This morning, let's turn back in our Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Last week, we looked at the Christians' chase. And really, it's not a game. It's a reality. And it is something that is a necessity for us as believers to chase after the goodness of God. If you remember last Sunday, we described the game of chase and how I'm not very good at it. I never liked to be it because I couldn't catch anybody. And if I wasn't it, I was always caught. So the game would last forever for me. I didn't like it. But the fact is, every one of us as a Christian is involved in a chase, or we ought to be involved in a chase, that is, for the glory and the good of God. In fact, in chapter 5, verse 15, the Apostle Paul, writing to this church in Thessalonica, says, Ever follow that which is good. And to follow means to pursue after, to chase with a desire to win and a desire to catch and hang on to. And because God is the highest good, He is the one that we ought to be chasing. We looked at how we can chase after that which is good. Verses 16-18 we considered this last Sunday. We chase after, follow after that which is good by rejoicing in the Lord. Rejoice evermore, in verse 16. By praying to the Lord, to pray without ceasing, in verse 17. And then, by giving thanks to the Lord. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus concerning you, in verse 18. But what happens when you follow after the goodness of God, which hopefully ought to be your pursuit and every one of our pursuits, pursuing the goodness of God? What happens when you follow after that which is good? The truth is, when you follow after the goodness of God, you will find the goodness of God. That is a wonderful blessing and a wonderful promise that we find throughout the pages of Scripture. Deuteronomy 4.29, If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. If you seek His goodness, you will find His goodness. Jesus said it this way in Matthew 7. Ask, and it shall be given unto you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Why? For everyone that asketh, receiveth. And he that seeketh, findeth. And him that knocketh, it shall be opened." When you follow after and chase after and pursue after the goodness of God, you will find it. You will find it. It's not like the greyhound in the greyhound race, however, who is always pursuing and chasing after that elusive rabbit. Have you ever seen a greyhound race? And they have that thing on a track, and it's a lure. It's not a real rabbit, at least I hope it's not. But it's a pretend rabbit, and they somehow sense it. And those greyhounds, in order to get them racing and chasing after that, they run it around the track. And those greyhounds are just, with every ounce of their being, trying to chase that rabbit down. What happens? They never catch it. They never catch it. And God is not stringing out His goodness like a carrot or like a rabbit to us and saying, come on, come on, I want you to try to find it. I want you to try to seek it. No, He says, if you seek after Me, you're going to find Me. If you seek after My goodness, you're going to find My goodness. If you knock, you will have an answer. The fact is, God is not putting that carrot out before you. You've ever wondered what would happen if a greyhound ever did touch that rabbit? He's going to be disappointed, isn't he? He's going to be disappointed. He might even get mad. Turn on his trainers and say, forget you! I'm not doing any more chasing. The fact is, when we chase after the goodness of God, we will find it. And when we find it, you know what's going to happen? We're going to want to cling to it. We're going to have to, as it says here later in our verses, to hold fast to that which is good. When you follow after the goodness of God, the goodness of God will follow after you. This reminds me of a verse that we find in the precious psalm, Psalm 23. The very last verse says, surely goodness. and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Who is that promise to? Who is that description about? It is about someone who at the very beginning of that chapter says, the Lord is my shepherd. In other words, the ones who are pursuing and chasing after the goodness of God will then have the goodness of God following after and chasing him. It is a mutual concern and a mutual desire and a mutual attachment and possession. But when you chase after and find the goodness of God, what are you going to do with it? I want you to realize that Many of us as believers feel sometimes like a greyhound chasing after a rabbit, but never find it, never catch it. How long have we been chasing? How strenuously are we chasing after it? How hard are we seeking after it? Deuteronomy 4.29 says, You shall find Him if you seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. We as believers need to pursue Him with a passion like a greyhound after a rabbit. But once we have it, Once we receive the goodness of God, which we have if we've trusted Christ Jesus as our Savior, and we recognize the