Alright, brethren, Genesis chapter
17. It says here that when Abram was
ninety years old, and nine, ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared
to Abram, said unto him, I am the Almighty God. Walk before
me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between
me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abraham
fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me,
behold, my covenant is with thee. Thou shalt be a father of many
nations. Neither shall thy name any more
be called Abram. That means great father. Your name won't be called that
anymore. Thy name shall be Abraham, father of a multitude. For a
father of many nations have I made thee, and I will make thee exceeding
fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come
out of thee. And we know from scripture that
Abraham is the father of all true believers. He's the father
of all true believers. Everyone that's born of God and
brought to faith in Christ are the spiritual seed of Abraham,
the spiritual children of Abraham. Those are the children the Lord
promised Abraham. Now, the Lord made Abraham, he
had many natural children. You know, every religion in this
world looks to Abraham as their father. He has many, many children. You know, Ishmael had 12, many children. And so Abraham
is the father, naturally, of everybody in this world, almost
everybody. But he has spiritual children.
And those are the ones God's promising shall be born, and
they shall be saved. So as spiritual children, you
that are born of God and believe him, if we want to know how God
saves his people, From the first moment He calls us to the last
breath we take, we need to look to Abraham and see, how did God
save Abraham? God tells us that. He's speaking
to believers, and He says to us, He says, look to the rock
from which you're hewn. Look to the hole of the pit from
which you're dug. He says, look to Abraham, your
father, and to Sarah that buried you. Now listen, here's what
you're going to find when you look to Him. God said, for I
called him alone, and I blessed him. and I increased him. For the Lord shall comfort Zion,
he will comfort all her waste places, and he will make her
wilderness like Eden, and joy and gladness shall be found therein,
thanksgiving and the voice of melody. So when we look to Abraham,
what God's really telling us is, when you look to Abraham,
look to how I saved Abraham. Look to how I wrought Abraham's
salvation from the moment I called him till I brought him home.
This is what we see when we look to Abraham. It was all performed
by Christ, our Almighty God. That's who did it. Salvation
is of the Lord. Now, I want you to see this. The first thing we see here is
the same way we're called is how we're kept in faith. We're
called to faith in Christ. He circumcises the heart. He
regenerates us. He gives us faith. He calls us
to faith in Him. And the same way He does that
is how He keeps us in faith. He does it by revealing Himself. Revealing Himself. It says in
verse 1, And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord
appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God. Now this was a pre-incarnate
appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was a pre-incarnate
before he came in human flesh. This is Christ who appeared to
Abram. The scripture says there's one
God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. This is Christ that appeared
to him and he revealed himself as almighty God. El Shaddai, all powerful, all
sufficient. He's the power and wisdom of
God. That's who Christ is. He is El
Shaddai. And this is what Christ did when
He first called Abraham. He revealed Himself to Abraham. He revealed to him and circumcised
his heart and gave him faith to believe. God gives here, later
in this chapter, He's going to give the outward sign of circumcision. the outward sign of circumcision,
but circumcision was an outward sign, an outward token of the
inward circumcision that God had performed already on Abraham's
heart when he called him back in Ur, almost 25 years before
this account when he called him. He circumcised him in heart,
made his everlasting covenant in his heart, brought him into
that everlasting covenant relationship with him, giving him faith to
rest in Christ. Now, the outward circumcision
typified really two things. It typifies Christ's work on
the cross by which he put away the filth of the sin, the body
of our sins on the cross. Christ did that on the cross.
And then it also pictures the circumcision of the heart, where
he gives you a new heart, a new heart. That's what Paul said
in Romans 2.29. He's a Jew, which is one inwardly. Circumcision
is that of the heart in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise
is not of men, but of God. So back there, almost 25 years
before this, Christ circumcised Abraham's heart. He was in a
land of idolatry. And the Lord revealed Himself
to Abraham by grace. He came to him by grace. He revealed
Himself by grace. And He made a covenant promise
to Abraham, told him to get out of that land, and He would show
him a land that God would give him. And when He did that, by
revealing Himself, It came in such power, it always does. It gave Abraham faith to believe
him. He believed the Lord. And Hebrews
11, eight says, by faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out
into a place which he should have to receive for inheritance,
obeyed. And he went out, not knowing
whether he went. Now, back in October, we looked
at this psalm, and I mentioned it the other day when we were
in John, John 8 I believe, but again and again the Lord revealed
himself to Abraham. He kept giving him more light.
