Why don't we go ahead and turn
over into the Gatsby hymn books, the red hymn books, and we'll
turn to hymn number 418. 418. The tune is All Hail the
Power. We'll sing 418. To our Redeemer's glorious name
Awake the sacred song O may His love immortal flame Tune every
heart and tongue O may His love, immortal flame, tune every heart
and tongue. His love, what mortal thought
can reach, what mortal tongue display. Imaginations utmost
stretch in wonder, dies away. Imagination's utmost stretch
in wonder dies away. He left his radiant throne on
high, left the bright realms of bliss, and came to earth to
bleed and die. Was ever love like this? And came to earth to bleed and
die Was ever love like this? Dear Lord, while we adoring pay
our humble thanks to Thee, may every heart with rapture say,
the Savior died for me. May every heart with rapture
say, the Savior died for me. All right. How about hymn number 195, same
hymn book there? hymn 195. This will be the tune of the
doxology. Assist my soul, my heavenly king. Thy everlasting love to sing,
And joyful spread Thy praise abroad, As one through grace
that's born of God. No, it was not the will of man,
My soul's new heavenly birth began, Nor will nor power of
flesh and blood That turn my heart from sin to God Herein
let self be all abased And sovereign love alone confessed This be
my song through all the road that born I am and born of God. Oh, may this love my soul constrain
to make returns of love again that I, while earth is my abode,
may live like one that's born of God. May I Thy praises daily
show Who has created all things new And washed me in a Savior's
blood To prove that I'm a son of God And when Thee appointed,
how shall come that thou wilt call me to my home. Joyful I'll pass the chilling
flood and die as one that's born of God. Then shall my soul triumphant
rise to its blessed mansion in the skies. And in that glorious,
bright abode, sing then as one that's born of God. Anybody got a request that you'd
like to sing? We'll sing the Priesthood and
Perfections of Christ. This will be to the tune of Joy
to the World. Oh geez, all of a sudden they're
flaring up. Christ bears the names of all
His saints, deep on His heart engraved, attentive to the state
and want of all His love has saved, of all His love has saved,
of all, of all His love has saved. In Him, a holiness complete Light
and perfection shine And wisdom, grace and glory meet A Savior
all-divine A Savior all-divine A Savior, Savior all-divine The
blood which as a priest he bears For sinners is his own The incense
of his prayers and tears Perfumes the holy throne Perfumes the
holy throne Perfumes, perfumes the holy throne In Him my weary
soul has rest, Though I am weak and vile, I read my name upon
His breast, And see the Father smile, And see the Father smile,
And see, and see the Father smile. Go ahead and get back into our
study here and put these down here. Turn with me, if you would, to
the book of Philippians. Now we just read through some
verses in Ephesians, and we've seen that even the whole believing Doctrine that we're even speaking
of right now the doctrine of grace overcoming grace it can't
even be understood or believed unless one is born again unless
one's been born from above and Being born from above doesn't
come by anything that we do. It's it's sovereignly given by
God and Of course, we wrestle with, you
know, especially other detractors that may disagree with what we
preach about this, but, you know, they say that it is our faith
that makes that happen but yet we see that it is in our faith
that is the faith of God is the faith of Christ that is the hinge
pin for everything and then those gifts that Christ purchased with
that redemption is given sovereignly as he chooses. Look with me if
you would in Philippians chapter 1 And I want to look here at verse
29. It says, and again, this is Paul
writing to the Philippian believers, the Philippian church. And he
writes to these believers and says, for unto you it is given
Now let's just stop there. Again, this is something that's
given. It isn't something that we attain. It isn't something
that we earn. It isn't something that we work
for, that we can purchase. We can't say a bunch of Hail
Marys and get this. We can't give a bunch of time
and effort to secure this. This is something that is freely
given to us by God, discretionary upon Him and Him alone. And so
we see that at first this is something that is going to be
given. For unto you it is given, not
offered, not invited, not laid out there for your taking. It
is given to you. It's a passive thing on our part. It's an active thing on God's
part. You remember the illustration
I gave a few weeks ago when we talked about me and Brother Larry,
if me and Brother Larry ever got into fisticuffs. Larry pops
me in the eye. And I get a black eye. I received
or was given a black eye by Larry. I didn't have to do nothing to
get that. Okay. He give that to me by his choice,
by his fist. Uh, he give that to me. I didn't
have to do anything to receive it. Okay. He actively hit me
in the eye, actively. Now he really didn't. Me and
Larry don't get into fist fights. But the black eye came as a result
