Okay, if you would, let's open
our Bibles again to Genesis chapter 17. I titled the message this evening,
Walking Before God. You know, the believer's walk. That's a very popular topic in
religion today, is the believer's walk. Everybody wants somebody,
the reason it's so popular is everybody wants the preacher
to tell them what to do. What to do, what not to do, how to
walk. And the believer's walk is obviously very important.
But before we get to our walk, tonight I want to start with
God. Let's start with him before whom
we walk and then we'll look at our walk, walking before God.
Our text is just one verse, verse one of Genesis chapter 17. And
when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram
and said unto him, I am the almighty God. Walk before me. and be thou
perfect. At this point, it has been 25
years since the Lord appeared to Abram and told him to leave
his father's house, go to a land that I'll show you, and I'll
make of you a great nation. 25 years ago, God told that to
Abram. Well, Abram's still living in
a tent. He's still meandering around,
moving from place to place, and he and Sarah have no children.
It's been 13 years from Genesis chapter 16 and chapter 17, 13
years have passed since Ishmael was born. Abraham and Sarah still
do not have the son God promised them. 13 years. They watched
Ishmael grow up knowing this is not the son of promise. And
now Abraham's 99 years old. That's pretty old to be having
children to raise, isn't it? Well, why had God waited so long?
You ever wonder that? Why does God wait so long? Well,
I don't know all of God's reasons for doing what he does when he
does them. There's a couple of things I
do know. Number one, I know that God does things in his time. His time is always the exact
right time. God does things in the fullness
of time. We read that in the scripture, in the fullness of
time something happens. And the biggest reason that I know of
for God to wait so long before He does what He promises to do,
before He accomplishes His will, is to make our faith be in Him,
in Him. The Lord's gonna wait until we
have no power left in ourselves. The Lord's gonna wait until we
absolutely have no hope left in ourselves or in anything that
we can do. Not till then will the Lord fulfill
His promise. He's not going to fulfill his
promise until he does it without any help from you and me. The
word just were completely helpless. Look over first Corinthians chapter
one. I think this, this one or one or two verses here is a key
to understanding the Lord's timing and when he does what he does,
why he waits so long. Verse 29 of 1 Corinthians chapter
one. That no flesh should glory in
his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. That according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. The Lord waits often
so that no flesh will glory in his presence. So we give God
all the credit and all the glory for doing what he does. The Lord
is not gonna move in grace until we're absolutely convinced the
only way we can be saved is by pure grace. God does not show
his omnipotence until he teaches us our impotence. It's got to
be of him. When did the Lord tell Israel,
now stand still and see the salvation of God? Not till they were trapped
at the Red Sea and all hope of human escape was gone. Then the
Lord fulfilled his purpose. And we need to remember that
in God's dealings with us, God has not changed. And man hadn't
changed either. Our flesh hasn't changed either.
Before God ever saves anybody, before he saves you and me, he's
going to teach us our complete dependence upon him. He's going
to teach us our complete dependence on his power to save, on his
grace to save the unworthy. Now that brings me to the name
that the Lord used when he appeared to Abraham this time. This is
the first time this name is used in scripture, the name, the almighty
God. This is one of God's names, the
almighty God. The Hebrew name for that is El
Shaddai. That's the first time it's been
used here. different times with Lord appeared. It was under different
names. This time it's El Shaddai and the name has several meanings
and each one of them make me glad. This is my God. First El
Shaddai means almighty God, the God who has all the money and
all the power. Nobody else has any. He has it
all. So there's nothing too hard for God to do. God promised Abraham
and Sarah they'd have a son together, not with a handmaid, but together
from Sarah's womb. And it simply doesn't matter
that Abraham's 99 years old. It doesn't matter that Sarah's
90 years old. It doesn't matter that Sarah
went through menopause many years ago. Nothing is too hard for
the almighty God. Nothing is. Look over a page
of Genesis 18. In case we can't figure this
out, he tells us this. The Lord has again appeared to
Abraham in verse nine. And they said unto him, where
is Sarah thy wife? And he said, behold, in the tent.
And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to
the time of life. And lo, Sarah thy wife shall
have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent door, which was behind
him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age,
and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. Therefore
Sarah laughed within herself, saying, after I am waxed old,
shall I have pleasure, my Lord being old also? And Lord said
unto Abraham, Sarah didn't say this out loud. This is all just
going on inside her mind. Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying,
shall I have a surety, bear a child which am old? Is there anything
too hard for the Lord? No, there's nothing too hard
for the almighty God. At the time appointed, I will
return unto thee. according to the time of life,
and Sarah shall have a son. See, nothing's too hard for God.