He kept renewing his promise to Abraham, making Abraham see
a little more clearly who the Lord is and make him see a little
more the work Christ promised to perform. You know how the
scripture says, the light shines more and more unto the perfect
day. Christ is revealing more and more of Himself. We're growing
in the knowledge of Christ by Christ. And we're growing in
the grace of Christ. His grace toward us and His grace
working in us. We're growing and it's by Him
continually revealing Himself. You remember how Abraham didn't
go all the way out. and he was supposed to leave
his father's house and leave and go all the way out and he
didn't. But the Lord came and brought
him out and brought him to Bethel, brought him to the house of God,
brought him to the altar of God where Abraham worshipped God.
We saw how later Abraham went down to Egypt, a famine came.
What was that? It was a test, it was a trial.
Famine came, Abraham went down into Egypt and the Lord And the
Lord worked in the heart of the Egyptian king and threw Abraham
out of Egypt, really, just threw him out, brought him out, brought
him back to Bethel, back to the house of God, and made him to
see Him more and more. And the Lord just kept renewing
His promise and kept revealing Himself more and more. After he parted with Lot, and
then after he went and saved Lot from those kings that had
taken Lot captive, and he gave everything to Lot, and then when
the king of Sodom tried to enrich him, he said, I don't want any
of this bull. And the Lord appeared to him and the Lord said, I am
thy shield, I'm your protection, I'm your refuge, I'm your strong
tower. And he said, and I am your exceeding
great reward. He's El Shaddai. He's all sufficient,
all providing, everything his people need, he's our reward,
I will give you everything. All the blessings, he said. I'll
give you all the blessings of heaven and whatever blessings
you need in the earth, I will give it to you. He kept renewing
that to Abraham. Now, right before this text,
Abraham turned again to his own works. You remember this well,
but God didn't give him the promised son. He had promised Abraham
a son. And he didn't give that promised
son yet. And so Abraham hearkened to Sarah's voice. He said, go
into Hagar, my handmaid, and produce the son. Maybe this is
what God meant for us to do. So he did that. He married Hagar
and he produced Ishmael. And you know from Galatians 4,
that was a picture of two covenants. That was a picture The two women
were pictures of the two covenants. Hagar represented the old covenant
of works, and Sarah represents the everlasting covenant of grace.
That's the covenant God's speaking about in our text. He's renewing
it. He kept renewing that covenant
to Abraham. But for 13 years, he went in,
married Hagar, produced Ishmael, and now it's been 13 years. And
the Lord appears to him, Because Abraham's got to be saved from
that. Because that's the same. He's
a believer, but that's the same as a believer looking, turning
to salvation by his own works. Turning back to the works of
his own hand to save himself. So Abraham's got to be saved
out of that. Well, he had produced a child of the bondwoman, which
wasn't going to be the heir. That's not the heir. All our
sinful flesh produces are dead works, dead fruit. And that's
all he had produced. It was not the son of promise.
But Abraham's a child of God's grace. He's a child of God's
grace. God chose him by grace. Abraham
didn't merit it. And Abraham can't demerit it.
He chose him by grace. And so he called him by grace. He had kept him that far by grace. And he's going to keep him by
grace. He's not going to let sin have dominion over Abraham
to turn him back to idolatry. He's going to keep him looking
to Christ only. And so he came to Abraham and
he gave Abraham more light. Christ the light. He came. He's
99 now, 13 years have passed since Ishmael's been born. And
the Lord said to him, I am the Almighty God. He came to him. This is how he revealed himself
in the beginning. What we're seeing here, he revealed
himself to Abraham. He came to Abraham. And when
he comes to us and first makes us know him, he reveals himself
to us. And what you see here, as he
reveals more and more of himself, is how he keeps revealing more
and more of himself. And here he makes him know, I'm
El Shaddai, the Almighty God, all-powerful, all-sufficient.
