How many of you have a Bible
with you? How many of you do not have a Bible with you? How
do you know I'm going to tell the truth? Those of you without a Bible,
I can lie to you and you'd never know. Bring your Bible. Check him out. Read the Scripture. Study the Scripture. They're
the words of life. The reason you die out there
is because you don't have the words of life. Take the words
of life, the bread of life in you, and have a happy life. What we talked about Wednesday
evening, joy, all right. If you found it, say, Amen. Ephesians chapter 1, Paul, an
apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, that's the only
way you can become an apostle. To the saints which are at Ephesus
and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you, peace
from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath, past
tense, blessed us with what? All spiritual blessings. Where? In heavenly places, in Christ. All that's already done. He's
already blessed us. All those blessings are in His
storehouse. And when we are born and come into the world, those
blessings begin to trickle down to us. Sometimes they are showers
of blessings. But they were all prepared for
us, bought and paid for. Every day is Christmas for a
Christian. All kinds of gifts God gives to us every day. According
as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.
Isn't that amazing? Chosen of God. that we should
be holy and without blame. That's a marvel too, that we
should be holy and without blame. God's fixed it, because down
here we get dirty, don't we? We should be holy and without
blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ Himself, according to the good pleasure
of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein
He hath made us accepted in the beloved. Now that's what we've
been talking about for several Sundays here. Accepted in the
beloved. Boy, it's so important to know
you're accepted. It's a good feeling to be accepted
and to know you're accepted. And whether you're eight or eighty,
you're always striving for that acceptance. Peer pressure. We
want to be accepted. Young people become immoral because
they want to be accepted. Young people get drunk because
they want to be accepted. People use because they want
to be accepted. It's so very, very important.
I don't think many Christians really have what the songwriter
said, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste
of glory divine. I know God's accepted me, and
it sustains me every day. I'm accepted. I'll never be taken
out of the will. Even when I'm my lowest, at my
lowest, and have done the lowest, I know I'm accepted because my
acceptance had nothing to do with me. See, the reason you
don't feel accepted is because you base your acceptance on what
you do. How much you go to church, how
much tithe you give, how much you don't drink, don't use, don't
do this, don't do that. And your acceptance isn't based
on that at all. In fact, it has nothing to do
with it. Amen? It's kind of hard for us to enter
into that. Boy, if you could enter into
it, you'd go like this. Man, I'm glad that's true. That's
the best news I ever heard. It's not up to me. I've been
accepted outside of myself. The best about me or the worst
about me doesn't matter when it comes to acceptance. I'm accepted
in the Beloved, in Jesus Christ. And therefore, I'm always accepted.
I can't be taken out of the will. What a glorious thing this is,
when you begin to consider that you are accepted. Many people
don't know they're accepted because they're not in churches that
preach the gospel. Well, I want to tell you this. Here at our
church, and it's true of every church, without this truth, there
is no power. There is no joy. Your life is
going to be miserable until you come to really understand how
God has accepted you. Because you're going to always
be trying, and it's never going to be enough. You'll put on your
mask, pretend you're an outstanding Christian giant, And you'll be
nothing more than a hypocrite. Assurance comes when we get to
this place, I know what I am in my flesh. In my flesh dwells
no good thing. So I quit trying to impress you.
I quit pretending. I relaxed. And I began to declare
to you and to everybody else, I am what I am by the grace of
God. And I never look down on anybody
else who's in a mess because I say, There go I, but for the
grace of God. Now, most of you know in here
Mr. Guvery messed up last night.
No one in here can point at him and say anything about him except,
There go I, but for the grace of God. A songwriter wrote these words
prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave
the God I love." Anybody identify? I have this fleshly tendency. If you've ever been rejected
by mom or dad, you know what it is to question love. If you've
been betrayed by a spouse, you know what it is to question love. And you feel like that's kind
of the way it works with God. But it's not, not at all. Boy,
you've got to get your eyes off this way, start looking this
way. Look unto Me, all ye ends of
the earth, and be ye saved. I'm God and there is none other.
