is with that that we exult in hope of God getting the glory at the expense of me getting the glory. Oftentimes the choice is, is God going to get the glory or I want to get the glory? Do I want a Christian ministry? Why? I say it's because God so that you can get the glory but it's really because I want to have a little bit more validation. And I say God increase my business so that I can give more to you. Yes, that's probably part of what you want but you also want a nicer house. But then that's both God and me trying to coexist and God says and Paul is saying we exult in the glory of God and I find that it often comes at the expense of my dream that says no no no God increase my yard and increase my circle so that I can have more. Really is the prayer behind that. I exult purely in the glory of God and he will provide all my needs. But then it gets even more interesting. Now actually I should say one more statement. We exult in the glory of God. If you talk to many other religions that believe in God also they will also say we want to give glory to God. But Christianity is different and unique because we give glory to God looking at a particular someone and that is Christ and we read that in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6 just to point that out to you for God who said light shall shine out of darkness the same God who created the universe that physicists and everybody is trying to wonder how that happened that same God who just spoke light into existence this unbelievable thing that none of us can figure out this same God is the one who was shown in your hearts to give you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God this same glory in the face of Christ. So as we study the life of Jesus given to us through the Bible as we study Jesus's life and the way he lived this life not giving into sin even once we get an understanding of the glory of God and we get to see the glory of God in the way Jesus lived 33 and a half years tempted in all points as we are yet without sin. I want you to do that every time you sin I ask you to do something simple every time you fall into a sin that you know you shouldn't have done can you do me something simple look up at Christ and see him who never sinned who was tempted just like you were and passed the test then what do you do you beat yourself up no you adore him you worship him and say God I am nothing but I have even more respect and adoration for you and the way you lived for 33 and a half years always saying yes to the father always saying no to the devil and sin you keep doing that and you'll have a strange love for Jesus that you don't know where it comes from and a strange adoration for Jesus that you'd be like that was not from me but I adore him not because of a song I heard and not because of some great bonus I got no because Jesus is showing himself as glorious in the face of my sin that I just did this is how even when we sin God is saying you can see my glory don't beat yourself up see Jesus that is why Jesus God's Paul says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18 one of my life verses that my part to play in this process is I look at the face of Jesus and I see the glory of God in the way Jesus overcame sin and Jesus lived a sinlessly perfect life and then my job is verse 18 of 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror Jesus' beautiful life the glory of the Lord and how he always overcame sin and never gave up we are being transformed into his glory as I look upon him not as I try harder not as I grit my teeth and say God one day no I just try harder and I keep looking at him I am being transformed into glory one day so that I fully reflect Jesus one day I will see him as he is and I will be like him 1 John chapter 3 but what is this pathway this pathway on how I gaze upon Jesus I gaze upon the glory of God in the face of Jesus and I be transformed what is that pathway look like that pathway to perfection that's what I want to talk about and one of the things that I want to talk about is specifically this I want to understand how do I depend on God because I've said it it's all come down to the coming down to dependence on God how do I depend on God for those sins that especially beset me now all of us have one or two or three sins that are keeping on bugging us it may not be the same as other people but it's usually sins that we can quickly identify and usually I know it what sin it is by this metric it's not what I I'm so craving to do all the time sometimes that is it but often times it's what sin am I tempted most to commit when I'm feeling lonely or when I'm feeling hurt or when I'm feeling angry or when I'm feeling tired or when I'm feeling hungry what sin am I then tempted to commit I've noticed that the sin of pornography is close at the door when I'm feeling one of those things and the feeling to fight back and to punch back and to hit back is right at the door when I'm feeling one of those things when I'm feeling lonely when I just felt rejected when my boss said something harsh towards me and I come home and I'm feeling down sin is crouching at that door what is that sin your favorite sin you love to lean back on instead of leaning back on God those are the things that keep us in shame and guilt I want to talk about those sins primarily and I want to see how God Paul is saying we must exalt in these trials that keep coming at us and I say God what are you talking about I want to show you some of God's desire before that for us started James chapter 1 I want to talk about trials this may be a passage that may be more familiar