Luke chapter 3 again this morning. Remember as we look at this passage
in here in Luke 3, remember John's message. He preached that sinners have
to have a change of mind and heart regarding how sins can
be put away. And as our brother just read, the way that God deals with sin in those that
he loves is that he provides himself a lamb. And you remember how John pointed
at God's lamb and identified him as the lamb. There's God's
lamb. And that was his message, the
remission of sins is by the shedding of his precious blood. And remember
also that baptism, he baptized them, and that's an outward confession
of inward faith in Christ, in him as our sin
remitter, as our sin offering. It's a confession of faith in
Christ and repentance toward God. Philip told the Ethiopian eunuch,
if you believe with all your heart, I'll baptize you. Faith. Faith in Christ. He said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God, and he baptized him. Here in Luke
3, John would not baptize those whose fruits, whose fruits, whose works, the produce of their lives showed
that they did not believe that Christ was God's lamb. They didn't
believe that sin was put away only by the precious blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Their fruits, their work showed
that they still thought that salvation could be had by something
that they did. These are the same ones that
even in the very end would say the Lord told us, look at our
wonderful works. We won't end because look at
our wonderful works. Baptism is a confession of Christ
for the remission of sins. It's a way of saying my only
hope of forgiveness for my sins It's Christ who died and now
lives for me. He died for me. He lives for
me. And because he did and does,
I'm dead now to sin and alive unto God. Christ died for my sins according
to the scriptures. And he lives as my representative,
my high priest, my mediator before God. Baptism says that. But baptism
can't be the only thing about you that says that. If you say
that with baptism, but everything else about you says that you
deny Him, then you just wept. You're not baptized in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's where John, what he
said, comes in. Let's look at it together. Luke
3 and verse 7. Luke 3 and verse 7. Then said he to the multitudes
that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers,
who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth
therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves,
We have Abraham to our father, For I say unto you that God is
able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And
now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees. Every
tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn
down and cast into the fire. And the people asked him, saying,
What shall we do then? And he answereth and saith unto
them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath
none. And he that hath meat, let him do likewise. Then came
also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what
shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact
no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise
demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said
unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely,
and be content with your wages. And as the people were in expectation,
and all men mused in their hearts of John whether he were the Christ
or not. See, that's what this is all
about. Who's the Christ? John answered, saying unto them
all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than
I cometh, the lachet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. And when the Lord does that,
when, see the preacher, he can baptize with water. But unless God has done a work
in your heart, and if he has, there'll be some evidence of
that. When he baptizes you with the Holy Spirit, I've wondered
many times where in that passage that Brother Sammy read a while
ago, where's the Holy Spirit there? We see the Father pictured
by Abraham and the Son pictured by Isaac. And I've often wondered
where the Holy Spirit is in that passage, and I think I saw that
this morning. The Holy Spirit is how Abraham
is able to bow to God and say, yes Lord, to the unthinkable. You think about what God told
him to do. Unless the Holy Spirit has a hold of his heart, he's
not going to do that. Unless the Holy Spirit of God has given
him a new heart, he's not going to do that. Unless the Holy Spirit
is living in him, he's not going to do that. So you see what he's
saying here, and what will happen, and why. If your religion, and the Pharisees
and scribes' religion did, if your religion says that salvation,
the forgiveness of sin, is by work, then you must repent before
you can confess Christ in baptism. You must repent. I gave you this
illustration the other day and it's worth repeating because
this is exactly what happened this day when John is baptizing
or he baptized some. Say a devout Roman Catholic came
in here and was confessing that. In the Pharisee they weren't
shy about what they were. They showed by what they wore
and their mannerisms and everything they did. Everybody knew who
the Pharisees were. They wanted everybody to know
who they were. Alright, so if a devout Roman Catholic comes
in here and says, I want you to baptize me. I just feel like
the Lord, you know, is leading me to be baptized. You know,
I'd want to see some things before I did that. Can you understand
that? There's not a test that you take
to see if you qualify to be baptized. But there's got to be some evidence
that God has done something for you. That's what these Pharisees
were. They were notorious for their
religion, all of which was opposed to Christ. Everything that defined
them as Pharisees said that they denied the truth that's taught
in baptism. And so this is why John said
there's got to be some evidence. I need to know what kind of tree
you are. I need to have some idea now. We can't know for sure. Well, what would you need to
know, Chris, in order to be convinced to baptize that Roman Catholic?
