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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

But anyway, I do want you to take your Bible and turn to the book of Ephesians 4, the book of Ephesians, and chapter 4. for every individual who trusts Christ as Savior has eternal life. Every person who trusts the Lord has the indwelling Holy Spirit. Every person who trusts Christ as Savior is going to heaven when they die. And everyone is God’s children when they trust Christ by faith and faith alone. So that’s good to know. So we know that one day we’ll all be in heaven and we’ll have perfect unity.

But let me tell you what God says. Did you know that God wants that here? Now, He doesn’t want us to live like a saint in heaven and like the devil down here. He would like for us to live like a saint down here. He even called us saints. Now recently in, it might even be one on steel, they’re talking about how they’re going to canonize two poets. And they’re going to become saints. Well, you know what I think about that.

Man cannot make a saint. Man can’t declare anybody a saint because it means to be made pure and holy and I guarantee you they aren’t and they’re not saints. But when you and I trust Christ as our Savior, we are made pure and holy and set apart. We are sanctified. We are saints in the Lord. Not because of any good deed that we’ve done. They’re trying to find a miracle they can accredit to them as the evidence that they are really pure and really holy.

Jesus died on that cross to make me really pure and really I am a saint, not Bernard, but I am a saint. I used to tell people my dad was a, never mind. I just told him my dad was a boxer, and my mother was a cockerspaniel, but that’s not that truss. So anyway, we have a lot of good things that God gives to us in His word, and one of these things is about unity. And of course, if there’s a big job that He left us to do, we’re going to have to learn we’re going to have to learn how to get along.

We’re going to have to learn how to love each other and forgive each other, not forget each other, but forgive each other. And see what God has for us and what He can do to us because this whole thing wasn’t given to just one person to get done. This is for all of God’s children. So I made the statement here in verse 1, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you are worthy of the location that calling where with your called.

With all lowliness that means humility and meatiness with long suffering for bearing one another in love. Endeavour to keep the in here’s that word unity. Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Can you get along? You can take two catch, tie their tails together, throw them over a clothes liner. You have union, you won’t have peace. And I was told that the way to wash a cat, you ever know how to wash a cat? Have you ever tried to wash a cat?

You can wash a dog. Try washing a cat. I said the way you wash a cat is you, first of all, you open the front door. Then you get the cat and after you’ve already done lifted up the toilet lid and you put a lot of soap in there and then you throw the cat in, close the lid. In about 15 seconds is all it takes. And open the lid and just don’t get in the way of that cat.

That’s one way to wash a cat. Now, when you and I, we’re supposed to have unity, and some Christians fight like cats and dogs. But we’re not supposed to. We’re supposed to have a goal or a common cause that causes us to forget the pettiness and work together for what God wants us to do. So he says here in verse four, for there is one body. Why should we have unity because it’s one body? Why unity because it’s one spirit?

Even as you’re calling one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one father, and God of all, that’s because there’s unity there. It’s only one. But God now says that there’s many of us. And so every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. So he wants us to learn these things. And he gave some apostles and prophets and phangeless and pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, that means not edified, but edified, means to beautify what’s there and add to it.

And then he says in verse 13, till we all come in the, and here’s that word again, unity. See the whole thing’s about that. So we’re to work together in unity for the cause of Christ, for the cause there’s something God wants. And he believed that what we’re working toward is more important than the little petty differences that we might have. So he says, yes, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God into a perfect man.

Now, there’s a lot of churches. I’ll say, it’s a little bit less to get all the churches. Let’s just think about it. We just want church. We are a body of believers. supposed to as a body of believers work together in such a way that we take on the image of one person. We’re to act and move as though we’re just one person and everybody has a part in this body. So we all work together as one body and this body has a head.

Who is the head of this body? Christ. See their Ephesians, look there in chapter 1. And chapter 1. And you’ll notice what he says here in verse 22. And hath put all things under his feet, gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is the body. So there’s the body and Christ is the head. Now should the body be in rebellion against the head? You know things get done a lot better if you say, I’m going to go to of the car and your body goes that away.

