Alright, well turn with me if
you would this morning over to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. The Bible, whenever it was written, the chapters and verses weren't
there because these were letters that were written, especially
these epistles. These were written letters to
churches. and it would be sent out to the
church and the pastor of that church would get up and read
the letter from the apostle to the church. And the letter was
written as a form of communication of a thought or thoughts that
were to be presented or to be given to people. And just like
in any kind of conversation or in any kind of communication,
You usually have a kind of a subject or a point that you want to get
across, and you deliver that point, and then you give all
the little sub-points underneath that, that backs up or supports
whatever it is that you're trying to convey. Preachers today, they'll
get up and they'll, something the Lord will lay on their heart,
something to preach about, and they'll go to the Word of God
and try to, you know, convey that through the Scriptures.
pray, they have biblical support for whatever it is they're saying.
A lot of preachers don't. And then there's some preachers
that'll come, they'll get their outlines out and they'll nicely
and neatly and tightly make up these little outlines and these
little scripts for them to follow. And some of them are even so
good that every little point rhymes or every little point
starts with the same letter or something like that, you know.
I can't remember what that term is called. in grammar or in language
where you line all that stuff up. But the Bible was written
as a form of communication between the apostles or the prophets,
the men of God that God had come upon by the Holy Spirit and had
given them to write certain things, as a form of communication. And
whenever it was written, again, we didn't have these chapter
and verses, and sometimes we lose a train of thought because
of a chapter break, because our minds say, okay, well, boom,
that's the end of that thought, and now we're gonna start another
chapter, boom, this starts another thought, and we just sometimes
jump right in to that chapter without even looking and seeing
and contemplating sometimes the context that surrounds that,
on what's been said. I mean, that's just like me taking
this book off the shelf and just like cracking it open right to
the middle of the book and just start reading. It's like, well,
what in the world is that talking about? Now I have to assume in
my mind what has been said before or disregard what's been said
before and just take the context of what I'm reading there and
apply it whatever thought to it that I think it says. Right? So that's why it's important
whenever we read our scriptures that we read in context. We don't
just read isolated verses being pulled out. Isolated verses pulled
out. Even if we could take, and listen,
I've done this before. I used to preach sermons after
sermons after sermons of where I would come up with a topic
and I would find 10 or 12 Bible verses that would support that
topic. But every one of those Bible verses I would pull out
of the context. So we need to see whether or
not what is being said not only fits the context in the immediate
verses that we're looking at, but also does it fit in the overall
context of the Scriptures. And so that's why a lot of times
whenever I'm reading the Scriptures, I don't like to just read and
it's just a little spot where I'm reading. I like to see the
overall context, and a lot of times whenever you back out,
and see the overall context and start where Paul starts or whoever
writer it was, start where they start and start reading down.
You can begin to see the flow of thought on what is being said
and now all of a sudden something that he's saying over here that
I thought was saying this is actually saying that because
it's going into the context of what other things are. Well,
that's kind of what we see here this morning and what I would
like to maybe look at. And thinking about some of the
things that's been going on over the past few months, especially
in regards to the election, and everybody's thoughts about everything
on the election. And thoughts about people standing
up for what they believe, standing up on it, cuz we've seen it on
both sides. The people, this is what they
think, and the other people are deluded. And these people over
here are saying, this is what we think, and you guys are misinformed,
or whatever the case is. Everybody has their own opinions
of things. Everybody has their own stance upon things. But when
it comes down to it, people have a set of morals, they have a
set of standards, they have a set of things that they hold to and
believe, and they want to stand on those things, and they stand
for those things. And if it's something that is truly ingrained
within them, they will stand for these things despite what
anybody is saying outside, despite what persecution might come,
despite how they're being castigated in the crowd. They stand on those
things. Well, brethren, if we can say
that about carnal things, surely the child of grace, who the Bible
says that the things of God have been written upon their heart,
that who has a nature that now is not born from this earth,
but is born from above, that is within them, they now have
a different outlook on things, a different way of thinking,
a different way of believing. God has taught them more rightly
about the salvation that is theirs, whenever we stand on those principles,
when we stand on those truths, whenever we read the scripture
and we're not looking at it with a myopic view of just what it
is, and especially whenever it fulfills the lust of our flesh
to support our presupposition, if we would zoom out and look
at the whole of context, we'll find, well, maybe that's not
really talking about that, But whatever we've been given to
believe, and see there's a difference in reading something and holding
true to something because you've read it and the Word of God teaching
you in your heart where this is what I truly believe and this
is what I truly stand for because God has given me the grace to
stand on this despite the persecution, despite the I mean, because anybody
can mimic. I can mimic somebody else. I
can parrot Larry. I can listen to Larry. I can
go to his YouTube and his Facebook and all of his outlets that he
has, all 29,000 of them. Larry's more socially, what do
you call it? He's more socially diversified
than I am. Be careful. He's on more platforms
than I am. But I can go and I can listen
to Larry and I can hear what he says and I can agree with
Larry and I can stand for those things because I believe Larry
is a good guy. I believe Gary is a godly man
and I believe that he wants to preach the truth. And I can say
those because I esteem and respect Larry. And so I can go out there
and I can begin to repeat the things that Larry says and I
can hold doctrines that Larry puts forth and things like that.
that's not something that the Lord has taught in my heart,
then it really isn't something that I've truly learned. It isn't
something that truly is something that can be swayed back and forth.
I mean, because if Larry is just someone that I respect, and I
only am saying that because I respect Larry, what happens when Larry
falls? What if Larry, something happens
to Larry? And Larry now, in my eyes, no
longer holds that respect. you know, say something would
happen and he would do something immoral or he would do something
very egregious or something like that. Now Larry doesn't look
as bright in my eyes, does that truth still stand true in my
heart? Maybe in my life something changes and now all of a sudden
my truth begins to shift and I say, well I just don't think
that no more. Can I be swayed because of popular consent? Can I be swayed because of lack
of consent? Will I be swayed because of this
or that? Well, see, that's the difference,
brethren, in listening and hearing truth and actually being given
faith to believe truth and to be taught truth by the Holy Spirit
of God. Because the truth that is being
taught cannot be conveyed by carnal and fleshly lips. It cannot
be conveyed by men's persuasion. Paul knew this. He taught this
to the Corinthians actually in two different letters. He expounded
this very clearly. But true Bible truth, and I say
true Bible truth, I know that sounds redundant, but there is
Bible truth that people spout off not truthfully. See, I can
take verses of Scripture and I can preach verses of Scripture,
but I'm not preaching them in their context, in the right truth
that's there. I could be misusing those verses. Well, Paul knew that. Paul knew
that influence, especially leadership influence, can sway people's
minds and sway people's hearts in the flesh, that it can sway
our emotions, that we can follow after people because of charismatic
men who are easily manipulating people's thoughts and minds and
emotions, or a group mentality that's out there that we all
believe the same thing and we feed off of each other these
things and we find these things in Scripture that support our
thoughts and therefore we are able to... But brethren, whenever
God teaches a man, it doesn't matter if there's one or one
million people that support them, That man, and I've said this
many times, I can only know what I know and what I don't know,
I can't know. But what I do know, I can only stand in. That's the only thing I can do.