Well, I'd need to know, first of all, that you're not trusting
in that religion. You'd have to renounce everything
that Catholicism teaches. All of it. Isn't that right?
Well, that's exactly what John said to them in verse 7 of our
text. 7 and 8, he said, now who hath
warned you to flee from the wrath? You come here to be baptized
of me, but bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, and begin
not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father.
What's the first evidence? that God has done something for
somebody. They don't trust their religion anymore. They don't
trust in man. They don't have any confidence
in the flesh. And the Jews were notorious for
believing that they were God's people simply because they were
born of a certain lineage. That's not confidence in God,
that's confidence in the flesh. That's trusting yourself. your
own religious heritage. So the first fruit of repentance
is to acknowledge that we are nothing but wretched sinners
before God, deserving nothing but His wrath. They didn't feel
that way. They said, well, we're Jews.
God is our Father, just automatically, because of who we are. John is
saying renounce that. Renounce your religious heritage.
Confess that there is no difference. This is what Paul taught these
Jews in the book of Romans. There's no difference between
you and the Gentile dog. You've got to come down from
your religious high horse. That's the first fruit of repentance. All have sinned. There's no difference. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. We all come before God on the same footing.
as wretched, vile sinners pleading only his mercy in Christ. God
be merciful to me, the sinner." You're no better than a Gentile
dog. That's what he's saying to them. Don't be talking about Abraham
being your father. You're not a Hebrew sinner. You're
not a Jewish sinner. You're not a law-abiding sinner.
You're just a sinner. That's where we gotta start now.
You wanna be baptized? You want to confess Christ? How
you gonna do that? Trust Him in yourself, your works,
your heritage, your religion. This is something that no Jew
would ever do. No, especially religious Jew,
is ever gonna say, I'm just like that Gentile dog. What they say according to God
in his book is, thank you God that I'm not like that Gentile
dog over there. Thank you that I'm not like that
publican. Isn't that what the Pharisees
said? A Pharisee's never gonna renounce his Jewish heritage
and say I'm just like a Gentile dog. I'm just as evil and wretched
and vile as that Gentile dog over there until God does something
for him. And that's what John's trying
to find out. Has God done something for him? This is exactly what the Apostle
Paul did do in Philippians chapter 3. Let me read it to you. What John is saying to these
Pharisees and scribes in our text. Forget about Abraham being a
father. When you come before God confessing that Christ is
your only hope of salvation, you're saying I have no hope in myself, no
confidence in the flesh. That's exactly what Paul said
in Philippians 3. We are the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in this flesh. Now believers are the circumcision
which was the sign of the covenant. That was the Jewish sign of God's
covenant of grace with his spiritual Israel. But we're not the circumcision
who trusts in our circumcision. We're the circumcision who rejoices
in Christ alone and has no confidence in the flesh. Here's what I mean
by that. Though I might also have confidence
in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof
he might trust in the flesh, I more circumcised the eighth
day of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin and Hebrew
of the Hebrews. In other words, Abraham was my
father. That's what God said to the Jew.
Don't you say that. That's what Paul is saying. Abraham was my father. As touching
the law, a Pharisee, just like them, concerning zeal, persecuting
the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, nobody could
lay any blame to my account. But what things were gained to
me, those things I counted lost for Christ." John said, that's
what I need to see. I need to see some evidence now
that you're not trusting in your sprinkling or your Hail Marys
or some evil man telling you your sins are forgiven. Who do you trust for the remission
of sins? How are you going to flee the
wrath of God? Isn't that what John's saying? Because he knew what their religious
beliefs were. We got to talk about that now.
John is just simply saying that there must be fruit that only
a good tree can bear. And a good tree is a tree that's
been changed by God, that's been given new life by God. A new
nature by God, because the nature of an apple tree is to bear apples.
