Good morning again. We are official. If you notice above the fire
extinguisher by that door over there is our CO, our Certificate
of Occupation. So we are legally able now to
use this space and very thankful. I think we've got the glitches
worked out with air conditioning, different things, so. Would you
take your hymnal and open them with me to 186? 186. Don't worry, I'm not going to
lead you in singing. Tom's going to come do that.
I just want to call your attention to the first line of this hymn
that we're about to sing. One foundation is Jesus Christ,
her Lord, her Lord. The stone which the builders
rejected, God has made to be the head of the corner. Upon
this rock, I will build my church. The gates of hell shall not be
able to prevail against it. Power of God through the preaching
of the gospel reaches into the very pits of hell and brings
his captive people out and makes them free. I pray the Lord to
give us a spirit of freedom and grace as we sing these words,
looking to Christ, who is the one foundation of his church. Let's stand together. Tom, you
come please. The church's one foundation is
Jesus Christ her Lord. She is his true creation by water
and by word. From heaven he came and sought
her to be his holy bride. With his own heart he bought
her, and for her life he died. He left from every nation, yet
one more called the earth. Her charter of salvation, one
Lord, one faith, one earth. ? One holy name she blesses ?
? Partakes one holy food ? ? And to one hope she presses ? ? With
every grace and mood ? ? In toil and tribulation ? ? And to all
tougher wars ? she waits the consummation of peace for evermore
till with the vision glorious her lonely eyes are blessed and
the great church victorious shall be the church Yet she on earth hath union With
God the free in mind, And mystic sweet communion With those whose
rest is nigh. O happy ones and holy, Lord give
us grace that we ? Like them the meek and lowly
? ? On high they dwell with thee ? Please be seated. For our call to worship, can
you turn to the book of Genesis, Genesis 45. Genesis 45 verse. This is our Joseph, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Verse one, then Joseph could
not refrain himself before all them that stood by him. And he
cried, cause every man to go out from me. And there stood
no man with him while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud and the Egyptians
and a house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren,
I am Joseph, does my father yet live? And his brethren could
not answer him, for they were troubled at his presence. And
Joseph said unto his brethren, come near to me, I pray you.
And they came near, and he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom
ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved,
nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither, for God did
send me before you to preserve life. There's that promise, Greg,
cometh nigh. For these two years has the famine
been in the land, and yet there are five years into which there
shall neither be earing nor harvest, And that same famine that was
mentioned there in Amos is the same famine that God has sent
today. Not the famine of eating a bread
or drinking a water, but in hearing the words of God. And verse seven,
and God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the
earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. And in
verse 15, Moreover, he kissed all his brethren and wept upon
them, and after that, his brethren talked with him." Oh, may the Lord, by His Spirit,
enable us to comprehend the length and the depth and the breadth
and the height of His love towards us. Pray He'll do that to the
preacher of this gospel as well. Lord, we do come before you again
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord,
the only way that we could ever come into thy presence. And how
we thank you, Lord, that once again you are bringing to pass
what you have purposed in this very day for us to once again
hear your word. Oh, would you be pleased, Lord,
just for a few moments to bless your word that we would see Jesus
in him alone. Cause our hearts, Lord, in faith
to rejoice and to worship him. Lord, remove this flesh once
again that distracts. Cause our hearts in desire, Lord,
just to be fixed on him. And as you have faithfully done
time and time again to all your gospel pastors, enable Greg once
again in this next hour to take that message you've given him,
to edify your church for Lord, this is your church. Bless our
time now, forgive us of our sins rooted in unbelief. And we give
you all the glory now for Christ's sake in his name, amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing the hymn that's on the back of the bulletin. Hymn
that's on the back of the bulletin. Prepare me, gracious God, ? To stand before thy face ? Thy
spirit must the work perform ? For it is all a praise ? In
Christ's obedience flowed ? And washed me in his blood So shall
I lift my head with joy among the sons of God. Do Thou my sins sublue, Thy Sovereign
Lord make known, The Spirit of my mind renew, and save me in
thy sight. Let me attest thy power, let
me thy goodness prove, till my full soul can hold no more of
everlasting love. Please be seated. Adam Chair
is gonna bring special music now. dark the stain that soiled man's
nature long the distance that he fell far removed hope and
heaven into deep despair and hell but there was a fountain
open and the blood of God's own Son purifies the soul and reaches