vista of goodness and graciousness and mercy and love and blessing that He has provided to us, what should we do with it? In verses 19 through 22, we see our response to God's goodness. You see, the goal of God's goodness is not just to make us feel better about ourselves, not just to encourage us and to help us along. The goal of God's goodness is to get us to a point where we respond to his goodness and we live for him every day. When you receive God's goodness, don't be like a greyhound who will do nothing when he receives that rabbit. Because there's nothing you can do with it except tear it apart. It's not going to be nourishing. It's not going to be helpful. But when you find the goodness of God, respond to it, and we see four ways to do so. First, in verse 19, embrace that which is good from God's witness, who is the Holy Spirit. It says in verse 19, quench not the Spirit. In other words, do not stifle the fire of the Spirit of God. Do you remember, Beck? maybe a few decades ago, Smokey the Bear. Remember seeing Smokey the Bear and he would be on commercials and his famous phrase was, only you can prevent forest fires. That was true. And I remember many times as we were in Colorado growing up, we would go camping and my dad would always, always, always, before we left our campsite there up in the high mountains of the Rocky Mountains, and we had our fire and we just cooked our fish, he would always go to the lake with a bucket and grab that water from the lake and go over and put out the fire completely because he knew, he believed, Smokey the Bear. Only we could prevent forest fires. The fact is, it relates spiritually too. Do you realize when God saves you and you are pursuing after God, God has given you the gift of His Holy Spirit? And that is one of the greatest and best gifts that He could have given us. And with the Holy Spirit comes some of His greatest work. What do we do with the Holy Spirit and His work? He wants to pour himself in us and through us to do a mighty work for God. But the fact is, like Smokey the Bear said, only you, only you can prevent the forest fire of the spirit from taking hold in your heart and your life. A forest fire in the Rocky Mountains or out west of California is bad. A spiritual fire in our hearts for Christ is good. And he says, don't quench this fire of the Spirit of God. Only you can do it, so don't quench it. Do not stifle His fire. Why? Because everything about the Holy Spirit and His fire is good. We've already talked about the goodness of God, how we ought to rejoice evermore. We ought to pray to Him because He's good. We ought to thank Him because He's good. But now we ought to respond by embracing what the Spirit of God does in us because He and His work is good. He's good because He's God. That's His own nature. He's good in how He influences the world. You know, this world, in all its evil, would be so much more evil if it were not for the restraining power of the Holy Spirit of God, even upon unbelievers. We see this throughout the Word of God, how the Spirit of God, from the very beginning of time to the very end of time, is still carrying out the work of God and restraining that which is evil. But the greatest work The best work of the Holy Spirit comes in the life of a Christian. And sometimes we don't consider it a good work. For example, when we are convicted of sin, sometimes it makes us to sorrow. Sometimes it makes us feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it makes us feel bad and we wonder, well, why am I feeling bad this way? Isn't the Holy Spirit supposed to give me good blessings? But the fact is, He is by His good work of conviction. He does the good work of illumination, of enlightening our minds and giving us understanding. And sometimes, the things that we used to think were wrong, and the Spirit gives us teaching and instruction to think what is right. And we need to be submissive enough, as we see the Word of God opened out before us, to submit to the instruction of the Holy Spirit, because His work is good. The fruit of the Spirit is good. In Galatians it talks about all that, the love, the joy, the peace, the longsuffering, the gentleness, the goodness, all those things. It's good, because the Spirit is good. It's all good. He is, after all, the gospel gift of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ was telling the disciples that he would soon go to heaven, he would die, he would raise again and go into heaven, he said it was necessary for him to do so because if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to pour out the blessing and the gift of the Holy Spirit to all his people. You see, Jesus in his body was limited to be with the disciples there, but through the Spirit of God, his presence could be effused throughout his people all throughout the world. And now the Holy Spirit, the goodness of the Holy Spirit is given to all of us. And the Holy Spirit speaks to us and teaches us about Jesus Christ. So when the Holy Spirit of God is at work in