We're cold with it. Go ahead. Go ahead. Those who have been added to
the prayer list are Arlene Allison, Karen Prince, Browning, the loss
of her husband, and Brandon Stevens. So remember these folks in your
prayer. As I said, Wednesday night, Claire Sharon, up in Tyler
Diver's church up in Kentucky, does have cancer of the esophagus. or a trachea, one or the other.
But anyway, they did a tracheostomy on him and he's able to breathe
now anyway. And oddly enough, they did a
trick on him and he was able to talk. I had never heard of
that. Maybe some new procedure. Usually when you do a trachea,
you can't talk. Unless you put your hand over the hole and then
maybe, you know. But, uh... They're awaiting them
now. They did a PET scan on the place
in his lung, and that's not cancer. So that's good. But it is pretty
bad cancer in his trachea. So remember him in your prayers.
Remember all the others who have requested prayer. We'll start
our first hymns morning. We'll begin our hymns morning
with number 61. Hold the sweet, sweet love of
Jesus. That's right. The love of Jesus, that's unmeasured,
boundless, free. Rolling as a mighty ocean, He
is fullness over me. It's the carol of our God! Leaning onward, leaning onward,
To Thy glorious rest above. O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Filled with great joy, shore to shore. How He loveth, ever
loveth children ever, evermore. How He watches for His loved
ones, like to hold them all to His own. Now, Lord, in Thee interceded,
Water poured in from the throne For the healing love of Jesus,
Lord, for the healing ? Blessed is the name that freedom
brings ? ? For the deeply love of Jesus ? ? Is a hymn of praise
to me ? ? And it lifts me up to glory ? ? For it lifts me
up to glory ? We'll sing hymn number 70. Hold it, hold it,
hold it. If you have your Bible, tell them to read for me a portion
of the scripture, Ephesians chapter 1. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he has
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy without blame before him, and love having predestinated
us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the blood, in
whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath
abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known
unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure,
which he has purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the
fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on the earth, even
in him, in whom also we obtain an inheritance, being predestinated
according to the purpose of him who worketh all things, after
the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise
of his blood who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted
after ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation,
in whom also after ye were relieved ye were sealed with the Holy
Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, Our Father, it is with a thankful
heart we approach unto you for your goodness and kindness toward
us. We know that there is nothing
in us, of us, or about us that could ever merit your recognition. have it on whom you choose to
have it. And you will be gracious, and
we are thankful for that. And you will be gracious and
do whatsoever you will. We know, Father, that our salvation
is entirely in your hands and always has been, long before
anything existed in this world. You chose out of a fallen race
that did not yet exist, an innumerable company of sinners, all worthy
of hell and death, and show grace to them, and have
mercy upon them, and redeem them by the blood of Jesus Christ.
It is a wonder to us to consider these things. No child of God ever gets over
this. Father, we thank you. We pray for those who are sick,
those who've lost loved ones, those who are mourning for whatever
reason or going through trial and temptation. Thou knowest
every case. We ask your Lord your help for
them. Fix their hearts and minds upon Jesus Christ. Cause us all
to realize and recognize that we can see, touch, taste,
or feel lasts, but soon shall pass off the scene in the blink
of an eye faster than a weaver's shovel, faster than a poet's
vapor. The only thing that is eternal
is what you have done and who you are. We are thankful and
in your great counsel, and according to your great purpose,
and for the honor and glory of your grace, you chose us in Christ. We are thankful that we are ever
reminded that as sweet and as wonderful
as grace is, it is always for sinners Mercy's always for sinners. Let us not graduate from that
place, but take our place in the dust where we belong, with
full understanding that our hope is in Christ alone. Help us to
worship you this day. Help us to glory your name. Help
us to lift up and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to find
ourselves On our faces before you, with a heart full of thanksgiving
and praise, we pray in his precious name, amen. In number 70, Holy, Holy, Holy. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee Holy, holy,
holy Merciful and mighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity! Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee Casting
down their golden crowns around Thee Cherubim and seraphim, fall
down before me, which were denied, evermore shall you. Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Only Thou art holy, there is
no other! There is none beside Thee Perfect
in power, in love and purity Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
All thy worship praise thy name in earth Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty! God in three Persons, blessed
is He with you! Right, Father, again we approach
in the name of Jesus Christ. With hearts full of thanksgiving
for what you've done for us. We thank you for this rain that's
come. We know, according to your word, that it's you who send
the rain. We know you'll hold it from one place and give it
to another. We know that's according to your will and purpose and
promise. We are thankful. Pray for those
folks who had to suffer through these fires. Ask the Lord your
help for them. We thank you, Father, that we
know that all good and perfect gifts come from above, from the
Father of lights, in whom there is no variables for sure or turning.