So if that tree is going to bear oranges, it needs a new nature. The nature of what we call a
chidberry tree, I'm not sure what there's other names for
it. I had them little green berries, you know. You can't eat those
things. You can have a mean fight with them though. We used to
build forts in the backyard and get those little spoons they
give you at Baskin Robbins. Don't try to eat one of them. And that tree is not ever going
to bear anything that you can eat. Unless it has a new nature. God's got to do something. So
that's what John is saying. The axe is laid to the root of
the evil tree now. What kind of tree are you? How are we going to know what
kind of tree you are? I need to see some fruit. Isn't that
what it is? God of the same lump of clay makes one vessel into
honor and another into dishonor. And of the same dust he makes
a good tree and a bad tree. God does that. Your fruit, and
this is vitally important now, your fruit. And John said, I
want to see some fruit. But your fruit does not make
you a good tree or a bad tree. God did that. But the fruit will
show me which one you are. Our Lord said, by your fruits,
by their fruits, you'll know them. And that's what John is
saying now. Let's see what your fruit looks
like. If all of your fruit shows that you are trusting your religion,
your works, your will, yourself, then don't come asking to take
part in an ordinance of God that confesses Christ alone. Don't
do that. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
put it this way, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself. That's the first thing. Don't
be talking about who you are. I'm a son of Abraham. Let him
deny himself. Have no confidence in the flesh.
And take up his cross and follow me. The old you has got to die. That's
what crosses are for. That's why he said take up your
cross. Because you've got to go. The axe has got to be laid
to the root of that tree now. John said that he acts as God.
Now God's going to cut you down. He'll either cut you down today.
He either already has cut you down, or he'll cut you down today,
or he'll cut you down on Judgment Day. It's one way or the other now,
but you're coming down. You and I are coming down either way. Now John said three things essentially
to them here, to the Pharisees. And remember this is the scribes
and the Pharisees, and I'll prove that to you in a minute. These
first ones, it doesn't say that in Luke. But listen to what he
said to them first. He said to the multitude that
came forth to be baptized, Oh generation of vipers, who hath
warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bring forth therefore
fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves,
we have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you that God is
able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham, and
now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees. Every
tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is shewn
down and cast into the fire." He's really saying four things,
that's what I'm realizing right now. First of all, he said the
issue here is not you doing some kind of a religious duty. The
issue is the wrath of God and how you're going to escape it.
Isn't that the first thing he said? Who hath warned you to
flee from the wrath to come? Is this water going to exempt
you from God's wrath? No, we've got to deal with that
first. This water won't do that. That's something that's got to
be dealt with. You've got to do business with God regarding
your sins first and how you can escape His wrath. That comes
first. Baptism is after that. That's
what Philip said. If you believe that God has taken
your sins away by that one that we read together about in Isaiah
53, The one who has borne our sorrows and carried our griefs
and God laid on him all of our iniquity. If you believe on him,
I'll baptize you. But first, that's got to be dealt
with. How are you going to escape God's wrath? And then the second
thing he said to them is this. Renounce your religion, as we've
already talked about. Your religion and your religious
heritage is worthless. And the third thing he talked
to him about is, you're worthless. You ain't all that. They thought
they were important, you know. He said, see that rock over there? Anything that you think you are
or can do for God, God can use that rock right there to do for
him and to be. And then the final thing he said,
far from your works being a basis for salvation, all of your works,
all that your works do, your fruit, is show whether God's
done something for you or not. You're either a good tree or
you're a bad tree that needs cut down. And he's saying, sure
enough now, to the majority here, to the scribes and Pharisees,
He's saying God's cutting you down. That's what this is. Just
like our Lord said, you're going to die in your sins because you
believe not on me. Now a sinner might hear those
four things and cry for mercy. That kind of makes sense, doesn't
it? God's wrath is coming down on you. And your religion, all
of your works, everything you've done is worthless before God.
It's not going to help you when God's wrath comes. And your person. God doesn't need you. He doesn't
need your religion. He doesn't need your service.
He's got rocks if he needs something. And what kind of tree are you
now? If God hasn't done something
for you and you're the kind of tree you were born into this
world being, God's gonna cut you down. Look at your fruit.
