John chapter one. John chapter
one. That's where we want to be to
begin with. or if you have feather in your
hand. reveals all that you have done
for your people. Father, Lord, we just pray this morning that
as we gather around it and as we open it up and we speak from
it, Father, we pray that you'd give us utterance, that you'd
give us hearing, understanding. Father, I just pray for these
people here as they continue to look for a pastor. I would
pray, Lord, that you would guide them with wisdom by the word
of God. Lord, I pray for the man that
you have for them preaching what would that it
might be honoring, glorifying to our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. I pray that these things might bring on to him and all of our pain, all of our sorrow,
all of our sicknesses are done away with but father, more importantly,
we look forward to the day of being in your presence for all
eternity and we pray, come quickly, Lord Jesus. But bless us now
in this meantime by your word, for it's in Christ's name that
we pray. Amen. You walk the You walk the aisle of most Christian
bookstores, you're gonna find row after row after row after
row of self-help books. I think the last time that I
was in a Christian bookstore, we had one in Joplin in the mall.
I don't believe it's there anymore. It's moved somewhere else, maybe
even closed down. Every time I go into one, which
is not very often, I go down and I see all these books of
how-to. And as a matter of fact, there's
even more now books that are Christian fiction than there
is of anything else, you know. And then you get finally looking
for the theology and doctrine section. And it's usually off
in a corner somewhere, and it's a row about that long, maybe
a couple of shelves, maybe three or four shelves. Whenever you go to a Christian
bookstore, you find all these self-help books, whether it be How to Be
Born Again, 10 Steps to Christian Maturity, or the most popular,
Your Best Life Now. If there's one subject that seems
to cause the most contention between the professing believers
of God, it's the subject of human free will. That seems to be a
contention among those who are the true believers of God and
those who are not. And as I've said before, It has spanned the course of
time and reaches all the way back to Adam and even back into
heaven itself with Lucifer. In Isaiah chapter 14, we read
where Lucifer himself desired to take control of things, to
set himself above the most high. And he thought that he had a
will of his own and that he could just do this and set himself
above God and be as God. And that's the very lie that
he told to Eve, right? Whenever, oh, yes, half God said,
you know, do what you wanna do. You wanna be like God, that's
the reason he doesn't want you to eat this. He knows that if
you do, then you'll be like him. You'll be able to make your own
decisions and do what you wanna do. You'll be free just like
God is. So this, It's been around for quite a
while now. The false doctrine of self-determination or free
will has been held as a foundational right that all cognitive creation,
men and angels, have. That's kind of the idea. And
it's the very thing that makes us culpable creatures before
God. If we don't have free will, then
how are we to be culpable before God? You know, how are we to
be responsible especially the reform is you
know you got to preach This false doctrine of self-determination
and this being culpable before God is preached by many pulpits
and many verses of scripture called upon to support this false
idea. Most of these verses, though,
are ripped from their immediate context. They're ripped from
the overall teaching of the Bible. They take one line here or there,
one verse here or there, and they rip that from the meaning
3.9 is a great illustration of that,
that God is not willing that any should perish but all come
to repentance. If you look at the context of
that whole entire passage, you'll find that that is speaking of
the elect of God. It's not speaking of everyone
everywhere. But they take these verses and
they rip them out of the, really does teach about these
things. And the main verse we're going to look at in Psalm 110,
it's a very small phrase, but it is packed full of doctrine
in what the Bible teaches overall. If you look there in John chapter
1, now Denny provided a very a show of how God works in bringing
people to him and how we believe and how we come to him. And that's
not by our own ability, but by the work of God alone. And in
John chapter one, if you look down to verse four, or excuse
me, verse 12, it says, but as many as received him. Now, let
me just stop there. How many? As many as. Again, this is a phrase that
is a quantifying phrase. It's only as many as. It's not
everyone, but as many as. If I would say right here that
as many as heard Denny speak, heard him preach about how to
believe, okay? Now, does that mean all you guys
heard that? No, who heard it? as many as
were in the class, right? So whenever I say as many as,
I don't mean all of you guys, because not all of y'all were
in there. But as many as did. That's what we're seeing here.
