Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 35 from your hardback hymnal number 35
and let's all stand together. Praise my soul, the King of Heaven,
to His feet thy tributes bring. Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
evermore His praises sing. Alleluia, praise the everlasting
King. Alleluia, praise the everlasting
King. Father like he tends and spares
us, well our feeble frame he knows. In his hands he gently
bears us, rescues us from all our foes. Alleluia, widely yet
His mercy flows. Alleluia, widely yet His mercy
flows. Angels in the height adore Him,
ye behold Him face to face. Sun and moon bow down before
Him, dwellers all in time and space. Alleluia, praise with
us the God of grace. Alleluia, praise with us the
God of grace. Please be seated. Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles together to Psalm 72, Psalm 72. We'll just read the first 14
verses. Notice that it is a Psalm for
Solomon, the son of David, the man of peace, and that word for
is most often translated of, most think that Solomon wrote
this psalm. It wasn't just a psalm written
for Solomon, it was a psalm written by Solomon. Give the king thy judgments,
O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son. He shall
judge thy people with righteousness. and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace
to the people and the little hills by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the
people. He shall save the children of
the needy and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall
fear thee as long as the sun and the moon endure. throughout
all generations. And we know the sun represents
Christ in the scriptures and the moon is church, reflecting
the light and not having a source itself. And so the Lord is telling us
Long as there's a church on the earth, the Lord is going to have
a people. And he's gonna say that again.
Look at verse six. He shall come down like rain
upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth. In his
days shall the righteous flourish an abundance of peace, so long
as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from
sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They
that dwell in the wilderness shall bow down or bow before
him and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish
and of the Isles shall bring presents and the kings of Sheba
and Sheba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down
before him, and all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver
the needy when he crieth, and the poor also, and him that hath
no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy,
and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their
soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood
be in his sight. Reynaldo and Laura's oldest daughter,
Rebecca, is in labor right now. They asked that we would remember
her. She lives in Auburn. Alabama, so should be giving
birth probably sometime tonight. So let's pray for Rebecca. Our
merciful heavenly father. Thank you for the precious promises
of thy word. Thank you for the hope of salvation
that you give through faith to the hearts of your Children.
Lord, we pray that you would increase our faith We pray that
you would forgive us of so much unbelief. We pray, Lord, that
your Holy Spirit would bless your word and that you would
make it effectual to our hearts and that you would draw us unto
thyself. Lord, we pray for Rebecca, ask
for your hand of mercy to be upon her and to give her safe
delivery, that she would be brought by your spirit to praise you
for the miracle of life. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Number 175 in the hardback teminal, 175.
Let's stand together. ? Standing on the promises of Christ
my King ? Through eternal ages let his praises ring ? Glory
in the highest I will shout and sing ? Standing on the promises
of God Standing, standing, standing on the promises of God my Savior. Standing, standing, I'm standing
on the promises of God. ? Standing on the promises that
cannot fail ? When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail
? By the living word of God I shall prevail ? Standing on the promises
of God Standing, standing, standing on the promises of God, my Savior. Standing, standing, I'm standing
on the promises of God. ? Standing on the promises of
Christ the Lord ? Bound to him eternally by love's strong cord
? Overcoming daily with the spirit's sword ? Standing on the promises
of God the Lord ? Standing, standing on the promises
of God, my Savior ? ? Standing, standing ? ? I'm standing on
the promises of God ? ? Standing on the promises I cannot fall
? ? Listening every moment to the Spirit's call ? ? Resting
in my Savior as my all in all ? ? Standing on the promises
of God ? ? Standing, standing ? ? Standing on the promises
of God, my Savior ? ? Standing, standing ? I'm standing on the
promises of God. Please be seated. There's a line in that hymn we
just sang. I think it was in the last stanza.