That mentality or that, let me not say mentality, that disposition
that is given to the child of grace cannot be swayed. It cannot be moved. It doesn't
matter. what someone else says. It doesn't
matter what academia says. It doesn't matter what mama and
daddy or grandpa and grandma, aunt, uncle, brother, sister,
or fifth generation up the line said and passed down to our pedigree. It doesn't matter what anything
is said. It only matters what has been
taught to us, and in those things, We live, and we stand, and we
are convinced, and we are governed, and we make our decisions, and
we hold forth, and it isn't necessarily a popularity contest. Let me
just say that. It's not a popularity contest. Now, having preached
sovereign grace now since roughly 2005, 2007, here, 2007, I can
tell you Right now, it's not a popularity
contest. Because if you preach sovereign
grace, you're not going to be popular. But I want to look at
something here in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And really, chapter
3 is very detrimental to what we see in chapter 4. But I really
don't want to rehash everything in chapter 3. I just want to
pull out some things. My mind really hasn't got anything
set in what I want to say. I just want to go down through
these verses. and make note of a few things that the Lord has
kind of placed upon my heart about these. And maybe make some
reference back into chapter three on a couple of verses here. But Paul here writing to the
Corinthians, and you remember the Corinthian church, it's a
Gentile church. Paul wrote the first letter to
them because the Corinthians was in such turmoil and upheaval
and schism because they were misappropriating a lot of the
things within the church as far as the spiritual gifts were concerned,
about the ordinances of the church, as far as the Lord's Supper was
concerned. There was a lot of problems with
the Corinthian church. And so Paul wrote that first
letter to set them straight about a few things. And now in the
second letter, he's a little more comforting and a little
more encouraging and a little more admonishing of some things and
instructive. Whereas in the first letter,
he had kind of come down pretty hard on them. But now Paul is
coming in and he's got a little bit different tone in this letter.
And one of the things that Paul is doing here, as he has done
in a few of his letters, especially in the Galatian letters, is that
there is somewhat of a defense on what Paul and what the apostles
have been teaching. And remember, this is a letter
written to these people during this time period. And the first
and foremost hermeneutical that we should ever look at whenever
we're interpreting, going and looking at the scripture and
looking for a context and a hermeneutic or an interpretation of these
scriptures is that we need to realize who this is written to
and that this right here is written for a specific reason and first
look about what is being said to the people that it is being
written to. Okay, so Paul is writing this to Gentiles at that
time who have not ever heard the gospel. The gospel wasn't
shared with the Gentile. The Jew was the one who received
the gospel in the Old Testament through the tithes and foreshadows,
but after the coming of Christ Jesus, the gospel was only for
those who were in Jerusalem, for the Jews. And so the gospel
had not yet been spread until after Christ's death. After that
first few years, the gospel was held right there within Jerusalem
and around where all the Jews were congregated. That's why
the Bible said that the gospel went to the Jew first and then
to the Gentile. That's why Jesus, whenever he
was speaking to the church, that first church, he said, given
that commission, he said, go into Jerusalem, then Judea, then
Samaria, and then into the other parts of the world. And if you
look through the Acts, that's exactly how the gospel spread.
It was first in Jerusalem, It moved into Judea, Samaria, and
then it scattered to the other parts of the world. That's how
the gospel went out, just as God said. Paul is writing to
a group of people where the gospel is still very infant. And it's
not only, it's a proclamation, but it's very infant within the
people who have received it by the Spirit of God. And so in
doing that, a lot of times, People would gravitate. They were gravitating
to men like Paul. They were gravitating to men
like Apollos. They were gravitating to these
men because the Gentile world, in their mind, these leaders,
they would gravitate them. And remember, the Gentiles, they
had all kinds of gods. They worshipped everything. Remember
when Paul was on Mars Hill and was speaking to those guys on
Mars Hill, he said, man, you have a god for everything up
here. You even have a God over here that there's nothing sitting
on the platform here, and it's through the unknown God. Just
in case I've missed one, here He is. You have a God for everything. And so they gravitated to worship
and to adore and to listen to and to follow after, whether
it was philosophers, whether it was scientists, whether it
was leaders. And listen, to quote Solomon,
there's nothing new under the sun. That's how we are today. We gravitate to listen to leaders
and to scientists, and to philosophers, to academia, we listen to the
pharmaceutical companies, we listen to the, you name it out
there, that's what we listen to. But whenever we're taught
of God, the teaching of God is always gonna go against carnal
man. It's gonna go against the flesh. It's gonna go against
people who are out there who have been blinded by the truth,
and they cannot see the truth, they cannot perceive the truth,
They cannot feel the truth. It's not the conviction and the
conscience of the truth that's in them. They have a head knowledge
of what they think is truth, but whenever they hear the truth,
it's antagonistic to them, because the natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he, because they
are spiritually discerned, and they are spiritually dead. And
so they do not receive these things. They do not perceive
these things. They don't want these things.