There is salvation in no other place. Any of you have gotten
dumped by somebody you loved, a traumatic rejection, you struggle
with this thing, Does God love me? Those of you who never could
get your dad or mother to stroke you in the sense of good job,
you never got their acceptance. They always expected more. You
have real issues. It's hard for you to feel like
you're accepted. And it's only as we come to know
this Gospel of Jesus Christ do we begin to know I'm accepted. And it's wonderful. It's glorious,
this love of God. And when you began to see that
God has loved you unconditionally, that you really had absolutely
nothing about it to do with it. You had nothing to do with it.
It wasn't because you were good or better than somebody else
that you're saved. It's pure grace, which is undeserved
favor. Everybody that goes to heaven
goes there undeserving. If you go to heaven, it will
be God's fault, not yours. Amen. You did your best to stay
out. You've been apprehended. He caught
up with you. He was faster than you. Accepted in the beloved. And
God has loved us with an everlasting love. If you listen to what these
preachers are saying, they are so off base. So off base. You know, it's almost like you
must be born again and again and again and again. It's almost
like God says, I love you today, and then tomorrow when you're
messing up, He goes, hmm, I'll never claim you. Not like that
at all. God's in it with us for the long
haul. We're in His will and will never
be taken out. Why, He has loved us as He loved
His own Son. And old John on the Isle of Patmos
said, Behold! Which means, when you see that
in King James, it means, Look at this! Look at this! What manner of love is this? Unspeakable! Its height, its
depth, its width, its breadth, I cannot know! It is joy unspeakable
and full of glory. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. Do you stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder that He could love you, a sinner
condemned unclean? I'll tell you what's wrong with
the church today. We're too fancy. We're too churchy. You never
worship until you're caught up in the wonder. You complain and
grumble. As long as you're thinking this,
what a mess I am. What a degenerate I was. How ugly I was. You talk about
the ugly duckling. I was the ugly duckling personified,
but He loved me in spite of it and saved me. And now I'm as
stupid as a sheep. Don't think the Lord was complimenting
you when He called you a sheep. A dog has more sense than a sheep.
You can take a dog in a car and drop it off, it'll find its way
back home. We used to have an old dog when we lived in Lowe's,
Kentucky. We'd take that thing, my dad would, drop it off somewhere,
you know, at the neighbor's house, way down the road, somewhere.
It'd be home before we got back. But you know what? A sheep will
get out of the pen and wander and wander and wander and wander. And were it not for the fact
that you have a good shepherd, you'd go to hell. Amen. He seeks His wandering sheep
until He finds them. Oh, I'm accepted. We believers
are accepted, and it's glorious and wonderful. But then last
week, last Sunday, I began to talk to you about this. How could
He? How could God accept me? Now, you know God doesn't sweep
sin under the rug, right? Are you with me there? God does
not camouflage sin. God does not go like this when
you're doing bad and every once in a while take a peat and then
take His hands off when He sees you're doing good. God is not
a fuddy-duddy, granddaddy, Santa Claus type God. He is holy, holy,
holy. He is of purer eyes than to look
upon sin. The sun, moon and stars are not
pure, how much less you and I. Then how can He accept us? The
big question is, how can God, who is holy and just, go down
into the coal mine of sin and lay hold on a dirty, filthy piece
of sinner like me and not get Himself dirty? That's the question. And the only answer to that question
is the gospel. Two things. God demands righteousness. God demands righteousness and
you can't produce it. So we've got a problem. How many
examples do we have today of people signing on for the long
haul and not following through? We have so many. You make New
Year's resolutions. Some of you are getting ready
for New Year's Day. You're going to lose 20 pounds in the next
60 days. Some of you are going to become millionaires before
the year is out. You already know you're not going
to do it. I'm going to get better. I'm going to turn over a new
leaf. No hope there. You and I must produce a perfect
righteousness if we're going to go to heaven. We've got to
have the very righteousness of God if we're going to make it.