Listening every moment for the Spirit's call. I wish I could
say that I do that. So oftentimes, our hearts are
not tuned as they ought to be. But I do hope that in this hour,
we've gathered here for worship, that the Lord will cause us to
listen and to hear and to believe. Let's open our Bibles together
to first 2nd Peter, chapter one. spent a few months going through
First Peter and finished last week with the true grace of God
and I want us to continue as the Lord enables us to Peter's
second letter. Peter's writing this letter probably
two years before his martyrdom, before he's put to death. And he addresses himself by both
the name that he had before he met the Lord and the one that
the Lord gave him. Simon, which is the same name as Simeon. You remember when Jacob took
Rachel and Leah and Rachel, the scripture says, the Lord, Jacob
loved Rachel, but he didn't have an affection for Leah. And yet
the Lord opened Leah's womb and she was giving birth and Rachel
wasn't. And jealous of her sister and
the love that Jacob had for her sister, she named her second
born after Reuben, Simeon. And she said, for the Lord has
heard me. And that's what Simeon means,
heard. And so Peter is identifying himself
as a man who has heard from God. Leah thought, you know, the Lord's
heard me and he's given me another child and surely my husband will
love me now. But Simeon and Simon is the same
word, same name. And it reminds us of our need
to hear from God and how we know that the hearing ear is of the
Lord. The Lord is the one that has
to cause us to hear. But when he does, we will respond
to his voice in the same way Peter did. When the Lord met
Peter for the first time, the first time Peter knew the Lord,
The Lord said, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.
And the scripture says that straight way he left his nets and he followed
Christ. That's how we know we've heard.
My sheep hear my voice. I call them by name. They follow
me. So Simon is a man who has heard from God and not only in
the way in which you and I hear, but he's heard a message of inerrancy,
a message of scripture. He's being used by God as a penman
to write the authoritative word of God. And so when we read these
words, we're reminded that God gave to Simon ears to hear the
voice of God. And he's one of these men that
the scripture speaks of that wrote as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost. These words did not come by private
interpretation. This isn't Peter's opinion. This
isn't his thoughts. This is the inspired Word of
God given to Simon. And Simon doesn't just identify
himself as one who has heard, but he identifies himself as
Peter. Now, Peter means a little stone, a little stone. And it's set in contrast in the
scriptures to the foundation stone. Christ being that sure
foundation on which the church is built. And we being like Peter,
living stones built upon that foundation. And so if we've heard,
we're looking in faith to the same one that Peter looked to.
and we're part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ built
up upon that foundation. And then he calls himself a servant.
All of these things are are teaching us our place before the Lord. We have to hear, we have to be
a little stone. Everybody wants to be a big fish
in a little pond, don't they? But in the church, we're all
little stones. There's no hierarchy in the church. Christ is the foundation stone
and we're all just a bunch of little stones built upon that
foundation stone. And we're all bond servants. That's what this word servant
means. It's the word for slave. In other
words, Peter's saying, I don't belong to myself. I've been bought
by Christ. He owns me. And I'm thankful. I'm a willing servant, a willing
servant. And we learn what it means to
be a willing servant by looking to the Lord Jesus Christ, who
was a servant to his heavenly father. You remember right after
the 10 commandments were given, the first application of those
10 commandments that the Lord gave to Israel in the Old Testament
was that of a man who sells himself into slavery, a Hebrew. who gets himself in financial
trouble, he's in debt, and he doesn't have the means to deliver
himself. And so he sells himself into,
as a bond servant, an indentured servant. Not a bond servant,
but an indentured servant. And he can only work for seven
years. And at the end of that time,
the debt's paid. and his master is to turn him
loose. But if that servant says to his master, while I've been
here serving you, you've given me a wife, and as a result of
that relationship with my wife, I now have children, and I love
my wife, and I love my children, and I love my master, I don't
wanna leave, I wanna stay. And at that point, that indentured
servant becomes a bond slave. And the master takes that servant
to the doorpost and he puts his ear against the doorpost and
he drives an awl through his ear and he marks him as a bond
servant of his master whom he loves. He's a willing servant. He said, I'm here because I love
my master. I love my wife. I love my children.