all powerful to fulfill every promise He made to the Father,
all sufficient to justify His people by His blood, all powerful
to call out each one of His people, all powerful to circumcise us
in the heart, give us faith to believe Him, all powerful to
keep us and grow us and cleanse us and keep us the rest of our
days. All sufficient, all powerful
God. He told us My grace is made perfect
in your weakness. And Abraham, every time God reveals
a little more of himself to Abraham, Abraham is made to see a little
more of his weakness. And every time he sees a little
more of his weakness, he sees a little more of God's provision. El Shaddai, our all-powerful,
all-providing Lord God. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily, and you are complete in Him. That's what He reveals
to us. He's the fullness of the Godhead
body. That's who Christ is. And His people are complete in
Him. So the first thing our Lord does
in showing Himself to us, He makes us know Him. Who He is. His great name. And that's how
He circumcises us by the Spirit and gives us faith in the heart
to cast it all on Him. And He keeps on revealing Himself
to us more and more. This is how He keeps us walking
after Him and looking only to Him. Now here's the second thing
I want you to see. The power is of Christ who renews
us and keeps us looking to Him by His voice. By His voice. He said here, And he prayed to
him and he said to him, here is what he said to him. He said,
walk before me and be thou perfect. Walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between
me and thee and will multiply thee exceedingly. What is he
saying to Abraham? What is he saying to Abraham?
He said, Abraham, walk before me believing on me. Walk before
me looking to me alone. Walk before me looking to me
knowing that you're before your all-sufficient, all-powerful,
all-protective God and Savior, believing that you're perfect
in me. Believe me, trust me, walk before
me with all your heart, with the whole heart, looking only
to me. Don't be halting between two
opinions. Don't be looking partly to me
and partly to yourself. Walk before me looking only to
me. I shall keep you. I will fulfill
my covenant between me and you. I will keep you. I've entered
covenant to save you. I promise my father I'll save
you. I will establish my covenant. I will keep you. That is, when
he speaks this voice in our heart, when he speaks and makes us hear
him, This is the most comforting, this is the sucker that He speaks
about, being able to sucker us with. He comforts you, He turns
you from all else, from all your fears, from all our sinful dead
works, to hear His voice as the Almighty Redeemer, our Almighty
Redeemer, assuring us that we're His, assuring us we're safe before
His all-sufficient eye. I gave you that illustration
about, you know, When I was a child playing out on the porch and
you just were afraid if you were out there, even if the light
was shining, you were afraid. And you sure wouldn't get off
the porch and get out close to the darkness. But if your father's
there and you're before your father, his child, and you know
you have, you're protected, you're safe. That's comfort. That's strength. That makes you
not fearful of those things you would otherwise be fearful of.
The only way to walk before God and be perfect is to walk before
God believing only on the Lord Jesus, trusting Him alone, casting
it all on Christ, trusting Him. When the heart's divided, it's
not whole. That's what the word perfect
means, whole, complete. And when the heart's divided,
it's looking here, it's looking there, it's looking other places.
Scripture said of Solomon, his heart was not perfect in his
later years because he didn't follow the Lord fully. He was
looking to some idols. And it said this, his heart wasn't
perfect like his father David's. Now think about that. David sinned
much, but David's heart was wholly set on the Lord. His heart was
wholly set on the Lord. He didn't turn back to idols. And that's why our Lord is saying
this to Abraham right here, is because Abraham, by looking to
Hagar, was turning to the idol of self. And he's saying, walk
before me, not with a divided heart, walk before me knowing
I am your perfection. It's the only way we can walk
before God perfect because what we're doing by faith is we're
saying our perfection is in Christ. Our completion is in Christ and
we believe God when He says it is. By faith, Enoch was translated. He didn't see death, God took
him to glory. Why? Because he had this testimony
that he pleased God. But without faith, it's impossible
to please God. He that cometh to God must believe
that He is. That He is what? That He's all.
That He's El Shaddai. He's all-powerful. He's all-sufficient.
He's all our salvation. He's all our righteousness. He's
all our holiness. He's all our redemption. He's
all our salvation. He's the one who from beginning
to end, salvation is of the Lord. That's what you have to come
to Him believing He is. I'm not. We're not. He is. And He's the rewarder. He said,
I'm Yeshua to you exceeding great reward. He's the rewarder of
them that diligently seek Him, Him. Walk before me and be thou
perfect. God in the beginning said, let
there be light. What happened? There was light. When God speaks, when our Lord
Jesus speaks His voice and commands Abraham to walk before Him with
a heart fully set on Christ by faith, trusting Christ in whom
He's accepted, that is the voice that makes the heart be set on
Him. When He says, walk before Me
and be thou perfect, have your heart set on Me, that's when
your heart is set on Him. Abraham's heart wasn't set on
him before when he went into Hagar and produced Ishmael. But his heart is set on him now. Trust Christ to fulfill his covenant. Then he gives this outward sign
of circumcision here as a token of what he had done in Abraham's
heart. It's a token of that circumcision
of the heart. This is what he promised to do
in all his children. Now I want you to see something
here. Now get this in your mind. The Lord appeared to him and
he said, Abraham, walk before me and be thou perfect. I'm El
Shaddai. I will fulfill my promise to
you. And then he gave this outward
sign of circumcision. Now I want you to go over here
to Colossians 2. Paul said almost the exact same
thing as our Lord is teaching Abraham, and Paul gives it to
us in the light of Christ now that Christ has come. Listen to him here in Colossians
2.6. As you have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. That's what the Lord
is telling Abraham. I'm El Shaddai. I'm the one who
came to you and gave you faith to believe me. Now walk before
me and be thou perfect. want ye in him, rooted and built
up in him, and established in the faith." Established in the
faith. He said, I'll establish my covenant.