You have gifted us, your children, the unspeakable gift, the precious
gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. You sent him into this world to take on the fashion and form
of a man. To live in this world as a servant
of thee, without sin, without evil thought or evil deed. To
walk in perfect righteousness before men, and no man knew it. And to give his life a ransom
for many. And in doing so, save your people
and redeem them. Let us ever be mindful of what
you've done for us. I'm coming home to you again to remember the amount
of times I've preached from this passage of Scripture. I truly remember that in all
the years I spent in Southern Baptist churches, basically one
of them in Winston Shortly after the Lord began
to reveal His truth to me, I heard Henry Mahan preach from the passage.
He preached on the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
and the salvation of sinners. While I was driving back from
Kentucky, I was changing through the radio, trying to find some
station I wanted to listen to. was talking about some Jewish
holiday and if you observed this holiday you'd get blessings from
God and you'd even get more blessings if you sent a thousand dollars and I began to think about this
passage of scripture and actually verse three only at the time realizing fully This passage
says it all concerning the manifold blessings of God for his people
as he has saved them from their sin and made them holy and acceptable
in his sight. All spiritual blessings are not
mentioned in this passage. Peace is discussed in the second
chapter of this book. many other blessings are given
of God. But the blessings spoken of are
not temporal things that God supplies to His people. He said,
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and
all this stuff that the world seeks after will be added to
you. That's taken care of. What we're talking about here
in this passage is blessings that are not of this world, that
have nothing to do with any attainment you might have in this world,
and have nothing to do with anything you might do to get them. This
speaks of the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
who is all manifest in the Lord Jesus Christ, for in Him filled
is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And this is all God's
doing. The mark of a child of God, as
He talks about what God has done for Him, The mark of a religionist
is that he talks about what he's done forgotten. Listen to men. Listen to what they say. This
begins with the word blessed, which means eulogize in verse
3. Say something good about God.
Now most of the things said about God, about His Son Jesus Christ
and the Holy Ghost, the world of religion don't like. They
don't want mentioned. They don't want to talk about
election. They don't want to talk about predestination. Because
it takes man out of the picture. It destroys the idea of man having
a free will. That all goes out the window
when our Lord talks about what He's done. And Paul, in writing
to the Ephesian church, said, this is something nice God has
done. We're going to say something
nice about God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings. There's
that little word, all. What does that mean? That means
if you're a child of God here today, no matter your financial
situation, no matter your political standing, no matter who you are,
where you are, your status in the world, your weakness, your
frailty, your strength, none of that matters. This says all. That means in
the matter of standing before God and being accepted before
God, You have it all. You have need
of nothing. You have need of nothing. You
are complete in Him. It says in Colossians 2 and verse
10. You have it all. So that's how
it all began. Blessed be the Godfather of our
Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all. Whatever is in the
spiritual realm, Whatever constitutes spirituality, and righteousness,
and holiness, and sanctification, and justification, whatever is
involved in all those terms, you lack nothing. You stand before
God as perfect, and holy, and just, and righteous, and not
because of anything you've ever done, or ever will do, or can
do, but because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It says
all these spiritual blessings in verse 1 are in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ. That is repeated
time and time again in these first 14 verses. It's in Christ
or in Him. It's all there. It's all in that
one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, how are you in Christ? People talk about it by the image
of their lives. Inviting Him into their hearts.