your life, or even when He's at work in someone else's life, as Smokey the Bear would say, only you can prevent forest fires. Don't stifle His work! Don't put it out! Don't extinguish it! Don't do that. Why? Because God's work through the Holy Spirit is good. Sometimes we quench the Spirit in our own lives, don't we? We notice that He's convicting us, or He's instructing us, or He's prodding us to do something, and we disobey. We've just quenched His fire. And we will not be of use to God in the way that He wanted us to be used of Him unless we stop quenching Him. But also, Quench the spirit in other people's lives as well. Oh, you know, you're just young. You may have a fire for the Lord now, but you're young. You're not going through all the experiences that we're going through. You're not as mature as we are. And we put out some of the fires that are in the youth that are loving Christ and want to follow after Christ with all their life. Oh, you don't want to go to Bible college. That's not going to be a way to make your life and your living in this world. Oh, God's called you to be a missionary? No, that's for someone else. That's not for my kid. That's for someone else's kid. And sometimes we stifle the work of the Spirit of God, and He says here, quit not the Spirit. Do not put out the fire of the Holy Spirit, because that is the flame of revival's fire that will produce light and heat and purification and energy, because it's all good. And the Spirit is for your own good. Don't put it out. In Acts chapter 2 verse 3, if you remember the disciples were all meeting together in a room and this was after Jesus was already taken away to heaven and he was going to send the Holy Spirit of God. In Acts 2, 3 it talks about the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon the disciples and it was symbolized because there was a visual representation of cloven tongues like as a fire. The Holy Spirit is a picture of a fire that once that spark has been lit can turn into a huge forest fire. And that is why you and I must not quench the Spirit. Don't be that spiritual fire extinguisher, because we need these kinds of fires. We need these kinds of fires. I need this kind of fire in my life. You need this kind of fire in your life. Our church needs this kind of fire in our lives. How do you quench the Spirit? We quench the Spirit sometimes when we don't listen, when the Spirit is teaching. Sometimes we quench the Spirit when we do not repent when He is convicting of our sin. Sometimes we quench the Spirit when we do not wash ourselves in His Word as He offers that wonderful fountain to cleanse us through the washing of water by the Word and we don't avail ourselves of it. We quench the spirit when we doubt, even though he is a spirit of comfort. Do not stifle the fire of the spirit, but do. The opposite of stifling is stoking the fire. Stoking the fire. I remember when we were putting out bonfires or starting a big bonfire, the thing was, was to start it small, but then as it gets bigger and bigger, you stoke it. You cannot have a fire unless you have fuel. And if you just want a small fire, just put a little bit of fuel on there. Put a little bit of wood, put a little bit of paper, put a little bit of gasoline, whatever you want to use to start that fire. But if it's going to be small, you're only going to use a little bit. But if you want a big fire, what are you going to do? You're going to stoke it. You're going to stoke that fire. My brother-in-law years ago was trying to find ways of saving money and conserving money for his family, and so he bought one of those large exterior wood stoves outside where he would pipe water to heat his house, and it actually heated my mother's house as well. And what he would do every morning is he would get up, he would go to his wood pile, and he would fill that oven with wood. And he said that thing just ate up wood. He would say more than five or six times a day in the winter time. This is North Carolina, so it's not as cold as it is here. He would stoke it, and he would put that fuel in there. Why? So that it would burn it up. Because if there's no fuel, there's no fire. And the fact is, If you and I do not want to stifle the work of the Spirit and His fire in our lives, what do we need to do? We need to stoke it with the fuel that He uses to launch that fire in our lives. That is why. We must go to God in prayer. That is why we must rejoice evermore. That is why we must in everything give thanks. That is why we must apply ourselves to the Word of God. Because these things are the fuel that stokes the fire of the Holy Spirit. If there's no fuel in our lives, there won't be any fire. God has given us a means. God has given us a process that He uses by the Spirit of God to transform our life in a light of fire that will completely devastate in a spiritual way. I've heard one speaker say that fire begets fire. You can only have a fire if you have fire, right? You've got to have a spark. It takes a spark to get the fire