because the flesh is at enmity against God. It's always against
what God wants. And so whenever we look and we
see Paul and the apostles and the disciples and those first
churches as they begin to grow, as God began to build upon those
that he left there, and as time went by, more and more people
began to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and believe the Gospel,
especially among the Jews, This turmoil and hatred grew and grew
and grew and grew, and there was persecution, and the persecution
began widespread, not just in Jerusalem, but all over, in the
other places, because Paul was chased in all the places that
he was at, ran out of town many times, and just about killed
everywhere he went. That's the context that we see
where Paul is beginning to write and beginning to talk about. Chapter 3, Paul says, listen,
wherever we go and whatever we do, we don't need to have letters
of commendation. Letters of commendation, what
Paul referred to whenever he said that, is we don't have to
have letters of validity from you so that we can go somewhere
else and preach to tell others that what we're preaching is
right. We don't have to have some sort of plaque, you know,
we see all these preachers and I'm not, I'm not down on anybody
that's got one of these because I was given one of these myself,
but you know, there's no stock in it, just so you know. Men
who have plaques that we have graduated out of this academy
or that academy or this institution, which now I've never done that,
but whenever I was, whenever I was licensed to preach and
ordained to preach back whenever I first started as an Arminian,
I received these little plaques with my name on it and all this
kind of stuff. Men who have those things that
have credulity with the world and everything, Paul says we
don't have to have none of that stuff. Because what happens within
the spirit is different than how it is among the flesh. See,
among the flesh, men have to persuade other men. Men have
to give evidence and proof and men have to give attestation
to their facts and they have to, and they can take those facts
and they can turn those facts as we've seen in the election
process and the political world. People take facts and they twist
it to support their agendas, you know? And listen, it happens
on both sides, but we've seen it. They'll take a little something
that was said in a snippet of a, of a rally, and they'll take
that and they'll say, well, look what he said here. But if you
open up the whole context, that wasn't what he was saying all
along. Or they'll take something over here and say this person
did this and this person did this and that wasn't what really
happened. It happens all the time. They take a little bit
of the skin of the truth, but they fill it full of lies. And
see, that's what happens on the outward. But see, that's not
how it is in the kingdom of God with the preaching of the Spirit
and with the preaching and teaching that the Spirit brings to His
people and the people being taught in the Spirit, that's not how
that works. See, I don't have to have a letter
of commendation saying that this man preaches the Word of God. This man holds to the right doctrines. This man does that because whenever
a man comes that is called God and preaches to the children
of God, there will be an inward, conscious acknowledgement of
that truth. Now what do I mean by that? Have you ever been in a place,
most of us have been to Bible conferences or have been to some
meeting somewhere where there may be multiple preachers preaching.
We may not even know the preacher that's preaching there. We get
up, don't know what church he came from, don't know who he
is, don't know nothing. He begins to preach and then
all of a sudden he starts preaching something and it bears witness
in our heart, hey, that's true. I don't know who that guy is,
I don't know what church he preaches at, I don't even know where he
comes from, but all I know one thing is that's the man of God
because he's preaching the truth. See, I didn't need a letter of
commendation from that man. He didn't have to send forth
his credentials, he didn't have to send forth his church's, you
know, a good letter of saying, please take this man. I know
a lot of people do that. You know, I've been in meetings
where we said we come in the name of such and such Baptist
church and we, you know, have been set by blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, brother, I do believe
in church order. I believe there are certain things
that we do in church order and that there is a way that Christ
has laid down for things to do. But listen, that is not how truth
is conferred. And that is not how truth is
affirmed. It's affirmed in the Spirit of
God. The man preaches by the Spirit of God, and the people
listen, receive, and are taught by the Spirit of God. It's not
by that man. It's not by how well that man
speaks. It's not by how well that man looks. It's not how
that man organized his message. It's not how plain or simple
or down to earth that he was. It wasn't all the examples that
he gives, all of the ship stories that he tells. That's not how
truth is conveyed. Truth is conveyed from the Spirit,
to the Spirit, acknowledged in the Spirit, and rejoiced in the
Spirit. That's how truth is conveyed.
And that's how truth is received. And Paul here is saying, You
know, there are those who are coming around and they want to
be commended by others and they are looking for commendations
by others. But we don't need that. You are
our commendation. The very fact that you are standing
in the truth and holding to the truth is proof that the ministry
that we are in, the doctrine that we have conveyed, The preaching
that we have done among you and you accepting that and hearing
that and receiving that and now standing in that is the very
evidence, is the very commendation that we need. We don't need any
other commendation. We don't need the commendation
from others saying that you are a good church. You don't need
commendation from us that we are who we are. Why? Because
there is the Spirit there that is testifying with your spirit. Paul said in chapter 3 and verse
6, what is it that he ministered? What was it that Paul ministered
to the Corinthians that set them apart from other ministers, that
set them apart from other ministers in the aspect that there could
be persecution, that we're going to see here in a little bit,
that there will be persecution, especially from among the religious,
There will be persecution. There will be denial. There will
be shunning. There will be physical abuse. There will be physical persecution.
And listen, brethren, there was even death. They killed people. And listen, again, to quote Solomon,
there's nothing new under the sun. That still happens today.
Whenever people hear the truth of God's sovereign grace, the
gospel of sovereign grace, They shun it. They don't want it.
They don't want to listen to it. They reject it. They deny
it. They hate it to the point they will persecute people over
it. And listen, they have persecuted people for it. Even the reformers
who supposedly believed the doctrines of grace, they hated the ones
that did not believe like they did, who called them out about
their baby baptisms, who called them out about their state churches,
who called them out about not breaking fully free from the
Catholic religion. They were persecuted. Whenever
they held to the Word of God and said, this is what the Word
of God says, there were families that were split up, there were
people that were hated by each other, and there were people
that were killed. It even happened in the soils of the United States
of America as we first were being formed into a country There were
people who stood on these truths who the other people, the other
denominations or religions, not just big religions outside of
Christianity, within Christianity, attacked and killed those who
believed these things. What was the message? Look at
verse 6 of chapter 3. "...who have made us able ministers
of the New Testament Not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For
the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. See, Paul said the
message that we are bringing and the ministry that God has
given for us to carry out is the ministry that is the ministry
of the new covenant, not the old covenant. The reason that
we're not being accepted by these religious groups all over here
is because they still, in some way, in some form, in some understanding,
is holding to the old covenant, or to no covenant at all, paganism,
complete paganism, but among the religious people, they are
holding to the old covenant that there is something that we must
do. Where the new covenant says there
was something that was done for you. The Old Covenant always
preaches there's something that you have to do. Surely there's
something you've got to do. You just can't sit there and
do nothing. That's what the doctrine of works
always preaches. Do, do, do. And what do I think of that?
