Well, it's good to see everyone again. I've looked forward a great deal to being able to meet together and worship with you. I thank God for you, and I thank you for inviting me and having me here.

If you would open your Bibles with me to Acts chapter 6. I've titled the message tonight, Ministering the Word. And if the Lord will enable me to do this right, in an attempt to declare the glorious riches of Christ our Savior, and the Lord will bless this to your heart, each of us will go home this evening knowing this in our heart, Christ is all that matters. He's all that matters.

His glory being declared in this place and others where He's raised up a lighthouse for His gospel, having the glory of Christ, the truth of Christ declared, it's all that matters. Me knowing Christ, you knowing Christ, people in our community that have the opportunity to come and hear the gospel, and knowing Christ, it's all that matters. It's all that matters.

Other things in this life that have some importance, taking care of our homes, our jobs, our families, those things, I'll grant you they have their level of importance. But in being compared to knowing Christ, they can't be more insignificant. God help us to get this and believe this in our heart.

Verse one in Acts chapter six says, and in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. And up to this point, the early church, I don't know what you call it, a honeymoon period. I mean, it has been wonderful. The Lord's just adding daily to the church such as should be added. They see 3,000 saved in a day. They see 6,000 saved in a day. They all sell all their belongings. They all have all things common. They are with one accord and one heart.

And now it starts. The more the church grew, the more discord that there was. Their numbers certainly increased, and we pray for that. I'd like to see the Lord save, I mean, fill this place with people that he'd say, that's my prayer to yours. But I'm telling you, their numbers increased, but their joy did not. You know why? Because believers, saved by God's grace, are sinners still. And whenever you put sinners together, there's going to be problems. And they didn't split the church wide open. They didn't come to blows. They didn't start a civil war. It was just murmuring and backbiting and complaining, you know, about the most petty things.

Maybe it was real. Maybe it was imagined that the Greek widows weren't given as much as the Hebrew widows. Who knows? But they're murmuring over something that is so petty. compared to the job of the church, which is to preach Christ, to worship him. And these things that happen like that, and they start murmuring, and I've seen it. You have too. I mean, I cannot believe the things. I've seen people get so upset, the color you paint the walls. I mean, people get upset about the color of the tie the pastor wears. I mean, my soul, And you get cut off on something so petty. We miss the great glory of Christ our Savior. We miss the great calling of the church to preach Christ.

And this happened in the early church, where there were people alive who heard the Lord Jesus himself preach the gospel. These people, if they hadn't heard the Lord preach, they were all hearing the apostles preach. I mean the apostles. And this still came up. It is such a warning to me. I do not want to be the guy that causes a distraction to the preaching of the gospel. It's just not worth it. It's just nothing else matters.

So look how the disciples handled this. The apostles handled it, verse two. Then the 12 called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, it's not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, looking out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. And we'll give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word and the saying, please the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. They sat before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them.

Now, the disciples said, you boys pick out men to take care of all these business matters of the church, things that need to be distributed and things that need to be done. Let somebody take care of these things. This is where we get the office of a deacon. And the word just, it means servants. It doesn't mean a big important guy. He's a servant. He's a servant, just like the pastor, just like all of us are servants of God. And these men were not novices, and they didn't choose them because they were very successful in business, they knew how to handle business, how to handle people. These were not novices. They were men who had been around long enough to have an honest rapport among all the people, for the people to see that they were full of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom. And that's who they appointed over these business matters of the church so that the apostles could give themselves, just give themselves over to the business of the church, which is ministering the word, preaching Christ.

And they're going to give themselves, they say, to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Now, this is the life of every one of God's pastors. You're going to give yourself to prayer. and the ministering of the word. We have to give ourselves to prayer because we cannot preach, we cannot hear, we cannot worship, we cannot sing, we cannot be of one accord, we can't do anything. So we're required to pray about it, aren't we? We pray, pray and ask the Lord to bless, pray and ask the Lord to give a message, to give a hearing ear, to give a believing heart,

This matter of preaching is supernatural. And I say it's supernatural, it comes from above because it's spiritual. It's not fleshly. This is not winning friends and influencing people. This is not giving a clever lecture that's full of true facts. Preaching is preaching Christ. It's declaring Christ, who he is, so that sinners will believe on him. And if the Holy Spirit doesn't bless it, there'll be no blessing. So we must give ourselves to prayer.