of something that Larry did to me. Salvation and especially
the aspect of being born again comes to us as something that
God sovereignly does to us and it has nothing to do with what
we do. Now that doesn't mean that we
don't believe, that we don't receive or trust or anything
like that. Those come as a result of the
gift of salvation that God has already given to us, and the
new birth that is given to us, and the Holy Spirit that is inside
of us that is causing us to do those things. Again, that's the
overcoming grace that we're talking about. That is what happens to
us first before we even come to understand these things, know
these things, or participate in these things. God exerts this
grace upon his people and that happens that way and brings us
to all the things that you hear all these other preachers and
teachers out there teaching of what you have to do to get saved
okay we don't have to do anything to get saved We are saved by
the work of Christ alone, and all the things that they're saying
you have to do to get saved naturally comes from a person who has been
saved already. Salvation is of the Lord, it's
not of man. Just pausing right here, keep
your finger in Philippians. But I do want to remind you,
we just sang it in the hymn just a few seconds ago. But look with
me, turn back to the first chapter of John's Gospel. In John 1 verse 12 it says, "...but
as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons
of God." See, they didn't believe to get
to be the sons of God. He gave them power to become
the sons of God, and they believed. But as many as received Him,
to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believed on His name, which were born..." Again, we're talking
Jesus told Nicodemus, unless a man be born again, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of heaven. Unless a man is born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of heaven. which were born not of blood,"
meaning our relationship, our kindred. I'm not a Christian. I'm not born again because my
parents or my grandparents or anybody else. "...which were
born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God." So us becoming a Christian has nothing
to do with us willing or deciding. It has everything to do with
God. And it says, it is not of the
will of man, but of God. We see in other places throughout
Scripture that is evident as well. So we see here back in
Philippians, it says, for unto you it is given in the behalf
of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for
His sake. Now we won't get into the suffering
for His sake part today. That's not kind of what we're
talking about. specifically we see here, that
it is given for us to believe on Him. Our belief in Christ
Jesus is something that is foreign to us in our nature. Our nature,
as we are children of Adam, is devoid of spiritual ability to
believe upon Jesus Christ. That nature has to be overcome
by another nature. That nature has to be overcome
by a new creation. The first creation that God created
us in the flesh, in a natural nature, has an inability to spiritual
things. Every one of us in here, apart
from the rebirth, or apart from being born again, has an inability
for spiritual things and so unless it is given to us by God, then
we can never come. We would never do that. We would
never want Christ. We would never want to come.
We would never want to love God. And we would never want His salvation.
And so that has to be given. But if you'll notice here, you'll
see that it is given in the behalf of Christ. What is he talking
about there? What's being meant there? That it's given to you
to believe on behalf of Christ. Well, if you remember a few weeks
ago, we were talking about the doctrine of atonement and we
said that in Christ's death and burial and resurrection and His
work on the cross, we see that there was an effectual or an
effect that took place because He substituted for someone else. Okay, because Christ died in
our place, then there is something that is given because of that
death. That's what this is talking about.
Your belief, anybody that believes upon Christ, believes because
Christ give them that belief to believe. And if somebody doesn't
believe upon Christ, it was not given unto them by God to believe. And so we see here that it was
given on behalf of Christ. Why? Because Christ purchased
that belief for that person of His. If you remember back in
Ephesians chapter 1 again, we quote these over and over and
over again. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, according as
He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.
This is something that took place before God ever created anything. He made a choice to have a people
for Himself that He would raise. from the ashes of Adam and sin
and death, that He would make a vessel of His honor and glory,
and that He would bestow that upon them. And that was based
upon the finished work of Christ, what Christ would do, and the
blood that He would shed in giving His life for us. And the effect
of that, God would then give them a new heart would give them
spiritual life, give them spiritual understanding, and bring them
to Christ. And that's why any of us are
saved. That's why any of us ever come.
