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“Sunday-Only Christians”

Allen Dvorak
09/22/24 - Sun AM

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The Lord sent Malachi to a corrupt Israel to rebuke them.

Their corruption was from the top all the way to the bottom.

In chapter two, he rebuked the priesthood for their corruption.

And then in starting in verse 224, he rebukes the nation as a whole for both their national and personal infidelity.

I invite you to stand out of respect for the word of God as we read together, Malachi chapter two starting in verse 219.

Have we not all one?

Father has not one God created us.

Why do we deal treacherously with one another by profaning the covenant of the fathers?

Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem for Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution which he loves.

He has married the daughter of a foreign God.

May the Lord cut off from the tense of Jacob, the man who does this being awake and aware yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts?

And this is the second thing you do.

You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying.

So he does not regard the offering anymore nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.

Yet you say for what reason?

Because the Lord has been witnessed between you and the wife of your youth with you, with whom you have dealt treacherously.

Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant?

But did he not make them one having a remnant of the spirit?

And why one?

He seeks Godly offspring?

Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

For the Lord of God, the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce for it covers one's garment with violence says the Lord of hosts.

Therefore take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously may be seated before we begin our study this morning in Malachi chapter two, perhaps a word of explanation would be helpful regarding the bulletin.

Uh I send the bulletin out every Sunday that I can remember to do so in a PDF format.

And many of you probably see that only in that format, you don't pick up a hard copy.

The article that I wrote for the bulletin this week uses some biblical text.

And for some reason, Adobe in design the program that I use for laying out the bulletin will not put Hebrew text in correctly.

It transposes everything, turns everything back to make it work like it was English.

It's not English, not only does it transpose, transpose the words, it transposes the letters in the words so that they run a different direction.

So what I've done for those of you who may be interested is I've printed out that same article with the Hebrew text in the right order and it appears as a insert in the hard copy of the bulletin that you can get back in the, uh, in the lobby on the table there.

So if you're only looking at the PDF, you may not be aware that that bulletin article also appears in a form that's a little easier to understand because it follows the text of the, the word uh direction of the text in Hebrew.

Now, if that made even less sense to you, get the insert and read it and it will make sense to you.

Um I struggled and struggled with Adobe in design.

You would think that the premier desktop publishing program could print Hebrew.

I don't know why not, but it doesn't.

So Microsoft Word does it just fine.

So that's what you have in the bulletin.

Well, I appreciate your presence here this morning and I want to begin this morning by reminding you that in the very beginning of human history, God records that two individuals, two brothers made offerings, they worshiped God, their offerings were of a different nature.

Cain of course, brought from the fruit of the ground and able offered a sacrifice from the uh first born of the flock.

And the text in Genesis four says that God showed no respect or had no regard for King's offering, but he did regard Abel's offering without going into any other details.

That story just very quickly illustrates the fact that God doesn't accept just any form of worship or any worship that man might offer.

We understand of course, that God has given instructions over man's history as to how he is to be worshiped.

And even in this early case of worship by these two brothers, it appears that one brother didn't follow those instructions.

While the other one did the obvious lesson, God doesn't accept just any worship.

Several weeks ago, we looked at the book of Malachi in a lesson that I uh entitled polluted offerings.

And about the same time as uh Ezra and Nehemiah, those prophets in the post exilic period.

Malachi would address the people of Israel who had returned.

He's about 221 and 224 years after the first group has come back uh from Babylon.

It appears that the exiles were not given to the sin of idolatry, which was the case prior to the exile and actually a primary cause of the exile.

They had a different problem in Malachi's time.

The priests were despising the name of the Lord by offering what Malachi calls polluted food on the altar in chapter one verses six and seven.

What do you mean by polluted food?

Malachi?

Well, they were offering defective or second rate animals as sacrifices even though the law said that if you brought a sacrifice to God, an animal as a sin offering or some other kind of offering, it was to be the best of the flock.

It was to be perfect.

You couldn't bring a three legged lamb or a blind lamb as sacrifice.

But that's what the priests had begun doing.

And in so doing, they were despising the Lord's table.