As you've been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware,
lest any man spoil you through philosophy, in vain deceit, after
the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world. We saw
in Galatians, when Paul speaks of the rudiments of the world,
he's talking about the letter of the law. He says, and not
after Christ. For in him, now watch this, dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. What did the Lord say
to Abraham? I'm El Shaddai. What does that
mean? Christ is saying, I'm the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
That's what he was saying to Abraham. And you are complete
in him. Walk before me and be thou perfect,
Abraham. You're complete in me. Believe
me. which is the head of all principality and power, El Shaddai,
in whom also you're circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ. On the cross we were buried with
him in baptism, wherein also you're risen with him through
the faith of the operation of God who raised him from the dead,
and then you were dead. and your sins, and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, and yet he quickened you together with him. He came
and circumcised you in heart, having forgiven you all trespasses,
blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us, which was contrary to us, took it out of the way, nailing
it to his cross. He said, Abraham, believe me. Walk ye in me the same way you
received me. by my power, by my grace, trusting
me, established by me, rooted and built up by me, looking to
me, knowing I've circumcised you in the heart, I've established
my covenant, and I will continue to do so to the end. That's the
confidence of faith in Christ. He's our El Shaddai, and it's
by this voice of Him speaking that we hear this and return
to Him. Now, thirdly, go back to Genesis
17. We'll go a little further here.
He renews us to repentance and faith. It's a continual, ongoing
work of our Lord, keeping us in a state of repenting and believing
Him, keeping this heart set on Him. And he does this by making
us to know, assuring us, he has fulfilled all the everlasting
covenant promises on our behalf. He said there in verse 2, and
I will make my covenant between me and thee. You get the picture
here. Abraham was trying to fulfill
the works himself. And the Lord comes and says,
I'm El Shaddai. I'm Almighty God, Abraham. And
he said, Walk before me and be perfect. Don't let your heart
be divided. Believe me, I will make my covenant
between me and thee. I'll establish, I'll fulfill
everything, and I will multiply thee exceedingly. Look down at
verse four. As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee. Wouldn't
that settle your heart if you hear Christ speak in spirit to
you and say, my covenant is with you? That's where assurance comes
from, hearing him say, my covenant is with you. Thou shalt be a
father of many nations. Neither shall thy name anymore
be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham, for a father
of many nations have I made thee. He hasn't even had a child, the
promised child yet. And God said, I've already made
you a father of nations. And I will make the exceeding
fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come
out of thee. And you go on reading there,
and the Lord just keeps saying, I will. I shall, I will, I shall. And he says, and therefore Abraham,
you shall keep my covenant. Because God says I will and I
shall and because he shall come and reveal this in our heart,
we shall cast it all on him and trust he's fulfilled the whole
covenant on behalf of his people. Now this whole promise, you remember,
was to Christ. Before he made this promise to
Abraham, this promise was between God the Father and Christ. That's
why Christ is saying, Abraham, this is all up to me to fulfill. I'm El Shaddai. I'm the one who
must fulfill all the promises, A to Z. I must be your salvation
beginning to end, because I entered covenant with the Fathers to
do this work. Those promises were between the Father and the
Son. And so he promised Abraham all his spiritual children shall
be circumcised in heart and they shall be brought before him by
faith. I want you to look down at verse
13. Christ said of the male children,
verse 13, he that is born in thy house and he that is bought
with thy money must needs be circumcised and my covenant shall
be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. Now look beyond the
carnal and try to hear this spiritually. He's speaking here of his elect
Jew who's born into the house and his elect Gentiles who were
strangers. But he says those that are born
and those that are bought. They must needs be circumcised. Christ Jesus our Lord came forth
and took flesh and he bought with his precious blood every
one of God's elect. We were all strangers to God
by our sin. And he bought all his people,
he redeemed all his people, he justified all his people from
our sin. And we must needs be circumcised
in the heart by Christ. For him to get all the glory,
both must be done. And he must keep us all the way
to the end and not lose one. And he shall. Because he's redeemed
his people and satisfied justice and because he's working in the
heart of his people by Christ, nothing shall be able to separate
Christ's people from him. Nothing. Nothing. The only reason God didn't destroy
Abraham for looking to his works with Hagar Think about this now. Think about this. Why didn't
the Lord just cast him off? Why didn't the Lord... Now, you
know, this is... He didn't come out of Ur all
the way. He went down to Egypt. Now he went to Hagar. Three strikes
you out, right? Why didn't he do that? Because
Christ entered covenant with the Father to save Abraham by
His grace. And Christ must fulfill all the
works. He was perfect in His substitute and surety. You know
what Abraham did? In chapter 20, you remember how
Abraham went down to Egypt and lied and said Sarah was his wife?