going, as the old chorus says. It takes a spark. But in order for that spark to go, you need some fuel. What do they do in the forest fires in California to try to stop it? They try to dig up and dredge up the fuel that it's coming to, to prevent it from spreading further. We don't want to do that. We want to load the wood. We want to load the fire. We want to stoke it so the fire gets hot and brighter every single day. How do you do this? This is one of the reasons why we don't just have a morning service. You know, some churches have just gone to one service in that thing. Why? Why do we do this? Because we need to constantly apply ourselves to stoking the fuel for the fire that God, the Holy Spirit, will use in our life. That is why we have Sunday school. A little bit of twigs here, a little bit of twigs there. That's why we have the Sunday morning service, as we put a little bit more wood on top of that. Sunday evening service, we put a little bit more. And Wednesday nights when we come and pray, we pray, God, now that we've stoked it, send your fire down, because I need to be on fire for you. This is why we as a church must come together. This is part of the fuel for the fire of the Spirit of God. If we want it to come, we've got to stoke it. And we've got to stoke it high. We've got to stoke it full. And then pray God to send down the fire. Just like He did with Elijah and the prophets of Baal. What did He do? God said, I want you to arrange yourself a huge altar. And on this altar, I want you to put wood and I want you to douse it with water. Douse it with water. But then what did He say? Pray. Pray. And what did God do? He sent from heaven the fire that consumed the entire altar. That's what we need. That's what we need. So stop quenching the Spirit of God and stoke His fire. Because where there's no fuel, there can be no fire. This is how we ought to respond to the goodness of God. When we realize the goodness of God, we will want nothing more than to be used by Him. Utilize what God has given you, the process and the means through which He will light His fire. Second response in verse 20. Don't just not quench the Spirit, but also in verse 20, expect that which is good from God's Word. Expect that which is good from God's Word. Verse 20, despise not prophesying. Now, prophesying was part of what was necessary to stoke the fire of the Holy Spirit. Those prophesying are a term and a description used for the proclamation of the Word of God. Sometimes prophecies would foretell the future. Most prophecies were a foretelling of just what God wanted that prophet to say. And so now we have the very Word of God in its complete and entire lacking nothing. The prophesying that are being talked about here are the description and the proclamation of God's revealed Word to us. And you know what? It says don't despise it, because God's Word is good. This is how we stoke that fire. Do not refuse it. Do not refuse His Word. To refuse His Word is to despise prophesying. To despise here literally means to look down upon, to take down from its God-given place. We ought not to do this because where do we learn of God? Where do we learn of Christ, our Savior, but through the Bible itself? How many people now in society today look down upon this book? How many people in society today look down upon people who believe this book? Oh, you don't believe that. the literal story of creation, do you? Well, I used to believe that, but then I became more intellectual, and I realized that God can use evolutionary theory in order to create what we have seen. Those six days are not real, literal days, 24-hour days. Those days are just ages and eons. Or it's a very symbolic representation of the process of evolution. And there are people that claim to be believers, yet they don't believe anything that is in the Bible. Fact is, without the Word of God, we do not have the fuel for the fire of the Spirit of God. We must believe in the Word of God and we must not look down upon it. Don't let people look down upon you for what you believe in the Word of God. Because you're not here to please them, you're here to please God. And God has said, trust my Word. I am perfect, my Word is perfect, it will last forever just like me. In fact, The Lord says, Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name in Psalm 138, too. If God has magnified His Word above even the name of Christ Himself, He's going to preserve it and keep it valuable for us. And it's going to be inerrant. It's going to be true. Do not look down upon it. If you look down upon the Word of God, you're despising not only the Word, but what the Word says. In Luke 23, 11, you don't need to turn there, it uses the same term despise in a different sense. It says when Jesus Christ was being crucified, it says, Herod, with his men of war, set him at Nott. That's the same word despise and mocked him. That's what they did to Jesus. That's what the world does to Jesus. And if you look down upon the Word of God, if you don't utilize the