How did Jonathan Edwards view his commitment to God? Find out today on Changed by Grace. Welcome to Changed by Grace. I'm pastor Steve Hereford. Jonathan Edwards, one of America's greatest theologians, wrote 70 resolutions to guide his spiritual life.

Today, we're examining resolutions 46 through 60, which reveal his deepest convictions about personal holiness and devotion to God. What can we learn from these commitments? Well, let's find out. Well, this morning, we're looking once again at the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards, and you have an insert with some information on it. Certainly cannot put a lot of these resolutions there.

We fill up several pages of them. But there are 3 verses of scripture that are on there. One is from Psalm 17:3, which says, I have resolved that my mouth will not sin. Then Daniel 1:8 says that Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine. In 1 Corinthians 2:2, Paul says, for I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

These resolutions were written by Jonathan Edwards that we've been looking at. There are 70 of them. He started in 17/22. The first 21 resolutions, he wrote in one sitting. He was 18 years old, had been a Christian for 1 year.

And he set out to put together these resolutions for his life for as long as he would live. And as we've been going through them, we've been finding very practical information for us as well. And as we begin today, we're beginning on number 46. And so I'd like to have you to turn in your bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6.

In the first three verses, it talks about the children's relationship to their parents. Here the Apostle Paul writing to the Ephesians. If you recall in the book of Ephesians, the first three chapters talk about our position in Christ. The last three chapters talk about our practice, our duty. Because of who we are in Jesus Christ, then we are to live a certain way.

And so in chapter 6 beginning at verse 1, he says, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. These three verses don't come in a vacuum. They are certainly housed within chapter 5 and verse 18 where Paul says do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. And from that point on, everything that we read is the response to being filled with the Spirit.

For example, in verse 19, you'll speak to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Verse 20, you'll give thanks. Verse 21, you'll be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Verse 22, and following, wives will be subject to their husbands. Verse 25, husbands will love their wives.

And it just continues to go with that kind of pattern. Then chapter 6, with children obeying their parents, all of this is to say that in order for us to live like this we have to obey verse 18 in chapter 5. We have to be filled with the Spirit, then all of these things will happen. It's like the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 52223. That is the result of being filled with the spirit.

If you wanna look in your life and see evidence of walking in the spirit, look for those things. Now Jonathan Edwards in the 46th resolution where we're beginning today, he says this, never allow the least measure of any fretting or uneasiness about my father or mother. Resolve to never allow the effects of disappointment in them or frustrations with them to even in the very least alter what I say to them or about them or any activity in reaction to them. Let me be careful about this, not only about my parents, but also with respect to any of our family. Now that's good to hear because as we just read in Ephesians 6, we are to obey our parents.

We are to honor our father and mother, and certainly talking negatively about them is not bringing honor to them. If you'll notice down in verse 4 of chapter 6, he says, fathers, that's the word patera, it could be translated parents, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. We are to nurture our kids, and we certainly certainly don't want them to come up in anger. We don't want them to be exasperated. And here again, this we're reading in this 46th resolution is the result of a son to his parents.

He doesn't want to have any fretting, any uneasiness about them. He doesn't want to allow the effects of disappointment or frustrations with them, whether they're the least. He doesn't want it to alter what he says about them. Now, unfortunately, we have done that at times growing up and have said things about our parents. And most of the times, it's because we didn't get what we wanted.

They withheld from us something that we wanted. And so, we said something. And whether we meant it or not, we said it. It's like what we say, in a general sense. Whatever we we say is out there.

And, we can't take it back. We've already said it. We can apologize for what we said. We could repent of what we said, and hopefully never say that again. But we say things and it's it's out there.

And therefore, we have to guard our mouths as the Psalmist said he'd put a muzzle over his mouth. We'd all look funny with muzzles on our face, wouldn't we? We we would say it in this way, we should bite our tongues, right? Before we just say what's on our hearts. And this is a good one right here, to help us with that.

He wanted to be careful, not only about his parents, but also with respect to any of his family. Number 47. He says, resolved to endeavor to my utmost to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peaceable, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, meek, modest, submissive, obliging, diligent, industrious, charitable, even patient, moderate, forgiving, sincere, temper. All of that about his temper. That's what he wants.