It's do, do. That's the kind of preaching
that that is. It's doo-doo. Paul said it was
doo-doo. I'm not trying to just be funny. Paul said it was doo-doo, didn't
he? Paul, who was the Pharisee of Pharisees and kept the law
and did everything about the law, went out and persecuted
the Christians. because he thought that he had
a zeal for God, and in that zeal, God was having him go out and
kill these Christians for the message that they were saying,
that there is no more covenant. He was going out and killing
them in the name of Christ, and he thought he was getting on
with God because of that, but whenever the Lord was revealed
in him and truth was made known to him, and the Holy Spirit of
God brought in that understanding of what all that Old Testament
and all that Old Covenant was. Paul said, whenever Christ was
revealed to me, those things that I thought were gain, I now
count as what? Do-do. Done. The Councilman's
done. And so, he says here, we've been
made able ministers of the New Testament or the New Covenant. Whenever you come and you hear
a preacher who preaches the New Covenant and is not trying to support
and hold up the dead letter, you've met and seen and come
under a preacher who is an able minister, who is a man sent of
God who has been given to know the things and to be able to
convey the truth because the Spirit of God is enabling him
to preach that that is contrary to the world, that is contrary
to religion, that is contrary to even his own flesh. He is
preaching things that condemn him because his flesh wants something
opposite. His flesh wants something opposite. And whenever I I preach Christ
and Him only as our salvation. Whenever I preach our inability,
whenever a preacher, whoever he is, preaches that there is
nothing that we can do to keep the law of God, to be accepted
of God through our fleshly works, whenever I do that, I'm condemning
myself because I know I can't keep that. So that gospel condemns
my flesh. The flesh is ultimately being
condemned in the man Jesus Christ because he came and fulfilled
the law and was put to death on the cross and he nailed those
ordinances to the cross and every one of that old covenant ordinance
that God set forth as a standard, Christ Jesus was the standard
that met it for us, kept it for us, and that through his death
now we are no longer under that covenant. We are no longer under
them ordinances. We are no longer held to that
standard because we cannot keep it. He kept it for us, and because
He kept it for us, we live in what the Bible calls the liberty
of Christ Jesus. We've been given liberty. We're
no longer under the condemnation of sin. We're no longer under
the conscious stranglehold of sin. Do we sin? Absolutely we
do. Do we hate the sin that we sin?
Absolutely we do. But our conscience is not bound
to keep this law for righteousness. Because this law can never justify
us before God. Because we can never keep the
law. Therefore, whenever we do sin,
we sorrow for our sin, we confess our sin, but we realize There
is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. The one
who preaches that, that's not a popular thing because everybody
out there will say, well, you just think you can do whatever
you want to do. We have to do something. I'm not like you. I'm going to make sure that I
do this and do this and do this and do this. Well, that's all
right. Go ahead. If you think your acceptance
with God and before God is by what you do, go right ahead. But your eyes are blinded. Satan
has blinded your eyes so that you cannot see your inability. You cannot see the perfect gift
that Christ has done on behalf of His people. You can't see
that. But rest assured, one of these
days when you stand before God, Your earnest, your zealous, your
rigorous effort to keep the law will be exposed. It will be exposed
before God. Turn with me if you would. Keep
your finger there in 2 Corinthians. Turn with me if you would to Let's see, where is this? Matthew
chapter 7. This is right in the middle of
a discourse. Jesus is preaching specifically in front of the
religious leaders, but he said, beware the false prophets which
come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening
wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Now, immediately,
people start thinking, oh, there you go. You shall know them by
the fruits. their outward appearance. You
shall know them by how they dress, how they speak, how they feed
the poor, how they clothe the poor, how they take care of the
orphans, how they do all these wonderful things outwardly. You
shall know them by their fruits. They read their Bible twelve
hours a day. They pray for five hours a day.
I was having a conversation with a dear brother down in Alabama
a couple days ago, and we were talking about this. Often I've heard, I'm trying
not to get too far off track here, how often I hear people
talk about how important prayer is, and how important our prayer
life is, and that, I think it was Spurgeon that said that the
lifeblood of the church, or the engine of the church is all the
prayer. that he had people during his services that were down in
the basement and they prayed through the whole entire services
and all like that. And I'm not against prayer whatsoever
by any means and I'm not saying necessarily everything was wrong
with what was being said there. But what I'm saying is they talk
about prayer and there's books written about how to pray and
how often we should pray and the importance of us doing that
and the duty that we should have. And I know people that they get
up and they have a certain amount of time that's set for them to
go pray And some of them even have designated areas that they
go into their house and they sit in their closets and they
pray and everything. And I'm not against that. If
you want to do that and the Lord's bringing you to that, hey, that's
between you and the Lord. But what I often find is that
people talk a lot about how important it is to pray, what you should
do, and that you ought to be doing it and all these things.
But a lot of times I feel myself as I don't know how to do it.
I don't know how to pray. And I don't find myself in a
lot of instances always praying. And it's not that I don't think
that there's an importance of prayer, and it's not that I don't
think that God don't listen to our prayers, and I don't think
that we change His mind by our prayers, but I do know that He
has instructed us to do that for our good, that we have been
given to pray, but yet sometimes my heart isn't moved to pray
about something. And then sometimes whenever I,
in my flesh, say I ought to pray, and so I start going to pray, I don't know what to say, Lord,
I just, you know. But what I do know is I like
to pray about a lot of selfish things that I want God to do
for me. I don't have any problem coming to God with our prayer
petitions about what I want God to do, but a lot of times I don't
have any clue about what to pray for otherwise. If it ain't selfish
about Mike and what's surrounding Mike, I don't have any clue sometimes. So what I'm saying here is, there's
a lot of religious activity that goes on. And just like this,
we say we have fruits and we are talking about fruits by being
what's seen on the outside. But brethren, when the Bible
speaks of fruits, as far as it is concerning the spiritual kingdom
of God, it's always talking about spiritual fruits. It's not ever
talking about outward fleshly fruits. It's spiritual fruits.
Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness,
temperance, faith. Love for the brother. Love for God. Love for
God's Word. The preaching of the Gospel.