Surely after God brought him out, he learned his lesson. No,
in chapter 20, he went back to Egypt and lied and said Sarah
was his wife. And God had to bring him back
out again. But again, Christ, he just keeps renewing Abraham,
he keeps making his promise to Abraham, keeps revealing his
El Shaddai to Abraham. And by this he makes him know,
I'm the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. This is why he doesn't consume
us, it's grace. Grace, grace, grace, all the
way through. And it's voice, his voice, the
revelation of El Shaddai and his established covenant declaring
to us by his voice, his person and his work, He's El Shaddai
and He's fulfilled the covenant. And when you hear His voice,
this is why we come to hear the preaching of the gospel. Is to
hear Christ's voice declaring who His person is and what works
He's accomplished. Because He works the same thing
in us and He's working in Abraham right here. And one reason He
didn't, one reason, I love the simplicity of the Old Testament.
He don't have the law of Sinai, so we can't say that has anything
to do with salvation. He didn't have it. Abraham, he
didn't even have all the gospel precepts that we have. Abraham
simply had this word of the Lord to walk before me, Abraham, and
believe me. That's what he had. That's what
he had. And when he made this known to
Abraham, He didn't use a man either. Now he's going to save
through the preaching of the gospel, but by not using a man
to work this, he's showing us the power, the excellency of
the power. It's not of us. It's not of me.
It's not of you. It's not of any preacher. It's
not of man. The power that works this is
the Lord. It's the Lord Jesus. He's got
to get the glory in every aspect of this. And the Lord promised
him, I will multiply thee exceedingly. I will. All the promises of God
in him are yes and in him amen to the glory of God by us. There's
no maybes here. And this is always the result
when he does this. It's always the result. When
you behold Christ and you behold his finished work established
in whom you are perfect, in whom you're complete, by his one offering
he perfected forever them that are sanctified. And when he brings
you wholeheartedly to see him, Abraham fell on his face and
God talked with him. We fall on our face and our heart
without even having to move a muscle. It's a broken and a contrite
heart. You fall on your face. And then Abraham obeyed him.
Abraham circumcised his whole house that day. True sanctification, true holiness
is not becoming more and more holy It's not becoming more and
more confident in ourselves. It's Christ making us behold
Him more and more, the light shining more and more, so that
we see more and more in our flesh dwells no good thing. You notice
here, Christ never mentions to Abraham the sin with Hagar. Well, you're going to have to
do that, don't you? Christ revealed himself and his
work and Abraham saw his sin and hid his face. We don't see
our sin by the law simply, we see our sin by beholding Christ,
who's fulfilled all the work and put away our sin, and then
we see how foolish and ignorant we've been to look to our flesh
and cater to our flesh and walk after our flesh, whether it's,
whatever it is, we see it's just, and you hit your face, your heart
is broke and you fall down before the Lord. He has made us holy,
but in that state of holiness, He grows us in knowledge of Him,
beholding Him more and more, and He grows us in grace. He
gives us more light, He gives us more knowledge of Christ,
and His grace toward us, He makes us see it more and more. He makes
us see more and more He's our all-sufficient El Shaddai, and
He makes us see His grace toward us in spite of us. Abraham had seen how God had
been long-suffering with him for 13 years. You know what that's going to
work? It's going to make Abraham long-suffering. A little more
long-suffering. Not perfectly long-suffering,
but a little more long-suffering. He sat there and he beheld the
Lord's compassion to him. The Lord had pity on him. When he spoke in power, it made
Abraham hit his face. And then the Lord talked to him.