And to do at all times what such a temper would lead me to. Examine strictly every week whether I have done so. Again, I told you that he would read over these resolutions once a week, do a self examination to see if he's keeping these resolutions because if you remember, he said that he would do that. He would examine himself with that, and if he found that he hadn't been keeping them, that he'd repent and go back to them. Again, these were standards for his life.

These were things that he was seeking to apply in his life so that God would get the glory in his life. Again, you look at these, you read these, you hear these, remarkable statements from a young man at 18 years old and having only been a Christian for 1 year. So he wanted his temper to be under control. He wanted it to be good. He wanted it to be benevolent.

That's sharing. He wanted it to be quiet. He wanted it to be peaceable, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, meek, modest, submissive, and just the list goes on. This is what he wanted in his attitude. Again, if we apply Ephesians 5 18, to be not drunk with wine and which is excess, but be filled with the spirit, then this is what will be produced.

That's what we need to understand, especially when we look at the 10 Commandments. People ask, as Christians, are we to keep the 10 Commandments? My response is, as Christians, we can. Prior to coming to Christ, we can't. But if you look at those commandments that are there, these are things that we should want in our life anyway.

We don't wanna worship any other gods but the one true God. Right? We don't wanna take the Lord's name in vain. We don't wanna lie and steal. We don't wanna commit adultery.

We don't wanna covet. We don't want these things in our life. These are bad things. These dishonor God. This does not bring honor to God.

So whether you craft a list of resolutions, or whether you look at the commands in scripture, either one is so. We as believers in Jesus Christ want to live our lives in a way that will bring him glory. And again, as I've said, to be filled with the Spirit will accomplish that. We don't necessarily need a list of rules to help us with that if we're filled with the Spirit. We don't need to hang little signs in our house that says don't beat up each other, don't criticize each other, don't cuss each other, don't hurt each other.

We don't need those things if we're filled with the Spirit. If we're applying Ephesians 5:18. That is the key to our christian life. Galatians 5:16 says, to walk by the Spirit and shall not carry out the lust of the flesh. So we have to walk by the Spirit.

We have to be filled with the spirit. Number 48. Resolve with the utmost niceness and diligence and with the strictest scrutiny, constantly be looking into the state condition of my soul so that I may know whether or not I have truly an interest in Christ at any given time. I will do this so that when I come to my end in death, I will not have neglected to repent of anything I have found. I think that as we deal with things in our life, sinful things in our life, we need to confess and repent of them immediately, not wait till the end of the day, not wait till the end of the year, not wait till the end of our life to do that, but to keep shortcomings with the Lord, to constantly bring these things before him.

And here again, he's looking at the stated condition of his soul. Are we applying biblical scripture truths to our lives? Number 49. Resolved that neglect shall or that neglect never shall be if I can help it. Now there's a neglect I was talking about a couple weeks ago and it's called plan neglect.

That is we ought to plan to neglect everything until we've had time with the Lord, right? We ought to plan to neglect everything so that we can have time in His word. That's good planned neglect, but not neglect holiness, not neglect godliness, not to neglect God's word. Number 50, resolved, I will act in such a way as I think I would judge to have been best and most prudent when I have come into the future world heaven. What is best and what is most prudent in our lives?

Act in that way. Judge yourself in that way. As we said last week, Matthew chapter 7, we have to get the 2 by 4 beam out of our eye before we can get the little splinter out of somebody else's eye. Right? We gotta look at our lives first.

We have to be willing to bear our own burdens before we can bear burdens of others. So there has to be this scrutiny of our life. And again, that's what these resolutions are doing. Number 51. Resolve that I will act in every respect as I think I would wish I had done, if in the end, for some reason, I would have been damned.

Now, the only thing that will send you to hell is unbelief. That's it. Unbelief in Jesus Christ, that's what dams us to hell. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, you believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, the bible says you shall be saved. The bible says for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Right? So what scripture says, we're saved by grace, right? Not by works, lest anyone should boast. And here he wanted to act in every respect as he would wish he had done. Again, the standard of God's word.

Number 52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live if they were to live their lives over again. So resolved that I will live just as I can imagine I shall wish I had done, supposing I lived to old age. As you get older, as I get older, we look back on our lives and we see things that maybe we could have done differently or should have done differently or lived our lives for the Lord differently. And here he is saying that he wants to look further down in his life and not to have any regrets to live his life now as he wanted to live.