deeper than the stain has gone. Praise the Lord for full salvation. God still reigns Upon his throne And I know The blood still reaches Deeper than the stain has gone Conscious of The deep pollution sinners wander in the night though
they hear the shepherd calling they still fear to face the light
is the blessed consolation that can melt the heart of stone. That sweet bone of Gilead reaches
deeper than the stain has gone. Praise the Lord for full salvation. God still reigns upon his throne
and I know the blood still reaches deeper than the stain has gone. All unworthy we who wander wet with tears as we think of
love that sought us through the weary, wasted years. Yet we walk the holy highway,
walking by God's grace alone. Knowing how this fountain reaches
deeper than the stain has gone. Praise the Lord for full salvation. God still reigns upon his throne. And I know but still reaches
deeper than the stain has gone. When with holy choirs we're standing
in the presence of the King and our souls are lost in wonder
While the white-robed choir sings Then we'll praise the name of
Jesus With a million around the throne Praise Him for the power
that reaches Deeper than the stain that's
gone. Praise the Lord for full salvation. God still reigns upon his throne. And I know blood still reaches. Deeper than the stain that's
gone. Thank you, Adam. I love that
hymn, don't you? Where sin abounds, grace does
much more abound. When John saw the church in the
book of Revelation in heaven, he asked the angel who these
were with the white robes. And he said, these are the saints
of God, which have washed their robes white in the blood of the
lamb. Ever gotten blood on a garment
and try to clean it and ruin the garment in an attempt to
get the blood out? I did that yesterday. I didn't
throw it away. I couldn't get it out. In trying
to get the blood out, I took all the color out of it. I should
have let Tricia do it, but I thought I could handle it. Scrub and scrub, all we're going
to do is ruin things, aren't we? The Lord's the only one that
can make white our garments with blood. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 119. 119. Verse 113. I hate vain thoughts. Psalm 94. That's the title of
this message. Vain thoughts. Vain thoughts. Psalm 94 verse 11 says, the Lord
knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity, vanity. Genesis chapter six, when God
looked down from heaven and peered into the hearts of man, he saw
that every imagination of the thoughts of man was only evil
and that continually Our hope this morning is that
the Lord will use his word as a double-edged sword to be a
discerner of the thoughts and the intents of our hearts and
reveal to us how vain we are. Man at his very best state, the
best thoughts you and I have ever had is all together. Vanity. Vanity. Empty of any righteousness. That's why the scripture says,
whatever is not of faith is sin. Faith is looking to Christ alone
and His holy thoughts and His perfect righteousness for all
our acceptance before God, confessing that we at our best state are
altogether vanity. God says, I hate vain thoughts.
and God's people hate the vanity of themselves. In Luke chapter
two, when Joseph and Mary brought the Lord Jesus at eight days
old to the temple to have him circumcised, Simeon was given
a revelation from God that this was the consolation of Israel
for whom he had been waiting. And he spoke a word of prophecy
to Mary and told her that Her heart was going to be grieved
over what was gonna happen to this child. And Simeon went on
to say that the thoughts of many hearts be revealed. Turn to me to that passage. I
want you to see this. Luke chapter two. Luke chapter two. Simeon is prophesying. And in verse 34, and Simeon blessed
them and said unto Mary, his mother, behold, this child is
set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel. You see, before we can rise again,
we got to fall. We got to fall. God has to kill
us before he can make us alive. He has to show us what we are
in our vanity. in our emptiness and for a sign
which shall be spoken against. Yea, a sword shall pierce through
thine own soul also, Simeon speaking to Mary, that the thoughts of many hearts
may be revealed. Saul of Tarsus thought that he
had been faithful to keep the law of God. He said concerning
the law, I was blameless as far as anyone else's ability to accuse
me of being lawless, they could find nothing in my life to make
accusation. And he said, without the law,
I was alive. But when the law came, Sin revived
and I died. What was the law that came? It
was covetousness. Man looks at the outward appearance.
God looks at the heart. This sin problem that you and
I have is a heart issue. Paul thought he was alive when
the law was not speaking against him, but when the law came by
the Spirit of God, The scripture says, he said, sin revived. I saw what a sinner I was when
I realized that God was looking at my heart. There's the problem. Man at his very best state is
altogether vanity. Vanity is empty of righteousness. Our best thoughts, our best prayers,
our best deeds, God says our vanity. Solomon,
wisest man that ever lived, said vanity of vanities, all is vanity. David said in Psalm 39 verse
six, surely every man walketh in a vain show. What a description
of us. Every man walketh in a vain show. We present ourselves and we ought
to. We ought to present ourselves
the best we can among men. But here's my point this morning,
brethren and friends. God's not looking at our outward
appearance. He's looking at our hearts. And he sees that every
imagination of our heart is only evil and not continually. The
vanity, the emptiness of our hearts. What is it to have a vain thought?