As many as received him. And that's not saying if you,
it's not an offer, it's not a condition. If as many as you can, come and
believe. If as many as you can, that's
not what it's saying either. Only those as many as received
Him, to them gave He the power to
become sons of God. Now, those of the strife that
like to preach free will, they'll read it this way. But as many
as received Him, to them gave He the power that he gave the power to. The
power that was given is the one that caused them to receive. As many as received him, it was
to them that was given the power to become the sons of God, to
receive it. Now, some will say, well, yeah,
we become sons of God whenever we receive it. Now, doesn't the
Bible tell us that because ye are sons, he has sent his spirit
into us? See, we were already sons of
God before God sent his spirit into us. So it can't be that
we were made the sons of God because we received him or received
his spirit into us. No, we were already sons of God. See, the fact that he, by his
power, See, because of his power, he
made us sons of God, and we receive him because we have been given
that power. And that power was before the
foundation of the world. But it says here, but as many
as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of
God. Now that word even there, you'll
look in your Bible, you'll see it's in italics, that's added
for flow of reading, but it's actually not there in the, the sons of God to them that
believe on his name. To them that believe on his name.
Again, it's just qualifying who this is. It's saying who it is
to them that believe on his name. The people that have been given
power are the ones who are going to receive him. The ones who
have been given power are the ones who are going to believe
on his name. Believe and receive are basically meaning. We also talked in the
last hour, come. When you hear the Bible say come,
that means to believe. Those who come to Christ are
the ones who believe on Christ. Matter of fact, I would be probably
safe in saying that even the word repent itself means to believe
upon Christ because whenever you repent, what you're repenting
from is repenting of dead works, your dead righteous works and
believing on And so all those words are interchangeable. No one can come, no one can receive,
no one can believe, no one can repent, except they are given
power as sons of God. That is what has to take place
first. He says, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, Just because someone wants you
to be a Christian doesn't mean you're gonna be a Christian.
We pray for those that Christ would save them, and we ought
to pray for those who Christ saves. But we can pray and pray
and pray all the day long. That's not gonna be what causes
them to be saved. And don't stop your praying.
The Lord calls us to pray for those. He chooses you. You don't pick,
God picks. Your destiny isn't in your hands,
it's in God's. It's not of your will. Now, to
me, verse 13 is pretty clear. I don't know why there's so much
debate in churches today over this whole thing. This specifically
says that we are not born, and we know this isn't the will of the flesh and by
the will of man right you know there was a time when your mom
and dad decided on some things and here you are today they were
born of blood of the will of the flesh and of the will has absolutely nothing to do
with those three things. So man is not born by his will. And so then he said, you know,
then, you know, how, how is it that that happens if it's not
done that way? Well, look with me, Romans chapter
nine, Romans chapter nine. Look with me It says, what shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? I hope I don't have to ask for a raise of hands if anybody
believes there's unrighteousness in God. Is there any unrighteousness
in God? God forbid. For he said to Moses,
now he's going to give an example here. He's going to give some
proof text on why he can say there is no unrighteousness with
God because God said society we want to we want to
make idols. We want to make Jesus's in our
image. We want to make God in our image. We want to form and fashion him
to be an act how we think he ought to be an act. We want him
to be God is sovereignly free to do
as he wants or not to do as he wants. He has that ability without
becoming unrighteous to do whatever he chooses to do. He is not beholden
to any man or anything. He is not under any law. He is
a lawgiver. He is not under any law. And
so it says here, on whom I will have compassion.
This is directly tied. If you go back and read that
passage in its context in Deuteronomy, you'll see that is directly tied
with his name that he gave Moses, which is I am that I am. I am
the self-existing God. I will do what I will do. And
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. And I
will have mercy on whom I have mercy. So it is not upon man
who wills, but it's upon God who gives mercy. So it isn't about your will or
your actions. It isn't what you want to do
or what you do. But of God that show of mercy.
See, it's only when God shows mercy to someone that they are
born of God. It is only when God shows mercy
to that child of grace that they are born from God. It isn't anything
that man does. All the preaching in the world
will not get anybody saved Then, then and only then, we
see them come to Christ. So we see here that it is based
upon God's mercy. Now, if you remember the last
time I was with you guys, we looked at Ephesians chapter two,
and that said, but God, remember, we talked about that, but God
who is rich in mercy for the love wherewith he loved us, right? It was God who showed us mercy.
coming and being willing to come, coming to Christ, all of that
is because of God's mercy. Now turn with me, if you would,
to Psalms 110. Psalms 110. And I would like
us to look Psalm 110 verse 3 it says, thy
people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. Now where we find this in this But brethren, remember, especially
in the Old Testament, that behind these physical things, there's
always a spiritual reality. There is always a spiritual teaching
behind these things. Doesn't the Bible tell us that
we are to look at the spiritual things as spiritual? We are to
compare spiritual things with spiritual. Whenever the Bible
gives us the things of the Old Testament, it says he writes
these things that you might know Well, are we to know them in
the flesh? No, we're not to know these things in the flesh. Yes,
we have a history book for us here of all these things that
happened to the Israelites and what God did among all those
people, and especially among the Gentiles outside of Israel.