And secondly, to the ministering of the word. I'm gonna come back to that in just one moment. But I want you to look what happened when the apostles were freed up to give themselves to prayer and the ministering of the word. Verse seven says, and the word of God increased. And the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. And a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people.

When the apostles were able to give themselves to prayer and administering of the word, it just grew and grew. The Lord blessed it just exponentially. And I would like that same blessing for you and me. Now, how the Lord blesses, if he blesses in numbers, we'll be thankful. If he doesn't bless in numbers, adding to our numbers, but he blesses it in a growth in grace, oh, we're thankful. However the Lord would be pleased to bless us, I want that blessing, and it comes through being faithful, a faithful minister of the word.

Now, what is it to minister the Word? And like I said when I began, if we do this right, I'm gonna give you five or six things, and each one of them will show us our need of Christ, that He is everything we need.

Number one, look back at John chapter one. To minister the Word is to preach Christ the Word. Christ the Word. John 1, verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

This word, word, it's the same word back in our text about ministering the word. It means the sayings of God, the decrees of God, the teaching of God. It means the account of God. The word of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. You notice the John used to capitalizes the W there. This is somebody's proper name. It's the proper name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is all of the sayings of God. He's all of the account of God. He's all of the teaching of God. He's all the decrees of God.

So if we're going to minister the word, we're not preaching about a person. We're preaching a person. We're preaching a person. Christ, the incarnate word from Christ, the written word. And if we do it right, God's people will believe him. I mean, I'm not just up here trying to give you true facts about Christ the Savior. I want to tell you about Him so that you believe Him, so that you trust your soul to Him.

And from the very beginning, I see something that's so comforting to my soul here. The Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Savior. John says, in the beginning was the word. He didn't say from the beginning, because our Savior has no beginning. He's eternal. In the beginning, in the beginning of creation, in the beginning of man's time on earth, Christ was already there. He was already there standing as the surety of his people. The father elected a people and he gave them to his son to save. And the father and the son loved those people. Knowing what they'd be, Knowing how they'd be fallen in Adam, knowing the filth of their own sin, knowing their own rebellion, the Son set His love upon those people and He promised the Father, I'll redeem them.

Now, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit did that for you in eternity. Before you were even born, they're not gonna cast you out now. He's the eternal Savior. You know, when you think about the Lord Jesus Christ and you declare justification in Him, God's people are eternally justified. We were justified in Christ before God ever said, let there be light. Now that's supernatural. You can't believe that without God giving faith, can you? Without the Spirit giving you faith to believe.

But John here calls Christ the Word. Now we use words to communicate. I just now was thinking some really good things, but you don't know what I'm thinking until I use words to tell you. God uses words to communicate too. He uses the word, his son. Look over at Hebrews chapter one, everything God has to say to sinners is the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything. Hebrews one verse one, God, who at sundry times and in diverse, different manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and the express, the exact image of his person. and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

Everything God has to say to sinners, he has said to us in this day by his son. He spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets. Today he speaks to us by his son. And I'll tell you what that means. If you want to know what God says, All you've got to do is look to Christ. Just look to him. You will know what righteousness is. Righteousness is not these stiff, stokey old men who always do everything right and frown on anybody having a good time and, you know, being happy. Righteousness is not us obeying the law. Righteousness is not us outwardly. Well, I know I can't keep the whole law, but I obey it outwardly better than other folks. That's not what righteousness is. You know, I know that. Look to Christ.

When I look to Christ, I see perfect obedience to his father. He was obedient even unto death so that he could not save himself. because he's dying to save his people, obedient unto death. His very name is Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness. When I see Christ, I see what righteousness really is, and that's when I find out I need him to be my righteousness. I don't just need righteousness like a piece of paper to clear me righteous. I need him to be my righteousness. Now, if you know him, you know what I'm talking about. There's a big difference there, isn't it?