we'll come back to Romans chapter 5 but I wanted to show you something in James chapter 1 that unlocked for me me understanding trials in the right perspective James chapter 1 verse 2 and 3 some of you may know this verse consider it all joy again James inspired by the same Holy Spirit that Paul was inspired also says consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials why knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and this is what I want you to notice about that this these verses did you notice how James talked about trials and then talked about testing of your faith have you noticed how he said consider it all joy when you encounter various trials okay these trials why should I consider it all joy James because the testing of your faith and I don't know if a lot of us have realized that all of our trials is fundamentally and primarily a testing of your faith now what is faith we've gone over this dependence and confidence in God so when I say the testing of my faith I'm talking about the testing of the core building block of what God is trying to develop in us which is faith dependence on God so he allows trials and temptations to come at us to test the quality of our what dependence and confidence in God God says without faith it is impossible to please me and God says I want to give you a way for you to know whether you have real faith so we're going to test it we're going to test it so that you have a sober estimate so that you have a good understanding of you say you have faith you say you have dependence on God let's test it so that you know whether you really are depending on me and the temptation of to do smoke to do drugs or something comes by and I say God no I'm going to depend on you God says you have faith continue in that and then with every single trial every single temptation that's coming God is saying don't look at it as this big mean thing I'm doing to you look at it as me trying to show you the right nature of your faith the right level of your dependence on me so when you fall down what does that mean that is an indication from a loving heavenly father that is saying you thought you had this much dependence on me but this trial knocked you down you don't have as much as you thought you don't depend on me as you thought so what must you do you get up and say God I'm sorry I thought I had this much dependence on you I thought I was standing on your promises that this trial just told me I wasn't so I fell I'm sorry Lord I'm getting up and I'm going to stand on your promises right now and we're going to do it again and I'm going to and I'm so thankful Lord that the trials are not over because the trial is surely going to come but this time I want to stand on your promises so with us men who struggle with the lust of the eyes when you see a woman walking by in an immodest dress and we feast our eyes on them we have surely fallen but don't sit down and beat yourself over it look up to Christ see him who never sinned ask God for the Holy Spirit to say God now I want to stand on your promises she went to get coffee she's surely coming back this way in three minutes it's coming consider it all joy the trial is coming in three minutes father help me to depend on you it's that simple oh man that girl's going to come by again ah I guess we're so hard consider it all joy my brethren you need to just depend on him more so every time you fall we we do God an injustice by beating ourselves up we slap God in the face because we go against his very word saying God you're not true because his word says I love you I am just trying to teach you that you ought to depend on me more faith is what pleases me right now your faith is this much we need to increase it this much I'm going to show you trials so that you realize this much is not enough to go through the day you need more and more and more and say God that's not enough I need some more and slowly I say God I want to stand on your promises and depend on you more and I want to have more confidence in you and James chapter 1 says verse 3 says the testing of your faith produces endurance that means when I get beat up and I got knocked down endurance is not having the victory it's saying I'm getting back up I'm not giving up on you God your promise says that I must I can have victory over sin with my eyes I'm going to stay here and then I get knocked down again because I wander over here ten minutes later and God says get up and come back and depend on me and he's producing in you not victory over sin right away he's producing in you endurance let's go back to Romans chapter 5 and we see that Paul inspired by the same Holy Spirit describes the exact same process and he expands on it a little bit more but he says you also must exalt in your tribulations knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance not victory over sin not I finally defeated this giant that is oppressing me I know I wanted to be defeated God is saying first I want to build in you endurance if calculus just came to you when you're eight years old you wouldn't have any endurance in mathematics God builds in you endurance now I want to talk to you something about sin and different kinds of sin so that we are all on the same page about this I want to make a demarcation about where I am saying we must have endurance there are I want to talk about a demarcation between two kinds of sins there are sins all sins are an affront to God there's no doubt about it all sins are an insult to God's holiness and cannot stand in God's presence so in that sense all sins are evil however there is a sin difference