Sarah's dead wound, Abraham's dead body, nothing's gonna stop
God. He has all power. He's going
to accomplish his purpose. Now remember, God hadn't changed.
This God talking to Abraham, making this promise to Abraham,
is God our Savior. Our Savior has all power. Now he's promised that he's going
to save a people from their sin. He's promised to give eternal
life to a dead people. They're born dead in sin, but
he's promised to give them eternal life. Making a 90 year old woman
conceive with her 99 year old husband, that's child's play
compared to putting sin away. I mean, that's just a, that's
a child's play compared to giving eternal spiritual life to a dead
rebel. And you think, well, they're
spread out all over the world. They hate the gospel. They hate
Christ. They can't hear. They can't see. They're going
the wrong way. Hang on a minute. Nothing's too hard for God. Nothing's
too hard for God. If He's promised to save a people,
He'll do it. He'll cross their path with the
gospel, and He'll give them a heart to believe it. He'll give them
a nature to believe it. He'll make them believe. Just
as surely as He gave physical life to that baby Isaac, God's
gonna save his people from their sin. Nothing can stop, he has
all power. The second name that Al Shaddai
means is the overpowerer. The overpowerer. I type out my
notes. Microsoft Word does not like
that name, overpowerer, but that's it. It's not an English word,
I guess, but everybody knows God knows exactly what that means,
overpowerer. God has all power. over any opposition. None can oppose him. None can
stay his hand or saying to him, what doest thou? God promised
that Sarah would have a son. Now she's 90 years old. This
is problematic, isn't it? But their old age and Sarah's
dead womb are no opposition to God. None whatsoever. Sarah is
going to conceive and give birth to a child anyway. Because our
God is the overpowerer. Now, remember, this is God, our
Savior. Our Savior is the overpowerer. Our sin is a powerful enemy,
powerful. We can't pay for it. We can't
quit it. We can't wash it away. But Christ,
the overpowerer, came and by the shedding of his perfect blood,
washed it white as snow. Our spiritual darkness, is a
powerful enemy. We cannot give ourselves life. But Christ the overpowerer comes
and he puts life into his people. He uses the seed of the word
of God and plants it in their heart and gives them a new heart,
a new nature to make them live eternally. Our spiritual darkness,
our spiritual blindness is a powerful, powerful enemy. You can bring
people, make them sit under the best gospel preachers you can
find anywhere. And they can preach and preach
and preach and preach at them and they cannot break through. They can't break through that
cold, dead, stony heart. They can't break through that
darkness and that blindness. And one day, the light goes on
and they see. And they believe. And they love
the Savior. Well, what happens? Well, the
overpowerer showed up. Well, just the preacher is the
overpowerer. And he overpowered, and the light
shined in darkness, and they saw. The law is a powerful enemy
to us. All the law can do to us is condemn
us, because we can't keep it. The law demands we be condemned,
and there's no way around it. God's just, that sentence must
be carried out. Doesn't look like there's any
way around it, does it? not until Christ's overpower showed up.
And he took the law out of the way, nailing it to his cross
because he obeyed the law perfectly. And as the representative of
his people, he obeyed the law and made them perfect in him.
And then he died. He took the sin of his people
and he died paying the penalty of sin, paying the penalty that
the law demanded. There must be death for sin.
Christ died for the sin of his people. So now the law and God's
justice, they're satisfied. They're not hunting God's people
anymore. They're satisfied in the death of Christ and the obedience
of Christ. Christ, our overpower, took the
law out of the way. Now you don't come to God through
the law, but through Christ, through him. And then physical
death. Physical death is a powerful
enemy. We can't stop it. We cannot stop
it from killing our bodies. But Christ our overpower, he
conquered death. When he died for his people,
he conquered death. Christ took the sting of death
away from his people so that when our bodies still die, there's
no sting. There's no harm. I know when,
Next time we get together at the funeral home, we'll weep
and we'll cry, we'll sorrow, we'll be broken hearted. But
if the departed is a believer, we're not crying for them now.
We're not crying for them, we're crying for ourselves. The one
that's got the hard road to hoe is the one left. The one left
to deal with this world of sin and grossness and body of sin. That's the one that's got the
hard thing. There is no harm to the believer in death whatsoever. Matter of fact, it's a blessing.