Look at your fruit. It's bad fruit. A sinner might hear that and
cry for mercy and that would show that that sinner had changed
their mind and had come over to God's way of thinking. That can only happen if God bestows
mercy upon you and gives you faith in His Son and faith to
see that you are what He says you are and not what you think
you are. No sinner ever cried for mercy
until he already had it. And I want you to notice that
John's answers here to these different groups of people are
somewhat tailored to the ones that he spoke to. What he said,
those four things that we just talked about, he said to the
scribes and Pharisees, and we know this from Matthew chapter
3 verse 7, but when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
come to his baptism, the religious Jews, that's the scribes, Pharisees,
Sadducees, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath
warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bring forth therefore
fruits, meet for repentance, and think not to say within yourselves,
we have Abraham to our father. He said to those who trusted
in their religion and trusted in the flesh, don't trust in
the flesh. So John had one answer for the
religious Jews and then he spoke to the people in verse 10. Look
it says, and the people asked him saying, what shall we do
then? Now this is the general assembly there that weren't specified
as Pharisees, Sadducees, publicans or soldiers, which we saw later
in the text when we read while ago. He said to the publicans,
he said to the soldiers, the people are just everybody else.
But there's the religious Jews, there's the people, there's the
publicans, and there's the soldiers. And he said different things
to all of them. And I want us to see that. You see the publicans
and soldiers in verses 12 and 14. He answered them all a little
differently. Not because we're all different kinds of sinners.
Sinners are all the same. But because each of these were
notorious for things that all of us have in us. He's showing
us different aspects of ourselves. All of us have a Pharisee right
in here, don't we? A scribe, a Sadducee. We're all
by nature religious and we tend to trust in our flesh. But look at John's answer to
the general public here in verse 11. He answereth and saith unto
them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath
none. And he that hath meat, let him do likewise. Those upon
whom the Lord has had mercy will themselves be merciful. Our Lord said, Blessed are the
merciful. Blessed are the merciful. Matthew chapter 5. Blessed are
the merciful. Who are those? The ones that
the Lord has had mercy on. You see, God didn't look down
here on the children of men and see some merciful people. He
looked down to see if there were any that didn't know God or care
about God or come after God. Anybody that did understand,
nobody did. And he had mercy on some of them. And then that made them merciful. That's why he said, blessed are
the merciful. Not I'm going to bless the merciful.
They're merciful because they're blessed. They will be merciful now. You
don't owe them a coat. And this is important too. You
don't owe somebody that doesn't have a coat. You don't owe them
a coat. But by God's grace, you have
one, and they need one, and you want them to have it. That's the grace of God now.
That's evidence of His grace. We want to be like our Savior,
who found us with no coat. How did He find us when the Lord
came where we were? Naked, ashamed, no righteousness,
no covering before God, and no way to get one. No way to get
one. No way to get one. But he had
one. And it cost him something to
give it to us, didn't it? It was his coat. He didn't owe
us a coat. The covering that we needed cost
way more than we could ever pay. But our Lord had bought one. And in his infinite kindness
and grace, He wrapped us up in His own coat and covered our
nakedness and our vileness before God, our guilt and our shame.
And by His grace, we want to be like Him. Now since the Lord did that for
you, you want to see others covered too, don't you? Not just physically. The fruit of the Spirit is love
and the greatest love for another sinner is the desire to see them
come to Christ and be clothed. The Spirit and the Bride say
come and let him that heareth say come and let him that's thirsty
come and whosoever will let him take. That's what we want. We who have by God's grace come. What do we say to those that
we love? Come. Come to Christ. water of life,
come to Christ and put him on. Do you know what's wrong with our
society now? There's a whole lot wrong with it. But you know
what is glaringly right now wrong with our society? Those without coats think that
those with coats owe them a coat. Have you noticed that lately? But if I could just find somebody
that doesn't deserve a coat, I sure would like to give them
one, wouldn't you? That's what our Lord did for
us, and much more though. Much more. We didn't just not
deserve a coat. See, it wasn't just that we didn't
deserve a coat, it was much worse than that. And he brought us the best robe
at infinite cost to himself. Then came also publicans to be
baptized. What did he say to the publicans?
They said the same thing. Master, what shall we do? Publicans
were greatly despised by everybody. Nobody liked a publican. You
know why? Well, they were tax collectors. But beyond that, they were dishonest
tax collectors. And it's very clear in the scriptures
that they were, because of what the Lord said to them and what
is said about them here in our text. The Roman government established
a tax on people, and that's bad enough. That's always corrupt.