What a glorious picture of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world and he served his father faithfully as an indentured
servant. And he paid the debt. He paid
the debt that we owed. And at the end of that payment,
he said, I love my master. I love my father. I love my wife.
I love my children. And that picture of the bondservant
being bored through with the ear is a picture of Christ being
nailed to the cross and becoming a willing servant to his heavenly
father. What a. What a glorious, that's
Peter. So Peter's saying that's my role,
I'm a servant. I'm a bond slave, I belong to
Christ, I'm not my own. But he does it willingly because
he loves his master and he loves his wife, he loves his children.
He's not forced into this servitude. And then he calls himself an
apostle, an ambassador. one who has been sent with the
message of the King. He doesn't have the right to
change the message. He doesn't have the right to
adjust it, to add to it, or take away from it. He can only say
exactly what he's been told to say. What hope that we have. This
is the precious Word of God. We just sang a hymn on the precious
promises. And all the promises of God are
yea and amen in Christ. And we look to God's Word for
all of our help and all of our hope and all of our salvation.
God is revealing to us how it is that we come to Christ. Peter, more than any other writer,
you know, each of the penman of scripture have a personality
and we can see their personalities in their writings. And Peter,
more than any others, loves to use the word precious. And he
uses it several times. He's going to use it twice in
the first four verses of this first chapter. And, you know,
I know in the South we might have a tendency to use the word
precious to identify the cuteness of a child, but that's not what
the word means. The word precious means of great
value, of infinite value, of priceless value. That's what
the word precious means. It means you can't put a figure
on it. You can't put a value. If we
say of a child, that child's precious to me, then that would
be true in that you would take nothing for that child. But here's
what the word precious means. And I want you to notice what
what Peter is saying here, because all these things we just said
about Peter, sometimes we might tend to think that the men that
God chose to be the penman of Scripture were extraordinarily
more spiritual than the rest of us. Maybe they had, you know,
something that we don't have. I remind you that James, when
James writes about Elisha, he says of Elisha the prophet, he
says, he was a man of like passions even as we are. So I'm so thankful
that the Lord doesn't hide or gloss over or cover up the imperfections
of these men that he chose to write his word. They are fallen,
sinful creatures just like me and you. And the faith that they
had is the same as ours. And Peter makes that clear in
this very first verse. Look what he says, Simon, Peter,
a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. He's the one that I'm
the ambassador of. He's the one that I'm a bondservant
to. He's the one that made me a small
stone in the building of his church. He's the one that gave
me ears to hear so that I could know who he is and believe on
him. to them that have obtained like
precious faith with us. I've titled this message, Precious
Things. Precious Things. When the Lord
calls a sinner, to himself. He gives that sinner a new heart. He gives them a new heart. And
with that new heart, they find themselves loving things that
they didn't love before. Things that are precious to them
that weren't precious to them before. Things that are priceless
to them. Things that are of great infinite
value to them that they never considered even important before.