Number 53, resolved to improve every opportunity when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him, that from this I may have assurance of my eternal safety knowing that my confidence is in my redeemer. Now, that's basically second Peter. Let me have you to turn to second Peter. 2nd Peter 1:5. In fact, I hear several verses come to mind as I hear him say that especially when he talks about Consecrating.

That's Romans 12:1:2 that we set our minds on the things that are above. We present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy acceptable to God. But if you'll notice too, it says in 2 Peter 1:5, now for this very reason also applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence knowledge, and in your knowledge self control, and in your self control perseverance, and in your perseverance godliness, and in your godliness brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness love. Here he is talking about adding these things to your faith. And he says, for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For he who lacks these qualities is blind or shortsighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. For this way, the entrance into the kingdom, eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly a supply supplied to you. If you're adding these virtues to your life, you will not lack in these qualities.

You will not be blind. You will not be short sighted. You will not forget about your purification of your former sins. That's part of making your calling in your election sure. Being diligent to add these things to your life.

And that's what he wanted to do as well. He wanted to cast and venture his soul on the Lord Jesus Christ. He wanted to trust and confide in him. That's Proverbs 3:5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. We have to trust the Lord in all things. And he wanted to con consecrate himself holy to him. And again, that's part of adding to your faith. Number 54.

Resolved, when I hear anything spoken in a conversation of any person, if I think what is said of that person would be praiseworthy in me, I will endeavor to imitate it. You know, Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. That's what we should be imitating in each other's lives. Unfortunately, we tend to pick up some of the negative things in each other's lives. Like for example, if somebody's complaining and they're complaining to you, a few few minutes, you'll be engrossed in that conversation and complaining back.

Right? It's really easy to do. It's just why slander and complaining and gossip and all those things is a cancer. It's a a plague. And the best way to deal with stuff like that is just to cut it off in the very beginning.

Don't entertain it. Don't be a bucket for rumors. Just walk away from that. And here, he wanted to make sure that the things that are good in other people that he focused on those things and that those things would be praiseworthy in himself. He would imitate that.

That is why we come together. In Hebrews Chapter 10, there is a passage in there and I quoted it last week, but it's in verse 24, Hebrews 1024 where it says as he was stating to the Hebrews, the Jewish people, to let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some. Some just not coming to the assembly. But encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. So we need to think about how we can stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

So if you take the previous one we talked about, if we're gossiping, that's not going to stimulate to love and good deeds, is it? That's not going to encourage. That's not going to bring out the best in us. So we need to focus on those things that will draw that out, that will encourage the fruit of the spirit in our lives, that will encourage being filled with the spirit and walking by the spirit. So we have to consider how to do this, how we stimulate each other.

And we have to make sure, verse 25, that we encourage one another. And I like how he ends it, and all the more as you see the day drawing near Jesus is coming and this world will not get better, it will get worse. Sure there are things in it that we can make better, but in a general sense, in order for the ushering in of the end of the end events, there's gotta have some things in place and it's not gonna be good things. It's gonna be bad things in this world that's gonna bring about it. Think about the Antichrist and all the things that he's gonna do.

Well, number 55, he says, resolved to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can imagine, I would if I had already seen all the happiness of heaven as well as the torments of hell. Sometimes I think about what our lives would be like if if the picture was pulled back and we could see people suffering in hell. I know it would change how we think about people, how we think about witnessing. It would take our disobedience and our mission of those things and turn it around. We'd be obedient and faithful.

We would be on fire for Christ and warning people about hell, but we tend to allow our fears to stop us with that. We allow our fears to hinder us in our evangelism. Or we may excuse and say, well, I don't have a gift for that because evangelism is a gift. But it's also something that we're called to do, right? Just as we are called to give, there are people that have the gift of giving, but you can't say, well, I don't have the gift of giving and I'm not gonna give.

I don't have the gift of evangelism, so I'm not gonna evangelize because these are things that are commanded for us to do. Good therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Jesus told the disciples to make disciples. Go and reproduce yourselves.

And just think about this. We reproduce ourselves. Eventually, this room would be full. If we pour our lives into someone else. We duplicate our lives into somebody else.