But all those are not written so that we just might have a
history book. All those were written so that it might teach
us We're looking in the wrong direction.
We're looking at something erroneously because all of this scripture,
and Jesus said it himself, these are all about me. And so whenever
we look at this phrase here about the people being made willing
to the power, sure, it's definitely talking about some physical things
that God is doing among the people here in a physical way with physical
activities that's going on. But there's a spiritual reality
behind that. We see that in the spiritual
life, in the spiritual realm, with the spiritual people of
God, that those people are made willing in the day of his power.
Now let's look at this phrase. It says, thy people, notice first
here, this is the objects of his mercy. The objects of his
mercy is thy people, thy people. It's the people of God to whom
God and turn to John chapter 17.
John chapter 17. John chapter 17. This is the Lord's prayer. He says, verse two, as thou hast
given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life,
here's that phrase again, to as many as. To as many as thou
hast given him. There's a specific group of people
that have been given eternal life. And here we see that Jesus
had been given a people by the Father, right? If you look and see, move down
just a little ways, he said, verse five, and now, O glorious
Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, which is the
glory which I had with Thee before the world was. I have manifested
Thy name unto the man which Thou gavest me out of the world. So here again, we see that there
was a group of people that was given to Christ. Thine they were. We were His
before the foundation of the world, brethren. We were God's
people before. And whenever Christ, whenever
it was in that eternal time before creation began, that God fashioned
Christ and brought Him forth as the mediator, that body that
Thou hast prepared for me, and He brought it forth in that glorious
body, and He brought As the mediator, the only mediator
between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, as he stood there,
he stood for us because we have been given to him. See, a mediator
is a mediator between two people, right? Two groups of people.
And he is the mediator between God and man. And that he is standing
as our surety, our everlasting father, the great God, as Isaiah
says, God, and man, he stands as the
man Jesus Christ, and the man Jesus Christ was given a people
to represent. Whenever a lawyer becomes your
lawyer, you become his representation, right? He's your representation. He stands before the judge and
you're but he was given to us. He said,
now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given
me are thee, for I have given unto them the words which thou
gavest me, and they have received them, and know sure that I've
come out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst
send me. I pray for them, I pray not for the world, so here again
there's a distinction between the two groups of people. I pray
for those that's been And all mine are thine, and thine
are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I'm no more
in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee,
Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast
given me, that they may be one as we are one. And there's more
down through 17 that speaks of these things, but I think you
get the understanding there. That there was a people that
was belonging to God first, and been given to Christ as the representative
and mediator. And whenever he gave them to
them, he, as it says there, had been given the power to give
eternal life. He's been given power over all
flesh, but he's been given power to give eternal life to as many
as. So those who are made willing
in the day of God's power are those people. Thy people, the
ones that were thine, and now are Christ's. And Christ stands
for them. And he gives them eternal life.
And by giving them eternal life, he makes them willing. Look with
me, if you would, back to John chapter four. all that the Father gives me.
Not one's gonna be lost, brethren. Not one. We don't have to scour
the earth, preaching the gospel, hoping that we get them all,
and that there will be some that we'll miss, and they're gonna
go to hell, but if we had only got to them, they could have
been saved. good shepherd. Jesus said, I
am the good shepherd. I know my sheep. They hear my
voice and they follow me. They're going to hear his voice.