When he gives them a new heart, they have new values. They value things. Their estimation
of the worth of something changes with that new heart. All of a sudden, Things that
we thought were of great value to us aren't as valuable as they
once were. What sort of things? Well, good
things. Things like family, friends. They don't have the same place
in our hearts that once had. Let me show you that. Turn with
me to Acts. I'm sorry, Luke chapter 14. Luke
chapter 14. All the... Their relationship with family
and friends is different and we could say
much better. But it doesn't change the fact
that their values have changed. Look what the Lord tells us in
Luke chapter 14 at verse 26, if a man come to me and hate not his father and his mother
and his wife and children and brethren and sisters. And what
else is valuable before? What else is of infinite value
to us besides family and friends before the Lord gives us a new
value system, before he makes things that are spiritual more
precious to us than those things which are temporal? Well, your
own life. That's what he says, look. And
his own life also. So the measure by which I value
the preciousness of my family and friends and my own life also
have changed now. They've changed now because The value of what God
has given me in Christ is so infinitely estimated beyond the
value of these things that everything has changed. Things are precious
to me now that weren't precious before. And things that were precious
to me aren't as precious as they used to be. You see that? That's the believer's
experience. And then, of course, there are
those things that we thought were of value that never were
of any value, like our righteousness. We held on to our righteousness. And now, the value of our righteousness,
we agree with the Apostle Paul, don't we? Those things which
we thought were gain to us, we now realize were the very things
keeping us from Christ. I said that Sunday. It's not
man's sin. Man's sin will drive him to Christ. Properly understood. If the Lord
ever puts you under the conviction of your sin, you will flee to
Christ with no place else to go. It's not sin that keeps men
from Christ. It's their righteousness. And
when the Lord gives us a new heart and gives us new values
and we see what's precious now and what's precious in His sight,
we understand that the things that we were valuing before,
the things that we were holding onto before, well, what did Paul
call them? Dung, that's what he called them. Can't get any less valuable than
that, can you? And those things which we thought
were of value to us now, are dung." Four things Peter speaks of,
turn back with me to our text, four things that Peter speaks
of that are precious to him, that are of infinite value. Now
that he's been given ears to hear, Now that he's been made
a little stone in the building of God's church, put upon that
cornerstone, now that he's been made an apostle, an ambassador,
and a bond slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, he has a whole
different set of values. And the first of which he mentions
is faith. And I love the way the Holy Spirit
inspired Peter to write about faith. He says, like precious
faith even as we have. Now the Lord measures faith in
different degrees and some might have more faith than others but
The object of saving faith is always the same regardless of
how much faith you have. If you have faith as a mustard
seed or you have great faith, the object of faith is what faith
is all about. It's not, this faith is precious because
without it, I can't come to God. It's what gives me access to
God. There's no coming to God without faith. Without faith,
it is impossible to please God, for they that cometh to him must
believe that he is, and that he's a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. So this faith is precious to
me because without this faith, I would never be able to come
into the presence of a holy God. Let me remind you what Peter
says about faith over just a few pages. When he began his first
letter in first Peter chapter one, look at verse seven, that
the trial of your faith and faith is gonna be tried. What's not
tried is not proven. God's gonna try our faith in
order to prove it to be of him. It'll be tried. If a man gives
up, it's because the faith that he had wasn't of God. If he got
it from God, when it's tried, it'll be proven and it'll be
strengthened. And so Peter says that the trial
of your faith being much more precious than gold, which perishes. Oh, all the wealth of this world
is going to perish, but faith won't perish. Faith won't perish. It'll be changed into sight when
we come into the presence of the Lord in glory. We will not
need faith there, but it's not going to go away. It's just going
to change into our experience. By grace are you saved. Peter's calling this precious
like faith. Go back with me to our text.
What is precious to God? What is precious to God's people? What is precious to you? What's
precious to me? What is it that is more precious
than all the gold of the world that perisheth? What is it that's
more precious than family? children, what is it that's more
precious than your own life? Your own life, what is it that's
more precious? You see, all those things are
temporal compared to this, isn't it? Without faith, I'm not going
to be saved. For by grace are you saved through
faith and that faith, yes, is not of yourself, it's a gift
of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast, but without
it no man saved. Lord, this faith is precious
to me because it came from you and it's the means by which the
Lord gives us access into his very presence. And faith, I've
said this before, I feel like I have to clarify it every time
we talk about faith, but Faith by definition is the absence
of works. To make a work out of faith or
to make a decision out of faith or to make anything out of faith
that depends upon my action or my contribution is to deny the
very meaning of faith. Faith means that I'm left with
nothing. I've got no place to go. God shut me up to Christ
and that's a precious thing. Precious like faith, the same
faith that Peter had, same faith that Abraham had, same faith
that Jacob had. Like precious faith. I will not know God without faith. This faith enables me to believe
God. When the Gospels preached, some
believed and some believed not. What made the difference? God
gave some faith. This faith is precious to us. It's of infinite value. You won't
trade your faith for anything. You know, as horrible as the
thought might be, believers, as Peter's going to be shortly
after writing this letter, he's gonna be martyred. And believers
over the years have been martyred. And child of God, if someone
put a gun to your head and threatened to take your life, unless you
deny your faith, God's gonna give you grace. You're not gonna
deny. Your faith is that precious to you. It's that important to
you. You can't give it away. You can't sell it. You can't
trade it for anything. Why? Because it's the very means
of your salvation. Like precious faith. It's the same faith that every
believer has been given by God. There's no confidence without
faith. Hebrews chapter 11, verse one,
faith is the substance. And you can look that word up.