It's a blessing. I don't know, it's not a blessing
for the family left behind. I'm not saying that. I'm saying
for the believer, it's a blessing. To leave this world of sin. I tell Jan all the time, I watch
the news. I don't know why I keep doing it every night, but I do.
I watch the news and I tell her, stop the world, I wanna get off.
One day I will. to be taken out of this world
of sin and bigger yet to be taken out of this body of sin. Oh,
and to go be with the Lord made just like him. You know why he
can do that? Because he's the overpower. He
overpowered death to make even death a blessing for his people.
Then third, the name El Shaddai means the all sufficient one. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
all sufficient one. He is everything that we need
in order to be saved. And I said that just the way
I wanted to say it. He is everything we need in order to be saved.
It's not just that he's done everything that's required in
order for his people to be saved. And he has. I like saying it
better this way. He personally is everything we
need in order to be saved. He personally is everything that
a sinner needs. Salvation is not just checking
a bunch of boxes, like when you go travel to another country
and you pull out your passport and your visa and stuff and they're
checking all these boxes and they just let you go on in. I
mean all this is just a piece of paper. I went to Mexico and
they check all those things off and I walk through the airport
and go out there If Walter and Cody hadn't been there, I wouldn't
have had the slightest clue what was going on. I mean, I had this
piece of paper, but I don't belong there. I do not belong there. I can't speak the language. I
don't know the customs. I don't know the people. I don't
belong there. Salvation is not just checking a bunch of boxes
and sending you on your way, because just because you got
a piece of paper, you don't belong. In Christ, we belong. He's made his people belong.
He is all we need in order to belong, in order to belong in
his kingdom. His blood is sufficient to wash
away our sin. We don't have to do anything
to help it. His blood is sufficient. His righteousness is sufficient
to make his people the very righteousness of God in him. We don't need
to help that out now. He is our righteousness. Christ
alone is sufficient to save his people without any help from
them, and Christ alone is sufficient to keep his people saved, to
keep them saved. It's all in him. Christ is sufficient
to teach his people, to reveal himself to his people. Christ
is sufficient to comfort the hearts of his people. For those
who are brokenhearted, that's my constant prayer for them,
that Christ would give them a special portion of his presence. He's
sufficient to comfort the hearts of his people. See, this is why
it makes me glad. This is our God, El Shaddai,
the almighty God, the overpowerer, the all sufficient one. He comes
and talks to Abraham. They're speaking here. The almighty
God is talking to Abraham and he tells Abraham and all his
people, this is who I am. I'm the almighty God. Now you
walk before me and be perfect. The center margin there says
this word perfect means complete or sincere. And I'm not sure
where they got that. I mean, I think I do know where
they got it, but anyway, this Hebrew word translated perfect
here is used 91 times in the Old Testament. Two times it's
translated sincere, just two times. And it shouldn't have
been translated sincere in either of those times. The Hebrew word,
it means innocent. It means complete, and it means
whole. It means to be perfectly holy.
It means to be without sin. And here's the reason I say this
word never should have been translated sincere. It's because God's not
gonna save us based on our sincerity. No, you can be sincere as you
want. You can be very sincere and still
be lost. The Jews were, weren't they?
Oh, very sincere. I mean, their sincerity and dedication
of their religion would put us to shame, honestly. They were
very sincere. They were so sincere about their
works religion. They were so sincere about their
ceremonies, which was just a work. I mean, you show up and you go
through the ceremony and you say, hey, God bless you and all
these things, you know. They were so sincere about this
works religion. But they were sincerely wrong
about how God saves sinners. The same thing's true about religious
people today. People are sincere. I mean, really,
most of them, you know, they're not out there playing games.
They're sincere. But they're dead wrong. And a
holy God is never going to save anybody based on their sincerity.