There is a righteous demand on you, on every one of us here
today, There is a righteous demand made of God. You come to my heaven,
you have to be as righteous as I am. God only accepts perfect
righteousness. It's a demand. He says the only
way I can ever accept you is not if you do the best you can.
How many times do I hear that a week? Doing the best I can.
It's not good enough. God does not accept the best
you can. I'm doing all I can. Not good
enough. I didn't tell you to do the best
you can. I told you to bring me a perfect, unsinning righteousness. Bring it to me. What happens
when we tell people the gospel? Inevitably, they say this. I'm
pretty good. I'm real good. I'm not as good
as others, but still not as bad as others. I tell you, it will
not do. Because pretty good, real good,
not as good as others, but still not as bad as others, will not
do. God demands righteousness. Are you with me? So, forget keeping
five of the commandments. Don't start that stuff with me
about them keeping the commandments. You don't even know them. Well,
I know ten of them. Yeah, but there's over five hundred
in the New Testament. Five thousand direct commands
of God. How many of you got them memorized?
All you folks that are trying to go to heaven by your works,
trying to produce a righteousness by your works, you got all 5,000
memorized? And are you doing them inside
and out? You see, God demands that you
be as clean as a houndstooth, not only on the outside, but
on the inside. You got to be clean outside and
inside. And some of you have a bright,
sparkling cup on the outside, but, oh, inside that cup is filthy. And you know it. You are living
a hypocritical religious life. You're a member of somebody's
church. You're a Lutheran. You're a Baptist. You're a Presbyterian. You're a Catholic. You're a Church
of God. You're a Church of God in Christ.
You're a Church of God in Christ, First Pentecostal. You're a First
Church of God in Christ, Pentecostal, tongue-talking. You're a First
Church of God in Christ, Pentecostal, tongue-talking, prophecy-speaking
church. And on and on and on and on and
on it goes. It won't do. In fact, God hates
your works and calls them this. They are works of unrighteousness. Every time you try to go to heaven
by something you do, God is angry with that work. Amen? I have
a demand upon me to produce a perfect righteousness. And if God gave
me a million years, I could never reach the demand. I could never
present to God a perfect righteousness, and neither could you, because
sin is the problem. Sin prevents me from producing
a perfect righteousness. Why? Some of you sinned in the
last five minutes in this service. Where have you been? You're looking
at me like this. But you're not here. In fact,
some of you right now are very tired. You just assumed I didn't
say this. In fact, You're angry at what
I'm saying because you know you cannot produce a perfect righteousness
and you don't want to hear it. In fact, I've made some of you
mad because I've talked about tongue-talking and I've talked
about your church. You have it all wrapped up in
a nice little package. And God's going to throw it in
the fire one day, too, with its bow and all of its prettiness,
and you with it. because God demands righteousness. There's another problem. This
is a big one. Not only is there a demand for
righteousness, but I've got another problem. I've got a debt. I've
got a debt I can't pay. Now, let me get this right. Preacher,
are you saying that God demands righteousness and I can't produce
it? And now you're saying that I
have a debt. That's right. It's called a sin
debt. What are you going to pay with? Who's all sin against? Who do you owe? Yes, the justice
of God. Because every sin and every disobedience
must receive a just recompense of reward. Every time you thought
a sin, every time your motive was not to the glory of God,
God said, I've got to punish that. That's sin. Somebody's
got to pay the price. You're going further in debt
every day that you live. Sin. Debt. Debt. You're getting further behind.
You're drowning in a sea of debt. Have you ever seen anybody riding
around in a fancy car with fancy clothes and they're bankrupt?