That word substance is the word confidence. Faith is the substance
of things hoped for. So I'm hoping for something that
I can't see, but my confidence in the reality of that and the
truth of that and the substance of that is through faith. Faith
is the substance of things hoped for. And it is the evidence, and that
word evidence is the word proof. It is the evidence of things
not seen. And so without faith, I have
no proof that my hope is not misplaced. Without faith, I have
no confidence. Without faith, I have no access. Without faith, I have no salvation.
How? How precious is faith. And notice in our text that Peter
says he obtained this like precious faith. He obtained it. Now I look that word up too. And it's the same word used in
the Bible for casting of lots. You remember when the, when after
our Lord ascended into heaven and the disciples were waiting
for the coming of the Holy Spirit and they cast lots for the replacement
for Judas. They cast lots because they knew
what the Lord had said in Proverbs chapter 16, that the lot, the
lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is
of the Lord. the whole disposing. thereof
is of the Lord. So we might consider casting
lots to be a chance sort of thing, but that's not what casting lots
means in the Bible. It's not a matter of chance.
It's a matter of discerning God's will and God's purpose. And in
the Old Testament, they cast lots whenever they were seeking
because the casting of a lot might go into the lap, but the
whole discerning thereof The outcome of that casting of lots
is of the Lord. That's what this word obtained
means. In other words, God will have mercy upon whom he will
have mercy and whom he will, he'll harden. We see it as a casting of the
lots, but it's the Lord choosing. Whomsoever he will. We obtained this like precious
faith by God's choice, not by ours. The Lord Jesus looked at
his disciples and said, you didn't choose me. You did not choose
me. Peter, you weren't looking for
me. I chose you. That's what this word obtaining
is. The casting of lot goes into the lap, but the whole disposing
thereof is of the Lord. And Peter's saying, God chose
me. God made me to differ. God gave
us this faith. We wouldn't have it if it was
up to us. If it was a matter of choice,
if faith was something that I had to choose, I would always choose
against it. Always left to myself, left in
my old nature. God has to regenerate me. He
has to breathe life into me and he has to make me to have no
choice. Shut me up to Christ. And that's
exactly what he does. So let's read it together. Simon Peter. a servant and an
apostle of Jesus Christ to them. This is who this letter's to.
And those who the letter, Peter's telling us who wrote the letter
and who he's writing it to. Those who have obtained, not
those who chose, not those who decided, those who have obtained
by God's choice. Like precious faith, even as
we have, same faith we have. And how did this faith come to
us? Well, look at the rest of the
verse. Through the righteousness of God and our Savior, Jesus
Christ. And another way to read that,
and it's fine either way, The righteousness that comes is of
God and it is of our Savior Jesus Christ. But another way to understand
this verse is that this righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, so that Peter's making it clear
that the Lord Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And his righteousness, his righteousness is the means by which we obtain
this faith. Not our righteousness, not our
choice, not our decision. That's why it's precious to us.
If it was something You know, if faith was just something that
we decided on one day, then we could decide again, you know,
give it away, come back, take it up again. If faith is by choice,
if it's by decision, then I've got a free will, I can decide
again later on. It's not that important. If I
lose it, I'll get it back. I'll just make another decision.
Pray another prayer. It wouldn't be much to it. If
you got it by something you did, it wouldn't be much to it. Because
if you lost it, you could just do it again. But if you obtained it by grace
and by the righteousness of our God and our Savior, Jesus Christ,
now it has become precious. Now it's become of great value
to you. Now you can't sell it. You can't
trade it. You can't deny it. This is all your hope and all
your salvation. Well, I mentioned that Peter
used the word precious several times. I want us to look quickly
at four of them. That was the first one. Like
precious faith. Oh, isn't your faith precious
to you? It's precious to you because you got it as a gift.