between the sin let's say of pornography if I was single and the sin of fornication or the sin of adultery if I'm married or even if I was single if I was committing adultery with a married woman let me explain that to you all sins are an affront before God so all sins as Jesus said if you lust in your heart you've committed adultery in your heart all sins are a sin in the vertical component but when I watch pornography with my eyes if I was single man watching pornography I've not really done a lot of damage to anybody else if you'll understand my limited analogy compared to the amount of damage I do when I commit adultery with another man's wife I've hurt that man I've heard that man's wife I've hurt her emotionally I've heard her children if she has children and we all know the devastation of affairs in the same way if I get angry there's a difference if I have a spirit of anger in my heart but I don't show it to somebody else there's a difference between that and going and committing murder do I need to explain this point our both our sins against God let's be clear about that both need you to claim the blood of Jesus and ask God and you have to repent of both sins and both God says I want you to live in freedom over both however there's a greater implication when I murder somebody this is how the law of the land has been created that is why the law has been created in such a way that there's a greater punishment when you hurt somebody else that is how church administration also happens that is why for example in safari kids we check people's backgrounds to make sure that people who have had a past record of abusing or misusing children are not allowed to serve in safari kids it is not that they are not forgiven before God let's be clear about that they are anybody no sin is too great that God cannot forgive him and God does quickly forgive however in terms of taking care of a church body there are certain exceptions that we must make and we depend a lot on trust in the same way if I were to steal tens of thousands of dollars from some of you and especially if I used my my the stage here to gain your trust got access to your life and then cheated you of tens of thousands of dollars you would be very gracious to forgive me you would be going above and beyond the call of duty to say you don't even have to pay it back but you would gently but yet firmly say we would appreciate if you don't teach from the pulpit anymore because we don't trust you and we want people in leadership positions who are shepherding the flock who we can trust who are not abusing or misusing their authority so in that sense I say if some of you sitting here are struggling with a present sin of adultery my word to you is not endure my word to you is give it up immediately you don't have to pray about it you don't say oh but you don't know the feelings my heart she was made for me I found the perfect one no she's not the perfect one she's in contradiction to God's Word if you're committing adultery with her you don't need to endure through that sin you have to give it up if you're beating your spouse you don't have to endure one day I will start beating up my spouse no stop it immediately seek counsel seek help seek help from other brothers but stop it immediately you're hurting somebody else I hope I don't have to believe at that point anymore for the rest of the time I want to talk about the other kind of sins I hope most of us Christians are quick to realize those sins that are hurting other people in real ways and in actual ways and destroying their emotional makeup and they have their lives and their children's lives and I hope we discard them right away for most of their other Christians I think there are habits there are mentalities it could be not towards somebody else it could be a wrong and a wrong word or a wrong statement that your mother may have said to you that always beat you up and that you're never able to let go off or maybe it's something else that somebody else did when you were still a young boy or maybe it's something that happened recently it's a lack of forgiveness maybe it's a spirit of bitterness maybe as it is often the case with many of us men it's the the lust of the eyes and many other sins or maybe it's an inattentive or a loose tongue that is usually in place but once a week once a month a month it lashes out at somebody and like a snake hiding in a cave is all quiet for most of the time but once in a while just bite somebody and goes back God wants to give us freedom in those areas to as well God says if you can't control your tongue your religion is worthless and God says I don't want snakes hiding inside your mouth we're just waiting for the right storm of events and BAM somebody's gonna get that poisonous venom God wants to free us from those kind of sins I want to use Romans chapter 5 to describe how God has given me light and open my the eyes of my heart to see the pathway that he wants me to come into perfection into a life of freedom from sin and this area God says that the knowing in chapter 3 5 verse 3 it says knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and I brought a little plant with me to illustrate my point you know we all have God's Word that we think of as the seed and the seed comes into our lives and it hopefully finds fertile soil it had files good soil and then the seed goes in and I think what the problem is when we look at our lives we oftentimes see this and you know I'm not knocking this plant or anything but I don't see this plant as being especially beautiful I don't see beauty as yet I see the potential