He talked to him, friend to friend. And when he saw that compassion
and that pity, it just makes you want to be, when you see
the Lord's been compassionate with you in spite of you, when
you don't deserve it, it just makes you want to be more tender-hearted
to others. It just does. Not perfectly,
but a little more. And you won't He won't always
be that way. He'll say something dumb and
lose you, get puffed up and whatever, but he keeps doing this. And
every time he does it a little more, it makes you a little more
tender-hearted. His grace and his mercy towards
you makes you want to be gracious and merciful. And it makes you
forget When you see him, it makes you forget everything behind
you. Makes you look to him and walk
after him and press toward him. You want to be a little more
like him. Let's go see that in Philippians
3. We'll end with this, Philippians 3. Paul talked about dogs and
the concision. And he talked about how he could
have gloried in his flesh all the religious works he had done.
Verse 7, he said, But what things were gain to me, those I counted
loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, I count all things
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord. That's what made him count them
all loss, and that's what he wanted to know more of. I want
to know more of Christ. That's what Abraham's being shown
in our text. The excellency of the knowledge
of Christ. For whom I've suffered the loss of all things for Christ,
I've suffered the loss of all things and count them done. That
I might win Christ. That I might win Christ. He's
the prize. And I want to be found in Him,
not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, or anything
of me, but that which is through the faithfulness of Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by faith, that I might know Him. I want to press on. I want to
know Him more. And I want to know His power.
I want to know that He's El Shaddai, the power of His resurrection.
I want to know the fellowship of His sufferings. I want to
be made conformable unto His death. and if by any means I
might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I
had already attained, either were already perfect. I never
shall be in this life, Paul knew that, but I follow after, if
that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of
Christ. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things
which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize." He said,
I want to win Christ. I'm pressing toward that mark.
I want Christ. I want to win Christ. The prize
of the high calling of God in Christ. Let us, therefore, as
many as be perfect. He just said, we're not perfect.
We're not perfect in ourselves. but we're perfect in Christ.
And if you've been brought wholeheartedly to trust Christ only, let us
be as many be thus minded. Let us have this same mind. And
if anything, you be otherwise minded. We know this because
we know his power. God shall reveal even this to
you. Abraham had some assurance, too, that whatever he didn't
know, he knew now. Abraham knew, God's able to reveal
it to me. He's able. He's able to reveal
it to my brethren. Nevertheless, whereto we've already
attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us mind the same
thing. He's saying, each of us. Brethren,
be followers together of me. Mark them which walk so as you
have us for an example. Them which walk so, looking only
to Christ. For many walk, of whom I've told
you often, and now tell you even weeping, that their enemies are
the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is
their belly, whose glory is in their shame, and who mind earthly
thing. All that former work Paul said
was now done. There's a bunch of people that
are glorying in that shame, thinking that because they put away such
and such and such and such, they're better. But our conversation, our citizenship's
in heaven. From whence also we look for
the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're looking to him, who shall
change our vile body. That's why we hadn't attained.
Our body's still a vile body. but he'll change it one day.
It's going to be perfect one day. It shall be fashioned like
unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he's able
even to subdue all things unto himself. Therefore, my brethren,
dearly beloved, long for my joy, my crown, so stand fast in the
Lord. He's telling them what the Lord
told Abraham. Walk before me, be thou perfect. Be wholeheartedly looking to
me. Stand fast in me. There was two
ladies there that was not of the same mind. They were against
each other. He said, I beseech you, Euodias
and beseech Syntyche that they be of the same mind in the Lord.
Same mind he's been talking about here. Put those things behind
you and look to Christ and press toward Christ. And he said, and
I treat thee also, the rest of you, true yoke fellow, help those
women, help them to do this, help them to be thus, help them
look only to Christ and press toward him. They labored with
me in the gospel with Clement also, my other fellow labors,
but because of this division, they're not believers anymore.
Nope, their names are written in the book of life. He didn't
doubt them. He said, I'm forgetting those
things. I'm looking to Christ. And I'll tell you something,
when the Lord has worked this in our heart and made you experience
the power of the Lord, that's what you'll do. That's what you'll
do. That's what Abraham did. He fell
on his face. He obeyed the Lord. Amen. All right, Brother Gray.