I’m going to eat my food and your body goes and takes a bath. You would have a lot of problems. But here he makes the statement, which is his body the fullness of him that Philip all in all. So we know we all have a part and all are supposed to work together. And then look what he says in verse 14, till this church, this body of believers, are able to stand strong as one man. And so when you speak about Calvary community church, we speak as one, we believe as one, we are of the same mind, we have the same purpose, the same goal.

And this is when he says that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro by and cared about by every wind of doctrine by the slight demand, cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive. So we want to be strong as a body of believers and not cared away by every wind of doctrine that comes along. We know what we believe and we know why we believe it and we stand there. And then in verse 15, but speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together, the body, all of us, all members, we have a part, we have a place, and we’re to fit together, we’re to work together.

And compacted by that which every joint supply. According to the effectual working in the measure of every part. Now that measure is what you look over there in verse 7 when it says, but under every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the God gives grace to everyone to do the work God wants them to do. He didn’t give everybody the same. It’s whatever it is that God wants us to do. That’s why you ought to be thankful to do whatever it is God has for you.

Not Don’t worry about what somebody else does. Whenever I do a wedding and I have to have a rehearsal, first thing I tell them, don’t think about what anybody else has to do. Don’t try to memorize everything I’m telling you. Who stands where and who does what and who comes in after. All you do is just what you’re supposed to do. You think of only your responsibility. Nobody, just yours. And then I walk them through it after I’ve done told them.

I tell them what we’re gonna do and then I tell them and then we do it again. And it’s amazing how quickly they can pick it up and everything flows. So I’d like to say they go off without a hitch, but that was a purpose of getting everybody hitched. But you work at that and realize and just think about it. What am I supposed to do? I do that. And then when you’re doing that, it’s always a little bleeding over it.

You can see and understand what somebody else is supposed to do that’s closest to you because you follow him. Oh, okay. You follow him. Okay. So we need each other because it gives you your place where you come in. But remember what you’re supposed to do. I got to follow him. Okay. Now, every time we do funerals or anything like that, and we got to… We always have a bulletin. We have a bulletin. And we have some time a little layout.

I said, okay, now at this time you’re going to do this. This time you do this. This time you do that. And so we kind of go by it. Sometimes we throw the whole thing out the wind and just do what we want to do. But most times we follow our schedule. So it’s important. And then the last part up here in that verse where he says, according to the effectual work and the measure of every part making increase in the body unto the edifying of itself and love.

Now that is important. Now take a Bible turn to Romans in chapter 12. Romans in chapter 12. Romans chapter 12 is a verse we’ve used an awful lot. But sometimes we wonder, okay, here we are, we’re working with kids, teenagers, sometimes little kids. The Sunday school kids, they want kids, they want to be, then you got older adults, And so they all come to camp and so what do you try to teach and train them? Well, I have a few things.

Reasons for training, reason for training. Now, these are reasons that you would use, like for mom and dad, with little kids. But you know, today we have a lot of parents that don’t really raise their children. They just turn them loose. That’ll go wild. But there are still principles that God has laid down into his word and reasons for the training, the train of a child. train up a child in order for him to do what? Train a child for what?

All right, what do you want him to do? Well, you want to help him to do what this one verse says here in chapter 12, look in verse 2, be not conformed to this world but be a transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may discover, discover, prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So you want every child to discover. Just like whenever you trust the Christ as your Savior, did you know that God gave you talents and abilities, gifts that didn’t come with your physical birth?

Your physical birth, you’ve got certain talents. And in your second birth, when you trust the Christ, God gave you some more. God gave you something else. But you’ll never find or discover what they are unless you trust Christ as Savior and you get into the Word of God and you find out by getting involved in ministries where you fit. I can do this. I can do this. I’m more comfortable doing this and you’ll find out where there’s a place for me now I can’t this year we’re gonna have a guy named males carbonyl who does these personality profiles You heard him he came here and he spoke on what makes you tick remember that what makes you tick?

