One of the things that continues to concern me as a pastor is how easily it is in our society to hear truth and yet have little to no response to it. Our culture has a Greek mindset in which there can be a separation between what is known intellectually and what is practiced in daily life. This has lead to a false dichotomy among Christians between what is sacred and what is secular. For the true Christian, there is no separation between the two, for the true Christian has been crucified with Christ and no longer lives, but it is Christ living in them (Gal. 2:20). Their lives are being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ (Rom. 12:29). They may not have arrived, and in fact will not reach perfection in this life, but over time they are continually changed and become more righteous. In other words, I may not be what I want to be yet, but I thank God that I am not what I was!

This morning we will conclude our series on successful Christian living. We have defined a successful Christian as "a person who has been saved from their sins by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and, as an adopted child of God who worships Him, is bringing glory to His name by being conformed into the image of Jesus by submitting themselves to the will of God in faithfully pursuing holiness and blamelessness along with serving the Lord in doing the good works He has prepared before hand." Each phrase in this definition comes directly from the Scriptures, so these are not my own thoughts, but what God has revealed to us about how He wants us to live. This definition may not be completely comprehensive, but I think it does cover all the basic aspects of living for Christ. Over the last three months we have examined the foundational aspects of living as a Biblical Christian. We have looked at the importance of knowing the Bible, of being self-disciplined and good stewards of the time, talents and resources God has entrusted to us. We have also examined prayer, worship, holiness, fellowship, evangelism, service and dealing with temptation through obedience to God. This morning we are going to conclude by pulling all of these together under an essential term that defines the successful Christian - a disciple.

Are you a Christian? Are you living the Christian life successfully? It has been my purpose of the last couple of months to help you do just that by examining the various elements that are part of being a successful Christian. We have defined successful Christian as, "a person who has been saved from their sins by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and, as an adopted child of God who worships Him, is bringing glory to His name by being conformed into the image of Jesus by submitting themselves to the will of God in faithfully pursuing holiness and blamelessness along with serving the Lord in doing the good works He has prepared before hand."

The chorus of a very popular hymn states a fundamental truth of the Christian life very well. "Trust and obey, for there is no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey." In many ways, living the Christian life successfully can be reduced down to those three words. Trust and obey.

Over the couple of months I have been speaking to you about what it means to be a successful Christian. In the first sermon in the series I spent time explaining what it meant to be a successful Christian. The world speaks of success in terms of wealth, fame, power or achievement, but none of those things are necessary for a person to live successfully as a Christian. A Christian's life centers in their relationship with God. "A successful Christian is a person who has been saved from their sins by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and, as an adopted child of God who worships Him, is bringing glory to His name by being conformed into the image of Jesus by submitting themselves to the will of God in faithfully pursuing holiness and blamelessness along with serving the Lord in doing the good works He has prepared before hand."

Over the course of our current series of sermons, I have given you the following definition that "A successful Christian is a person who has been saved from their sins by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and, as an adopted child of God who worships Him, is bringing glory to His name by being conformed into the image of Jesus by submitting themselves to the will of God in faithfully pursuing holiness and blamelessness along with serving the Lord in doing the good works He has prepared before hand."

Recall that from the start of this series it has been pointed out that you cannot have true success if you do not have a true definition for it. Most people define success in terms of wealth, fame, power or pleasure - materialism, egoism, autonomy and hedonism. In our previous studies on this subject, we have defined true success based on God's revelation of truth in the Bible. "A successful Christian is a person who has been saved from their sins by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and, as an adopted child of God who worships Him, is bringing glory to His name by being conformed into the image of Jesus by submitting themselves to the will of God in faithfully pursuing holiness and blamelessness along with serving the Lord in doing the good works He has prepared before hand." This morning I want us to concentrate on the phrase, "faithfully pursuing holiness and blamelessness."

Over the last five messages I have spoken on the subject of Successful Christian Living. We have given an overview and definition of it while examining some of the essential elements necessary to be successful in more detail including knowing the Bible, Prayer and being self disciplined with our lives (time, finances and energy) so that we can achieve our goals. As I was preparing my message this week, I could see the need modify our definition to place greater emphasis on this mornings subject, worship.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been putting an emphasis upon the responsibilities God has given to us in living the Christian life successfully. Remember that a successful Christian is a person who has been saved from their sins by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and, as an adopted child of God, is bringing glory to His name by being conformed into the image of Jesus by submitting themselves to the will of God in faithfully pursuing holiness and blamelessness along with serving the Lord in doing the good works He has prepared before hand.

One of the pressures on Christians in the United States is the gross materialism of our society. The problem is not the financial prosperity of our nation. You will not find any Scriptures that speak of wealth as an evil of itself. The problem is the sinful heart of man which turns away from God and toward self-reliance and sinful pleasure. Wealth tends to aggravate this problem because the person's needs are satisfied and they have greater resources and time in which to pursue their sinful desires. While we tend to complain about being overworked and under-payed, the truth is that when compared to other nations and history, we are a very wealthy people with an amazing amount of "free" time to pursue our own desires.

Americans have become used to being able to accomplish things with the minimum of effort. This is in great part due to our prosperity. Our time is more valuable to us than the cost of a machine that will enable us to do the job more efficiently. For example, I purchased a small electric sander this past week so that I could prepare the front porch of the parsonage for painting. The electric sander makes the job much easier for me physically, and it also makes better use of my time. Simply put, my time is too valuable to spend trying to hand sand the porch. I think we would all agree with that.

As I stated a couple of weeks ago, I, like many pastors, am greatly concerned about the many that profess to be Christians, but their lives demonstrate that they are not successfully living the Christian life. They struggle along on in life and make little if any impact in this world for the cause of Christ. Their seems to be little difference between their lives and those of non-Christians.

I was going to begin our study of the book of Romans this morning. I have been preparing for this for quite some time by doing an initial overall study of the book, as well as of some particular passages in it, so that I could map out a preaching schedule. There is much in the book I am very anxious to preach. However, as I have been preparing for this series there has been something in the back of my mind that has been troubling me. As I began to prepare the first sermon on Romans this week, I became even more convicted that there are some issues that I need to address from a topical standpoint before we start our book study. I believe this is the leading of the Holy Spirit, and I pray that He will use the series of messages we are going to begin to day in your life in a significant way.