Word of God, if you don't read the Word of God, if you don't study the Word of God, if you don't listen to the proclamation of the Word of God, you're despising it, and you're despising looking down on the One that it talks about as well. Do not refuse His Word. These prophesying were always for the purpose of edification, exhortation, and for comfort of the people. You see, this is why the Word of God is preached here at Grace Baptist Church, is because God has used the preaching and proclamation of His Word, prophesying, it's for your benefit. It's for your good. And when you despise it, look down upon it, and ignore it, and reject it, and stay away from it, you know what's happening? You are despising what is good for you. You're saying, I don't want that, even though that is what is good. And He says, expect. What is good from the Word of God? This is all good for you, all good for me. And if we despise it, we aren't receiving the greater good. Do not despise the prophesying of God. How do you do so? Sometimes you despise prophesying by not being present for the proclamation of God's Word. We know that we get sick. We know that we travel, we take vacations. But if on a regular basis you do not want to be present for the proclamation of the Word of God, you are despising prophesying. You will not be blessed. The fire will remain smoldering in your life. You will never catch fire. You will never see the great blessing and usefulness of God in your life because when you are not, when you are despising prophesying, you're not stoking the fires. You're quenching the spirit of God and his work through his word. You will remain as you are. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to remain as I am. I want to be loving God more every day. I want to be like him. I want to be like my old self. I want to be like God. And the only way to do that is to quench not the Spirit and to despise not prophesying. You've got to be present for the proclamation of God's Word. Sometimes we despise prophesying by not being prepared for the proclamation of God's Word. How many times will we come to a service, and we have had so many things this week, and we come just out of habit, and not out of a heart's delight, and we sit there and we're thinking through, well, I've got to do this today, oh, he's a little bit long today, oh, my food's going to burn today, I'm getting hungry, and we think about all these other things, and you're not prepared for it. You're not prepared for the proclamation of God's Word. If we really valued it for what it is, we wouldn't turn it away like that. Sometimes we despise prophesying by not being persuaded by the proclamation of God's Word. And instead, we despise it. We look down upon it. We ignore it. What do we need to do? We need to receive it. Do not reject His Word, but do receive His Word by feeding, by following, and being ready for its proclamation. And that is how we respond to the goodness of God through His Word. A third response. Once we capture this wonderful rabbit, if you will, of God's goodness, we need to then examine that which is good by God's wisdom. We need to examine that which is good by God's wisdom. Verse 21, after we have stoked the fire of the Spirit by not despising, but holding up the Word of God, then it says to prove all things. And then hold fast to that which is good. So once we consider the Word of God as it is proclaimed, we have a responsibility to examine, to check into the truth. That word prove means to discern. You and I need to take the Word of God after Sunday morning, and we need to take the Word of God as it was proclaimed and preached, and we need to think about it. Now this is not to be critical of the Word of God. This is rather to be careful with the Word of God. It's not to have preacher for dinner, if you will, but it's to take the Word of God at home and consider what the Word of God really says and means and how you're going to apply it to your life. Prove it. Discern it. The truth of God's Word is what you need to check into. Why? Because as 1 John 4 says, he says, Beloved, believe not every spirit. But try, that's the same word as prove here, try the spirits whether they are a god. Because there are many false prophets that have gone into the world. You need to make sure that what's going on up here is not false prophesying. Are you doing that? The Thessalonians was the church that Paul came after Philippi, but if you remember, there was some persecution going on there, and they chased Paul away. And there in the book of Acts, after he came to Thessalonica, the people there said, why don't you go over here to this other town close by called Berea? And so there in Berea, the Thessalonian Jews didn't want to hear what Paul had to say, but in Berea it says this about them. They were more noble than those in Thessalonica because they received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so. That's what you need to do. That's what I need to do. We need to take time after we have prepared