I like to know what makes a lot of people take too and you’ll find out what makes you tick But he’s gonna do it for all the people that come to camp. Everybody comes to camp We’re gonna have a session where he’s gonna give you this thing and help you how to understand you You say, I know me, no, you don’t know you. Not like you ought to know you. Have you ever had somebody else try to tell you what you’re like?

I am not. That is not me. I am not like that. And 10 other people could say yes you are and you’re still denied. Have you ever seen an alcoholic in denial? They don’t matter about the facts. They can be drunk and hugging a telephone pole, but I am not drunk. Have you had a drink today? No, I am not. Anyway, you want to help a person to discover what it is, his powers, his gifts, his talents, how God can use them.

And so the reason we have camp is because we want to help these kids that have already trusted Christ to discover something, discover what they’re made for, how God can use them. Because otherwise you go through life, never knowing that you could have done something And you threw it all away, but you didn’t know. You didn’t know, we want to help them. So once they discover what they have, like there’s some people that are just playing, have you ever seen them, they’re just naturally athletic?

Just naturally athletic, I don’t care what they do, they’re athletic, they can hit the ball, throw, run, do all of them and don’t have to work at it. And then there’s somebody else, you know, Pigeon Toad not neat and trying to get him, he can’t walk in too gum at the same time. He has to work at everything. And the other guy is just all natural to him. Don’t you hate people like that? Well, when it comes to the Lord, it’s some people that seem like they just got a natural ability.

And then others, they got to really work at it. I remember when Lee Patton went to Florida Bible College. He had no natural ability. As I know of, for anything. But he loved the Lord. When he played the guitar, he didn’t play it naturally. You know, with rhythm. It was just like a machine. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Where are you to death? But he stayed on beat. You know, just straight up and down. Just hit and hit every one of them.

Never could pick and hit a little bit of this, not any other than that. Just saying, boom, boom, boom, boom. I said, Lee, it’s driving me nuts. But he ran ranch. He ran a ranch meeting. He had kids, Trust Christ, a savior. He sent probably 100 kids to Bible college, but he didn’t have the same town, but he had to work at it. You see him come here and he’d draw these big beautiful pictures. And then people just said to her, and oh, I don’t know, watch them as he’d draw these pictures.

And they got another meaning behind it and all that. You know, I remember I saw his first drawing. I says, Lee, hang it up. I said, Lee, it’s not going to work. This isn’t your calling. You can’t do this. He saw somebody do it and thought, I can do that. And so he drew a picture. It’s still hiding in his attic to this day. He put up in the attic. I used to go down and say, and I said, Lee, what is that?

He says, it’s a bird. I said, that is not a bird. They said, it looks like a bird to me. I said, it doesn’t look like a bird. And it didn’t look like a bird. He’d draw a fence post. He couldn’t draw a fence post. it looked like a fence post, but he kept working at it and next thing you know the guy developed his you’ve got to help people to develop certain talents that they have a desire to or but think they can’t do it.

This is one thing it’s so neat about ranch and camps is to get kids to come out of their shell and realize that there’s more life something that God may have for them and you want them to develop that and then you want to have whatever talent they’ve got whatever they can develop, you want them to deliver it for the Lord. In other words, what good is it if you don’t use it for the Lord? We used to have teenagers with comments, I want to learn how to play the guitar too and Ed said there and Ed watch how we do it.

And so I just got into having a while. I just did the same simple things over and over again because they’re watching, they’re trying to learn how to do it. And if I do all this fancy stuff like this, you know, like a lot of guys do. See, they’re hunting for it. I already found it. But they can copy you a lot easier. They can copy you because you’re copyable. Try to play the guitar like Jim Blevins. He’s all over the place.