They're going to follow him. All that the father given me
shall come to me. See that word shall there. That
word is a maybe might, they might come to me, maybe come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. Is there
any way that Christ, who is God, cannot do the will of God? For
him to say that I came down to do the will of the Father is
the same thing as saying I come down to do my own will. Because
the will of the Father and the will of Christ because Christ
is God. All the fullness of the Godhead
dwelleth in him bodily. He is the image of the invisible
God. He is God manifested in the flesh. There can be no other
will except the will of God. God's will is one. He is of one
mind and no man can turn him. He is the one that wills all
things and his will will be done. And so Christ can't do anything
apart from God's will because he would be going against himself
and God cannot deny himself. And this is the father's will
which has sent me that of all which he had given me, there
it is again, those people, all of which he had given me, I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this
is the will of him that sent me that everyone which seeeth
the sun, if you look there in the original, that is in present
tense speech there, it would also be saying like this, that
everyone believing in the sun and believe it, excuse me, everyone
seeing the sun and believing in him, into him is what it actually
means, believing into him may have everlasting life or shall
have everlasting life. See, it's those who, those who,
The will of God is that everyone believing and seeing Christ,
and that is only because they have been given eternal life,
He is gonna raise them up at the last day. He goes on to say
in verse 44, no man can come or believe except the Father
which has sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last
day. can't come except he be drawn
by the Father. And not everybody's drawn. Only
those who are given to the Son are drawn. And we know that because
all those who are drawn are the ones that God raises up at the
last day. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that
hath heard of my father. So you see here,
brethren, as we go back to our When God says something shall
happen, we can trust that it will. There's no variable or
turning in God. What God has purposed and determined
cannot, will not be changed or stopped. He said, my people shall
be willing in the day of my power. There's been a certainty Now I know you've probably heard
Denny say this and probably Tom or Eve's here. Those old Baptists
of old were called hardshells. That actually come from a term,
they were actually called hardshalls. And it was because they stood
on the shalls of God. If God said something shall happen,
it will happen. He shall save his people from,
not mine, but he shall save his people from their sins. You know,
his name is Jesus. Why? Because he shall save his
people from their sins. All that the Father gives me
shall come to me. And those Baptist linked on that,
it wasn't a maybe-so, it was a definite thing. And that's
what we see here. All that the Father gives me
shall come to me. Thy people shall be made willing. There
is a certainty that this mercy will be given to these people
to believe. Thirdly, let's see the action. What we do is determined by God,
everything by God. Does the Bible say that it is
God who works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure? So the very willing that you
do is God. The very work that you do is
God. It's him that does that. So I
have no problem. Call it what you will. We are
his creation. We are his sheep. We are his
people. We are his. And he does with
us what he wants. Whenever he talks about being
the potter and we are the clay, does the potter say it? This
is what I want to be? No. Does the pot say, I don't
like what I am, so I'm going to change what I am and become
something else? No, it has no say-so in what
it's become, and it has no say-so in what it stays as, or whether
it's demolished and thrown away. It has no will of its own. We, though we make choices, though
we do things, the Bible says that it's not in man to know
what to do. That's paraphrased. The Bible
also says that man may devise his ways, but it is God who directs
his steps. Because the way of man is not
ending. God does this. So we are made
willing. There's no doubt that whenever
a child of grace has been given spiritual life with spiritual
receptors, eyes, ears, heart, that they with all their heart
desire to come to Christ. Let me ask all you brethren here
that has looked upon Christ and come to Him and are hoping in
Him for your salvation. Whenever that time came, whenever
you felt the weight of your sin and seeing your need for Christ
and seeing the salvation of God before you, wasn't your heart
overjoyed and you gladly come to Christ, trusting in Him? You
loved Him. You came to Him. You desired
Him. There wasn't nothing that was
gonna keep you from coming and trusting in Christ Jesus. And
I'm not talking about coming to the front of a church or coming
through a baptist. I'm talking about when you come
to Him, believing and seeing there is nothing that I can do.
I need Him. Didn't you come just full head
of steam, willing? Well, that was because you See, you were given spiritual
receptors and we came to Him willing, but it was because God,
by His power, made us willing. Because apart from that, we are
not willing. Matter of fact, Jesus said it
many times. He said, you know, you're not
willing. You're not willing. He said, you always resist the
Holy Ghost. He said, you don't believe on
me because you're not my sheep. He said, you can't believe on
me because you're of your father, the devil. They're made willing. Scripture
proclaims that they do the will of God from the heart. We do
the will of God from the heart. We truly believe that. We don't
preach anything else. We preach that we truly do the
will of God from the heart. And the Bible also says that
we have obeyed from the heart, that form of doctrine, which
was delivered to us. We do it from the heart. But
brethren, don't forget that it is God who makes His people willing. God's people and only His people
shall, and without any doubt, be His people shall be willing in
the day of his power. Now men can think that they can
teach and convince others by coercion and bring men to God.