Well, I have six points that I want to make quickly. Having vain thoughts is thinking
too highly of yourself. Having vain thoughts is thinking
too lowly of Christ. It's thinking too lightly of
grace. It's thinking too lightly of
sin. It's thinking too little about God and it's thinking too
much about the temporal material things of this world. And therein
summarizes all our thoughts. All our thoughts. God says, I
hate vain thoughts. Oh, we think too highly of ourselves,
don't we? How many conflicts we could avoid
if we didn't think so highly of ourselves. Oh, that the Lord
would give us the grace to say when being accused, oh, if you
knew me like God knows me, you'd have a lot worse things to say
about me than that. Galatians chapter five, verse
25 says, for if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the
spirit. not being desirous of vain glory,
provoking one another, and envying one another. That's thinking
too highly of ourselves. How many times we envy and provoke
conflicts among ourselves, and it's all rooted in the fact that
we think too highly of ourselves. How vain we are. And God's people said, I can
relate to that and I hate it. I hate the way I am. And that's
what the Lord says, I hate vain thoughts. The unbeliever is particularly
vain when he refuses to see himself as he is before God. You remember
when Goliath representing all of the enemies of God, stood
up against the people of God. And David, a picture of Christ,
went to battle against Goliath. And the arrangement was whoever
wins this battle, wins representatively for the entire army. And that's
what Christ did. When he fought Satan, he won
the battle. He got the victory and he got
it for all the people of God. And he got it all by himself.
But you remember what Goliath said? What am I, a dog? That you would send a boy against
me with sticks and staves? Am I a dog? You see, Goliath
thought way too highly of himself, didn't he? And then in contrast
to that, we have the story of Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan,
the crippled boy. whom David fetched from Lodabar. And Mephibosheth thought, this
is it. David's gonna do away with me. And when David saw Mephibosheth,
he said, oh, Mephibosheth, Mephibosheth, don't be afraid. I'm gonna show
you kindness for your father, Jonathan's sake. And you're gonna
sit at my table and eat my bread the rest of your life. And Mephibosheth,
in contrast to what Goliath said, said, oh my Lord, what would you have
to do with such a dead dog as I? You see, we do cause conflicts
with one another when we think too highly of ourselves, but
when we find ourselves standing in the presence of God, we are
Mephibosheth, not Goliath. We are the Syrophoenician woman
who the Lord called a dog. And she said, truth, Lord, truth,
Lord. We don't have vain thoughts of
ourselves when we stand in the presence of a holy God thinking
that, well, we've got something we can produce or something we
can present for our own righteousness. No, no, we have no righteousness
before God. God makes his people to be. Caleb's. We're all Caleb's. Caleb's name translated means
faithful dog and Joshua is a picture of Christ and Caleb is a picture
of the whole church of God. Faithful dogs who kiss the hand
of their master. Those who think that they have
the power of free will to determine the time and the condition of
their salvation, believe themselves to be God. What greater vain
thought can a person have than to believe himself to be God?
And yet that's what all men believe. All men by nature have set themselves
up on the throne of God. And God has sent them, the scripture
says in 2 Thessalonians 2, a strong delusion. Now, if God sends you
a strong delusion, you're deluded. You are delusional. You're not just confused. You
are absolutely completely delusional, believing yourself to be. What
greater delusion can a person have than to believe themselves
to be God? And yet that's what every person in this world believes.
They do, they believe it. They believe that either if they're
religious, they believe that God is dependent upon them to
do something in order for him to be able to save them. They
have power over God. He goes all the way back to the
garden, doesn't he? When Satan said to Eve, God doesn't want
you to eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil because he knows
in the day in which you eat of it, Your eyes will be open and
you'll be like God. And man's been wanting to be
like God. Satan hasn't changed his tactics. He hasn't changed
his temptations. They're still the same. Man wants
to be God. What a vain thought. There's
no greater vain thought than that. And those who are irreligious
believe themselves to be God when they reject the Bible as
the word of God and make for themselves their own standards.
And they call evil good and good evil, and they shake their fist
at God. And God says, why do the heathen
rage? Why do the people imagine a vain
thing? We'll not have this man reign
over us. And the God who's in heaven laughs
and holds them in derision. What greater vain thought can
a man have than to believe that he's God? And yet I declare unto
you by the authority of God's word that every person who's
not a child of God believes themselves to be God. They believe Him. They are deluded. They will not
bow. They will not come. They will
not submit themselves. And God says, I hate vain thoughts. We hate the vanity of our own
thoughts, but we know we're not God. We know we have no righteousness
before God. We know we're completely dependent
upon the Lord Jesus Christ for all our acceptance before a holy
God. Here's what God says. No man
can come unto me except the Father which sent me draw him. And yet
the man in his vain thoughts thinks, well, I'll come to God,
but I want to come to God. No, you won't. You think God needs your approval?