They were offering to God, what the prophet challenges them to even offer to their governor to see if he would receive those kinds of offerings.

And so in verse eight of chapter one, Malachi says, when you offer blind animals and sacrifice, is that not evil?

And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil present that to your governor?

Will he accept you or show you favor?

Says the Lord of hosts.

That's a rhetorical question.

Of course.

No, he certainly would not.

Why would we think that God would accept something less than the best that we can offer?

And so the people were cutting the corners, so to speak in their worship.

Now, maybe one of the priests or some of those who were worshiping would say, well, at least I'm worshiping.

I brought something to the Lord.

I didn't just ignore him, but that kind of worship it seems was worse than no worship at all.

Continuing in the same chapter in Malachi one verses nine and 221.

Malachi writes and now entreat the favor of God that he may be gracious to us with such a gift from your hand.

Will he show favor to you?

Says, the Lord of Hosts.

And then the Lord says in verse 212, 103, that there were one among you who would shut the doors that you would not kindle fire on my altar in vain.

I have no pleasure in you says, the Lord of hosts and I will not accept an offering from your hand.

And so the people were bringing these defective offerings, the priests were offering them.

And God says, I just wish someone would close the door so they wouldn't kindle a fire on the altar for these kinds of offerings.

I will not accept that kind of worship.

And so once again, we understand the basic principle that God doesn't accept just any worship, but worship needs to reflect uh obedience to his instructions.

I want to continue.

Now in the book of Malachi today in chapter two, to talk about another problem that I think the people of Malachi's Day had and it also affected their worship.

And I've entitled our study this morning Sunday, only Chris Christians.

I was chided a little bit this morning for excluding the Wednesday night, only Christians.

But I think you'll understand the principle that I'm going to get.

And in our text is the text that was written or read rather by Eric in Malachi two verses 210 through 210.

In that text Malachi indicates that the people were dealing treacherously with one another.

He says, even though they had the same father or have we not all one father?

He says in verse 2100 has not one God created us and yet one Israelite was dealing treacherously with another.

And it appears as we read through the first three verses here that what was happening is that men, Jewish men were marrying women from other nations.

Judah has married the daughter of a foreign God.

These were women who worshiped other gods who were not worshiping Jehovah God Malachi, as I've already noted, lived at about the same time period as Ezra and Nehemiah and both of those men struggled with this very same problem.

The problem of men marrying women from other nations, idolaters, contrary to the instructions of the law, the law indicated that Jews should marry other people of their nation not to marry foreign women.

And there are several passages that we're going to look at here just to kind of quickly illustrate the problem.

And the rebuke that was given by Ezra and Nehemiah, we're gonna look at Ezra.

The ninth chapter verses two through four where Ezra says, for they have taken some of their daughters to be wives, for themselves and for their sons so that the Holy Race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands and in this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost and So when Ezra is informed of this, as he writes about it later, he says, as soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled.

Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice.

Ezra dealt with this same issue.

And in chapter 10, we're told that it wasn't confined just to the common people.

Even some of the sons of the priests had married foreign women.

Someone would say, well, the priests were those who were given among other duties, the responsibility of teaching the law to the people.

If anybody should have known what the law said about contracting marriages with foreign women, the priests should have known.

But it's even in the priesthood that this is happening.

Ezra tells us in chapter 10, Nehemiah also had to deal with this problem.

This is a little bit of a uh an extensive reading.

But if you'll pardon me, uh Nehemiah writes in those days also, I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod and Ammon and Moab Ashdod was a city but Ammon and Moab were foreign nations and half of their Children spoke the language of Ashdod and they could not speak the language of Judah Hebrew, but only the language of each people.

And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair and I made them take an oath in the name of God saying you shall not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

That's what the law said.

Don't do those things.

And in Deuteronomy, the people were told, don't contract these kinds of marriages, they'll pull you away from the Lord.

And so Nehemiah then observes in verse 26 did not Solomon king of Israel sin.

On account of such women among the many nations, there was no king like him and he was beloved by his God and God made him king over all Israel.

Nevertheless, foreign women made even Him to sin.

He was influenced by his many wives, wives from other nations.

Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women.

And I wanted you to hear that last word and act treacherously against our God because that's the same word that's used over in Malachi too, in the English translation to talk about what the people were doing.

They were dealing treacherously with one another and incidentally, they were profaned the covenant, the law of Moses that had been given to the people back in Malachi two and verse 12.

The last verse in this particular section, the consequence of their actions is listed.

May the Lord cut off from the tense of Jacob, the man who does this being awake and aware yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts.

So you've got individuals who are violating the law of God by contracting these marriages with foreign women.

But they were still bringing their gifts, their, their sacrifices to God.

And we learned that there was another problem that their treachery was even compounded.

If you look at the, the second part of this reading from this morning, beginning verse 13.

And this is the second thing you do.

Malachi writes, you cover the altar of the Lord with tears with weeping and crying.

So he does not regard the offering anymore nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.

There's some controversy among commentators as to whose doing the weeping, whether it's women who have been dealt treacherously with or whether it's just the Israelites in general, that they understand that God's not accepting their offering anymore.

And I'm not even sure how they would know that but they're distressed.

The people are distressed because God no longer regarded their offerings or accepted them with favors.

The ESV says, well then in verse 14, yet you say for what reason, why is it that God's not accepting our worship?

And the answer is because the Lord has been witnessed between you and the wife of your youth with whom you have dealt treacherously.

Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

As we noted earlier, these were men who were marrying foreign women, but it was even worse than that.

They were divorcing their wives, the wives of their youth and then marrying some woman who was from another nation, worshiped another God.

Their wives are described as the wife of your youth, your companion, the word companion.

There is translated from a verb that means to bind together, to unite something.

She was your companion and she's your wife by covenant.

But they were breaking that covenant.

There are other passages that talk about marriage as a covenant that wouldn't surprise us because even in our uh secular or traditional wedding ceremonies, people take vows, make vows to one another.

They make promises, they agree to live together as man and wife.

Ezekiel chapter 103 in verse eight uses a covenant to describe or vows to describe the relationship of God with Israel in the figure of a marriage.

But these men were divorcing these women, they'd married in their youth and then they replaced them with foreign wives.

And the Bible says the Lord has been witness of this treachery.

And so now he doesn't accept your offerings.

Well, is it because the offerings were bad?

Were they defective?

Well, that may have been also true.

But the reason they're not accepted when they're offered in the temple is because of what the people were doing in their daily lives.

They were profaning the covenant.

They were not regarding God's instructions.

For marriage.

I like this description.

I think it is perhaps a little blunt and yet I think accurate.

It's written by a puritan commentator who was commenting on the treachery of these men.

And he's quoted by Walter Kaiser in his commentary on this section, she whom you thus wronged was the companion of those earlier and brighter days wherein when in the bloom of her young beauty, she left her father's house and shared your early struggles and rejoiced in your later success.

Who walked arm in arm with you along the pilgrimage of life, cheering you in its trials by her gentle ministry.

And now when the bloom of her youth has faded and the friends of her youth have gone.

When her father and mother whom she left for you are in the grave, then you cruelly cast her off as a worn out worthless thing and insult her holiest affections by putting an idolater and a heathen in her place.

And I think that describes pretty well what happens a lot in our country, two people in their youth get married.

And in those early days of the marriage life is more difficult.

The man, perhaps if he's the uh the breadwinner in the family, he hasn't established himself in his profession.

And so she supports him and works with him and they go through the difficult years sometimes of child rearing and all of the trials that come with that.

And then as she begins to get older and she's not as attractive as she once was.

Then he divorces her and he goes out and marry some young thing.

You ever see that happen in the social media?

Or have you seen it in friends people?

You know, it's a common thing and God says you deal treacherously with your wife.

When you do that, you violate the covenant that you made when you were married.

And verse 16 tells us about the Lord's attitude toward divorce.

Of course, we're not talking about Matthew 99.

We're not talking about any kind of an exception.

We're talking about God's general attitude toward divorce and it is that he hates it because so often it involves treachery.

I've used the new King James version today because there's some difference between the new King James version and the ESV.