Diddy speaks in there in your Sunday school room and he teaches
and it's a good thing. Pastor stands up here behind
a pulpit and preaches every Sunday and Wednesday if you have Wednesday
services, preaches and that's any man anything else in the
spiritual. Only the Spirit of God is the one that teaches any
man anything. What Denny does is confirm to
those who have been born of God the truth of God. And their heart,
the Spirit of God in them, testifies to them that that is the truth.
or it convicts their heart and leads them to the word of God.
And like Berean, good Bereans, they go to the word of God to
see whether those things be true or not. There may be some things
that might be said, whether it be about, did you hear any other
preacher or me or whatever. God's word, the Holy Spirit will
testify to us the things that are the truth, or it will show
us those things that are wrong and those things that are wrong.
We have ways of dealing with those things, but we see here
that men try to convince other men by coercion to believe on
God, but brethren, nobody can coerce anybody to believe. I mean, I've seen that all growing
up, men trying to coerce other men, you know, having 25 verses
of, you know, just as I am. Trying to browbeat people down
to the front of the church to make a confession of faith. Trying
to browbeat people through the baptistry. Listen, if God is
not making them willing to do those things, us doing something
and making them do it is not gonna do anything for them. Matter
of fact, it's gonna be like Jesus told the Pharisees, he's gonna
make two-fold the child of hell. There's also the notion that
one can just at any time believe and receive Christ whenever they
choose. However, we learn from this very passage that the child
of grace shall be willing, but it will be in the day of God's
choosing. Remember, whenever Paul was on
his way to Damascus, it was in the appointed day of
God's choosing. Paul said in Galatians chapter one, verse
15, he says, but when it pleased God who separated me from my
mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in
me. When it pleased God is when it
happened. See, Paul wasn't even searching. There's no such thing. The Bible
says there's none that seeketh after God. The only ones who,
wait preacher, don't the Bible say, seek ye first the kingdom
of God? Does it say, seek while ye may
be found? Are we supposed to seek? Well,
who are the ones who seek? There's the angel question again.
Who are the ones that believe? Who are the ones that repent?
Who are the ones that come? life. Whatever it pleased God was whenever
Paul was born from above, was converted of the gospel. Two
separate things, by the way, being born again and being converted
of the gospel. See, this was the day of God's
choosing, not Paul's. Paul became willing in that day,
and he became willing, didn't he? He was on his way to persecute
the church, to kill Christians. He wasn't just kind of kicking
his feet as he's going down the road saying, man, I really don't
want to do this, but Gamaliel is sending me down here. No,
he was zealously, he himself said, hey, I was zealously doing
this thing. I thought I was doing God a service
by going and eradicating these people called the way. And that's
not what happened on the way to Damascus. He got shut down. God, by irresistible grace, born
him from above, converted him to the gospel. And guess what? Whenever he told him to get up
and go to the street called Straight, and there's a man, I got to wait
for him to get there. All right, I'm going. I've got something
for you to do. Whenever he got there, and Ananias
talked to him and he said, hey man, you're going to the Gentiles.
Listen, Paul never turned back around and said, maybe not, don't
think so. Let me go confer with somebody.
No, he went straight away. Whenever Jesus was gathering
up those apostles and disciples and he was going along with C.
Shorty, he said, follow me. Well, wait, wait, now let me
go get, I better go tell my wife. Better go pick up my kids from
school You know, get a plan together first. No, what do they do? They
cast down their nets and they got up and they followed him.
He didn't say, if you'll follow me, I'll make you fishers of
men. He said, follow me, I'll make you fishers of men. And
he did. See, they were made willing in
the day of God's power. Thy people shall be. power. Without the overcoming
power of God's free and sovereign grace in giving life to the spiritually
dead sinner, there never will be a willing, ever will be a
willing. John 5 39 says, search the scriptures
for in them you think you have eternal life and they are they
which testified me and ye will not come to me that ye might
have life. See people will do anything to from above. See, they think they
can search the Scriptures to tell them what they need to do.