Now, all that being said, believers are sincere, aren't they? Aren't
you sincere about believing that you need a Savior? We're sincere. I'm sincere. I need a Savior
and the only Savior of sinners there is, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm very sincere about that. I'm not playing games. I'm not
making up stories when I tell you I need to be saved for my
sin. I need a Savior. And Christ is the only one who
saved me. We're sincere, aren't we? About believing that the
only righteousness that there is is Christ. He's our only righteousness. We can't earn a righteousness
by the law. Now believers are sincere in
that way. But aren't you thankful God's not going to save you or
keep you saved based on your sincerity? Because we're still
in the flesh. And while we're sincere about
believing, now, I need a savior. I need Christ. He's the only
one that can save me. Yet self-righteousness constantly
is cropping up in us. Self-righteousness is constantly
popping up in its ugly head. And we find ourselves just maybe
not quite as sincere as we ought to be. Well, I'm thankful God doesn't
accept sincerity. He does not gonna accept our
best efforts. They're full of sin. A holy God can only accept
perfection. The meaning of the word he used
here with Abraham, perfection, without sin. Now, the only way
a person who's a sinner, who's already broken God's laws, a
sinner by birth, sinner by choice and sinner by practice. The only
way that sinner could ever be perfect is by being found in
Christ. It's the only way. So here's
what the Lord's telling Abraham and us, quit trusting in your
works and trust in Christ. It's the only way to be perfect
before God. The only way that we can be perfect
before almighty God, this God who has the power to see and
to know everything. The only way we can walk before
him and be perfect is by faith in Christ, by believing and trusting
Christ. Okay, so here's El Shaddai, the
almighty God, the overpower, the sufficient one, tells us
to walk before him in perfection, in faith. Now, what does that
mean? Does the scripture, can you give
me an answer from scripture? What does that mean to walk before
God? Well, I can give you six and
I'll give them to you very quickly. Different scriptures on walking
with God. Now, look over to Hebrews chapter
11. While you're turning there, I'm
going to read to you the verse that's quoted in Hebrews 11.
From Genesis 5, verse 24, and Enoch walked with God. Enoch
walked with God. He did what the Lord told Abraham
to do. He walked with God and he was not, for God took him.
Now, what on earth does that mean? How is it that Enoch could
walk with God and not be found. He didn't die. He was translated.
How could that be? Well, the writers of the Hebrews
tells us. Hebrews 11 verse 5. By faith Enoch was translated
that he should not see death. It was not found because God
had translated him. For before his translation he
had this testimony that he pleased God. Now how is it that Enoch
walked with God and pleased God? Verse 6. but without faith it's
impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must
believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek him. Enoch walked with God and he,
this is how he pleased God is by faith. And you notice the
writer doesn't say here, Enoch please God. It's by faith Enoch
pleased God. Enoch only pleased God by faith
in Christ, by believing Christ and trusting Christ, resting
in Christ. And God's the one who had to
give him that faith. So he's not Enoch, it's his belief in
Christ. See, almighty God is only pleased
with his son. He's only pleased with the savior
that God's provided. He's only pleased with the righteousness
that God provided. Well, he provided and he's only
pleased with everyone. who has faith in that Savior,
who has faith in that Christ, because they're confident, all
it takes to save me is Christ. That's the faith that God gave
them. They believe that. And God's telling us, live your
life that way, by faith in Christ, by believing Christ. Enoch was,
I mean, I know the world was very different than it is now,
but a lot of things were the same. Enoch was a family man. He had a family to raise. He
had a wife and children. He had a job, a farm, something,
you know, he had to do to put food on the table. And he did
all those things, just like we have to do them today, you know,
in a different world without technologies and cars and things,
but he had a job, he had a family, he had the, you know, community
he was part of. Yet, he did all those things
walking with God. Because he did those things trusting
Christ. And I know I say this all the
time, I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but we should
live our daily lives. Y'all got jobs, you got families,
you got responsibilities in this life, and you better take care
of them now. You have to take care of them.
But do those things depending on Christ, depending on Him. Work hard, but don't... But don't
think that your future and your retirement and all these things
are all based upon your efforts. Be wise, but trust the Lord to
provide. See what I'm saying? We live
by faith, trusting Christ to be everything that we need at
all times, in every situation, no matter where we go. We live
by faith. Never trusting our works of the
law to make us blessed of God, but always trusting Christ that
we'd be blessed in Him. All right, here's the second
thing. Look at Genesis chapter six. We walk before God by union with
Christ. Genesis six, verse nine. These are the generations of
nobles. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and
Noah walked with God. Now the thing everybody in the
world knows about Noah is this, Noah built an ark. Noah was saved
from drowning in the flood of God's wrath against sin, because
Noah was in the ark. He built the ark, and God put
him in the ark. Now the rain, God's wrath against
Noah's sin, fell just like it did on everybody else, everybody
else that drowned. One difference. That wrath, that
water of God's wrath that fell on Noah's sin, fell on the ark,
not on Noah. And that's how Noah was saved
alive, because he was in the ark. The ark bore the punishment
that Noah deserved. And that's how the whole story
of the ark is given to us. It's a picture of salvation.
