High Calling

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

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   father we we thank you lord that we can worship you in spirit and in truth that we can worship you in freedom at least right now and we thank you for got everything you're going to do in jesus name amen you may be seated praise god well a lot been going on hallelujah praise the lord i want everybody to turn take their bibles out this morning and turn to um philippians 3. philippians chapter 3. this is one of those mornings that i absolutely had no idea what we were going to turn to until we had a few minutes in praise and worship yeah but i think it's important this morning considering the the type of ministry that we are considering the type of church we are i guess the type of pastor that i am you know we we believe the bible and we believe that you know that sin is the problem and that god has called people to repentance both the unsaved and and the christians if we're living in sin or we're you know have a things in our lives that are habits that are lifestyles that god says is sin and and he wants us to quit so you know i do preach about that a lot and i know that you hear me say it quite a bit because so many churches don't say it anymore i mean it's just that that's the reality that we live in right second peter paul warned timothy that in the last days he said the time would come when they would not endure sound doctrine but after their own lust with a heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they would turn away from the truth and be turned into fables and boy that's the time we're living in so that's why i dedicate a lot of time and preaching and energy on focusing on that aspect of the word of god in that aspect of the gospel because so many people are missing that and because it's put many people in jeopardy of of spending in eternity separated from god in hell i mean it's a serious matter to look at sin the way god looks at it and to turn away from it and to run away from it but i want to say this and i want to make this very clear because you know we we've been out on the campus this week we go out on the campus and share the gospel with people right now i'm in a debate on facebook with a a woman whose family's full of muslims and you know again just like with the

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   homosexual discussion or the muslim islamic discussion or whatever you know the moment you say something about a group even if it's true even if it's factual um there's this emotional knee-jerk response out there to label you as being full of hate if you don't agree with somebody or you're not tolerant of uh a certain you know religion or a certain belief or a certain uh practice like homosexuality you get labeled as being full of hate i mean it's amazing this morning in the discussion and over this last night discussion about islam of course america we've just suffered a terrible terrorist attack you know the boston bombing um and of course i don't think anybody is surprised to find out that they're muslims i mean there's no one surprised about that um you know for some reason you're called a racist or a hater if you you know suspect that a muslim might have been behind it but you know there's reasons why and what's interesting is i i spoke out about this thing a little bit about the islamic problem and the terrorist problem and the the and the teaching the advocation of killing uh others that don't believe like you that is taught within islam it's taught in the quran it's taught in the hadees it's taught in the sunnis this is something that not only did muhammad himself do he slaughtered millions of people i mean thousands of people i should say his his religion probably millions now but he slaughtered people cut off people's heads jews and christians and he told his followers to do what he did and to follow him i mean that is the fact did jesus instruct his followers to go kill folks no it's simple we don't kill people over differences of religious beliefs this ought to be a fundamental um realization to humanity worldwide that there ought to be within humanity the ability to have freedom of thought and freedom of speech and freedom of religion without worrying about being raped tortured shot killed or your head chopped off okay but a lot of countries they don't they don't have that luxury even in i visited nigeria a couple of times years ago and it's in a brutal war with the muslims trying to take over from the north and the the countries almost split right into and the horrible i mean when i was there the muslims invaded uh churches all over uh northern uh the middle and to northern nigeria and killed thousands i think it was about three thousand christians when i was there and burned churches down to the ground i have witnessed this i have sat down i've been in the airport i was in the airport

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   in lagos nigeria with a man sitting next to me who was from the sudan a muslim from the sudan and we were discussing and you know again we should be able to discuss things that you don't know you know people have a free will they don't have to agree that jesus christ is the savior the messiah the way the truth and the life that he died for our sins that he rose from the dead that he's the only way to heaven hey i'm all for freedom for you not to believe that if you don't believe that right go ahead that's your choice i ought to have the same freedom to believe it right without worrying about whether you're going to shoot me kill me or chop my head off right but that's just not the way it is in the world of course it's not the way jesus said but i was talking to this man from the sudan and we talked for a few minutes about christianity and about islam and his beliefs and my beliefs and we talked for a few minutes very calmly very peacefully he was a very well-dressed uh businessman from the sudan [Music] and i said well can we agree on one thing after we got through disagreeing about many things i said can we agree on one thing that it is morally wrong to kill someone who does not agree with your religious beliefs he would not agree to that so again this is not something that i'm just making up i've seen it with my own eyes i've heard it with my own ears and i've researched it and you know it's i'm sorry but you know she she tried she called me a racist for saying that most of the terrorism in the world and most of the killing for religious reasons not all but most is muslims now i didn't say she goes you're saying all you're a racist and i thought well muslims people can of every race are muslims this doesn't have to do with race now i know that most of them happen to be era but it's not even the same arabs there's different ethnic groups of arabs so muslims are not a race they're a religion okay and so i got called a racist i said this that didn't even apply and then i got called you know you're putting out hate why for putting out facts i ca i can't change it that ninety percent of the terrorist attacks are done by muslims i can't change the fact that 700 million muslims believe in the coming of the imam mahdi who they say is their messiah who's going to rule the world from jerusalem and bring everyone under submission to islam by force 700 million of them believe this okay these these are facts i've listened to muslim clerics preach this muslim clerics out of iran out of syria out of lebanon in israel in iraq

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   even muslim clerics here in america calling for terrorist attacks on america but you know what it's amazing this is the brainwashing you guys going on in the world listen isaiah talked about it in isaiah 5. he said woe to them that call good evil and evil good how do you call islam a religion of peace boy if that's not calling evil good i don't know what is right but i'm sorry that's just the way it goes but in in all that what i'm getting at is even with the homosexual debate the muslim debate everybody is called haters christians in particular we get called haters if we say no that's wrong that's sin it's morally wrong it's ethically wrong it's the the god of creation is not like that but i want to say this about us and about our church just because we preach those things just because we preach homosexuality is wrong it is a sin that god doesn't approve of it just because we say that that islam is a false religion it's anti-christ it's it's it's obsessed with death it it you know and it is just because we say the truth doesn't mean we hate anybody i don't hate muslims i don't hate uh homosexuals i don't hate um communists i don't hate socialists i don't hate even my enemies i don't hate them they will say that because they're doing that they do that it's an emotional response to get you away from talking about the problems either in their ideology or their religion or their behavior but here's the fact i want to say this i don't think for one second that our church is perfect i don't think we're perfect i don't think we have it all together i don't think we've arrived i don't think we're sinless or better than anybody else listen here is the truth and i want to share this this morning for this pastor for me pastor dean for fire and grace church i can speak listen we are not thinking that we have it all together that we are perfect that we are sinless that we are more holy than anybody else we all in here struggle with the flesh and with sin and with issues we are not a perfect people but i can assure you this and we're going to read this here you're either a christian in a church that's that's striving to press in to the lord jesus christ into his high calling for your life and to grow and to mature and to change and to get better and better as you go or you're not so one thing i can say about a church we are far from perfect we don't think we're better than anybody we know that that just like you know we

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