and been present for the proclamation of God's word. We take it home and we analyze the word of God and we see, God, is this truly your word or is this somebody else's word? And what am I going to do to follow it? Search the scriptures daily to see whether those things are so. How can you do this? You can only do this through the Word of God. You've got to know it. That's why taking 20 minutes out of your day to read the Word of God is an important part of your schedule. That is why taking verses and picking apart and studying and meditating and as we're going to be looking at in Sunday school in the adult hour, knowing Scripture. You can't know if something's wrong unless you know what's right. You've got to fill your mind and let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. You know, there's a lot of other facts that you've got to know about life, but the most important facts, the most important knowledge is the knowledge that you get and the wisdom that you get from God's Word. This is to be our passion. We ought to be a people of one book. And that book is the Word of God. But we also do this through the Spirit of God. And this kind of ties these things together. If we quest the Spirit, we can't prove all things. If we despise the Word of God, we can't try these things. So it's important to follow after Him. But once we check into the truth and we've found it, what does it say here? It says to cling to it. Cling to the truth. Hold fast to that which is good. When you discern the Word of God and you say, yes, that proclamation comes directly from His mouth, it is authentic. It's genuine. It's the real article. What do you do? Don't let it go. Don't let it go out of your mind. Don't let it go out of your heart. Don't let it go out of your hands. Live what you've learned. If you had a treasure, If you knew there was a treasure out there and you dug it up and you found it, you would hold on to it with all your heart. Last Sunday afternoon, kids and I went to Riley Park. We rode our bikes and we were riding back and we were riding on the sidewalk and I looked over and there was a dollar bill just sitting there on the ground. And I saw it first. And as I was saying, hold on guys, as I was heading toward that dollar bill, my son goes, Hey, look! A dollar bill! I said, no! I saw it first! And I went down, and I reached it just before he reached it, and I held on to it, because it was mine. I saw it first. I didn't let him grab it, even though he was that close to grabbing it. It was my dollar bill! I think I had it given to him anyways. But I grasp it. I clung to it. When I realized what it was just laying there on the ground, it was real. I clung to it. That's what we got to do with the Word of God. This book is the Word of God, people. This is not falsehood. This is truth. There are so many places you can find error. There's only one place you can find truth. Hold on to it. Don't let it go. Don't let it go this week. What does it say in Hebrews 2.1? We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard, lest at any time we let them slip. Slip through our fingers like I could have, that dollar bill, if I was a kind, gentle father. But I didn't. I grabbed onto it. That's how you ought to respond to the goodness of God. Hold onto it! That greyhound, when it chases that rabbit, if it catches it, you know what's going to happen? It's going to let go. Don't want that at my mouth. When you taste the goodness of God, taste and see that the Lord is good, don't let it go. Don't let it go. A fourth response in verse 22, then express that which is good through your walk. He says, abstain from all appearance of evil. When you hold fast to that which is good, it will transform your life. Why are lives not transformed? Because we're not holding fast to the Word of God. We're not pursuing after God's goodness. God's goodness isn't going to follow us. But if you seek with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, you will find it. You will find it. Walking after the steps of Christ is what will happen. Remember the book by Charles Sheldon, In His Steps, and it became a rage and you'd see everything from socks to bracelets to necklaces with the letters WWJD, which stood for What Would Jesus Do? You can't answer that question unless you are not quenching the spirit, but stoking his fire. You're not despising prophesying, but you're there present receiving his word. You will not be able to do what Jesus would do if you are not pursuing after His goodness. So how do we do this? You need to walk in cleanness. He says, abstain. We ought to abstain from evil because God is holy. And He has called us to be holy. 1 Peter 1.15, But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy. Separate, apart, perfect. in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. This is a call to purity in our lives and in our hearts. It requires sometimes an abstinence from what is wrong. Sometimes we wonder what that word abstinence means, and we use that term especially to