He needs you to accept Jesus? He needs you to do something
in order for him to be able to save you? What vanity, what vanity
does the unbeliever have? He believes himself to be God. I will have mercy upon whom I
will have mercy and whom I will, I'll harden. It is not of him
that willeth, it is not of him that runneth, it's of God that
showeth mercy. And yet the whole world has this
vain thought about God, that they can control him and the
outcome of their salvation on something that they do. Our God needs nothing from us. Nothing. He's God. And we worship him as God, don't
we? God says, I hate vain thoughts. God's greatest hatred, God's
greatest hatred is towards those who believe themselves to be
God. And he, and he, He sends them a strong delusion.
And they believe it. They believe themselves to be
God. Oh Lord, deliver us from the vanity of that imagination,
that vain imagination. I hate vain thoughts that men
by nature think too highly of themselves and believers think
too highly of themselves and they hate it. Secondly, A vain thought is to
think too lowly of Christ. And men by nature deny his accomplishments. They deny his successful work
of redemption. They hold an idea of Jesus Christ
that he somehow made salvation possible, but now it's up to
you. They've got much too low a view of Christ. He's the Christ. He's God. He's the Messiah. They deny his deity. They say
that he's God. But they deny the power thereof. They deny the power of God. Do we not have vain thoughts
when we question God's wisdom, question His providence, doubt
His promises, doubt His ability to save by looking somewhere
else for our peace and for our assurance, for our comfort and
for our happiness? And we hate it, don't we? We
hate it. One day, we'll no longer be looking
through the glass darkly. One day we'll see him as he is.
It does not yet appear what we shall be, but when he shall appear,
we shall be made like him. Seeing in all of his splendor
and glory, there'll be no more vain thoughts then. For all of
eternity, our thoughts will be filled with perfect righteous
thoughts of the glory of God. What is it to have a vain thought?
It's to think too highly of yourself. It's to think too lowly of Christ. And it's to think too lightly
of grace. We're so presumptuous. We live
our lives drawing our next breath thinking that the next one's
just going to come. And yet the Bible says, in Him we live and
move and have our being. How much we presume upon grace. And yet when we hear the truth,
we know it's true. All of life is a gift. And it's not just unmerited favor,
it's demerited favor. The unbeliever thinks too lightly
of grace when he mixes law and grace. Grace is not sufficient
for my salvation. I've got to do my part. What
a vain thought. What a vain thought. And yet
we are prone to wander, aren't we? We're prone to leave the
God that we love. We're prone to try to find our
happiness and our peace and our satisfaction somewhere other
than Christ. What vain thoughts we have. That
we could just think purely on him. And the only time that our
thoughts get anywhere close to being not vain is when we're
listening to the gospel preached. And we're able to say, amen,
that's my experience. Yes, that's true. That's what
I believe. Paul said, we do not frustrate
the grace of God for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
died in vain. If I'm going to be made righteous
by my keeping of the law, then what did Christ die for? Christ,
Jesus, the Lord is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone that believeth. He's the only one that satisfied
the demands of God's law. I hate vain thoughts. You hate
your vain thoughts. You hate that you think too highly
of yourself. Do you hate that you think too lowly of Christ?
If Christ was able to save your soul, your immortal soul, and
put away our sins, is He not able to provide for us all that
we need in this world? If He can provide the next, you
see, the lesser is dependent upon the greater. If He's able
to do the greater, then surely He can do the lesser. You pick up 500 pounds, you can
surely pick up five pounds. Isn't that true? The Lord's able
to put away our sin and secure our immortal souls for eternal
life. And yet we fret, don't we? Sufficient is the day of the
evil thereof. Don't worry about tomorrow. Yeah,
and yet we do. We do. Why? Because we have vain
thoughts. We have vain thoughts about God,
about Christ, about His ability to provide for us. And we hate
it. And we have vain thoughts about
grace and about sin. We have vain thoughts about sin. Nowhere in God's Word does He
say You know, it's okay, you can't help yourself. Or, I ordained it. Yet I've heard people who call
themselves believers act cavalier about their sin and speak about
their sin as if, well, it's no big deal. Christ has already
taken care of that. We have vain thoughts when it comes to sin,
don't we? The world certainly does. They call good evil and
evil good. And they want us to celebrate
in their sin. You know, we're not here to judge
the world. The Lord said, don't judge the
world. In order to judge the world, you'd have to come out
of the world. But judge yourselves. Judge yourselves, what the Lord
said. Let me show you that. Turn with
me to 1 Corinthians chapter five. 1 Corinthians chapter five. We have vain thoughts about our
sin. Now I'm not suggesting that we're able to understand the
gravity of our sin or to feel the sorrow that our sin ought
to feel. Only the Lord Jesus Christ was
able to be sorry for sin sufficiently to put it away. But that doesn't
mean we don't experience conviction and sorrow for our sin. We're
not excusing sin with grace. If we're in grace abound, sin
does much more abound. And the next verse says, shall
we continue in sin that we may grace God forbid? And yet we're
so oftentimes vain about the thoughts of our sin, aren't we?