You want to know something about the power of God unto salvation? All you've got to do is look to Christ. There's power in the obedience of Christ to make a number that no man can number, righteous and spotless in the all-seeing eye of God. There's power in the blood of Christ to cleanse His people from all of their sin, to wash us white as snow. Though we're scarlet, red, just, oh, the blackness and filth of our sin, the power of the blood of Christ to wash His people white as snow. There's power in His blood.

What about forgiveness of sin? Do you want to know how God forgives sin? All you gotta do is look to Christ. Do you know there's only one reason Almighty God would forgive your sin or mine? It's because he charged our sin to his son and punished him fully for it. That's the only way God can forgive our sin. Oh, that's what, God doesn't just sweep the sin of his people under the rug. He punished his son to make it right to forgive your sin. That's the wisdom of God, isn't it? He found a ransom. God didn't just use dynamite and blow a hole in the jail wall and let his people escape. He found a ransom. He took the key and unlocked the door and let his people go free in justice because Christ satisfied the justice of God for his people by dying in their place as their substitute.

The death of Christ satisfied both the justice of God and the mercy of God, the truth of God and the grace of God, the holiness of God and the pity of God for sinners because the death of Christ made it right for God to forgive his people and accept them into his presence. If you want to see anything about the gospel, all you've got to do is look to Christ. It's just there as plain as day. Lord give you eyes to see it.

All right, number two, look with me at Romans chapter 9. To minister the word is to preach the promise of God. Romans 9 verse 9, for this is the word of promise. At this time will I come and Sarah shall have a son. Now, you know the story of Abraham and Sarah and Isaac. God promised Abraham when Abraham thought, I'm about out of time here to have any children. God promised him a son. He said, by Sarah, you'll have a son. Well, years passed, no son. Sarah's 90. She can't have children anymore. Abraham's a hundred. He can't, he can't bear children anymore. And lo and behold, Sarah gave birth to a son that wasn't by the power of the flesh is because of the promise of God, the promise of God and salvation comes to God's people the exact same way by his promise. Before God created anything, He promised that He would save a people by His grace, through the doing and the dying of His Son. It's a promise. It's what we call the covenant of God's grace. God saved a people because He promised He would do it, because His Son made it right for Him to save them. God's never going to save anyone because we earned it. because we did something to make ourselves more savable than somebody else. Every single time God saves a sinner, it's by His promise.

I've been pastoring long enough to watch people as I preach. And they're so bored. I mean, they are so bored. Oh my goodness. And one day the light goes on and they're hearing and they're rejoicing. And you don't have to say anything. You just wait. And pretty soon they come say, Frank, I'll show her like if you baptize me, I say, well, I'd be delighted. And I think God's kept his promise again. He kept his promise again.

Christ our Savior came to this earth. He's holy. He's harmless. He's undefiled. He's separate from sinners. After a life of perfect obedience, this is a perfect man. He willingly gave himself to be made what he was not, to be made sin for his people. took the sin of his people away from them and traded them his perfect righteousness so that he could go to the cross and suffer the unmitigated wrath of his father so that he was crushed like that grape in the wine press until he died.

Why did he go through all that? When he was in the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, Father, save me from this hour. If it could be your will, save me from this hour. Just the thought of drinking the cup of the sin of my people, just the thought of it, I'm going to die right here. Blood is flowing out of his pores because of the trauma that he's going through, thinking about being made sin. And he took the cup and willingly drank it dry anyway. gave himself to be beaten, gave himself to have the beard plucked out of his face, to have one of his creatures ball up their fist and hit him in the face and mocking him saying, who is it that hit you prophet? He gave himself to be laid down and nailed to a cross, picked up and dropped in a hole and be mocked as he died. And in those three hours of darkness, God did business with God. to put away sin in absolute justice, suffering that you and I will never imagine.