But how are you in Jesus Christ? That's a term of representation.
You were born in Adam. Represented by Adam before God. A sinner before God in Adam. That means He's your representative.
That means God's going to judge you in one of two people. He's
going to judge you in Adam or He's going to judge you in the
last Adam. the Lord Jesus Christ. How do
you get in Christ? 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, but
of God are you in Christ? That's how you got in Christ.
God put you in Christ, made Him your representative before the
foundation of the world. But of God are you in Jesus Christ? Of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, in Jesus Christ. And then, so
the first blessing is you're completed in Him. The second
mention is in Jesus Christ. The third mention is the doctrine
of the teaching of elections. And this, according to Paul,
is something we ought to brag to God about. Blessed be the
God and Father of our lives. Eulogize God about elections. Most people hate God because
of election. Religion hates God because of
election. Religion makes all kinds of excuses,
all kinds of things we're all aware of. Jerry Falwell, one
time when he was talking about it, he said, I noticed that how
many people come down to the front of the church to make a
profession of faith, that's how many people have increased election. I remember one time in a Bible
class with a former preacher of mine, a good friend, but he
was a premillennial fundamentalist sovereign grace preacher. He
believed in the premillennial view of eschatology. He was talking
about the seven years of tribulation. The Bible doesn't talk about
it, but he was talking about it. I raised my hand. I said, preacher, pastor? I think
it's Matthew 24, Mark 24, Luke 24, somewhere in there. It says
that the angels should gather all the elect from the four corners
of the earth, and then Christ will come. And I said, and you're saying
that there will be people saved in that seven-year period after
the rapture. I think it'll be saved that the
angels have already gathered all the elect from the four corners
of the earth. He said they'll hold another election. He had
to have an idea. They'll hold another election.
But Graham said, this is an election. The devil casts a vote for you.
God casts a vote for you. And you cast the deciding vote. In fact, it didn't exist. But
here we have it. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ according, or based
on the fact that, according as He has chosen us in Him before
the foundation or the conception of the Word. What a blessing
thing. What a blessed thing. If you
are here today, a child of God, before the world was, don't ask me to explain anything,
because that blows my mind just to think about it. When there
was nothing but God, and the angels that He had created, He chose whom He would save. Paul gave thanksgiving for that. He thanked God for that. He said
that over in 2 Thessalonians 2 in verse 13, you're familiar
with it. He said we are bound, that means
we are obligated. We are obligated to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. Because
as God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through
setting apart by the Spirit and believing the truth, where unto
he called you to understand and appreciate that this has happened
to you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul was thankful for a lecture. People say, thank God a whole
lot. Look at scripture and see what
men of God Anything to do with what most
people say they thank God for. Why? This is a blessing of God. Chosen. That's a spiritual blessing.
All, you're complete in Him. You're in Jesus Christ. And you're
chosen in Him. That's what it says, according
to the Chosen One, in Him. In Him. And it says, have Him
predestinated. There's another word. There's
another word. Not to mention the fact that
we are perfected before Him. It also says in this passage,
have Him predestinated us. Or, verse, excuse me, according
to He's chosen us that we should be without blame before Him. Without blame. You feel that way about yourself? We don't feel that way. This
takes an act of God to give us faith to believe this. I know
what I am, and I'm ashamed of what I am. And like old Scott
Richard said, I just worry about the day when you find out what
a fraud I am. I worry about that. But faith says this, I'm not
to blame. I'm not to blame. without blame
before him, in love, having predestinated us to the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ and to himself according to the pleasure of
his own will." Predestination. This means determining beforehand.