Not of the old, but of the new. All these things that the Bible
teaches are the things that the Spirit brings forth in the child
of grace. These are the fruits that we're
talking about. And so here we're not saying, hey, we're looking
at all the activity that you're doing on the outside. We're talking
about the person and how they love God and the message of sovereign
grace of what God has done on behalf of His people. And we
love the brethren that love that. See, I'm not called to love the
brethren that are out there that we would not call brethren, but
I'm not called to love those people that's out there. that
love another Jesus, that love another gospel, that I'm not
called to love that like I love them. Now, am I to be kind to
all those people? Absolutely. Do I have a natural
love for my family and for my friends who hate what I preach
and teach? Absolutely. I have a love for
them on that level, that outward fleshly level, I have that. But
there is a spiritual love that cannot love that which hates
the Lord. David said it all the time, I
hate those that hate you. Some of his own children hated
God, but yet David loved his children. See, that's why we
say we can love those people in the natural that are against
these things, but still hate the doctrine, the lie, hate,
whatever it is that is antagonistic to the gospel, we can hate that. I have friends and I have family
who are into the LGBTQ lifestyle. I love them with a true passion
in my heart. I love them, but I hate the perversion
that they have. I love myself, but I truly hate
the desires and the outward shows in the flesh that I sometimes
have. I hate that, but I surely love myself. Brethren, there
is a consternation there. Paul here, or excuse me, Matthew
here, is recording Jesus saying, listen, ye shall know them by
their fruits. Do men gather grapes and thorns
and figs and thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. So obviously we've got to be
talking about something that outwards show because a good
tree and a bad tree can both outwardly look like it has fruit. Hello? I was there. I can pray. I can preach. I can
sing. I can testify. I can keep from
doing this. I can do this. I can do that.
I can do all these things. That doesn't mean that I'm a
good tree. See, anybody can put on a facade,
anybody can outwardly look like the real thing, but they cannot
produce that which is unproducible. The human flesh cannot produce
spiritual things. flesh cannot produce faith in
Christ. It cannot produce belief in the
Lord Jesus Christ as their only substitute. Human faith cannot
love that which is against His flesh. It's at enmity. The Bible says it's at enmity.
I'm going to take the Bible's context The Bible's teaching,
the Bible's doctrine, the Bible's truth over any man out there. You say, well, I've never been
an enemy of God, I've never hated God, I've never done that. The
Bible says you have. The Bible says your flesh is
always at enmity with God. So to deny that is to say God
is a liar To deny that is to not even know your own self. Which is another sign that you
are still blinded, you are still dead in your trespasses and sins,
and still dead to the spiritual things of God. A good tree beareth
forth good fruit, and a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
These things are things that cannot be reproduced by one or
the other. The flesh cannot produce anything
good, right? That which is born of God cannot
do anything of sin, right? That's what we're talking about.
The things of the flesh will always bring forth the things
of the flesh. And the things of the flesh, the carnal man
always wants to do religious activities to prove or to satisfy
his own conscience that he is accepted of God. But the child
of grace finds no faith and no conscious acceptation of acceptance
before God by their outward works, it's always by what God has given
to them on the inward that knows that no matter how good I am,
no matter how bad I am, it's nothing compared to what Christ
has done for me. That's the only thing that God
looks at. We were recently watching a video of the group that I used
to sing in, and one of the songs that we sang is the blood covered
at all. And there's a line in there that
says that it doesn't matter how good or how bad, how much good
or how much bad we do, God isn't looking at that. When God elected
Jacob, he said, I didn't look whether the children were good
or bad. He looked for election. That's
what he looked for. Whether the children have done
anything good or bad is immaterial to God. The only thing that God
looks for is the blood of the covenant and for those whom that
blood has been shed for. He looks for Calvary's blood
to cover it all. Every sin that every child of
grace has ever committed, He looks for the blood. He's not
looking for you to overcome the blood by your righteous works. He's not looking for you to overcome
your sinfulness. He's not looking for you to conquer
your own flesh because you can't conquer your own flesh. Paul
said, I can't keep from doing what my flesh wants. And if Paul
can't, I surely know Michael Smith can't. Because I'm nothing
compared to Paul, so to speak. Paul said, I can't help but do what I'm doing.
And guess what? I have fought this fight. I have
continued to fight this fight. I will keep fighting this fight
until the end of the day. My spirit is going to war with
my flesh, and my flesh is going to war against my spirit. I'm
going to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ that there's no condemnation
of them that are in Christ Jesus and my flesh will continue to
serve the law of sin. My spirit will continue to serve
the law of God. It cannot be It cannot be tainted. It cannot be swayed. It cannot
be moved. It cannot sin. It cannot do anything
unrighteous because it is the very life of righteousness itself. Righteousness has bore a seed
and that seed has been born in me. Christ is my righteousness. See, Christ is our righteousness.
Him in us, making us to be righteous so that God would accept us of
our righteous workings. See, that's the whole Arminian
scheme, is it not? I don't think I'm unfair in saying
that. That's how I used to preach it, at least. And if I've misrepresented
anybody that's out there that preaches that, I apologize. That
was my understanding of it. And that's the way I still see
it being preached in most of those churches out there, is
that it is Christ that's in me that is working. And He's working
to make me more and more and more holy, less and less and
less sinful. And through that, I am now becoming
a more righteous person, so that on the outward appearance, people
will know that I am a child of grace. I will have a good witness
before others. I will have a good testimony
before others. I'm not against any of that stuff, brother. But
what I'm saying is, God is not accepting you or keeping you
or rewarding you because of that. That is a disposition that God
may be bringing you into, that you may be experiencing because
of His active work in you. But I can tell you one thing,
that flesh has gotten no better than it was before the Lord opened
your eyes to see your need for Him. It's gotten no better because
the flesh is just flesh and it cannot ever, ever please God
and it doesn't go away until we die. And that which is born from above
can't get any better because it's already born in true righteousness
and holiness. So the preaching of the Old Covenant,
all that is is to stir the flesh of people to think that I can
be as God and do righteousness. That I can be as God and choose
to be this way. That's the preaching of the Old
Covenant. The preaching of the Old Covenant,
the Old Testament, Bible part Old Testament, the preaching
of the Old Covenant of works, all that does is to preach to
other people to get them to think that they can do it and whenever
they do it, guess what? I've now created a bunch of good
little disciples over here that is following after me and looking
to me for their... Go get them this. I'm going to
go get them. Get out there. Live for God. Listen, brethren, I pray that
God would give you the Spirit of God to live for Him. I pray
that He would do that. But guess what? You can't choose
to do that, neither can I make you do that. Matthew goes on
to say, verse 21, Not everyone that saith
unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. So
that means to tell me that there's going to be some people that
say, Lord, Lord, They're crying and saying, you know, hey, I'm
calling Him the Lord. He's my Lord and Savior. So this is not talking about
the wicked evil that reject God and don't want to have anything
to do. We're not talking about the atheists or the agnostics
or, you know, the pagans, the Satanists. We're not talking
about all those people. Jesus here is speaking to people
who have a form of godliness. He is speaking to people who
have an outward show of religion. And he says, not every one that
say unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,
but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Oh, there you go. You've got to be obedient to Christ. You've
got to be obedient to God. Well, let me ask you, brother,
how are you doing with that? If you're interpreting this as
you think it means walking in the law, then what is it that you're doing
to make sure that you're keeping it perfectly? Because there isn't
nothing that you can do to do it perfectly, right? That's not
what that's talking about. He that doeth the will of the
Father which is in heaven. The only ones that are entering
into the kingdom of heaven are the ones who are doing the will
of Him, not to get into Heaven, but because they have been given
to do those things. The will of the Lord is to love
God and to love the brethren and to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the will of the Father.