children and teenagers. You got to abstain. But the fact is, this is what we ought to do with everything that is evil, every form of evil. But what does it mean to abstain? Does it mean to play around with a little bit or just to get involved just a little bit of it? I think Proverbs 4, 14 and 15 describe what this abstaining ought to be. It says, enter not into the path of the wicked and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away. Those are some pretty strong terms. And when it comes to evil from the world and from within, what do we need to do? Abstain. We need to avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. Sometimes we need to not go by those stores, or go by those magazine racks, or go on those websites, because if we're going to be tempted, we're not abstaining from those evil things. We need to walk in cleanness. But also, it goes a little further in verse 22. It says, abstain from all appearance of evil. Not only must we walk in cleanness, but we must walk in carefulness. Now, abstaining from that which is evil seems obvious to us. Well, of course I'm not supposed to lie. I'm not supposed to lust. I'm not supposed to be lazy. I'm not supposed to do any of these things. But, it says here to abstain from all appearance or every form or even the picture of evil. The very appearance of it. Sometimes it may not be the wrong thing, necessarily. But it might be at the wrong time. It might be the wrong way. It might be at the wrong place. It might be for the wrong reasons. It might be with the wrong people. Paul puts it this way. In 1 Corinthians 10, 23, he says, All things are lawful for me as a believer. In other words, I'm not going to lose my salvation if I do some of these things. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. That word means appropriate. Not everything that we have the ability to do as a Christian, free from sin and free from the judgment of sin, not all those things are expedient because we could be showing and putting forth the picture of evil, the appearance of evil. All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. So let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. That's what people see. It's what people think. We need to be cautious and careful in our walk with gum. On April 22nd, there was an AP news story out of Sydney, Ohio, which I think describes to us a church, an entire church, that is not walking cleanly or carefully. Another round and amen, this article starts with. Beer was on tap and a mechanical bull inspired the sermon. as a new church held its inaugural service in a Western Ohio bar. The Country Rock Church drew about 100 people on Sunday night's meeting at the Pub Lounge in Sydney, Ohio, 35 miles north of Dayton. The Barroom Church is an offshoot of the Sydney United First Methodist Church, whose head pastor says he's been looking for creative ways to reach people in unconventional places. The church's website for its new branch advertises, quote, top regional bands, pizza, wings, rowdy fun, and a short message. They're disguising the prophesy. The reverend, or I'll just say Chris Heckaman, says people really seem to enjoy themselves, so he expects the country rock church will meet weekly. Heckaman's sermon compared staying on the bar's mechanical bull to learning how to get along in life. That is not how you respond to the goodness of God. That is not abstaining from all appearance of evil. Rather, that's getting right into the den with the devils. That is what churches are doing in this country. That is what churches are doing in attracting people from churches like ours who do not want to despise prophesy. This is what it's like in just a few miles over there in Ohio, where Ron's from. Terrible place. It's happy evening right here in Greenfield, Indiana, too. Are we abstaining from all appearance of evil as a church? But also in our lives. But in cleanness and carefulness is how we rule our life. That is how we respond to the goodness of God. You see, God says, if you shall seek me, you will find me. If you seek after God's goodness, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And you know what? God's goodness is yours. How are you going to respond? The goal of God's goodness is not just for you to feel good and to live a good life. It is for you to respond in these ways. So why is it that we quench his good spirit so many times? Why is it that we despise his good word so many times? Why is it that we ignore his good wisdom and we don't try things and prove things and examine things in a careful way? Why is it that we disobey his good commands? The goal of God's goodness is for you to respond in a proper way. And the question is, have you responded and are you responding in these ways? Are you embracing that which is good from his witness? Are you expecting that which is good from God's Word every time it's open? Are you examining that which is good by God's wisdom, saying, God, teach me your path? And are you expressing that which is good through your walk.