That's the way church people do. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. You've got a debt you
cannot pay. The wages of sin is death. And he's not talking about grave
death. He's talking about the second death in hell. Oh, I believe
in hell. If I didn't believe in hell,
I wouldn't believe in God. Because the God of the Bible is righteous
and just, and therefore there has to be a place where sinners
are punished. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
written in the book to do them. There's a debt. A debt spelled
out in terms of death. The wrath of God. Everlasting
punishment. And God requires of me that I
pay that debt. And the only way that I can begin
to pay that debt and yet never pay it off, never reach that
day when the final installment is made, is that I die physically
and spiritually under the wrath of God on account of my sin debt. A demand and a debt. A demand
none of you or I can meet and a debt none of us can pay. And I know that there are some
of you right here, right now, are saying things like, I can
pay it. I can pay it. Pay it for myself. And I want to ask
you, what will you do in the day of God's pure wrath? You know what you are. And you know you are a sinner. And you know you're a hypocrite
when you say you are not. And you know there's a God, and
He's righteous, and He demands a righteousness from you. and
you have a debt because of sin. That's a big problem. Big problem. You cannot pay it. Those in hell
shall suffer in hell forever and never pay it. Amen. The debt,
the justice of God. So, how can God accept me when
the demand is upon me? A demand I can't meet. I can't
produce a perfect righteousness. I've tried. How many of you have
tried? Oh, yes. The rest of you are
liars. Everybody in here has tried. You've pretended. Of course
you've tried. You've tried to go to church
enough. You've tried to be good enough. You have made New Year's
resolutions. You have tried. I've got this
debt on me. It seems like the faster I go,
the behinder I get. I can't even suffer in such a
way as to pay my sin debt. So I'm kind of hoping God will
let me off. He won't. He won't. God's not
going to let you off. I go to court almost every week
with somebody. And thank God for some of the
Oakland County judges. They let you off. I was in court
with Milton. I thought for sure we were in
a heap of trouble. I'm sitting right on the front
row so the old judge can see me. I know the old judge. He's looking at me. But when
he's talking to Milton, he's acting like Milton's faith was
strong. getting kind of weak. I thought
the old boy would wave at me or something, you know. I mean,
I'm the reverend, right? But you know he didn't. He just
glared kind of at Milton. He let Milton come back with
me. Just as he was leaving the court, the old judge goes, I felt so much better. But God
will not wink. God won't blink. I hope you are
sick of perverted religion today, which never gets below the surface. That superficial, fake surface
of religion never gets down there where you live. Jack Daniels
doesn't damn people. You can name your children Jack.
It's okay. The sin nature damns people. But because of this superficial
preaching, You know, let's get rid of all the alcohol, get rid
of all the powdery white stuff, get rid of all the heroin, get
rid of all the pornography. That's not the problem. Then you've got to walk the aisle,
preacher, raise the hand, make a decision, change your language,
step over the line, come to the altar, pray through, pray in,
pray up, do something. All superficial. You've got a
big problem because sin is what you are. You see, sins are what
come out of what you are. The reason you commit sins is
because you are sinned. That's why you have to be born
again. And born again is not something you do. I had nothing
to do. I did not say to anybody, I want
to be born on October 24, 1944 in Lowe's, Kentucky. I had nothing. to do with it. I was just there
when it happened. Amen? It was a miracle. How come
you don't evidence a power in your life? The power of the Gospel. We must come to know and perceive
what God has done to meet the demands of His righteousness
and what God has done to pay the debt which we owe to His
holiness. And it is this which is the Gospel. Do you know the Gospel? The Gospel
says somebody made a robe of righteousness that fits you. And somebody paid a debt that
you could not pay in your stead, in your room, and in your place,
and therefore you go free. Isn't that something? Not anything I've done, anything
I hope to do, not anything I can persuade you to do. The preacher
this morning on television has said, Jesus can't do anything
unless He has something to work with. Poor, pitiful little Jesus. I'm going to tell you, Jesus
is not in a manger. And Jesus is not on a cross.
He's sitting on a throne. He's King of kings and Lord of
lords. And He's passing by today, and
He can save you or damn you and still be Lord of lords and King
of kings. He doesn't even have to look
your way. I am accepted because of what God has done in Jesus
Christ alone. That's why I'm a Jesus freak.