Sinners are saved from God's wrath. We're saved from God.
We're saved from God's wrath. We're saved from our sin. Not
by being in the right church, not by being in the right denomination,
not by doing X, Y, and Z right. It's by being in Christ. In Christ. You see, God is just. God has an elect people that
he chose to save, but now God's not gonna save them apart from
his justice. He's not gonna violate his justice
in order to show mercy. God's wrath against the sin of
his elect still fell. didn't, except it fell on Christ
our substitute, not on his people. Instead of God's elect, all that
wrath fell upon Christ our Savior, and he took it all. He shielded
his people from all of it. God must punish sin. Well, he
has. The sin of his elect has been
punished in Christ our substitute. And now God's justice, instead
of demanding our condemnation, demands that we go free. See,
salvation is in Christ. It's by being in him. The only
way a sinner can be righteous is by being in Christ. Doing
what he did. The very same way we are made
sinners. How is it we are made sinners? By being in Adam. When
Adam fell, we fell. When Adam sinned, we sinned.
Well, how is it a sinner can be made righteous? By being in
Christ. When he obeyed the law, so did
we. When he died to sin, so did we. In him. God's commandment
to us is to be perfect. The only way we can be perfect
is by being found in Christ. In Christ. Arthur Pink said this
about the way this is said in our text, walk before me. Pink
said it's like a child walking before his father. And that child
plays and just is a child. with absolutely no worry about
anything going on around him. Because my father's right here.
I'm within eyeshot of my father. And this is what the Lord's saying.
Walk before him as a child. Do what you do, what you gotta
do, what the responsibilities that God's given you in this
life, knowing I'm in eyesight of my father. I'm in Christ. I got no worries. There's nothing
here that can harm me. I'm walking before my father
as a child in Christ. All right, number three, look
at Leviticus chapter 26. We walk before God in the obedience
of faith. Leviticus 26 verse three. If you walk in my statutes and
keep my commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in
due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees
of the field shall yield their fruit. Now, God tells us here,
walk in my statutes, and if you do, if you walk in my statutes,
you'll be blessed. But first problem I see is, right
off, we're already sinners. We already haven't been walking
in God's statutes. Any hope that we have of saying
I've kept God's law is long gone. And it's just absurd to think
that any sinner can be blessed of God because of our obedience.
It's just absurd. There's nothing more contrary
to grace that I can think of. Well, then how is it that we
can walk before God in this perfection? It's in the obedience of faith.
The commandment of scripture, the commandment of the gospel
of Christ is to believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Well, what about the law? You know why God gave us the
law? Not so we could keep it and earn a righteousness and
God will bless us because we've kept the law. God gave us the
law to show the sinfulness of sin. That's the way Paul said
it, the sinfulness of sin. To show us it's impossible for
us to keep the law. And to show us we desperately
need Christ. We need Him to come and keep
the law for us. We need Him to die to pay our
sin debt for us because we can't do it. The only way we can be
perfect before God is to trust Christ. Trust Him to be your
perfection. Without you adding one thing
to Him. He's it. He's all you got. If
you trust Christ like that, that's the commandment of scripture.
You're blessed. You're blessed, because God's
already given you the faith to believe Christ. I now look at 1 Kings
2. It's the fourth thing. We walk before God in truth. 1 Kings 2. In verse four, that the Lord
may continue his word which he spake concerning me, saying,
if thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me
in truth, with all their heart and with all their soul, there
shall not fail thee, said he, a man on the throne of Israel. And the only way we can be perfect
before the Lord is to walk before him in truth. You know, God help us. God help this to remain true.
We're not playing games here. I'm not willing to play games
with your soul and my soul. We're not playing games here. We're not trying to fool anybody.
I mean, I just, I've seen enough religious games and hypocrisy
and trying to fool people into thinking we are what we're not.