It isn't because I raised a hand, or walked down an aisle, or talked
with a preacher, or shook anybody's hand, or went through some water,
or anything like that. All those things are you know,
are there sometimes and evident. Some things are important and
needful, but not needful for salvation. Not needful for salvation. Christ died for us. That's all
that was needed for salvation. And if you experience salvation,
it's because He gives it to you. For unto you it is given in behalf
of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for
His sake. Now, whenever I see that, whenever
I read that, And I think back about the things that I learned
and the things that I believed and even the things that I used
to preach early on. I look at that and I say, you
know, how could I have ever said that God will save me and I will
be born again, but only when I believe first? See, this is
saying it's just the opposite. This is saying it's just the
opposite, that we believe because of what Jesus did, not because
of what we did. Do we believe? Absolutely, we believe. I mean,
we're given to believe. We believe. But I didn't get
this way, I didn't become born again because I first reached
out and took Jesus' hand or opened the door of my heart or whatever,
all those phrases that you hear on TV and stuff like that. It
was because Jesus gave me what He purchased in His death. He purchased in His death the
covenant that He told God that He will not lose one. He will
bring every one that God gave Him before the foundation of
the world, that He would give every one of them to God, that
He would bring and not lose any of them. And not one person that
was given to Christ will be lost. And so what a humbling thing
that is to know that if anybody is saved from destruction, if
anybody is saved, it is not because of what we've done, but it's
because of what Christ has done for us. So here we see that belief
is not just something that is natural to us. Belief and faith
is not from us. It comes from God. It's given
to us. That's what we just read before
the break. By grace are you saved through faith and that not of
yourselves. It is a gift of God. Again, I don't have to do nothing
for the gift. I received it passively. Someone else did the work to
obtain the gift and then to give the gift. I received the gift
passively. I didn't have to do anything
for it. And so same thing here, we see that this belief is not
something that is within us. It isn't me just learning enough.
It isn't me just hoping enough. It isn't me just mustering up
or one day deciding, okay, well, this ain't working, so I'm going
to do this now. No, it is something that is divinely
given to us by God. Turn with me, if you would, over
to Colossians. Colossians 2. And look with me, if you would,
at verse 10. It says, "...and ye are complete
in Him which is the head of all principality and power." Again,
in reference, this is talking about Jesus here. Jesus Christ. It said, ye are complete in Him.
That means if you're a child of grace, if you are one of the
elect of God that has been given to Christ and Christ has died
for you and purchased all spiritual blessings for you and has lived
and died for you, the Bible says you're complete in Him, that
there's nothing lacking. There's nothing lacking. If you want, I preached a message
on being complete in Christ down in Mena, Arkansas one time. It's
on Sermon Audio. You can go find that and listen
to that. There's a lot entailed to being
complete, but one of the main things about being complete is
I don't lack anything. Before God, The child of grace
that is brought to salvation lacks nothing. But see that we
hear a lot of churches all over the place that are preaching
that you've got to do this, you've got to do this, you've got to
do this, you've got to keep doing this, keep doing this, keep doing
this, keep doing this. Brethren, listen, the whole point
of grace is that this is freely given to you. It's freely given
to you. And Paul says it isn't something
you can even earn. If you try to work for this,
then it's no longer grace. Grace is no longer grace if it's
something that's worked for. I've given you that illustration
before at the job that I have. If I go out and I put in all
the hours that I put in, and I work my job, and my boss comes
to me, and he says, hey, I have a gift for you. And he hands
me my paycheck. That's not a gift, that's a wage. I worked for that and earned
that. You said if I would do this many hours, that I would
be paid this much money. I put in this many hours, you
owe me that much money. That's a wage that is owed, not
a gift. Now if my boss comes to me around
the end of the year and says, hey, you've done a really good
job this year, you've helped us out a lot, and here's your
paycheck, and then here also, another five hundred whatever
you know five hundred dollars or something and uh... that's
a bonus on top of what you've done uh... because you've done
such a good job that's a wage that is a gift a gift that i
didn't work for that i didn't do nothing for he give that to
me freely he paid me what he owed me for my work he give me
a gift because out of the goodness of his heart He wanted to give
me something above my wages. That was a gift. Brethren, in
salvation, there is nothing that we can do to earn salvation. We cannot work for salvation.
Salvation is not by works. The Scripture says it's not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but according to
His what? His mercy He saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. That's where
we get it. And so whenever we talk about
works, If we work for salvation, we're not going to get the salvation
of God. We might get some religion, but we're not going to get the
salvation of God because the salvation of God doesn't come
by works. And so we see here in Colossians
it says, you're complete in Him. There's nothing that we have
to do to attain it. There's nothing that we have
to do to keep it. Now again, when I make those
statements, especially as this goes out on video, when this
goes out on audio, People may misunderstand what I mean by
that. I'm not saying that the Christian doesn't desire good
works. That the Christian doesn't desire
to obey God and to love God and to study God's Word and to meet
with God's people. That is all what happens whenever
we're born again. Those desires come. And we want
to do those things. People that don't want to read
God's Word, don't want to meet with God's people, and things
like that, that shows that they have not been given spiritual
life because spiritual life causes us to want to be a part of the
things of God. And so, I'm not saying that we
don't do anything. What I'm saying is there isn't
nothing you can do that keeps you saved. There isn't nothing
that you can do to get you saved. It has to be given to you by
Christ. And once it is given to you by
Christ, then He's the one that preserves you. And that, of course,
will be the next doctrine that we look at, starting, Lord willing,
next week, is the preservation and perseverance of the saints.