That's why I give Him all the credit. That's why when somebody
brags on me, I go, Oh! I know who I am. I'm glad I know
who He is too. This is good news. Isn't that
good news? A righteousness you couldn't
produce, God has produced it in Jesus Christ. And think about
this. Think about all your worming around. Think about it. Just
think where you've been. Think what you have thought and
didn't do, but wanted to. Think about the ditches God dug
and said, you can go this far, but no further. Think about it. Think about the crazy thoughts
that cross your mind. Think about the temptations that
you have. This is good news that somebody
came down here as my representative. You know why Jesus was the perfect
man? Because He had to be the perfect
man in order to produce a righteousness. Because you needed it. You had
to have it. I had to have a righteousness
that God would accept. And Jesus Christ, in all of His
doing and dying, produced that righteousness. And you see, that
righteousness is imputed to me. It's charged to me. It's accredited
to me. as if I did really produce it. And God sees me as righteous
as His own Son. Isn't that... How else could
it be? I mean, have you ever thought
about it? How else could it be? How could
you ever produce a righteousness? Think about it, folks. This is
not the good church. This is not First Baptist Church
over in Bloomfield Hills. This is not the uptown church. This is us. I mean, just between
us girls, we're a mess. This is a messed up church. Everybody
here from former pimps, we have some pimps here today, prostitutes,
some prostitutes here today, alcoholics, what do they need?
They need a perfect righteousness. What if I had no message for
you? What if I said to all you pimps,
you've got to turn over a new leaf and get better. You better
quit standing on the street corner looking like a pimp and acting
like a pimp. and selling the women. You've
got to change your way of living. You'd better get started pretty
soon because you're 35 years old. You've got a lot of time
to make up. You've got a lot of righteousness.
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Change! Change! You're not going to change? What
do you mean you're not going to change? Didn't you just hear
me tell you there was a hell and you had to have a righteousness?
Aren't you going to even attempt to change? If this gospel were
not true, I'd get me a bottle of Jack Daniels. Because we're
all going to hell anyway. There is no hope outside of this
gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, I saw you 20 years ago. I saw you 20 years ago. I saw
what religion was doing over there at Pontiac Rescue Mission.
The Ten Commandments all over the walls. do's and don'ts everywhere,
a pharisaical board, a legalistic bunch of people teaching classes
over there to some men who were stoned out of their mind with
a hopeless, glaring look. Same people in, same people out,
feed them, clothe them, shelter them, throw food into their cage
like a bunch of animals. There was never any change. And
then Jesus came. Then the glad tidings came. Then
the good news came and lives began to be changed. I saw it
happen. I'm seeing it happen. God acted
in His own Son when I could not act. Have you ever thought about
it? One day, one day when sin was as black as could be, one
day God said, Go, my son, represent them. Go to earth. And every
once in a while, God would open heaven and say, This is my boy. This is my boy. This is my son. Hear ye him, and then you, you
maggot, come up and say your righteousness is going to please
God, your goody-two-shoes stuff. God will damn you for that. You
spit in the face of God when God sent His only begotten Son
into the world. You could produce a righteousness
and you claim your own. All of you Pharisee Bible-thumpers
here today, you're going to go to hell because God is going
to get all the glory for the salvation of sinners. Not you.
Not me and God got a good thing going. It's God all by Himself
that saved us. And He deserves all the glory.
Are you still with me or are you getting mad? God did it in
Jesus Christ. He was without sin. He knew no
sin. He had no sin. He did no sin.
And I was in Him as He did good every day. As He always pleased
the Father, I was in Him. And God said, I'm accrediting
that to Kent Ward Clark. And over here on the capitalism
side, on the goods, not on the dead side, but a righteousness
began to be imputed to the good side of the ledger. And before
you know it, I stand in Christ complete, righteous. Isn't that
something? When God looks me over, there
will not be spot or blemish or any such thing. Yesterday, I
took some of the used gold and diamonds into the jewelry store
that we got when we were trying to raise the $300,000. And the
jeweler said this, well, let me check them out. He went back
there and looked through that microscope. He said, this is
a fake. And he saw one diamond and he
said, and this one has charcoal spots in it. It's a yellow diamond,
not worth too much. You know, one of these days I'm
going to stand before God and God's microscope is going to
be on me and there's not going to be a spot of carbon or wrinkle
or any such thing. It's going to be a real diamond,
one of God's jewels. Because of God, I have a righteousness. imputed to them. Have you ever
thought about this verse? Blessed is the man to whom God
refused to charge sin. Now, I'm going to tell you this.