that maybe someday there are a couple of buds maybe beauty will come out of it but I don't see exceptional beauty out of it the way I want to see it I didn't buy this plant for this in the same way we look at our lives and we buy into the Christian life but we look at our lives after a while and we see this and we say God we don't want this and so what we try to do then is we tend to we tend to criticize either the soil saying God we're not good enough we're not we're not getting it we're just bad people always start criticizing the seed saying God that's that words not for me I need another word so I go to another preacher and say give me your word and that word works for two weeks and I'm like no still I'm only getting this so I say I constantly need new words new words to get me to get fruit in my life and God is saying consider it all joy because tribulations trials temptations are producing not first flowers and fruit and beauty but ordinary simple endurance nothing so pretty to look at hi like what's my number one virtue I've got a lot of endurance people are like yeah we want to follow you you've got a lot of endurance that's not a very virtuous thing that a lot of us think it but God says that's my pathway we despise endurance we despise perseverance because we think God I want I want to go straight to proven character I want to go straight to victory over sin God says my way is to go through endurance now why is it God's way to go through endurance not because he is not big enough not because he is not powerful enough because whether we know it or not or not our soil is still so rocky we think our soil is soft we try as best as possible to get our soil to be soft but in so many ways we still have layers and crusts of pride that are like rocks but God is not intimidated by it God your word my word is in you it will bear fruit hang on step aside as we sang in that song step away don't give in to this temptation to uproot this tree give up on Christianity give up on church give up on what God is trying to tell you to do hang on there's rocks underneath that this plant is encountered but the Holy Spirit is working on that rock if you keep coming to him if you keep getting up every time you fall into sin and say God I want to depend more on you he's pouring a little bit more of that Holy Spirit that can break away can chip away at that rock call our pride that still wants to depend on ourselves and slowly surely God will produce flowers in it one day and surely if we keep staying and staying out of the way and allowing God to do his work as we keep coming back to him depending on him God will produce proven character and I got a plan for that too all right this is what the same plant looks like when you let it grow and you can clap for it if you want it's okay how many of you want this plant how many of you want this plant that's what I mean I mean relatively speaking I'm a lot of us look here and we look at our lives and say God I don't think anybody needs to see my life so I'm not going to show anybody and I'm going to cover it up because all I got is endurance please don't look at me I've got endurance but the moment comes after some time when I get proven character and this is what a lot of us are desiring and we say God this is finally what it's all about and then we say God thank you so much for proven character we kept enduring we got proven character now you can take my picture next to it now I'm happy to stand next to it here guys why don't you see you see my proven character you see how I overcame the lust of the eyes do it my way yeah I'll speak in your seminar sure I'll tell you how ten ways to get over lust of the eyes but see I'm done it now I'm the pro now and I love smelling the roses or the flowers or whatever like wow what a beautiful tree and I stand back and I hope people get to see all my proven character and I just love it and nine out of ten Christians who get proven character ninety nine out of hundred Christians who get proven character I think this is the goal of the Christian life morality a good life this is the way of most religions but Paul doesn't end there I hope you notice that proven character is not the goal and proven character produces hope what is hope we talked about our hope in the beginning of Romans chapter 5 verse 2 our hope is that God you get the glory our hope is that we reflect Christ and that we bring up Christ that Christ looks bigger and we look smaller how do we get this plant to reflect Christ when this plant is our proven character I don't know if you're gonna like this but we got a oh and you know it's we don't like this because we think this is such a bad thing to do and don't worry I'm not ruining the tree I'm just ruining the flowers and I had scissors in the previous two but I couldn't find the scissors but I think that's of God too because this is the painful part God says crucify that flesh that wants to say you get the glory take it all out rip it out crucify your flesh take it all off what do we do with this God you must get the glory God this is for you this it's not for me that every one of those flowers were for you they were not for me I got all of this proven character because I hung out with you and I stuck long enough but those are for you and like Abel and Cain we offer up our offerings to God and we say God I hope you are pleased with my offering and God says if you created that those flowers by dependence on me I am well pleased with you and your offering by faith Hebrews chapter 11 verse 2 or 3 it says by faith Abel this is the difference between Abel and Cain not that Abel