But anyway, it says here, it says, And ye are complete in
Him, which is the head of all principality and power, in whom
also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands, and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ." Now that's a whole lot of stuff to
talk about right there. That's metaphorically speaking, okay?
We're not talking about real physical circumcision. equating
what was being done in the Old Testament with circumcision with
what is being done in the Spirit. Because Paul has already made
mention that it isn't the circumcision of the flesh that the Jews were
doing that made one a child of God. It's the circumcision of
the heart. It's the cutting away of that
natural fleshly heart and the bringing forth of a new heart
that God brings, a new spiritual heart. Not a heart that is dead
in trespasses and sin, but a heart that is born from above that
is a spiritual heart. And so that's what he's talking
about here. But look at verse 12. It says, "...buried with
Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through
the faith of the operation of God." Not through your faith,
but through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised
Him, Jesus, from the dead. Again, this faith isn't something
that we have. Now, I've been told, I've even
preached this again in times past, and everything, and you
guys, I'm sure, have heard it as well, and if you turn on TV
or radio, you probably hear the majority, at least, or the vast
majority of preachers that will say these things, but that our
faith is our own faith, and that everybody has faith, and all
we have to do is change the object of our faith from ourself to
God. No. I have a human faith that
says, you know, if I sit down in this chair, that's going to
hold me up. Okay? That's not a spiritual
faith. That's just a carnal faith. Okay? There is a carnal faith. There is a human faith. There
is an earthly faith, a natural faith, all that faith. But then
there's a spiritual faith that's different than that. You remember
that Jesus said Even the devils have a faith. The devils believed that Jesus
was God. I mean, there's a lot of people
that don't believe Jesus was God. But the devils believed
that Jesus was God, but that belief didn't change the fact
that they are devils. It didn't save them. So you can
have a faith about things and still not be born again. The
faith that we have that this is talking about in Scripture
is a faith that we had none of. And it come from outside of us.
It come from God and was given to us in the new birth. And that
is the faith of Jesus Christ. It's different than other faith.
It's different than me trusting that chair to hold me up or that
that plane is going to get me to wherever I go, you know, or
that car to get me down the road or whatever the case might be.
That is a different faith. That's not what we're talking
about. It's not changing the object of your faith. Matter
of fact, the Bible says that not all men have faith. So that
kind of destroys the whole preaching and teaching of mainstream Christianity
that says that if you'll just place your faith in Jesus Christ,
well wait a minute, what about to those that the Bible says
faith has not been given? The Bible says that God has given
to every man a measure of faith. And that could be zero. As a matter of fact, everybody
who eventually will find themselves in the lake of fire at the end
of time are ones who was not given faith. And so, it isn't
something we just can kind of change when we want to change.
This right here says that we were given faith and that it's
through the faith of the operation of God who has raised Jesus from
the dead. It's His faith. Now, go back to Ephesians, if
you would, and let's look at Ephesians chapter 4. I just read
this verse, but I want to point this out again. Ephesians chapter
4 and verse 7. In fact, I'll just start up at
verse 1. It says, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech
you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called,
with all lowliness and meekness, with suffering, forbearing one
another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit
and the bond of peace. There is one body, there is one
Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and God and Father of all who
is above all and through all and in you all. But unto every
one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of
Christ. Every one of us is given grace
according to the measure of the gift of Christ. So if we receive
grace initially in new birth, then that is by the measure of
Christ. And then once we've been born
again, day by day as God gives us grace for whatever we need
grace for, that is also by Him. Now, we've talked about this
here before. I mean, how many of us here have been through
trials? How many of us have been through
hardships? How many in here have been through
affliction? We've all been through that.
Okay? Sometimes God gives us grace
in the fact that we don't have any of that. Sometimes God gives
us grace and gives us a lot of that. And as we're going through
that, He gives us grace to get through that. It isn't us just
bucking up and being tough. No, God gives us grace through
that. And so, sometimes our measure
of faith may be great, sometimes the measure of faith may be small. You remember the disciples had
faith, but that one disciple said, we believe, help thou our
unbelief. They prayed, Lord, increase our
faith. We realize that our faith isn't
something that we can make stronger, He has to make it stronger. Faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. But that
Word of God there isn't talking about you just reading the Bible.