If you'll just do this, then you can be born again. So they
search the Scriptures. They go to those bookstores and
find those books, you know. But brethren, listen. The book
that says how to be born again if you open it up, all the pages
are blank. Nothing in there. There's nothing you can do to
be born again. It's in the name of His power. And so Jesus here
was saying, you guys think that you can find eternal life and
get eternal life by works of the law, by works of the flesh. But he said, that's not how you
get to heaven. That's not how you become my child. See the source of our willingness
found in the power of God. See, it's in Him. It is God who
works in you to will and to do His good pleasure. It's not of
blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man as we've
read. The Holy Spirit records for us, but the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. How come? because he doesn't have the mind
of Christ. He has the mind of Adam. The mind of Adam, he finds
it foolish, just like he did back in the garden. He found
the law of God, don't eat, foolish. Well, that's crazy. He put the
tree here. It's good to know the difference
between good and evil to know right from wrong is to make me
like God. See, we have the mind of Adam
who doesn't know right. The natural man receives not
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto
him. But that doesn't just stop there.
He says, neither can he know. It's not just a willingness to
know. See, people stop at that first phrase and they say, well,
that's just a will, they have a willingness not to know. If
you'll just teach them, if you'll just keep at them, just keep
harping at them, you just keep digging at them, just chip away,
chip away. You'll eventually get down there
to that heart. You'll eventually get into that
mind. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be repetitive, we
shouldn't keep after and be long-suffering with people and continue to preach
the gospel. I'm, again, not saying that,
but what I'm saying is that's not what gets it done. It says here, it goes on, it
says, neither can he know, there's an ability issue here. See, it's
not total depravity, it's total inability that we have. Yes, all men are depraved, but
all men don't act as depraved as they actually are. But all
men can't escape their inability. They have an inability to know
spiritual things. They have an inability to understand
the things of the Spirit of God, because the only one that can
know the things of the Spirit of God is the Spirit of God in you. That's the only thing. And so
we cannot know them because they're spiritually discerned. So what
does that mean? That means that we have to be made spiritual
to know spiritual things. And the only way one is made
spiritual is whenever they are born from spiritual things. And Paul tells us there in that
passage in Corinthians, he says, now we have received
not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God,
why? That we might know the things
that are freely given to us, not the things that are offered
to us, not the things that are earned by us, not the things
that we can buy or trade or barter for. No, the child of grace,
when the spirit of God comes and gives them the mind of Christ,
only looks to the salvation If they're still looking to buy,
sell, and trade, and work, they've not been given the mind of Christ.
The mind of Christ sees free, so that we might know the things
that are freely given to us. For what man knoweth the things
of a man, save the Spirit of man which is in him? Even so
the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. And God hath revealed them unto
us by this Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the
deep things of God. It's actually that passage of
scripture in Corinthians is good if you start at verse 16 and
read backwards. It actually gives a lot more
light to some of these things to you. But brethren, until one
is made spiritual by the sovereign power of God in the new birth,
the stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears will always
resist the Holy Ghost. But praise God, thy people will
be made willing in the day of thy power. Heavenly Father, we
come to you now and we just thank you so much for Christ Jesus.
We thank you for the Spirit of God who comes and gives life,
gives understanding, Father, we thank you for your
grace that has been given. We know that none are worthy,
that none deserve your mercy or grace, and that even though
that we are chosen of God, elect from all of the world, Father,
we know that we do not deserve that. It's not because of something
special. He didn't look down the corridor
of time, but father, you saw your son and him only dying for
people. And those people that he died
for, those are the ones that you justify, that you impute
righteousness. might be made known, that at
the end of time, no man's hands has been put on anything that
you have done so that anyone could boast, but that we might
boast in Christ alone. Father, I pray for these brethren
that are here. I pray, Lord, that this message rings true
to their heart and that it is a sounding of glad tidings, that
it is a source of great joy might give life and understanding,
conviction of sin, drawing of God to Christ, that they might
come even today, believing upon Christ, confessing their sins. Father, Lord, we just praise
you for all that you have done for us, for keeping us safe through
this year, looking forward to the year to come. In humanly
speaking, I as Lord this year has been has been by your purpose and
by your design and decree that all these things take place.
And for the child of grace, we know that all things work together
for good to them who are of the call, to them who love God. Father,
we know that these things are the outworking of your perfect,
wise decree in bringing your people to Christ, conforming
us to the image of God. and for his return. Lord, we
just thank you for it all. We pray that you would make us
faithful, keep us faithful in all these times of doubt. It's in Christ's name that we
pray.