You didn't do anything to earn it. It's precious to you because
it came by the righteousness of your God and Savior, Jesus
Christ. It's precious to you because
it changed your whole heart. It changed everything about you.
It changed your whole value system. It changed everything that you
consider to be worthwhile and important. And it gave you access
into the very presence of God. Verse two, grace and peace. I love that. Paul does the same
thing, why? Because they're writing by the
same spirit. Grace always has to come before
peace, doesn't it? You never read peace and grace.
It's always grace and then peace. We have peace with God and we
have the peace of God all by grace, all by God's grace. His unmerited, undeserving favor. Grace and peace be multiplied
unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our
Lord, according as his divine power had given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of him
that hath called us to glory and virtue. And here again, we
could read this, called us by glory and virtue. Yes, he's called
us unto glory and unto a virtuous life, but he's called us by his
glory and by his virtuous life. Look at verse four, whereby,
whereby this power of God which has given to you everything that
you need, everything that you need in this life and in the
life to come, given to you by grace in Christ through faith,
that precious faith. whereby are given to us exceeding
great and precious promises." I love the Holy Spirit giving
Peter, you know, he doesn't just say precious, exceeding great
and precious promises. They don't get any bigger than
this. They don't get any better than this. You see, these are
the things that we value now, isn't it? We know that all the promises
of God are yea and amen. And that word yea means sure. It means true. So all the promises
of God are sure. All the promises of God are true. And the word amen means to be
faithful or to be certain. And so that we know that all
the promises of God are yea and amen, they are sure and faithful,
they are true and certain in Christ. So we sang that hymn,
standing on the promises. We're actually standing on Christ,
aren't we? We're standing on Christ, who
is the fulfillment of all the promises of God. Oh, how precious
he is. How precious his promises are.
Turn with me to Titus. I want you to see this, Titus. Titus one. How precious the promises of
God. to those who have been given
like precious faith. What would we do without the
promises of God? Where would we find our confidence
and our hope and our assurance if we didn't have the word of
God? But I want you to notice what
the Lord tells us here in Titus chapter one and verse two. In hope, of eternal life, which
God that cannot lie promised before the world began." So Paul is identifying the promises
of God who cannot lie as a promise that was made before time ever
was. What is he referring to? He's
referring to the covenant promises of grace that the father made
to his son to give him a bride. He's referring to the promises
of the covenant promises of grace. These aren't promises that God
made to you and me. These are promises that God made
to God. The promise that Christ made to his Father to redeem
those whom the Father had chosen. The promise that the Holy Spirit
made to the Father and to the Son to regenerate all those who
had elected by the Father and redeemed by the Son. And what he's saying is, here's where
we hang our hopes. We're not waiting for God to
speak audibly to us and make us, we're believing through light
precious faith, the promise that God made to God, a God who cannot
lie. Here's what we're, that's what
David was saying when David said, he has made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things ensure. This is all my salvation,
all my desire. This is where we're looking.
This is the precious promise. The great, exceeding, precious
promise of God. Where do we hang our hope? That when I'm not faithful, he
remaineth faithful, for he cannot deny himself. God Almighty made
some precious, exceeding, great and precious promises before the world ever was. And
here's where we look. Here's where we begin looking. This is the beginning of our
salvation, the eternal covenant of grace. We believe that all
that God chose, Christ redeemed, and all that Christ redeemed,
God the Holy Spirit will regenerate. This is a precious promise, an
exceeding great precious promise. What do we have of more value? What do we have to hang the hopes
of our immortal soul on that's more sure than the promises of
God? We have nothing better, nothing
else. That's why when God gives you
a new heart, these things are precious to you. These things
are of great value to you. Peter said, this is great exceeding
precious promise. We believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Well, how do I know I believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ? Because every day I try not believing
and I can't. What is sin if it's not unbelief?