That's the preaching of the New Covenant. The preaching of the
New Covenant isn't in the do not taste or taste, taste and
don't taste, do and don't do. The message of the New Covenant
is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
believe only on the Lord Jesus Christ and look to Him only,
those people have been given to do so and therefore since
they've been given to do so, they are actually the ones in
whom the death of Jesus Christ was efficacious for. It was for
them that they died because this is the fruit that comes out of
the good tree. But the fruit that comes out
of the bad tree isn't accepted of the Lord. The fruit of unbelief. You say, well, I believe in Jesus.
I believe in Jesus. The Mormons believe in Jesus.
The Seventh-day Adventists believe in Jesus. There are a lot of people that
believe in a Jesus But that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about, have they believed on Jesus? Because when
you believe on Jesus, you quit believing on yourself. When you
believe on Jesus, you quit thinking that there is anything yourself
can do. He says, many will say to me
that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name cast out devils. and in thy name done many wonderful
works. And then will I profess unto
them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work
iniquity. What an eye opener that's going
to be for many. Whenever they think their whole entire life
they've held to a doctrine, they've held to a a religious plan, to
be found out that their whole entire life has actually been
working against Christ. To know that all of what they
thought was good fruit has turned out to be bad fruit. Now, back to 2 Corinthians, and
I'll try to wrap this up with just a few words here. This is
the minister that God had made Paul and every man called of
God. There are a lot of men that are
called by something else or someone else. But the men who are called
of God will always minister and be ministers of the New Testament,
the New Covenant. And Paul says in chapter 4, he
says, therefore seeing we have this ministry, As we have received
mercy, we faint not. Again, Paul is saying here, we've
received this ministry, but listen, this ministry isn't run in the
power of our own self. This ministry isn't run by our
doing, by our ingenuity, by our planning and our organization. This ministry is purely run because
we've received mercy. This ministry of the new covenant
only comes because the Spirit of God has done not only a work
in our heart to believe this message, but God has enabled
us to be able to preach this message in the face of adversity,
in the face of rejection, in the face of division. God has
enabled us to be ministers of this message. despite how it
affects us on the outward. He says, therefore seeing we
have this ministry as we have received mercy, we faint not. He says, but have renounced the
hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor
handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God." This is kind of what I was talking about a while ago. He is commending himself to their
conscience. I've often said, many times whenever
I've gone to preach at other places, that I pray that I'm
preaching the truth. Even here, I do it here also,
but I pray that I'm preaching the truth, and if I'm not preaching
the truth, then I pray that I be corrected. If you love me, correct
me, rebuke me on that, because I don't want to preach an untruth. But I also say that whenever
I preach, I pray that the Holy Spirit will give me truth and
that he will give you a heart to understand and your conscience
bear witness that that is truth. See, I think that's what Paul
is talking about. He is commending ourselves to every man's conscience
in the sight of God. Not every man head for head.
He's talking about every man who's a child of grace that he's
preaching to. He's saying that, I commend myself. If what I'm preaching is not
the truth, let your heart attest to it. Let your conscience attest
to it. because he already bore witness
in chapter three that he knew that the truth of God was in
them and was being held by them and they didn't need a commendation
from anybody. That they were attesting to the
truth and they seen that. That was an outward thing that
was being seen is that they were receiving the truth and standing
in the truth. Therefore, if you know the truth
and are standing in the truth, whenever I come and speak, if
it's not according to the truth, your conscience will bear witness
with that. And so I commend myself, not
to your intellect, not to your personal preferences. See, I
go a lot of times, and maybe even here, brother, but I pray
that everybody here loves me and the way I preach, but I go
to a lot of places. People don't like how I preach.
They don't like that sometimes I don't wear a suit. There are
some people that don't like The fact that I don't wear a suit.
I think that's kind of trivial and petty, but some people don't
like that. Some people don't like that sometimes
I shout or holler. Some people don't like that I
preach a long time. As a matter of fact, I got some
comments last week that I didn't realize it, but an hour and 34
minutes was last week's service, but some people don't like that.
You see, whenever I come, I'm not there to commend Mike, to
you, I'm there to commend the Spirit of God's truth to you. I'm there to convey a truth to
you, and I'm praying that the Spirit of God will, in your conscience
and in your heart, bear witness with that truth, and that become
a point of edification for us, but also for a redounding to
the glory of God, as the Scriptures say. So it isn't looking on the outward. Paul's saying it's not about
us coming and being accepted for our physical features, for
our physical prowess, for our physical way that we do in things.
We're coming here and we're speaking to each other. We're communicating
with each other and we're fellowshipping with each other based upon the
truth of God's Word and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We all come
from different backgrounds and we all have different predispositions
and we all have different things that we like and don't like.
But one thing when we come together on, all those things can be cast
out and fellowship and love and joy and peace and harmony and
worship to God can be done because all these people are unified
in the same thought pattern of everything? No, because we all
love the Gospel. We all know that we are unworthy. We all know that we have an inability. And we all are looking to Christ
alone for our salvation. And so Paul is saying we don't
come with hidden things of dishonesty. Walking in craftiness. Listen,
these preachers that are out there that I see on TV, and it
could be in the regular pulpits, I don't know. But all these preachers
that are out there, they come in their craftiness. Listen,
I hear about people that they talk about how they build their
sanctuaries where the floors ramp down to the front to make
it easier for people to walk forward. They build the aisles
where people can get out easy so they're not hindered by everything.