That's all it means. We all do it all the time. Every task that we have ever
endeavored to do involved predetermination. Bob deterring beforehand what
we was going to do and how we was going to do it and what the
end product hopefully would be. That's all predestination. Yet,
when God, who is always, and we're stupid as a bag of hammers,
when God is always, we say, He can't be predestinated. He predestinated
everything. And I walk against that. I'm
ashamed of myself. I argue and I fuss about what's
going on in the world when I realize this is all according to plan
and on purpose and right on schedule. But He predestinated those whom
He had chosen in Jesus Christ to be adopted, put into His family. That's a double way we're put
into the family. We're born into the family by the spiritual birth
through the preaching of the gospel. But here God said He
only predestinated before the world was to adopt us into His
family. So we're in God's family, predestinated. And it's all because He's pleased
to do that. You see, God always does what
He pleases, having predestinated us to the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. His will. You'll notice that
our will is not even mentioned in all this history of salvation
that began before the foundation of the world with our believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ and being sealed by the Spirit of
God. Our will is not mentioned. But His will is over and over
and over again. He was well pleased to do that.
The Lord said in Romans chapter 3 that He was righteous to do
that. He was a righteous act for Him
to save a wretch like me. When He saved me, He said, I
did the right thing. And me, I think, that can't be
right. God said it so it's so. Redestinated. It's all about
grace. This is how it's going to end
in glory. Mercy is to the praise of the glory of His grace. This is what it's going to be
all about. When everything is said and done, when all of God's
children are gathered together, in one place, when this world
is put away, when it's made anew, whatever that means, I'm looking
forward to seeing what that means, but I don't know what it means
yet. When it wipes everything away and starts everything all
over again, there's one thing that will be important in that
day, one thing that will be the theme of that day, one day that
will be the song of that day. Grace, grace unto it. How is
such a group of people like me, Wretched worms of the dust, writhing
and wriggling in sin all the days of their life, how in the
world do they stand here dressed in white robes in perfect purity
before a holy God? G-R-A-C-E. Grace. Grace alone. Well, didn't they do something?
No, they couldn't do nothing. They had dead-end trespasses
in sin. Why are they there? Why do they stand here? Why do
they stand with the Lord Jesus Christ and judge the world, these
riches? Grace. For the praise of the
glory of His grace. And in that grace, the next blessing is this. You're
accepted. You're not just tolerated. are
bound to do other costs in the United States. We're bound to
tolerate people. We don't have to accept anybody. We're bound
to tolerate them. They're bound to tolerate us. But that's not
what this is. This ain't God putting up with
us. His long-suffering was all while we were here on Earth.
He's not long-suffering in Heaven. Accept Him. Accept Him. In Jesus Christ, in the Beloved.
Accept Him. You know, just about everybody
in this world does what they do to be accepted. I look at
these people that have like 40 million tattoos on their face
and rings in their nose and their ears and all kinds of strange
things. Try to apply for a job and they
don't get it and wonder why. But nonetheless, I say, and why
do they do that? I say, that's why they do it. So when I can be accepted, they'll
find somebody who'll accept them. They'll find somebody who has
tattoos like they do, so they'll be accepted. Why do people do
what they do? By nature, all they want to do
is be accepted. Well, no matter who you are,
if you're a child of God today, you're accepted in Jesus Christ.
You walk into the very presence of Almighty God, whose eyes are
too pure to behold evil, before whom the moon, sun, and stars
are not pure in his sight, and you walk in there, and you're
accepted. Come on in! Come on in. Accepted. That's a blessing.
Oh, I'm blessed. People say, boy, I've got to be blessed in
order to be too. I'm accepted. I'm accepted. I'm predestinated.
I'm a chosen person. I've got all spiritual blessings. from the slave market of sin,
never to be put on the slave market again. And don't think
you aren't a slave to sin. You are, by nature. Sin hath
reigned unto death. Reigned! Sin runs our show from
the time we were born. He who committed sin is a slave
of sin, the Lord said. We have redemption. We have redemption. We've been bought with the blood
of Jesus Christ. Redemption through His blood.