I think you can make an argument for either translation.

I don't think one is blatantly wrong, but I think the new King James version seems to follow the context better here.

And so that's why I using it today.

And that translation says the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce for it covers one's garment with violence covers one's garment is a figure of speech that refers euphemistically to the marriage relationship.

So what is it that Malachi is trying to tell these people?

What's the Lord saying to them?

It is that the worship of the people was being rejected by the Lord because of their disregard of his covenant in their daily lives.

Or if we could boil that down, God wants us all the time to obey him.

Not just on Sundays, people sometimes have incorrect ideas about worship.

Even as I think these uh people who had returned from exile did some incorrect ideas about worship would include this concept of coming to worship God on Sunday.

And if I do that, it makes up for anything that I've done during the week.

And so it's kind of a zero sum game, uh a failure in God's favor, favor during the week by my misbehavior, my sinful behavior, I can top that off on Sunday by coming and worshiping God.

And so it just kind of evens out.

So my worship on Sunday cancels all of the things that I did wrong during the week.

I want to point out that in Malachi's rebuke, we're talking about people who were disregarding God's covenant totally.

In some areas, we're not talking about the individual who occasionally falls short of what God wants him to be.

But then tries to make that right by repenting and asking for forgiveness.

We're talking about people who just decide I'm not going to worry about this part of what God's law says, like those who are marrying foreign women, but I'll come to church on Sunday and God will be happy with that because after all, I'm re religious, you know, it's interesting to me, uh, that some very wicked people have also been very religious and they attended church services on a regular basis.

If you want a good illustration of that, read about the Mao Mafiosos.

And how many of them were staunch roman Catholics even though they would go to church on Sunday and then order somebody's execution on Monday.

Well, going to church kinda makes it better, doesn't it kinda balances out so to speak, the good with the bad?

That's one incorrect idea about worship.

Worship doesn't perform that function.

But there's another idea that I think is somewhat common among religious people that is also incorrect with respect to worship.

And that is that God's goodwill toward my worship.

His opinion of my worship has essentially no connection to the rest of my life that God is not worried about what I do Monday through Saturday, as long as I'm here on Sunday and I worship him on that day.

Of course, there are a lot of people who believe that God chose certain people to be saved before the foundation of the world independent of anything they might do. Yes.

No, yes, no, yes, no.

God chose them according to his own will and they are saved no matter what.

It's a systemic theology known as Calvinism.

And that same system of theology also says that essentially God doesn't take into account our sa our sins.

Once we've been saved, all he sees is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is credited to us.

And so all those sins don't really matter much because if God's decided you're going to be saved, you're gonna be saved no matter what.

And that's their understanding of the sovereignty of God.

You can't thwart God when God decides to do something.

And so I come to worship on Sunday because I'm one of the elect, one of the chosen.

But then Monday through Saturday, I live like a child of the devil because God doesn't see any of that.

The imputed righteousness of Christ is like an umbrella over my life.

And that's all that God sees.

And that's an oversimplification of that Calvinistic doctrine, but it is essentially the principle behind it.

And I want you to know that both of those ideas are false.

The scriptures teach that these ideas are wrong, multiple prophets made the same point as Malachi.

And that is that the people's worship was rejected because of their failures in other areas.

And I'm gonna give you three examples.

And I want to read through these verses so that you can see that it's the same point that Malachi is making Amos in chapter five.

And verse 21 says, God says, I hate, I despise your feast.

Well, this is what people were doing to worship God.

He says, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies, even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings.

I will not accept them and the peace offerings of your fattened animals.

I will not look upon them.

Take away from me this noise of your songs to the melody of your hearts.

I will not listen.

But let justice roll down by like waters and righteousness, like an ever flowing stream in the interest of time.

We won't go through some of the things that Amos said were problems in the Northern kingdom.

But that last sentence in verse 24 tells you what's going on, doesn't it?

God says, what I'm really looking for is justice in your daily lives and until righteousness is like an ever flowing stream, then I don't care about this worship that you're offering.

It's like us going to church on Sunday and, and we're just Sunday, only Christians the rest of the week we do what we want.