Now, why'd he do that for the likes of you and me? Because he promised the Father he would, and he kept his promise. And that's true of every promise in this book. God keeps his promises. If the Father's promised to save you and His Son, if He's promised to bless you, if He's promised to keep you and preserve you, if He's promised that when your journey through this veil of tears is over, that He's been with you every single step of the way, that His grace has been sufficient in every dark night and every stormy sea, and He's promised that you will awaken His likeness, brother, you will, because God keeps His promise. Now hang on to that. There'll be no salvation without God keeping his promise to us. I need that promise. Don't you?

All right. Now look at first Corinthians chapter one. Here's the third thing to minister. The word is to preach Christ the power of God. First Corinthians one verse 18. For the preaching, and that word preaching is the same word, same Greek word translated word, ministering the word back in our text. For the preaching of the cross, the word of the cross, is to them that perish foolishness. But to us which are saved, it's the power of God.

Now the preaching of Christ to the natural man is foolishness. It's foolishness. It just sounds like a bunch of religious words. Sounds like a cult, sounds like, you know, whatever they think. To hear that the father chose the people, not because he looked down through the telescope of time and saw they'd believe him. Not because he looked down through time and saw they'd be better than somebody else. Not because they're related to somebody else. But completely in spite of anything about them, the Father chose a people to save. And He chose the worst of the worst. He chose a people who could never contribute anything to Him. That's who He chose to save.

The natural man says, that's foolish. Of course God helps those that can help themselves. He helps good people, you know. To hear that righteousness does not come from me obeying the law. Righteousness doesn't even come by me keeping myself righteous after God converts me. No, righteousness is all in Christ. To hear that salvation is a decision. Salvation absolutely is a decision. But it's not mine. It's not yours, it's God's, who chose a people to save just because He would, just because He would, just so that He could display the glory of His Son in saving us. That everything in salvation is all Christ and none of you and me.

The natural man says, that's foolish. Now I got to contribute something in here. And many of us, Felt very similar to all those things I just described to you at one time, didn't we? But now you don't. Now you believe and you can't not believe. You can't quit believing. Why? It's the power of God. The word power that Paul uses here is the Greek word that we use to get our word dynamite. I mean, you send the Word of God in and power's like dynamite just blasting the enemy out. When the Word of God comes in power, brother, it comes in power. When the Word of God comes in power, dead sinners live. I mean, they're dead. And suddenly they live. They have eternal life. It's the power of God.

Sinners who in darkness, they're in the darkness of ignorance, suddenly the light comes on and they see. I see how God could save a sinner like me and still be God. That's what I see. I see that Christ is everything I need. I was blind, but now I see. I see Christ. Now, I don't know everything there is to know, but this I know. I see Christ and I need Him. I'm following Him. I'm staying in. I see. I was in the darkness of unbelief. I wish I could tell you the years that I spent trying to make myself believe. Couldn't do it. The Word of God came in power, and I believed. I believed. You did too. You can't not believe in Him. Now that you see Christ, you see Him everywhere, don't you? You can't not see Him.

The deaf hear. When the Word comes in power, somebody that used to not be able to hear the gospel, they could not hear, what's the big deal about? Now they hear. They don't just hear the voice of a preacher. They hear Christ in the word. They have hard hearts that, oh, they're so hard. They're unaffected. I don't care how hard you preach. I don't care how emotionally you preach. I don't care how much you scream and yell and bang your fist on the thing, jump up and down and just... Heart's unaffected. But the word of God comes in power and that heart's broken. And God gives a new heart, a heart of flesh. And here's one of the great displays of the power of the word of God. Sinful men and women hear the word of God from the lips of a sinful man and they believe God. Now that's power. That's power, isn't it? And to, to, To minister the word is to preach the power of God unto salvation. It's not you deciding to do it. It's not you doing it. It's Christ is the power of God. He's got the power to save even you and me. Now you come to him and beg him, Lord, you got the power. Would you be pleased to save me?

Now look at second Corinthians chapter five. Verse 18, to minister the word is to preach reconciliation with God. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 18, all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and he's given to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, namely this is the message of reconciliation that God's given us. that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and he hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

One of the things I love about the gospel is I've got good news for sinners. You and I declared war on God in Adam, and we've been going away from God just as fast as we can for 6,000 years.