That was the price of our redemption. His shed blood, His death before
a holy and righteous God was the price of our redemption.
That's a blessing. Boy, what a blessing I've been
redeemed. Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. Redeemed by the
blood of the Lamb. Redeemed through His infinite
mercy. His child and forever I am. Not only are we redeemed,
we have this wondrous thing that still, I've never been able to
truly wrap my mind around this. Maybe it's because I can't do
it very well. Forgiveness. And I convince myself perhaps
that I have, but then something can happen and call it right
back to my head again and I've lost my forgiveness altogether.
This is a wonder. And that to me is one of the
most wondrous things of all for a child of God to consider this.
Knowing what he is and knowing what he does and the thoughts
he has in his mind, the darkness of his own heart. Forgiven. Forgiveness. We have that essential
thing, forgiveness. Forgiveness of sins. And notice that's a generic term. It's not of this sin or that
sin. Or the sin of omission, or the
sin of commission, or the sin of adultery, or the sin of this
or the sin of that sin. How many? All of them. Past, present, future. Got in trouble saying that one
time. Preaching for a fella down in Rutherford, he called me the
next day and said, I'll never hear you again. He said, we're
forgiving all our sins, past, present, and future. I said,
if Christ paid for our sins and you think there's some sins still
to be paid for, who's going to pay for them? That's according to what? The
riches of His grace. You can't overdraw on that account. All grace is always sufficient.
Not only that, He's made us aware of what He's done. What a blessing. You can look at verses 1 through
7 and say that's all taken care of long before we existed. It
all took care of and God left it there. It's still been taken
care of. We might have found out when the dust cleared and
we went to heaven. But he lets us know about it.
Says, having made known unto us the mystery of his will. In
every word in Scripture, the mystery of his will is the gospel. He did that according to His
good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself. He gave us, He made
us know. He made us know. Having made
known unto us the mysteries of the world according to His good
pleasure which He purposed in Himself, and in the dispensation
of the fullness of times He might gather together in one, that
is Jesus Christ, all things in Christ. both which are in heaven
and which are in earth, even in Jesus Christ. He didn't leave
us out here flailing about. And as some people, bless their
hearts, I get calls and texts and emails from people who are
out in the middle of nowhere, don't have a church to go to,
and just ain't nowhere around to preach the gospel. There might
be a thousand churches in their town, and they went to hundreds
of them, and they never heard the truth. Some people can stand
that, go to a church and don't preach the gospel, I never could.
I feel for them. I'm thankful for
the internet, they have certain audio where they can listen to
a preacher anyway, that's a good thing. But he gathered you, now you
gathered in Jesus Christ, you're one body in him, but he gathered
you in a local body to meet with God's people. That's a wonderful thing. There
are people who don't have that pleasure. But all of God's children
are gathered in Him. To Him shall the gathering of
the people be, was the promise to Judah. Genesis 49. Isaiah 45. Men will come to Him. John 6. All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me. All that the Father teaches shall
come to me, gathered in Jesus Christ. One body, one head, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 11, how do we know that
we're His? How do we know that we're His? Who gets an inheritance? The
kids. Me and Debbie made out a will
recently. You know, got our vast fortune. Most of them, they're
going to have to sell because they don't want it. Who's going to get it? The kids.
Who gets God's inheritance? His kids. His children. His children. That was a great
part of that covenant. It was a will and testament and
it was ratified by the blood of Jesus Christ. And when he
died, we got it. His children got it. I left out
something up here. In verse 8 it says this, wherein
he's abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Wisdom and prudence. The word
abounded means he's given us a whole lot of it. Heaps upon heaps, grace upon
grace. What does that mean? Wisdom. He's our wisdom, according to
1 Corinthians 1.30, but it's also the fact that he has taught
you who he is. And this wondrous thing that's
really spiritual and magnificent is that he has put his word in
your heart. How much of it from Genesis to Revelation is there?