Or just try to pick up the guitar and do it like Dan does now. Then he couldn’t get by with six. He had to go get twelve strings. And then, but he could pick that thing. He’s all over the place on that thing. If you want to learn how to play the guitar, you don’t start like that. You’ve got to start very slow and simple and basic and you learn. So some people are good at doing things but they can’t teach somebody else how to do what they’re doing.

So when you learn how to teach, you have to learn how to teach where they can teach it to somebody. It’s got to be so simple, so clear. So you put the food down on the bottom shelf. You don’t put it up on the top shelf. You said, feed my sheet, not my giraffes. In other words, it is a difference. A man made this statement, a man by the name of John Milton, classical poet said the end of all learning is more than just instruction, but to really love the Lord, imitate him, and to be like him.

That sounds pretty good to me. Even in Ephesians in chapter 5 when he talks about the imitators of God, it means walk like God, imitate God. And so it’s a good thing to do. So the result of your training, you have to understand there has to be rules for training. And the Bible talks about in the book of Proverbs, train up a child. How? According to who? According to God. So there is a way to train, but you have to know what am I training for?

Now if I’m training to be an electrician, then I don’t train them how to be a lawyer or a doctor. You see then you hone in on those things, but if you want a person to learn how to walk with God, you’re gonna have to teach them the word of God. You’ve got to teach them to pray. You’ve got to teach them that which God wants them to know. What is this, the rules for training an individual? I wrote this down and I want you to look at it in the scripture.

Look in 1 Timothy chapter 4, 1 Timothy and chapter 4. 1 Timothy, chapter 4. When he makes this statement there in verse 12, I do believe that we should not despise the young people, but the Bible also says, let no man despise thy youth. All right, let’s say we got we got Josh over here, we’ve got a couple of college kids sitting right there. There’s two things that I want you to see. We We should not despise them. That we think so little of them and less of them because after all we’re adults.

So we look down our long pherosical nose and think we’re like Kellogg’s cornflakes. We’re a little bit better. But the truth is God says don’t despise the youth. Don’t despise these little ones. That’s found also in the book of Matthew in chapter 18. Very good. So don’t despise them. Well, don’t despise God’s children either, any of God’s children. And it says for them, not to, look what he says, verse 12, let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believer.

People will despise younger people because they think you’re still wet behind the years. still naive, you’re ignorant, you don’t know, but you can disprove that by simply being mature in your thinking. Solomon was wise when he was younger than he was when he was older. True? And so therefore don’t let people despise you. You see, Daniel was wise when he was young and Joseph was wise when he was young. David was wise when he was young. So you don’t have to be old to be wise.

You can be wise when you’re young. It doesn’t automatically come with gray hair, I assure you. There’s a lot of people with gray hair that are foolish. So we want to take teenagers and we want to teach them what God’s Word says and we don’t despise them. We hold them in high esteem. We count it on honor and a privilege to work with the kids in Sunday school or in a Wanna because you know a few short years those little kids are gonna grow up to be teenagers and you know what teenagers grow up to be?

And that’s scary. Have you ever noticed how cute and fuzzy those little puppies are and grow up to be a dog? Now some people love dogs that is okay but I know you have to be careful I wrote this down. Don’t despise the young people. It’s all God has to make an adult. So if God’s going to make an adult of somebody and a man of God, he’s got to have a child. He’s got to have somebody there to work on, to mold them.

So we’re doing the work of God. Because this is what God wants. God wants all little children and teenagers to know the Lord. God wants all of them to walk with Him, to know Him in the loving. So we have a great job, a great responsibility, and just because they don’t learn it at home doesn’t mean that we can’t show them love when they come to camp. We have a ministry and God’s been good to us. So the results of the training, they’ve got to be results.