They tell their people to do this and do this so that nobody's
distracted or may change their mind or anything like that. And
you think I'm talking about that, I can give proof to anybody that
wants proof of that of people that have reported that this
has been given to their staff to tell them to do these things
this way. I've been part of it, I know. But anyway, Paul's saying
we don't do things like that. He says, but if our gospel is
hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Paul's saying, you know,
These men may be crafty about how they come in and they're
trying to present their message and they might have a hidden
agenda in the way that they're coming and what they're doing.
There may be some that seem like that. There may be some that
have deceived themselves and are preaching things that to
them, they're zealous just like Paul was. I was zealous for God
doing all these things and they come in. But listen, Whether
there are actually people trying to be deceptive or there are
people over here who are deceiving themselves that is preaching
the wrong Jesus and the wrong Gospel, no matter what that is,
it can't be hidden and it cannot hide the truth from God's people
because we are commended in the Spirit, not by the outward things
of God. He says, "...if our Gospel is
hidden, it is only hidden in them that are lost, in whom the
God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe
not, lest the light of this glorious gospel of Christ, who is the
image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for
Jesus' sake. Boy, I tell you what, there's
not too many preaching out there that's like that. It's usually
puffed the preacher up. Especially if you start watching
those Word of Faith guys, Ken Copeland and Jesse Duplantis. Listen, man, those guys make
me sick watching them. Talk about how great they are.
I've seen Jesse Duplantis not too long ago on a clip that talked
about how rich he was and how people say that he should be
rich being a Christian and all like that. He was basically just
mocking the people of God and everything. Ken Copeland and
all those guys. Listen, they just puff themselves
up and all they're doing is trying to and improve their stock with
the people. But he said, if you look here, for we preach not ourselves but
Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of the darkness has shined in our hearts. Now notice what Paul says the
light reveals. to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. The preaching of the
New Covenant, to be ministers of the New Covenant, to be able
ministers, is to be ministers that shine the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Not in the face of
your church, or your denomination, your association, your convention,
not in the face of your programs, not in the face of your witnessing,
not in the face of your abilities or your influence. No. It's to shine the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. I have no more influence over
anybody else than Dirk has. but we have this treasure in
earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not us. See, that's what Paul was saying
here. Remember last week we talked about being subjected to vanity?
How God has subjected us to this life of vanity so that we, who
are the children of God, who really know what we're in and
what's about, so that we keep our eyes looking to God. Well,
here again, he's saying basically the same thing. He's put this
treasure in earthen vessels so that we can't boast about ourselves.
I hear people all the time saying that, well, if you just, you
know, get in my Sunday school class, I could teach you a thing
or two. Or if you would get in under my ministry, you know,
you would be taught this or taught that. Or if you would have been
under that guy's ministry all your life instead of that guy's
ministry all your life, you would have been more holy and more
righteous because he would have taught you rightly the things
that Sunday's got. No, Paul was saying here, Listen, this treasure
has been put in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power
may be of God and not us. Paul was realizing, listen, the
reason he put it in guys that are unworthy and made us unworthy
is so that there can be no flesh boast in the flesh. That we won't
boast in ourselves. But there are people that are
boasting out there that because of their influence, they can
bring people up in God more than others. Paul here is saying we
know that we can't do that. So our ministry is not to commend
ourselves to you, and you're not the commendation to us. And he says here that we don't
seek after ourselves to make ourselves something to you. We're
your servants. Our heart and our desire is that
God might teach you. and that God might be glorified,
and that Christ might be at the center of all of it. See, because
notice, you can talk about the excellency of the power of God
all day long, but if it's not tied back to Jesus Christ, you've
missed what the whole excellency is. The excellency is in the
fact that God has condescended Himself to inhabit Christ Jesus,
who came as man, God and man, and has given himself as a sacrifice
for the sins of his people that those who could not keep the
law and that what the flesh was weak to do in that it could not
keep the law, Christ did on our behalf and that God accepts us
through Christ Jesus. Therefore, there is no need for
us to attempt to be holy because Christ has done it for us. Any
attempts on our part to be accepted before God because of righteous
things that we do is a slap in the face of Jesus Christ whose
whole purpose of being brought forth and for God to fill and
to sinned to us, sinned to earth,
is so that He could accomplish all that we could not. That's
His whole entire purpose. And you're saying, OK, well,
I understand that. That's wonderful. I'm glad He
bled for me. I'm glad He died for me. I'm glad that I'm no
longer going to hell. But for God to smile on me, for God
to take me in, I've got to keep in check with Him every day and
my life has to be... Paul said, ye who have begun
in the Spirit are now made perfect in the flesh. He said that in
Galatians 3. He said, but we have this treasure
in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be
of God and not of us. See, I could care less whether
anybody ever breathes out. I learned this because of Michael
Smith. I could care less because, listen, you could learn something
from Michael Smith and Michael Smith would be wrong. I pray for what Michael Smith
says is in accordance with the Word of God. I pray that what
Michael Smith says is the truth and not my deception of my heart,
the influences that I've had around me, that I have to keep
that form of doctrine because if I don't keep that form of
doctrine, I may incriminate or I may divide myself or I may make my
peers or my friends or my family look bad or something of that
effect. See, at the end of the day, we don't give account to
grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles and mothers and fathers
and sisters and brothers. At the end of the day, we don't
give account on preachers We don't give account on churches
that we attended. At the end of the day, when we
stand before God, we give an account. Did Jesus substitute
for me or did he not? And I have no control over that.
You don't have any control over that. You cannot bring anybody
into the kingdom of God. You cannot birth anybody into
the Kingdom of God. You cannot cause anybody's name
to be written in the Lamb's Book of Life from the foundation of
the world because you're not there. Not to mention it's not your
book. Not to mention God doesn't ask your advice for anything. He says, We are troubled on every
side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not
destroyed. Brethren, listen. People take
this verse out of context all the time. Whatever, things are
hard as Christians. We always say, oh, but the church
of God, we may be cast down, but we're not. What's Paul's
context of this? Being the able ministers of the
new covenant. Being the ones who are telling
the people and commending to their spirit. the truth of God
in the sovereign grace and the sovereign gospel of Christ being
something for His people, God choosing a people, Christ dying
for a people, the Holy Spirit birthing a people and keeping
a people as far as not letting them wander away, as far as teaching
them the truth, as far as being their conscience, as far as being
their guide. Listen, Paul is saying, listen,
those who preach that thing, Guess what we're going to be?