Is that not what your sin problem is? Looking away from Christ,
trying to find your hope and comfort and rest and whatever
for this life and the life to come in something other than
Christ, and you can't do it. That's how I know I'll believe,
because I can't not believe. He won't let me. The precious
faith that He gave me based on His great exceeding precious
promises cannot be changed by my unfaithfulness or by my wavering,
cannot be changed. That's why it's so precious to
me. All that the Father hath given
me shall come to me and he that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out." That's a precious promise. That's a precious promise. Lord, I've got no place else
to go. All I can do is come to Christ.
Lord, I'm standing on that precious exceeding great promise that
you will not cast out anyone that comes to you. Whosoever,
Lord, that's me, I'm a whosoever. What an exceeding great precious
promise. We have the Word of God, the
God who can not lie. And we are hanging all our hopes
on him and his faithfulness. I will never leave you nor forsake
you." Oh, what a precious promise. We read at the beginning of the
service tonight in Psalm 72, verse 13, he shall spare the
poor and the needy. Lord, I'm poor. I don't have
anything. I don't have any righteousness
and I'm needy. Lord, I need my sins to be forgiven. And I need a righteousness that
will make me acceptable in thy sight. Lord, I'm poor and needy.
Here's your promise, Lord. I'm just looking to this great
exceeding precious promise. Lord, you said that Christ came
to save sinners. I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. Outside of Christ, I've got nothing
but sin. Everything about me is sinful.
Everything about me falls short of the glory of God. Lord, your
promise is that Christ came to save sinners. Oh, there's my
hope. I'm looking to Christ through
these great exceeding precious promises. Lord, you said you came to give
sight to the blind. One thing I know is true, that
I've got no capacity in myself to see things as they really
are unless you give me eyes to see. Lord, I'm as blind as Bartimaeus. I'm as blind as those Pharisees
were. Lord, if you don't open my eyes,
I won't see. I won't see. And the Lord said,
if you were blind, you were blind, then you could see. But because
you say you can see, therefore your sins remain." Oh Lord, I'm
blind. You said you'd give sight to
the blind, that's what you came to do. You said you'd heal the
brokenhearted. What is a broken heart? Well,
what What's anything that's broken? Don't define brokenheartedness
by the emotional feelings and the depth of sorrow and repentance
that you may have. Yes, I pray the Lord will give
us that sort of heart. But a broken heart, like anything
else, is a heart that doesn't work. It's broke. You see, we're supposed to love
God with all of our hearts and all of our mind and all of our
soul. Lord, my heart's broke. Sin has broken it. I can't love
you with all my heart. I've never experienced a moment
of time where my entire being has been in love with you. Why? Because my heart's broken. Sin
has broken it. Lord, you said you came to heal
the brokenhearted. That's what I need. I need a
healing over my sin. You said that you came in order
to bring deliverance to the captive. Lord, sin has proven itself to
be stronger than me. Satan is stronger than me. The
grave I can't conquer. And your precious promise is
that you came to deliver the captive. And you said, Lord,
let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. For in my Father's house are
many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go and prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself
so that where I am, there you may be also." Boy, that's a precious
promise. You sat down at the right hand
of the majesty on high. God made you a high priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. You are my intercessor. You are
my surety and my righteousness before God. Precious faith. A faith that
is priceless. Based on precious promises, all
fulfilled. in him who is precious to us. Lord willing, we'll deal with
some more of these precious things at another time, but what a hope. God gives you a new heart. All
of a sudden, all of a sudden, things are Things that weren't
precious to you now are the most precious. Our heavenly Father, thank you
for your word. Bless it to our hearts, we ask
it in Christ's name, amen. 227, 327, 327. O for a faith that will not shrink,
though pressed by many a foe, that will not tremble on the
break of any earthly woe. That will not murmur nor complain
Beneath the chastening rod, But in the hour of grief or pain
Will lean upon its god.