Get Thee Out of Thy Country
A Sermon on Acts 7:1-3
Scripture
Sermon Description
The Christian must ask themselves: “Are you ready to truly follow God? What if it costs you everything? Will we then continue to follow Him?” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones describes the call of God on Abraham that caused him to flee his home country and land. This was a call to abandon all he knew including his nation, religion, and kindred. This was a call to serve God above all and this same type of call is upon everyone who follows Christ today. Listen as Dr. Lloyd-Jones walks through Christ’s call to flee this world and pursue Christ and His kingdom. It requires service to God alone as the only true Sovereign. This is a hard message to heed when it is easy to think about the world and its concerns alone. It is easy to see the church as nothing more than a source of moral transformation in a society like any other social institution. But this is all wrong. The church has been entrusted with the gospel of Jesus Christ and this gospel calls all to come out of the world. It calls them to reject the thinking philosophy of the world. It calls to serve God as Lord over the whole world. The Christian should not hesitate to flee from this world and its vain ways, for they have a new citizenship in heaven.
Sermon Breakdown
- Stephen is on trial before the Sanhedrin for preaching about Jesus.
- The high priest asks Stephen if the charges against him are true.
- Stephen begins his defense by recounting Jewish history and God's call of Abraham.
- God called Abraham out of Mesopotamia to the land He would show him.
- God's call of Abraham illustrates how God calls people today through the gospel.
- The call of the gospel is a call to leave our old way of life in the world.
- The world lives for the desires of the flesh, eyes, and pride of life. It is under God's wrath.
- We must get out of the world's way of thinking and come to God.
- God's call is personal. He calls individuals, not nations or groups.
- We are each responsible for how we respond to God's call.
- God calls us through preaching, reading the Bible, illness, accidents, death, etc.
- The Christian life means a new way of thinking focused on God and eternity, not the world.
- This world is temporary; we are pilgrims passing through to the world to come.
- The world offers false hopes of improving conditions, but it is under God's judgment.
- The Christian hope is the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells.
The Book of Acts
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was a Welsh evangelical minister who preached and taught in the Reformed tradition. His principal ministry was at Westminster Chapel, in central London, from 1939-1968, where he delivered multi-year expositions on books of the bible such as Romans, Ephesians and the Gospel of John. In addition to the MLJ Trust’s collection of 1,600 of these sermons in audio format, most of these great sermon series are available in book form (including a 14 volume collection of the Romans sermons), as are other series such as "Spiritual Depression", "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" and "Great Biblical Doctrines". He is considered by many evangelical leaders today to be an authority on biblical truth and the sufficiency of Scripture.