I don't know. I can't call it up. I don't know.
You know what'll happen to them when you hear it? That's right. That's the truth. You'll know
that's the truth, because it's already in your heart. And I
won't forget Peggy Lander sitting right there on that second row
many years ago, her and George, the first time they'd ever come
here. Now, Peggy had been to about every church I know there
is. Now, Peggy was a tough gal. Maybe the preacher just ticked
her off, and she wouldn't go back. I don't know. But she was sitting
right there. When I got to election, her eyes lit up. And she slapped
George on the thigh and said, that's it! That's it! Why don't you say that? Because
God had put that word on her heart. Her spirit suddenly had fellowship
with the spirit of God. She heard the word and knew it
was the word. Because we also thank God without
ceasing, because when you receive the Word of God, which you heard
of us, you receive it not as the Word of men, but as it is
in truth the Word of God, which is a picture of what also in
you to believe. You heard it as if God said it,
because He did. And you have an inheritance and
you have an inheritance because of predestination. God will work
it in his power because he has predestinated it. It says that
in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated
to the inheritance according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel or purpose of his own will. You
reckon you've got an inheritance? We have an inheritance. What
is our inheritance? Everything that Jesus Christ has. What does
He have? The universe. The universe. All that's in it. All that is
therein belongs to Christ. And we are joint heirs with Him. Our names and His names on the
deed. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. He didn't say that we should
be for the praise of His glory, that we should be, that we should
exist. What a blessing that we are in this world as sinners
saved by grace. We exist as such for the praise
of His glory. So if somebody looks at us, sees
what we are, sees what failures we are, they'll say, If that
person is saved, it has to be by grace. It has to be by grace. That he should be to the praise
of his beloved one, who first trusted in Christ. Now this may
mean that it's God, the speaking of God, who first trusted in
Christ. Because he was the first one who put all things in his
hand. That's what John badly saw. He had put all things in
the hands of Christ. He put the salvation of his leg,
that which glorifies his name the most, into the hands of his
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But afterwards, he believed. And whom he also trusted. When
did you trust? Well, when I blew words. heard the word of truth. Not until, not before, after. After you heard the word of truth. Now the word of truth is just
like the mystery of Godliness, just like the mystery of His
will, it's the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because it says that's
what it is. What is the word of truth? It says this, the gospel. The word of truth coming. Of what? Look at that next word. Y-O-U-R. We have a day when people have
their own pronoun. This is mine. Your personal possessive pronoun. Your salvation. What news you heard? was what belonged to you because
God had given it to you before the world began. What news you
heard was that Jesus Christ saved you and redeemed you, made you perfect 2,000 years
ago. You did not hear that you must
come down from it. You did not hear that you must
confess your sins. You did not hear that you must
do this or that. What you heard was, you are saved. What? Tell them about good news. After you heard the word of truth,
the good news of your salvation. After you heard that, you believed. There's another
blessing. In this world, you have faith. God-given, by grace, you're saved
through faith, and that faith is not of yourself. It's a gift
of God, not of worthless any man, she wrote. Faith. What is it to believe? Don't
ask me to explain that. Ask Peggy. She tried to tell
her mother one time, but didn't want to do it. Her mother said,
what is it to believe in God? I don't know. But you don't have
God telling you. You think about the information
that's in this world. While I'm on your phone, there's
more information than you could ever imagine. Everything. You've got Google. You've got the rock. You've got
duck, duck, go. You can go anywhere you want. And yet you crazy people believe
this book. What do you think? Why in this
world when there is so much information are you so caught up here in
this tunnel And you just believe. That's
what faith does. It believes. It believes. That's a blessing. That's a spiritual blessing.
It's one of them all blessings. Faith. And after you believe, you are
sealed. Stamped. Locked up. Safe. Forever. Never to be harmed. with the Holy Spirit of promise. We are called children of promise.