When we sin, the devil says to God, Look! Do you see space? Do you see what he's thinking
right now? Do you see space? Right now! Do you see it, God?
No, I don't see it. What do you mean you don't see
it? Look at him! No, no, not there. Your sins and your transgressions
will I remember no more." They're dumped in the sea of God's forgetfulness. They're covered by the blood
of Christ. Isn't that good to us mess-ups? Aren't we happy
about that? I'm happy about that. Some of
you live under this religion, you know, I've got to do good
or God's going to get me, God's going to kill me. You know, God
doesn't abuse His children. You know what God constantly
says through the Gospel? I love you. Whoever that is accusing
you, it's not God. Amen. Come on now. I'm going
to get happy all by myself if you don't get happy with me.
It is not God. God never accuses you of sin.
God never says, You know what you did in 1962. You know what
you did in 1978. You know what you did in 1986.
You need to look back at it. Don't get too haughty now. Remember
what you did. Remember what you did. And if
you don't, some other demon will remind you in the person of a
human being. Isn't it a wonderful thing? that
God doesn't remember. And not only that, but you've
got a big lawyer right there at the hand of God who's never
lost a case. His name is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has never
lost a case. The Bible says the blood of Christ
cleatheth better things than that of Abel. The blood of Christ
goes like this. Got him covered. Got him covered. Got him covered.
Lucifer is so frustrated. Got him covered. Got him covered.
Got him covered. Got him covered, covered, covered,
covered. Sometimes Jesus has to speak
really fast. Covered, covered, covered, covered.
Because you know, you're sinning pretty fast. Amen. Got him covered. And Mr. Gary, if you're the Lord, you
can put your head up today. Thank God he's got me covered.
Now, there are consequences to our sins, right? Just natural
consequences. But as far as condemnation, there's
no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. Amen. Now, I want you to just think
about this real quick. Do you know this debt thing? Do you understand your debt has
been paid? It's a great thing to be debt
free. I used to know that before we started Seneca Street. I don't
know that anymore, but I used to know what it meant to be debt
free. Do you know your debt's been paid? You see, what Jesus
came to do was pay your debt and to produce this righteousness.
Now, if Jesus just paid your debt, you'd be naked. But He
paid your debt and then put His righteousness on you. So it's
a two-fold lesson. First of all, think about, you
know, the top ten. You have a top ten. I'm not talking
about your good things. I'm talking about the ten worst
things you've ever done. It shouldn't take you that long.
Ten horrible things. You've thought in word or deed.
And one day, the sun refused to shine. And the one on the
middle cross cried out, Eli, Eli, lama, sebastian, which is
to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Here's why. He knew the answer to that question.
Sin got to going the other way. Sin was imputed. I think it started
in the Garden of Gethsemane. The big computer of all of our
sins began to be imputed to Christ. And he fell in Gethsemane and
said, I'm about to die. Don't let me die. Let this cup
pass from me. I've got to go to Calvary. I
can't die here in Gethsemane. This load is heavy, this load
of sin, this load of iniquity. strange and awful sensation began
to come over him. Think about it. The horrors of
sin. He'd never known sin, never felt
sin, never thought sin. And all of a sudden, God's computer
began to transfer your tin-top sins to Jesus Christ, and he
fell beneath the load. And God said, one of you boys,
one of you angels, go down there and pick him up. The Bible says
an angel came and ministered to him. You think about it. That
angel who picked up His Creator, sustained Him, helped Him up,
sustained His Creator. What was going on there? What
you did in the hood, what you did in the darkness, what you
thought in the deep recesses of your mind, what you plotted,
what you planned, all of your curse words, your hate, your
malice, your maliciousness, your lustfulness, your concupiscence,
all of it was transferred to Jesus Christ. And then God pulled
out His black snake whip and said, It's payment time. And
the Bible says that God began to beat him. Hear me now. There
ought to be a shout in this church right now when I say this, And
by His stripes we are healed! All of my sins were rolled away. Hey, Basil, don't you remember
what you did in such a... Yeah, but God doesn't. He doesn't
hold it against me. I'm so glad to be a Christian.