I’m always looking for some, the results of all the work that you do because you don’t want to think, well, I labored in vain. No, we want to see, we want to see changes in people’s lives. I don’t believe there has to be for salvation to prove you’re saved. But if you love the Lord, you have to show it. But maybe people don’t love the Lord. And people can show things and do not love the Lord. But I think I wanted to give to you.

Principles are established in early years. Teach to little kids principles of life in early years. What’s the most important thing. Who are you? Where did you come from? What are you doing? Where are you going? And we want to teach those kids the answers to life, the purpose of life. Goals are established in youth. We mold the shape of a tree when it is old or young, when it’s young. And I’ve said this before, we’re here, we’re trying to plant an acorn, not a tree.

A tree is already set and you’re not going to move it. But you plant an acorn and let a little tender plant come up. And they take a lot of time and a lot of work. And this is what we are doing. We have to have the patients to work with little children and with the teenagers. And then you have to have a lot of patients to work with the adults. So understand that and we’ll get along. Yes, fine.

So we’re looking for a great camp. I’m looking for a great camp. I don’t what to expect what we’re going to find out. Okay, look up here. This is you and me. This is sin. We all have sin upon us. God says that He loves us. He hates everything we do that’s wrong. So He has every reason to hate us, but He doesn’t. He loves us, but He hates our sin. And to pay for sin, we’re guilty. We ought to pay for it.

And that’s death in hell. So you see, if God lets all of us go to hell that’s just right we deserve it but he loves us. The only thing we have working in favor of us is God’s love. Outside of that, there is no hope. But God says to go to heaven, we have to be perfect. His righteous is God and none of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. And because of all this sin, we can’t get into heaven.

And God says, all your good works won’t take it away because works are not the payment for sin. This sin represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord. He has God in the flesh. He came into this world because He loves us. hates our sin because our sin separates us from him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin didn’t have to die. So he came into the world, took the sins of the world and died on the cross for the world and came back from the dead.

And then he offers to the world the free gift of everlasting life if they’ll believe he did it for him. That’s so simple. It is so simple that God does not require anything of us. We don’t have to turn from our sins to qualify to be saved. No. You are requalifying. You’re centered, you qualify. And you don’t have to make God any promises or pledges about what you’re going to do for Him because God is not going to save you contingent upon you living up to your vows or your promises.

That’s why you don’t promise God anything. You don’t stop anything. You don’t join anything. All you do is admit, I’m a sinner. and I believe Christ died and paid for my sins. And He puts this payment to your account and you get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you. You deserve nothing, no credit whatsoever. He did it all. He gets all the honor, all the credit, all the glory. It all belongs to Him. None of us, none of us.

Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bound, every eye closed and no one looking around. If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you trust Him right now? Or if you’re watching by internet, and I know there’s a lot of people that do, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, would you right now the best you know how, will you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior? If you trust Him now, He saves you now, gives you eternal life right now.

And He said He’ll never cast you out and never lose you. You can know that you have eternal life. Know that you’re going to heaven when you die. But we’ll hit by a nice quote that if you’re here and you’ve never trusted Christ, would you trust Him right now? And if you will, I’d like to know, and I’d like to have prayer for you. So would you just slip in it very quickly and put it down? Not going to embarrass you, not going to have you come forward, but right where you are.

Our Father, we do thank you so much. We thank you for the clear gospel that you’ve given to us that we’re to give to others. Help us to be wise. We ask Lord your blessings upon camp coming up. And help us to be wise in getting the right people and the right place of leadership with all the speakers and the workers and all kinds. And Father, for the kids that will come, we pray we can have a good number.

We want to do a work for you. This is yours. It belongs to you. We’re just servants, Lord. Bless us in Christ’s name and glory. Amen. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you are blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing tool free, 1-800-576-3771.

That’s 1-800-576-3771. To listen to today’s message again or to obtain a free download of any of our Bible line programs, just go to our homepage at BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the Radio Broadcast link. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10-30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by clicking on the Calvary Community Church link at BibleLineMinistries.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed. Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.