You see, our salvation, though complete, is not fully realized. It's not fully realized because
we are still sinful. We still live in the flesh and
that struggle goes on and on. One day we're going to be fully
saved, if you will. And that's when this old flesh
goes away. But until then, we're children of promise and heirs
according to promise. I believe in the promise of salvation.
So do you. Children of promise. Because
you have the Holy Spirit of promise residing in you. Don't try to
point him out. Don't look at anything you do
and say, where's the spirit? You're still in the Holy Spirit
process. Every one of you know it. I can't prove I got it. You
can't prove you got it because you know it. And I know it. If
I got it, then you know that you got it. And that Holy Spirit is the guarantee. It's the guarantee, the earnest
down payment, the down payment of our inheritance. The first
thing we receive in our inheritance is the Holy Spirit. And we got that already. And
that seals us for the day when that is what our salvation is
fully revealed to be. I wonder what that's going to
be like. It's described in 1 John as seeing Christ as He is because
we're like Him. So evidently we don't see Him
as He is now because we're not much like Him then. But we're
perfect in Him. One day when the flesh goes away
and we see we're spiritualized, we'll see that like we're looking
into this perfect law of liberty. And we stand and look. And our
glory is changed to His glory. And we see Him face to face.
We've already received the down payment on that. It was the Holy
Spirit. shows up to us. This is spiritual blessings.
Some of them. And however many there are, the
child of God has all of them. All of them. I left a food line the other
day. And that's why we can't be stable.
Celebrate what brought that about. In the blood of our redemption,
in the name of Jesus Christ. Jim, would you help this morning?
And Malcolm, would you help today? We pray as we receive this table
that represents the Lord's body and his blood. That you would
make us to know in our hearts that we've received everything
that a sinner can ever have at the hands of Jesus Christ. We
received it all, all that you require. and loved and perfect because
of the blood of Jesus Christ. We take this table as children
of God. Let us do so with thanksgiving
in our hearts that you have given us faith and faith. To believe
that 2,000 years ago on Golgotha Hill, our Lord Jesus Christ secured
forever Christ be with you. Amen. Move. Move. Eat. Eat. I see it. On the night I rode with the
train, he took bread and bread. It was bread of the Passover
feast, unleavened bread, which represented righteousness. My
Lord said, beware the leaven of the Pharisees, and the leaven,
leaven of the whole world. Unleavened bread represents no
Phariseeism, no self-righteousness. And he said, this is my body,
pure, had no leaven in it, never had sin. Not born of Adam's seed,
but born of seed of God, born of a woman, born under the law.
And he said, this is my body, which is going to be broken for
you, which is broken for you, and is going to be in just a
matter of days. As often as you take this breath from this day
forward, as often as you do it, you do it in remembrance of me,
because this represents my body broken free. On the same night he took the
cup, and after he blessed her, it was the new wine that would
pass over. He said, this cup is the new covenant Imagine what it was like, those
Jews sitting around that table and one of you down there, sitting
around the table. And hearing that, God had made
a covenant with Abraham. He made a covenant with Noah.
He made a Sinai covenant with the Jews. They were known as
the Jews in the wilderness. I know what's in my blood. It's the new covenant. The new
covenant. What's that covenant? It's the
covenant of grace. It is not anything you do, no
sacrifice you make, no lamb you offer, no duty you perform. It's the covenant of grace. This blood is the new covenant
in my blood. As often as you eat this bread
and drink this cup, you do show forth my death, till I come again.
Do this in remembrance of me. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow! No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus! This is all my hope and peace,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, gracious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. I was getting back to 40. Got
outside of Nashville and climbed up this hill. There I saw the
mountains. Thank you, darling. I'm seeing y'all Show your love for each other. God bless you. I love you guys so much. Thank
you. All right, look at that. Thank you. Thank you. She's the lady. She's been in
Seattle. You don't know her? Yeah. I said, hey girls.