We're not playing games here now. The only way to walk before
God in truth is believing I'm ruined in sin. I'm dead in sin. There's no hope of salvation
in any of my works, in something that I do or something that I
refrain from doing. That's true. I truly need Christ to be all
of my salvation. I need him to do all of the saving. If he leaves me one iota one
ion of anything to do, I'll be damned. I need him to do it all. I need him to do all the keeping
of me saved. Salvation is not being a religious
hypocrite now. God help us to not do that. What good does it accomplish
to fool people into thinking how good and religious we are? And then appear before the judgment
seat of Christ where there's no hypocrisy, where there's no
hiding anything. Salvation is truly believing
in Christ. It's truly loving him from a
new heart and a new nature that only God can give. And if you
find yourself being this religious hypocrite and you just, you just
playing games, I'm telling you, stop and ask God to give you
this new heart. Ask God to give you this. Salvation
is truly believing Christ. All right, fifth, look at Nehemiah
chapter five. Nehemiah chapter five. We walk
before God in reverence. Nehemiah chapter five, verse
nine. Also I said, it's not good that
you do. Ought you not to walk in the
fear and the reverence of our God because of the reproach of
the heathen, our enemies? This is not good. Ought we not
walk before God in fear, in reverence of this awesome person, the almighty
God. This name that God appeared to
Abraham, El Shaddai, the almighty God. The Lord's not my buddy. He's not my equal. He's not my
co-partner or pilot. And he's not my partner. And
this thing of salvation, He's not my partner. You know, I do
as much as I can do and then He'll do the rest. The Lord is
my King. He's the Almighty God. And He
does with me as He pleases. Now, I'm very thankful it's pleased
Him. It's pleased Him to save me by
His grace. And I revere Him. Don't you? I revere Him. I desire to give
Him honor. and reverence at what he's done
for me. You can live your life in reverence
to God without coming off like a religious hypocrite, you know,
in reverence to God. And part of this is, this is
the way I think about part of this reverence. There is a fear. There's a, I'm full of fear. I have a great fear before I
preach that I'll tell the truth, that I'll get out of the way,
that my flesh won't get in the way, that I'll rightly divide
the word of truth and be able to point people to Christ. I
have a great fear of that. And I have a fear of displeasing
my God. And not because I'm afraid He's
going to punish me, not because I'm afraid He's going to kill my
wife or take away my house or something. My sin's already been
punished in Christ. I'm not afraid of punishment.
This is my great fear of bringing dishonor upon my savior. That's
a reference for him. All right, then last, Colossians
chapter two. Colossians chapter two. We walk
before God by continuing in Christ. You know, the only way we can
walk before God is by being in Christ, but we walk before God
by continuing to walk in Christ. Colossians two verse six. As you have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up
in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught,
abounding therein with thanksgiving. Now continue walking in Christ.
How is it that you first came to Christ? Well, you first came
to Christ. If you're a believer, you came
to Christ trusting Him. You came trusting Him to be everything
that God required of you. and you are real happy about
it. Because you know you are nothing and you can do nothing.
You are so happy, found such sweet relief to be able to trust
in Christ and give up all your works. Well, now maybe you've
sat here under the gospel a long, long time. You've heard a lot
of preaching. You've heard a lot of gospel.
You've read a lot of the Word. And you've grown. Hopefully,
we grow in grace and knowledge. Well, now that you've got a little
bit of growth, Now that God's taught you a little something,
now that you're one of the older ones, don't start thinking you've
grown so much and learned so much, now you can be a little
bit self-sufficient, whereas these babes in Christ can. Don't
start thinking now there's something that you can do. You know you
can't do something to add to your salvation, but don't think
that there's something you can do to keep it. Don't think there's
something you can do to make your situation in heaven better,
like God's gonna give you some sort of reward or something.
We continue like we started. How did you start? Trust in Christ
to be your all. And so happy to do it. Now continue
that way. Continue trusting Christ as your
all and being so thankful that you can. Because after all these
years that God's taught you, you know you're still nothing
and you still can do nothing. So we continue trusting in Christ. Now that's walking before the
Almighty God and being perfect. It's beginning in Christ. It's
walking in Christ, it's staying in Christ, and in the end, arriving
in glory in Christ. All right, let's bow together.
Our Father, we thank you for this passage of your word that
we could look into. Oh, how we thank you for revealing
yourself to your people by this name, the Almighty God. Father, we know that you're able
to save. We know that you're able to keep.
We know that you're able to comfort. You have all power. You will
do whatever it is that your will is to do. And Father, we pray
that your will would be to be merciful, that you'd be merciful
to this people, that you'd reveal yourself to those that don't
know you, that you'd speak to the hearts and strengthen the
heart that does believe you. Comfort our hearts. Establish
us into faith. and keep us walking in and trusting
in and glorying in Christ our Savior. It is in his precious
name, for his sake and his glory, we pray. Amen. All right, Sean.