Now, if I read the Bible, That does help my faith. It strengthens
my understanding of the Scripture and things like that. That Word
of God that is talking about there is the Rima of God, the
spoken command of God. God says that I have faith here. God says that I have more faith.
If I'm faithful today, it's because God gave me grace for faith that
day. But if tomorrow, He chooses not
to give me that same grace for faith, so that I might experience
and realize and go through some trial or hardship, so that I
might learn my dependent. No. Man, I did it yesterday. How come I can't do it today?
Well, what do I find out about myself? I find out that myself,
that I can't do anything. I can't change my surrounding. I can't do anything. I can't
do anything. I need Him. The only reason that
I was so successful yesterday at getting through that trial
was because God gave me that grace. And so if I'm going to
make it through this trial, it's got to be if God gives me grace.
But, here's the thing, what if He don't give you that grace?
And you go through that trial? What did Paul learn? Jesus said
to Paul, he said, my grace is sufficient for you. He said,
I'll give you what you need to get through that trial. It may
not be the outcome you want. It may not be giving you everything
you think you want. But he said, I will supply your
needs. See, a lot of times we think
that our needs are our needs when really they're our wants,
okay? You know, I don't need this or
that. I want this or that, but I think
I need it. You know, I think I need a pontoon
boat. Okay, especially after spending
the day out with my dad yesterday on the lake. I think I need a
pontoon boat. But my wife keeps reminding me,
no, you just want a pontoon boat. You know, I think that I want,
you know, a big screen TV. No, I want a big screen TV. I
don't need a big screen TV. See, there's a lot of things
that I think I need, but I don't. I want those things. God said
he would make sure that we have food and rain He said that He
knows everything that we have need of before we even ask. That's His people. And I think
that He is faithful and we trust Him to take care of us in that. You see, our mindset has been
so programmed by what we see on TV and hear on the radios
that we think that if you're a Christian, that you're not
going to see any more sad days or bad days or down days or hard
days. That you're going to be rich,
that you're going to be happy and you're going to be healthy.
all the days of your life. And whenever I open up the pages
of these scriptures and I see Job, who the Bible says was an
upright man, righteous before God, and that he had not done
anything amiss. And God said to Satan, have you
considered my servant Job? And then Job went through everything.
All of his family was taken away except his nagging wife. that
all of his wealth was taken away, all of his possessions was taken
away, and even his health was taken away, except for just,
I mean, he was kept alive, but his health was completely taken
away. And Job bowed his knee to God and said, Blessed be the
name of the Lord, the Lord gives, the Lord taketh away. And he
said in all this, Job did not sin. Job knew that those trials came
from God for his purposes. And so sometimes whenever we
look, we say, hey, you know, just have faith. Brethren, we
look here, faith is given as a measure by Christ. And what does that tell us? Well,
for one, it tells us that this is an overcoming grace. That
to have faith, we must have irresistible grace given to us. But on the
application side, You must realize that God gives
grace, and we should be patient with each other because brother
or sister so-and-so may not be coming up to the speed you think
they should be coming up to. What are you going to do? Are
you going to increase their measure of faith? I don't read here where
it says, and Mike has given each man a measure of faith. It says
God has. Am I going to hurry that along?
Can I hurry Sister Beth along in the faith? You say, well,
if you would just Pick up the speed in this area. Let me give you five points in
the song here and I think I can get you there. God gives the
measure of faith, doesn't he? You know what that makes me? That makes me very patient with
people. And it's very humbling because
I know they're probably saying, I wish Mike would pick up the
pace and get with the program. Why can't he learn this? Why
don't he understand this? Why don't he know this? Why don't
he believe this? Why don't he do this? Why ain't
he out there doing this or doing that? Why is he with kids like
this? Why is his wife like that? Why are you doing that? See,
we're always pointing the fingers at everybody because they're
not as spiritual or righteous as we think they ought to be.
Brethren, it's only overcoming grace that makes us that. That's
why I said at the very beginning of this doctrine that overcoming grace
isn't just about the quickening, but it's also about His ever-exerting
grace. His ever-active influence upon
our life day by day by day. We need that. To each one is
given a measure of the gift of Christ. If He doesn't give it,
we won't have it. And if He gives it, we'll only
have it in the measure that He gives to us. And so we just pray
that the Lord might give that to us today. Anybody got any
questions or any comments? Well, brethren, Lord willing,
next Lord's Day, we're going to meet and I want to start talking
about the last doctrine in our series on the doctrine of grace.