That's reproducing. Eventually, that would happen. Now I know in some places, I know when we started a church plant some years ago, and we had a lot of young people and they weren't married, and then ended up marrying all of them over a period about 2 years. And then they started having babies and families. And, yes, that was another way to grow the church of them having babies.

But those babies gotta take time to grow up. Right? But we need to witness to everybody. And here, Jonathan Edwards wanted to act as he could imagine if he had already seen all the happiness of heaven as well as all the torments of hell. You remember in Luke 16 that the rich man and Lazarus, Lazarus went to Abraham's bosom, which was pretty much paradise and heaven, and the, other man, the rich man went to eternal torment.

And he wanted to go back and warn his family about this place. You and I have the privilege to read the word, to see this in the word. We're alive right now and the people that we want to be in heaven with us are alive right now and we need to make the most of our time with them and talk to them about a commitment to Christ. Use the things we've been talking about on Wednesday night. Use what you know of scripture, what you have grown up in, in the word of God.

Again, we need to make sure we do this. Number 56. Resolve never to give up or even slacken up in my fight with my own corruptions no matter how successful or unsuccessful I may be. What did Paul say? The things that I wanna do, I don't do the things that I do.

I mean, he he talks about the whole paradox in his life with the fight with the flesh. And you've got fight the flesh with all of your might. Colossians 3:5 says you gotta put to death your members which are on the earth. You gotta fight against these vices in your life and not give up. And as he says here, he didn't wanna give up.

He didn't wanna slacken up. One gentleman said if you're not fighting sins, then we'll be fighting you. It's fighting us anyway, right? We can't give up. Number 57.

Resolved when I fear misfortunes and adversities, to examine whether I have done all I am expected to do and resolve to do everything I am able to do once I have done all that God requires of me. I will accept whatever comes my way and accept that it is just as God's providence has ordered it. I will, as far as I can, be concerned about nothing but my own duty and my own sin. 2 things that govern our life, God's sovereignty and God's providence and they work together. Things that happen in our life are not by chance.

There's no such thing as luck. We use those terms. We say good luck and, you know, by luck this happened. Nothing happens by chance. Happens by providence.

God's providence. God's ordering of events in our life and God's control of all things, his sovereignty. Think about abraham as he told his wife, sarah, that when they went down as they're traveling to canaan, that if anyone asked about her and him say that you're my sister. That was his wife. So Abimelech took his wife and God warned him in a dream that that was Abraham's wife, to give her back.

And he told Abraham, he rebuked Abraham, why didn't you tell me that this was your wife, That somebody would have taken her and come into her. And see here, God withheld them from doing that. God withheld them from sinning. God does do that. He does.

And these are things that we can pray about in our own country that God would withhold bad things and bad people that would affect a nation. Number 58. Resolved not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversations, but also to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness, and graciousness. What do you want people to see in your life? Hate?

Anger? Fretfulness? Psalm 37 says, do not fret. Trust in the Lord. The Bible says, be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger. The Bible says that we are to love without hypocrisy. The bible says that we are to love one another. The bible says that we are to love our neighbors. The bible says that we are to rejoice and be joyful.

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Philippians 44. We're to be gracious. We're to let our graciousness be known to one another.

The Lord is at hand. Paul said all of these things to us and so we should refrain from any air of dislike, any fretfulness, any anger in our conversations. Number 59. Resolved, whenever I am most conscious of feelings of ill nature, bad attitude and or anger, I will strive then the most to feel and act good naturally. At such times, I know I may feel that to exhibit good nature might seem in some respects to be my own immediate disadvantage, but I will nevertheless act in a way that is gracious realizing that to do otherwise would be imprudent at other times, That is, times when I am not feeling so irked.

You've been listening to the resolutions of Jonathan Edwards. This is part 4 in our study of this amazing creature. This message is available in 1 full length audio CD by calling us at 904-651-3351. You can also download the free mp3 from our website by visiting us at www.changedbygrace.org. God, Pastor Steve Hereford.

Thank you for listening today and join us again next time as we study God's word. Hi. I'm pastor Steve Hereford. I wanna take a minute to invite you to worship with us this morning at Changed by Grace Church. Our service begins at 11 o'clock, and we'd love to have you worship with us.

Come join us as we worship God together through Jesus in the power of his spirit. Need more information? Call us at 904-651-3351, or visit us online at changedbygracechurch.org.