God says, I don't care for that kind of worship.

I will not regard it.

The prophet Isaiah also makes this point hear the word of the Lord.

You rulers of sodom.

Give ear to the teaching of our God.

You people of Gomara Isaiah sent to the Southern Kingdom and he's talking to the leaders.

Well, what to me is the multitude of your sacrifice says, the Lord I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well fed beasts.

I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats when you come to appear before me who has required of you this trampling of my courts.

You're just trampling my courts, bringing all these sacrifices.

And I didn't, I don't want those, bring no more vain offerings, incenses and abomination to me.

New Moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations.

I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

So you come to worship, but your lives are full of sin, your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates.

they become a burden to me.

I'm weary of bearing them.

Please understand these were things that God commanded in the law that the people were to do.

That's how they were supposed to worship in these feasts and these sacrifices.

But when all of that is divorced from the way that you live during the day, the rest of the week, Isaiah says none of that means anything to me.

I despise that when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you even though you make many prayers, I will not listen, your hands are full of blood.

The imagery here is so powerful.

They're spreading out their hands to God asking for God to bless them.

And God says there's blood on your hands.

So I'm not listening to you because of the sin in your daily life, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes cease to do evil.

Learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless plead the widow's cause all of those things talk about what you do during the week.

If you'll pardon the anachronism, it's what you do outside of the place of worship.

It's the way that you treat other people.

It's living God's covenant, not just on Sunday or for the Jews on Sabbath, but all through the weak one final passage here in Jeremiah six from the Old Testament.

Jeremiah again, Southern Kingdom toward the end of uh its time, Jeremiah and chapter uh the early chapters has described some of the sins of the nation of the people as individuals.

And in verse 19, he says, Hero earth, behold, I'm bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices.

The Lord says, because they have not paid attention to my words.

And as for my law, they have rejected it.

So they reject God's law, but they're still offering some sacrifices and worship to God.

And he says, what use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land.

Your burnt offerings are not acceptably acceptable, nor your sacrifice is pleasing to me.

Oh, we, we're bringing incense from far away Sheba, maybe Yemen today and, and, and all of this, all of these other things, we, we're really working hard to bring sacrifices.

And God says that's nothing to me.

Not as long as you've rejected my law.

Well, I want you to see that that wasn't just an old Testament principle.

And Jesus gives a specific application to the same principle in the sermon on the Mount in Matthew, the fifth chapter in verses 21 through 24 interesting passage because we typically think of worship as being one of the most important things.

And so listen to what Jesus says, beginning verse 21.

You have heard that it was said to those of bold, you shall not murder, whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

But I say to you that everyone who's angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.

Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council and whoever says, you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar, I'm I'm coming to worship.

I'm I'm here.

I've got my gift.

I'm at the altar and there, remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.

Wow, Jesus says you're on the cusp of worshiping me.

But there's a problem between you and your brother.

Your brother has you sin against your brother.

You leave your gift, go be reconciled to him, take care of that problem and then come back and worship me.

Is that not really the same principle that these old Testament prophets were saying that whether or not my worship is acceptable to God depends largely on how I'm living my life and the way I'm treating others during the rest of my life, I want to be careful that we do not look at this principle in a rather too specific way because I think this principle applies more than just those men who might divorce their husbands and remarry some young thing.

I'll give you a couple of illustrations that I think may resonate with uh our experiences over life.

You ever known a congregation where you've got brethren, maybe two brothers or two sisters in this congregation.

They worship in the same congregation.

They come together every Sunday, they're worshiping, but they won't speak to each other because something happened, one sin against the other.

Or maybe they both think there's been sin involved, but there's disunity, their fractured, their relationship is fractured, but then they come together and they offer their worship to God.

And I would suggest to you that what Malachi would tell those individuals is God's not interested in your worship.

You're wasting your time coming here and offering up your worship to me when you don't treat your brethren, right?

Take it away.

Don't waste your time.

Now, please understand.

I'm talking in the extreme with hyperbole.

I'm not suggesting that God doesn't want us to worship Him.

He wants us to worship Him.