I am so glad to be a Christian. He has redeemed me. He walked
into the slave market of sin and bought me not only off of
the market, but out of the market. I'm not a slave to sin anymore. I'm a joint heir with Jesus Christ.
My name's written down. I'm an heir. I have an inheritance. There's a mansion just over the
hilltop, a mansion prepared for me. If I go away, I will come
again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there you may
be also. In My Father's house are many mansions. Don't let
your heart be troubled. I'm coming back for you." Oh,
yeah. I know where I came from. I know
what I'm doing here. I know where I'm going when I
die. I know I have status and standing before God. I'm accepted
in the beloved. I don't need your praise. Some
of you are so pitifully insecure that you're always looking to
be stroked. Jealous, if somebody gets a little
attention, more than you. Somebody on the outside said
to me last week, you know, there's a lot of jealousy among your
staff about your attention. Really? And I said to them, then
those that are jealous have not entered into the Gospel yet.
Because as you enter into the Gospel, you know who you are.
You know you're something special and unique. And God has paid
your debt. and clothed you with a righteousness
and preordained your good works, that you can't fail, that you're
more than a conqueror, that you can do all things through Christ."
I said, you know, if you've heard Clark, you've heard him. That's
right. But many of you have not heard me yet. Oh, you attend
church here, but your action shows you haven't got it yet.
You haven't heard me yet. So I just keep preaching the
same thing over and over and over. Besides that, I don't have
anything else to preach. As soon as you start living it
out, no, we won't change our message here. No, because more
folks will come who are insecure. Amen? I was thinking about Joe
laying over there in the hospital. You know, his mother told me,
she said, two weeks after he came to Grace Centers, God saved
him. And he told me, he told me, if
that's true, and Joe O.D., you know what his problem is? He
needs to enter into the Gospel. That's what a lot of your problems
are. Enter into the gospel. You're still, mom rejected me,
dad rejected me, old Ms. Van Dyke, my school teacher,
rejected me. You know, I was accused of this
and didn't do it. You know, I don't know who my
mama was. I've been abused. You still haven't entered into
the gospel. If you ever enter into the gospel, all of those
things will go away. Amen. Do you know who your daddy
is? Amen. He's King of Kings and
Lord of Lords. But why don't you begin to believe
that instead of complaining about everything that happens to you?
You're still a baby Christian. Hey, get in there! Enter into
that gospel and you won't need crack no more. You won't need
the false gods anymore. Enter into the gospel and joy
will enter inside of you. It's a wonderful thing to say,
I'm saved. You can't defeat me. Everything's
working for my good. Blink, blink, blink, blink, blink,
blink, blink, blink. Yeah, even that. Amen. God can
take the worst that's said about you, the worst that's done to
you, the worst that happens to you. God's working it all for
your good. Oh, if you could enter into that.
You know, I have to remind myself constantly of this. We are what
we are by the grace of God. I'm constantly reminding myself.
But you know, I do get so weary of relapse. I do get so weary
of it. And I began to think to myself,
okay, what am I not doing as a pastor? What do I need to do
more as a pastor? And the Lord says this, preach
more gospel. Back up and hit it again. Take
a chance and run to Christ. That's what I did. And every
once in a while, I see somebody's getting it. You stop going back. You found a new way. that leads
to life and life more abundantly. And some of you, I love it when
you go like this, I just can't imagine myself with a stem in
my mouth. You know, I just can't see myself
like that anymore. I got Christ in my heart. I don't
need a stem in my mouth.