raised sheep and that Cain raised flowers not at all it is by faith Abel had a dependence on God and created had all his his life and he said God that was for you family don't stop with endurance maybe most of us are here maybe some of us are tempted to uproot the tree don't stop just yet flowers are on the way for those of you who have started to see flowers that's not the end of the journey take them out rip out the hardest ones crucify the parts of the flesh that are the hardest to crucify which is that desire to take the glory for yourself to make it all about your beauty take it and righteously put it fling it at the feet of Jesus like the 24 elders in Revelation chapter 4 will take off their crowns which is a symbol of God's rewards for their good works they fling it at the throne of Jesus saying Jesus you alone are worthy now and this life doesn't disappoint this life doesn't disappoint there's a there's a vain allure to this kind of life where we glory in our proven character but this life where we offer it before God doesn't disappoint because Romans chapter 5 verse 5 it ends hope does not disappoint because you get the love of God how many of us want the love of God and that's it nothing more God is love you get God you get his love and he loves you that is enough I don't feel the love of God here's the pathway through the spirit hope will not disappoint set your eyes on him where you only want him and you only want his glory and you want only his agenda and you're willing to give up every single dream of yours however valid they may seem to you and hope that God gets the glory will not disappoint because God gives us his love he tells us how much he loves us and all of our love for God is only because he first loved us 1 John chapter 4 verse 19 this kind of love I want to end with a song of Solomon is a book that is often thought about as a book that helps us understand how marriage relationships are to work but I have seen it even more beautiful 10 times more beautiful when I have understood it to be a story between Jesus and me and I hope you will see it as this is a story between Jesus the bride and you the bride and he says this in song of Solomon chapter 7 verses 10 and this is the bride speaking in response to the bridegroom now the bride went away from the bridegroom the whole story in song of Solomon the bride walks away from bridegroom a couple of times because she is addicted to other things or she's attracted to other things and the bridegroom pursues and draws her back a beautiful picture of how God works with us and the final time when God draws her back the bride is says I'm here to stay and this is what she says listen to the bride I am my beloved and his desire is for me have you interacted with this Jesus whose desire is for you how would you not want to hang out a lot with that Jesus we must see this Jesus whose desire his desire is for you come my beloved verse 11 let us go into the country let us rise early and go into the vineyards and let us see whether the vine has budded not let you I don't want you to see all the good works that I've done I want I don't want to see vines I want to see if the vine has started to prove fruit as yet and whether its blossoms have opened and whether the pomegranates have bloomed then there I will give you my love that is my love these proven character this fruit that is budded out of a life of endurance I have good to you my bridegroom Jesus the mandrakes have given forth fragrance and over our doors are all choice fruits which I have saved up for you not to adorn myself this beautiful bride no I've saved them up for you the bridegroom this is the Jesus that says that I am your bridegroom and this is the heart of the bride who knows without a doubt that the heart of the bridegroom that the heart of Jesus has that level of intimate love for you as the bride and who wants to get once and whose bride's heart desire is that it may produce choice fruits and choice flowers so that I could give it to him so father may all of my flowers be so fragrant not so that I look good but so that it rests at your feet and people who come near your feet will be like people who smell Jesus when the woman opened that vial of alabaster oil and they will exalt Jesus and they will say Jesus my how good you smell and Jesus may my life be like the fruit that I will offer up to you so that you can eat off it and say this is good fruit it is very good and you can give it to your people who come to you looking for you that they will taste of the fruit that you give them which is my life and they will say my my what a great gardener you are because you have figured out how to raise such delicious fruit they won't praise the fruit they'll praise the one who made the fruit they'll praise the one who raised the fruit may God give you this spirit of endurance may God give you this moral fortitude and this moral character and this proven character that you would righteously put at the feet of Jesus let's pray father we come to you lord so thankful for such a simple gospel in all of our tough times lord our trials are not easy we don't expect a simple magical solution but we want to hang on we don't want to give up we want to continue to depend on you we don't want to minimize sin we don't want to think that endurance is the final result we deeply desire proven character and even with that father we want to give that proven character to you to lay it at your feet so that you may be lifted up so that all the glory may go to you father help us on this journey help us to help one another in this journey in Jesus name amen