Now you don't have to turn over a new leaf and you don't have to make peace with God. You don't have to do something to make God so that he'll now be happy with you and the war will be over. And I tell you why that's such good news is because we can't do it. We can't please God.

Here's the good news of the gospel. God's already made reconciliation for his people in the person of his son. The father is reconciled to his people. He's friends with his people. He's not angry with them anymore in the person of his son.

And here's how the father made reconciliation. Now remember, we're the ones that declared war on him. We're the ones that started this whole mess. We're the ones that started this enmity. So the father made peace by taking the sin of his people and imputing it to his son. He made his son to be the sin of his people.

Christ was never a sinner, but that sin was made His. He never committed a sin, but that sin was made His sin. He felt the guilt of it. He felt the shame of it. He was made sin, and His bloody sacrifice made that sin to not exist. There's no reason God wouldn't be reconciled. He put the sin of his people away. He put away the thing that made him angry.

God's reconciled. Isn't that a glorious message? I mean, what a message that the thrice holy God would do something like slaughtering his, humiliating and slaughtering his son to save the likes of you and me. That everything God requires of his people is found in his son. His son already did it. God's reconciled.

Now the message doesn't end there. Look at verse 20. Now then we're ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead. This is what I'm telling you in Christ's stead. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ would say tonight if he was here preaching. You be reconciled to God. That's the message God's given us. You be reconciled to God. God's reconciled. Now surrender. Surrender. Stack your arms and surrender. Submit yourself to the righteousness of God. Just quit. Just quit. Quit trying to establish your own righteousness. Quit trying to make yourself a little better before you come to God. Quit trying to wonder, well, you know, what's God doing here? Just quit! And surrender. Surrender. fall at his feet and beg for mercy, surrender.

Now, why would you do that? For the very same reason that the fathers reconciled, the sacrifice of Christ. Verse 21, for he, God the father, hath made him, God the son, sin for us. Him who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. I tell you the best reason I can think of to surrender and be reconciled to God is that God's holy son took my sin away from me and took it into his own body on the tree.

Now this is supernatural. This is something we, we can't fully understand, but we understand something of the horror of that. And after he took my sin and his body on the tree, he suffered and died to put that sin away so that I would be made the righteousness of God in him. There's nothing that breaks my heart more than that, to think that God would do something like that for a low down, no good wretch like me. I surrender. I surrender.

Then next, look at Philippians chapter two. To minister the word is to preach the word of life. Philippians chapter two, verse 16. Holding forth the word of life that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I've not run in vain, neither labored in vain, holding forth the word of life." It's this word. James said, of his own will begat he us with the word of truth.

Now, the only way any dead sinner is going to have spiritual life is if God the Holy Spirit gives them life in the new birth. The flesh cannot be given light and life. It cannot. You cannot educate the flesh into knowing God. Flesh is dead flesh and that's all it ever will be. The flesh will never see, will never believe, will never love God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. It'll only ever be dead flesh.

So we must be born again. We must be. The old man doesn't have anything to put any spiritual into. There's no connection between the old man and spiritual life. We must be born again. And when we're born again, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. It'll always be spirit. A new spiritual man that does believe God, that does love God, that loves God's way of salvation, that does surrender, that does submit, that hungers and thirsts after him.

And I tell you how that new man is born. by the preaching of the word. This word is the seed that we sow, and if God will plant it in your heart, you're gonna have life. You're gonna have life. And that life will have the same nature as the seed that bore it. It's holy and righteous and can never sin. A new man, born of God, so that when this flesh dies, the new man immediately goes into the presence of God. He's fully qualified. There's no probationary period. There's no, none of this junk that different people talk about. Immediately into the presence of Christ our Savior, because that new man is fit to enter into heaven. He's holy. And if the Holy Spirit ever gives us faith to believe on Christ, we'll have life. We'll have, because he's life, and we'll never be dead in Adam again.

Now last, look at second Thessalonians chapter two. To minister the word is to comfort and to establish God's people. Second Thessalonians two verse 17. Now look at verse 16. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God, even our father, which hath loved us, and given us everlasting consolation and a good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.