It's always extortion. No government has ever imposed
a fair tax. There's no such thing. Because
they do things with it that you wouldn't do. which means it's
stealing. So the Roman government imposed
a tax, but the publicans, even beyond that, would tell people
that they owed more than the imposed tax. And they would pocket
the difference. And everybody knew that they
did it, including the government. They didn't care as long as they
got their share. And the poor citizen had no way to prove otherwise,
and no recourse. Would that tick you off? Our situation now and always,
you know, it's not just us, it's always been this way. We don't
have any middlemen that can do what they did, but we have a
government that forces us to pay for women to kill their babies.
You happy about that? Is that something you want to
pay for? The murder of unborn children? You want to pay for free health
care and food to people that have entered our country illegally
when our own veterans in many cases don't have health care
and a job? Yeah, me neither. So we can understand
how hated, that's what I'm saying here, how despised these publicans
were. You talk about the scum of the
earth. They lied and stole from their
own fellow citizens. And they said, what shall we
do? And John said, the very last
thing that you will ever do unless God has mercy on you. You see, these fruits worthy
of repentance are things that only the one who is able to give
repentance can give. Because again, repentance is
not just some abstract quality. Repentance is these things. The
essence of repentance is action. It's a change of mind that's
evidenced in what is done and said. And these are things that
only he who gives repentance can give. By nature, we're all
liars and cheats. Here we are again now. It's not
that some people are trusting this. This is all of us. All
of these are all of us. We all have a publican living
inside of us. And think of it in spiritual
terms. We're hypocrites before God. These people, they lied
and presented something that wasn't true before the people. We do that before God. We pretend
that we deserve more than what we truly deserve. That's an understatement,
isn't it? That's what these publicans did.
They said, well, you owe us this much. No, they didn't. And we
say the same thing to God. You owe us a chance. You owe
us, you know, we've done some wonderful work. We need some
kind of reward for that. No, God doesn't owe you anything.
but wrath and condemnation and punishment. We say to God, we have the audacity
to say to God, you owe us. And the amount that we say he
owes is greater than what he actually owes. Again, an understatement. We're dishonest before God regarding
what's coming to us. An honest sinner before God,
an honest sinner. It's someone who has repented
by God's grace. The sinner that can respond,
truth Lord, when God says, you're a dog that doesn't deserve anything
from me. Truth. When the Lord says, you've got
nothing coming. All I owe you is wrath and punishment. and we can acknowledge the truth
of that, that's honest. Who deserves nothing from him
but cries yet for a crumb of mercy from the master's table,
that's a sinner ready to be baptized. You can publicly confess Christ
if that's what's in your heart. The inner belief that Christ
is all and we deserve to be separated from Him forever. The Apostle
Peter was being honest when he said, Lord, depart from me, I'm
a sinful man. So the answer to the people,
it had to do with love, didn't it? It had to do with love. And listen
to this. 1 John 4, 20, If a man say, I
love God, and hateth his brother, he's a liar. To be baptized is to say, I love
God. I thank God that Christ died for me and rose and lives
for me. But, wait a minute. You hate everybody that's not
like you, that doesn't believe what you believe? Something's
not right. That's what John said, it's not
right. If a man say, I love God and
hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
The same exact principle applies to the matter of honesty before
God and men with regard to the publican that
is in every one of us. And then verse 14, And the soldiers
likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he
said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely,
and be content with your wages. Now think about these for a second.
First of all, the word violence here doesn't mean to kill or
to even harm anybody. And so he's not saying that being
a soldier is wrong. It was being the kind of soldiers
they were that was evil. Being a soldier, killing in war,
is not wrong. That's not what he's saying.