But the point is that worship that is separated, that is disconnected from the way I live my life.

The rest of the time is of really no value.

God doesn't regard it or respect it as the ESB would say.

I wonder, I seriously wonder how many hours of worship have been offered in vain by individuals who lift up their hands to God and sing songs and pray and take the Lord's supper and hate the brother who sits in the pew to their left or right.

God says, I don't care about that. Worship.

Another illustration.

We come to worship on Sunday and we offer our praise to God and we make commitments in our singing and in our prayers and we give the appearance of righteousness and loyalty to God.

And then we go home and we mistreat others.

Those who are the members of our family.

Does God care about my worship if that's the way I'm treating others.

If as a husband, I don't love my wife, I'm ignoring what the Lord has to say about my responsibilities and the marital relationship.

And in the home, does God care about my worship?

If as a parent, I'm mistreating abusing, perhaps my Children.

Does God care about my worship if I'm disregarding, ignoring what he said are my responsibilities as a parent, my obligations.

How many spouses, how many parents waste their time in worship after mistreating family members in their homes?

It's almost as though we sometimes seem to think that God only sees us when we're here.

He only looks down through the roof of this building.

But my house because it has a metal roof can't see through the metal roof.

So what happens in my home, God doesn't really take any stock of that so I can treat my family any way I want.

Then I come here and praise Jesus.

In these cases, the worship of these brethren is not regarded by the Lord.

And it is my hope that we don't fall into those, those cases, those groups.

I hope that our loyalty to the Lord is not just on Sundays that we offer worship, but we also pay attention to the Lord's instructions the rest of the week because that's just as important as coming together here on the first day of the week to worship.

Malachi says they're connected and you can't just focus on one and not the other.

Our text in Malachi obviously provides some information about God's attitude toward divorce and we could say a whole lot more about that perhaps.

But our focus this morning has been on how disregard for God's covenant for his law affects our worship.

And I hope the study has been helpful in the way that we think about what we do here as it's related to how we live the rest of our lives.

We cannot separate the acceptability of our worship from our daily lives.

Well, in that principle, I think the idea that God's looking at all of our life, not just Sundays or Wednesdays suggests that God wants all of our heart, all of our mind, all of us to belong to him and not just some portion that we offer.

Perhaps on Sunday, how many people around the world are engaged in worship?

Maybe even this morning, all the while ignoring what God has said about becoming a part of his spiritual family.

You know, if I'm not listening to what God has to say in His word about how I can have my sins forgiven, I can worship from now constantly until the day I die.

And it really won't mean much.

We've got to listen to the voice of the shepherd if we're going to be his sheep.

And so the Bible tells us that we need to hear the gospel and we need to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

There's no other name given among men by which we may be saved according to acts four and verse 12, we need to repent of our sins.

That's what Peter told those people on the day of Pentecost.

When they were convinced that they had crucified as a nation, they put to death, the Son of God, what men and brethren, what shall we do?

And Peter did not say well, congratulations.

You believe in Jesus.

The work is done.

You're saved.

But instead he said to them in verse 198 of chapter two, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.

And that's exactly what I preach today.

What needs to be preached today.

The believers need to repent of their sins.

They need to confess their faith as Paul would write in Romans the 10th chapter verses nine and 10.

And then they need to be baptized, immersed in water for the remission of their sins.

Buried with Christ in baptism.

Romans six says where we come in contact with that blood that cleanses us from our sins.

If you're not a Christian, are you listening to God's instructions?

But I will say to you, there's no point in being baptized if you're not willing to commit yourself 100% to the Lord because he doesn't want just Sunday only Christians.

In fact, they really aren't Christians.

They don't belong to Christ.

What he wants is for us to become new creatures.

And to remember that we were bought with a price.

The price is the blood of Christ.

And so we need to glorify God in our bodies, in our minds and our behavior because we belong to Him.

If we're Christians.

Are you a Christian this morning?

If not, then we want to encourage you as we stand and sing just a moment to take steps to become part of the Lord's church, part of his spiritual family.

If we can assist you in doing that this morning, then please come to the front, we'll assist you as we stand and sing.