We're going to be troubled on every side. We're going to be
distressed. We are not perplexed. We are
not in despair. We're persecuted but not forsaken,
cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about the body
of the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh
in us, but life in you. Now, I believe this is what Paul
is saying to those people regarding them and the people. We as the
ministers of this covenant are being persecuted and put to death
for it. You, however, are not experiencing
this at this time. So what we are ministering then
is life to you, but death to us. When we preach this message,
it becomes joy and life for you. But for us, who are out there
preaching that and traveling around and encountering all the
opposition, it's death for us. We have in the same spirit of
faith, according as is written, I believed and therefore have
I spoken. We also believe and therefore
speak. That's what I'm saying, I can't help but say what I've
been given to say. I've been given to know. I can't
know what I don't know, and I only can know what I have been given
to know, and what I have been given to know, that's the only
thing that I can speak on. So what does that mean? That
means that I am beholden to God the Spirit to teach me, to correct
me, to convince me, to move me into another way of thinking. See, Lord can't do that to me. Brother Larry can't. Brother
Mark can't. My mom can't. My dad can't. My
grandpa can't. Adrian Rogers couldn't. Gilbert
Beebe can't. John Gill can't. Nobody can sway
us in that. Listen, we have to be taught
of the Spirit. Knowing that he which raised
up the Lord Jesus Christ shall raise us also up by Jesus and
shall present us with you, for all things are for your sakes
that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many,
redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not,
but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed
day by day. For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment working for us a far more excellent and eternal
way to glory, While we look not at the things which are seen,
but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Whenever we are preaching the
doctrine of sovereign grace, and the rejection and the denial,
the opposition, and eventually probably the persecution, while
we look at those things, as he says here, these things are just
temporal. the divisions among family. These things are temporal,
just like the ties of a family. I love my children. I love my
wife. These are temporal things. These only last for the time
that we are here. Whenever we die, those ties go away. In heaven, there are none that
are married. There are none that are tied
by blood-flesh bonds. The only way that we're tied
together in heaven is through the Spirit of God. We're a spiritual
family. A spiritual family. My son will
not be my son. My wife will not be my wife.
My daughters will not be my daughters. If they be children of God and
we all are there together, they will no longer be that, but we
will be brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, to Christ Jesus. We will be in the family of God,
but we will not be what we are here. These things are temporal.
And so while we love our brethren, our friends and our family, and
those ties are really strong A heart grieves whenever one
doesn't believe the truth. While those towels are here,
those things which are not seen far outweigh those things which
are seen. And so, to be an able minister
of the Lord Jesus Christ, whether it be in an official capacity
as one who's been gifted and called by God to preach like
maybe a preacher or a pastor is, or whether it's you in general
that are given other gifts within the church. It doesn't matter.
All of us who have been given to be able ministers of the gospel
of Jesus Christ in some way or another are going to experience
rejection and persecution. We're going to be denied. We're
going to be cast out. We're going to be talked about.
We're going to be looked down upon. There are going to be those
who have Looked at us and said, you know, hey, you're a pope,
or, you know, your own little group of people and everything
like that. But those things are immaterial.
Our commendation is not from them. Our commendation is whether
or not we walk in the truth. And the only way we can know
that is through the Spirit of God. Do not be weary. But thank the Lord that He has
given us to know these things, because He doesn't owe us that,
and we surely didn't work ourselves into the knowledge of it, and
we surely can't keep ourselves in the faith. We must be kept
in the faith by Him. Otherwise, we apostate in no
time. So, it all comes down to Christ
Jesus. Alright, anybody got any questions
or things you'd like to add? All right, let's bow and have
a word of prayer. And I want to remind you guys
to remember Heather. She hurt her foot yesterday, injured her
foot, and it's pretty, pretty bad. She's laid up in there in
the bedroom this morning. But be in prayer for her. She's
got, supposed to be working tonight, so hopefully all that gets worked
out where she can be able to do all that. But keep her in
your prayers this evening and her family. Continue on praying
for their family. Father, we thank you for this
day. We thank you again for the time that we've had together
together. We thank you for the word of God. We thank you for
the people of God. We thank you for the gospel of
Jesus Christ. And Father, when we look at ourselves
in and of ourselves, we know that we are unworthy to be called
the child of God. Lord, we thank you for your mercy. We thank you for your grace.
We thank you that you have sent your son to be our representative
in this world. that we can preach and teach
and boldly come before the throne of God, but also to boldly come
before those in our presence and proclaim the new covenant
and the success of Jesus Christ, not only as Lord, but as Savior. And so, Father, we thank you
that we had this opportunity once again. We do want to lift
up heaven this morning, Lord, We pray that if it be your will
that you would heal her foot up, that you would cause the
pain to go away. Lord, that she'd be able to be
up and able to walk. If not, Lord, we pray that you
would work out her work situation this evening. We pray, Lord,
that you'd be with her family and continue to lift them up
to you, Lord, that your will would be done. Father, we thank
you for all that you've done in our lives, the way you take
care of us each and every day. that you provide for us. Father,
even now we look at the things that's transpired this week in
our country. We know that you are the ordainer
of all things and that no man sits upon any place of leadership
without you first having ordained it. And we don't claim any adherence
or allegiance to a man or to a constitution or to a country.
But Father, we look to you And we know that you have placed
us in the habitation that you've placed us in. Father, we are
grateful that many of the things that are in accordance with your
word are being held by those who you have chosen to put in
power this time. We're thankful that you did not
choose more judgment upon us than you've already shown. but
Lord, we thank you that it seems to be, and even now, Lord, I
speak as a man in the flesh, not knowing whether or not this
is your will or not, but Lord, I pray that what it seems to
be this week has happened, Lord, as signs that you are turning
our country into a different direction, and Lord, we rejoice
that a lot of the things that evil and wicked man desire to
do that you have desired that it not be done. And so, Lord,
we just continue to pray for our country. We pray for those
who believe on Christ Jesus, that their hope might be found
in you and you alone, and not in some political system, and
that through all the adversity, no matter what happens in the
days to come, Lord, we pray that we can still find hope in you,
and that you will keep us rooted and grounded in the faith of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask these things in Christ's
holy and precious name.