And that is the perseverance of the saints. And I really like
the term preservation of the saints. Whenever we say perseverance,
we think that that's something that we can do and of our own.
Now, we do persevere. However, we persevere only because
God preserves us, and that's why we persevere. And so, we're
going to look, Lord willing, next week at this very thing.
Now, just to let you know, a part of this is, you know, there's
a lot of people out there that preach and teach that once somebody
becomes saved that you can lose that salvation. And it doesn't
matter what denomination you're in, you can be in every denomination
and there is someone that believes these things. Even among Baptists,
you know, we're Baptists and everything, but there are even
Baptists that believe that you can lose your salvation. Being
a Baptist don't make anybody right or wrong, okay? The Bible
teaches that whenever Christ saves somebody, they are saved,
what does Hebrew say? To the uttermost. They are they
are saved from eternity to eternity and so that salvation cannot
be lost and this is this is why The doctrine that we hold here,
brethren, rings true where there's no contradictions in the Word
of God. I mean, that's why whenever I began to see these truths several
years ago, and I've seen all of a sudden now these contradictions
that were in my mind have all gone away, they're all smoothed
out. Why? Because I didn't understand what grace was, I didn't understand
what true salvation, I didn't understand the true gospel. I
didn't understand that. I had a form of that in my mind. I had a religious teaching of
that from my upbringing, but I didn't really have the truth.
But whenever the truth comes, guess what? Contradictions go
away because the Holy Spirit who gives the writing of this
whole Bible from cover to cover, it don't contradict itself. God
is not going to contradict himself. And so we don't have to worry
about those contradictions. Well, all of a sudden, whenever
I was hearing about people losing their salvation, things like
that, now, I never was taught that growing up. I was always
taught that once you're saved, you're always saved. That's the
phrase that was always popular, once saved, always saved. But
I kind of learned it hasn't got nothing to do with once saved,
always saved. It has to do with once saved.
That's the issue. If you were saved by Christ,
you're saved. Because salvation has nothing
to do with what you do anyway. So if you didn't do nothing to
earn it, if you didn't do nothing to get it, there ain't nothing
you're gonna do to lose it either. It's given to you as a gift.
And so, but we'll also see next week why that's true. So anybody
that believes that we can lose our salvation, hopefully we can
dispel that error and God will be gracious to teach us by what
we look at next week in the scriptures that we had before. All right.
All right. Well, let's bow and we'll have
a word of prayer and we'll be dismissed. And we'll have some lunch together
and all that. And we'll get out of here. Gracious
Heavenly Father, we thank You today once again for the time
that we have together around Your Word. And I thank You for
these brothers and sisters in Christ that You've gathered here
today again. And Lord, we just thank You for
the Word of God that we have before us to lead us and to guide
us into the things that You have written We thank You for the
Holy Spirit that leads us into all truth. And we thank You,
Father, that You have given Your Son, Jesus Christ, to die for
our sin. Lord, that we might be reconciled
to God and that we might, Father, be born from above, that we might
be able to not only know of our spiritual life with Christ, but
we might actually experience this relationship with our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. Father, we're so grateful for
all that's been done on our behalf. We're humbled by the fact that
You've chosen us for salvation. Lord, that You have even chosen
anyone for salvation is just a mystery. As sinful and as evil
as we are in our hearts, transgressing the law of God, never able to
keep the law of God, and yet you have chosen to save some
of this wretched, vile group of people. It's just amazing.
But Father, we are thankful for that and we know that it's all
because of Christ and not because of anything good or bad that
we have done, not because of our status in life, not because
of the color of our skin or our education. not because of how
much money we have or don't have, that You have saved us based
solely upon Your desire and will. And Father, we're grateful that
You have shown that to these brothers and sisters that are
here today. And we pray that many more will come to know Christ.
If there is any here today that does not know Christ, has not
been brought to life by that exerting, overcoming grace of
God, Father, Lord, I pray that today that you might do that,
that you might draw them to yourself and that you might give them
the knowledge of their salvation that's in Christ Jesus. And Father,
Lord, that they might come to you and that they might receive
and know the things of Christ and that they might love the
things that you have given. Lord, I just thank you again
for all that you've done. We ask you to bless the time
of fellowship now, the food that we're about to eat, and may you
nourish our bodies. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.