You know, the command to God's preachers is, comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Now, how am I going to comfort you tonight? Am I going to tell you, whatever it is you're going through, it'll be all right. Don't worry. God has a plan. That's a pet peeve of mine. God does have a purpose. He doesn't have a plan. He has a purpose. But you know, that purpose may be for me to suffer. I mean, it might be. It might be for me to suffer until this body finally has suffered so much it dies. I mean, I might die screaming in pain and gasping for breath. And in that sense, I mean, that's really, I mean, you know, you're going to tell somebody screaming in pain, no, it's all right. I mean, no, it's not. Give me some morphine. I mean, you know, that's not where our comfort is.

This comfort that Paul is talking about here is concrete comfort for your soul. And it comes by the preaching of Christ. I got a little stopwatch at home tells me if I've been preaching too long, but I got something here I want to give you. I want you to take this home with you now. It's so vital. I recently sat at the deathbed, something I've done before, sat at the deathbed of a dying saint, very dear, dear, dear, faithful woman. And her time on this earth was measured in hours, hours, not days, hours. And we were talking about the gospel. And I told her she had, she had removed all medical care and she's just, she wanted to go home. And she asked me, did I make the right decision? I said, I think you did. I think you did. In a little while, you're going to wake up and open your eyes and look into the face of Christ, our savior. And you're going to go there.

And she was famous for saying, when people would tell her, oh, you're such a good mother, you're such a good woman, you're so faithful. And she'd always say, well, maybe for a maggot. And I told her, well, you're a maggot, but you're going to open your eyes and look into the face of Jesus Christ because he's sufficient for you.

Everything God requires of you, he's already done. He put your sin away. He chose you. He loved you. He's called you. He's been with you all this way through all of your life up to right now. And he's not going to leave you now. And she told me I'd never have been able to get over that. I guess she'd been a believer 60, 65 years. She'd never been able to get over that. Never been able to get over God's grace.

But I believe He's all I need. Very shortly, you and I are going to trade places, and we're going to be the one on the deathbed. What color we painted the walls, what color the preacher's tie was, whether we decided to spend money on this or that, is not going to matter. All that will matter is, do I know Christ? Do I believe Him? And if you do, what comfort for your souls this word has to give you. What comfort for your soul.

And if that's all that's going to matter then, I really truly want that to be all that matters to you and me now. It's all that matters. The Lord Jesus Christ is everything God requires of you. And where's he at? At the right hand of the Father. You're going to follow him soon. His blood will never lose its power to atone for sin. You might think, oh, I'm so much more of a greater sinner than I used to be. And you're not. You're just rotting everywhere. But the new man sees the sin of the old man. And we think, how can somebody that knows Christ sin like this? His blood is still going to be sufficient to put even those sins away.

The righteousness that He's given us, given to His people, despite all of our sin and our weak faith and our failure at every turn. There's not been one test you and I have ever been faced with that we passed. We failed every single one of them. But the righteousness of Christ that's been given to us cannot be marred because it's all based on Him. See, it's Him. It's Him that we need. He's promised to never leave you nor forsake you, and He won't. He'll be with you through every valley, through every fire, through every raging river. He'll be with you. And this is why I can promise you, His grace will be sufficient. It won't take the hurt and the pain and the sorrow away, but it will be sufficient.

I've learned that At least for me, this is my advice, you take it or leave it, that in times of trial, I try to quit asking that the Lord deliver me from the trial and start asking the Lord, give me grace sufficient for this, because that's what he promised. Paul says, let your hearts be comforted and established with every good word and work. You know how we're established in the faith, how believers are established in the faith? It's by hearing of Christ over and over and over and over again.

John, I'm not calling you old, but how many times have you heard the gospel? And the gospel that you hear today, even though it's the same one you heard way back there, it's still Christ, isn't it? That's what establishes us on Him. We have to constantly be reminded, look away from self. and look to Christ and we look to him, you know what we find out? I'm established. I can't leave him if I'm looking at him. It's all Christ. You see what I'm saying? It's all Christ. God give us the faith to really believe him that way.

All right. I appreciate y'all for having me.