The word here means to make tremble, to make to tremble, to be violent
toward them in attitude and in expression, to
terrorize, to hold your position over people and cause them to
be afraid of you because you have the authority to do things
to them. that they don't want to happen. That's the idea here,
and you can see how that would be. These soldiers, apparently,
were like the police. They were perhaps warriors in
time of war, but they also had business in the general public,
and they were, like many in authority, always are. Some, at least, they
would intimidate. That's what he's saying. Don't
do that. Quit doing that. Quit intimidating people with
your position and with your authority and with threats and with false
accusations against them. They would say that people had
committed crimes that they hadn't committed in order to extort
money from them or favors or whatever. They were dishonest,
notoriously so, as a group. And they're not content with
what they were paid that they would take bribes and extort
money from people and take money that perhaps was like if you
see a police officer maybe taking some drug money instead of turning
that in and keeping it for himself and things like that. They'd
plant evidence and manipulate people, everything that you could
imagine. They were dishonest. in their
authority. They used and abused their authority
to terrorize for their own gain. So think about this. What do
all of these things say about us by nature? If you use who you are and what
you do to get what you want, what does that say about you?
you don't trust God. Where'd you get that from Chris?
Think about it. We think that God has not and will not be fair
with us or good to us and so we have to get what we get by
our own dishonest fleshly manipulation of things and people. Does that ring a bell? Do you
see that in yourself? In order for me to get what I
need, what I want, this is what I'm going to have to do. And
it doesn't have anything to do with what God said. There are all kinds of different
degrees and levels of this, but this is in all of us by nature. How are we going to get ahead
in this world? The philosophy of this world is you don't get
ahead by being good. You just ain't going to get ahead
in this world by being good. Is that how you think? Or has God changed your mind
about that? The sinner who knows God has
a different idea about that. The sinner who knows God has
a different idea about what ahead even means. What is it to be
ahead in this world? to get ahead. And they also have a different
idea about how that happens. And here's the kicker now. They
are content with Christ and whatever He gives. You see that in the text here.
Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 13. We'll close with this. Hebrews
chapter 13. Hebrews 13, 5. One final thought and boy this
is an important one now. Hebrews 13, 5. Let your conduct,
that word conversation means conduct, be without covetousness. That's what these soldiers were
all about. They weren't content with just making an honest day's
wage for an honest day's work. They used their authority to
promote themselves, to prosper themselves, and they intimidated
people and lied and falsely accused people. It's an easy thing to
do when you have some authority, isn't it? To abuse it in that
way. Let your conduct be without covetousness and be content with
such things as you have. Now think about this. What do you have, believer? What do you have? For he hath said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you. I'm always going
to be with you, and I'm always going to give you everything
you need. That's what we have. We have
Him. And He that spared not His own
Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with
Him also freely give us all things? So that we may boldly say, the
Lord is my helper. I'm not going to get ahead by
means of the flesh. I'm going to wait on Him. I'm
going to wait on Him. And I'm not going to be afraid
what man can do unto me. Well, you're never going to get
ahead, you know. You're going to get trampled if you, you know. That doesn't bother me. Is it you? Are you worried about
that? If you're not cheating, you're going to get cheated.
I'm not afraid of what man is going to do to me. It's dog eat
dog. If you don't eat, you'll get
eaten. I'm not scared of that, are you? The Lord is my helper. And think about this final thought
with regard to that passage right there. If I have him, think about two scenarios here.
I have Christ and a million dollars in the bank. That's scenario
one. Scenario two is I have Christ
and a hundred dollars in the bank. Is there really that much difference? Let me ask it a different way.
Is there any difference? Is there any difference? Does it matter if it's in his
bank or my bank? Does it really matter? You think
about that with me. If my daddy feeds me, clothes
me, provides for me everything that I need, gives me a dollar
from my piggy bank, or he gives me a hundred dollars from my
piggy bank, what real difference does it make? He's the one providing everything
I need, and he has everything. What difference does it make? Bob, if you give Jackson a dollar
to put in his piggy bank, or whatever he has, a place to keep
it, or if you give him $100, is he better off with the $100
from your perspective than he is with the $1? Or would you ever not give him
something that he needed? Do you see what I'm saying? Whether it's in your piggy bank
or in God's, we have him. And you know we're not talking
about literal money now, don't you? It's not just about money. We're talking about everything
good. It's all his. And I'm his. And he's mine. And he loves me
more than you and I have ever loved anybody or ever will. Is that good enough? Be content. Be content. May God give us grace
to be content and to trust Him. To trust Him. God, help us to trust You. Let's pray.