Listen, our God is sovereign. He works all things after the
counsel of His will. And the wrath of man, and that
includes our sins, shall praise Him. He will turn it for His
glory. But that doesn't make evil good.
Evil's still evil. May God convict us of that. We ought never to be cavalier
or lighthearted or flippant about our sin. You want to see what
sin is, look to Calvary. Look to the cross because that's
what it took. And the least vain thought that you
and I have ever had, if we're going to be saved, and that was
the only sin we ever committed, and we were the only person that
had to be saved, Christ would have had to do everything that
he did to put that one sin away. That's the evil of our sin before
God. Now, that having been said, we're
not here to judge the world, but you have your Bibles open
to 1 Corinthians 5. Look at verse 9. I wrote unto
you in the epistle not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether
with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous,
or extortioners, or idolaters, for then must you need to go
out of the world. I didn't tell you to separate yourself. Don't
make a little enclave, a little you know, closed group. And religious
people do that all the time. And they insulate themselves
from the world thinking that, well, I'm not going to be influenced
or infected by the sins of this world. And God said, no, you're
to be in the world, but not of the world. So the Lord said,
I'm not telling you to separate yourself from unbelievers. You'd
have to, you'd have to come out of the world to do that. But, verse 11, now I have written
unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother
be a fornicator or a covetous or idolater or a railer or a
drunkard or an extortioner with such a one do not eat. He's living
in open rebellion against God and doesn't seem to have any
spirit of repentance about that. Shame them by not considering
them to be a brother. I can't embrace you as a brother. That's what the Lord says. And
judgment begins in the house of God, and it begins with ourselves,
doesn't it? But what have I to do to judge
them, verse 12, that are outside, them also without? Do not ye
judge them that are within? But them that are without, God
will judge them. Therefore, put away from among
yourselves that wicked person. The world wants us to celebrate
with them over their sin. We're not gonna do that. We're
tolerant people. Let the world live like they
wanna live. We're not here to pass judgment on unbelievers. We're not here to point our finger
at the sins of the world because as soon as we do that, all we're
going to do is make us feel self-righteous. Well, at least I'm not like that. That's what the Lord's saying.
You know, we don't need diversity training. We don't need to be
told to be tolerant. We are. We tolerate. Now, I'm thankful for freedom
of speech because the first speech that would be cut out would be
my speech and every gospel preacher's speech if we didn't have the
freedom of speech. So let them say what they want
to say. Doesn't mean that we have to
agree or celebrate their sin. Inclusive, yeah. There are cultural differences and
race differences and religious differences and we work with
different people and so be it. So be it. The world has the most vain thoughts
when it comes to sin. And with every passing year,
more and more sin is being taken off the sin list culturally. God has not changed His mind
about sin. I'm speaking to God's people.
I'm speaking to the children of God right now. We have to
be careful that we don't have vain thoughts when it comes to
our sin. Young people, the Word of God
hasn't changed. God hasn't changed. You're living
in a world that's telling you, you know, that this is okay and
that's okay. If the world wants to do that,
fine. We're not gonna stand in judgment of them. We're not gonna
preach against that. We're not going to, you know,
we're not going to isolate ourselves from them. But that doesn't make it right
for us. You know, the thing that bothers me most
about my sin is how little it bothers me. That's our vain thoughts
about our sin. Grace is not a license to sin. The only power we have against our sin is the grace
of God. And we have a love-hate relationship
with our sin, don't we? If we didn't love it so much,
we'd never do it. And if we didn't hate it, we wouldn't flee to
Christ to be forgiven of it. May God increase the hatred of
our sin and our love for Christ. take sides with God against yourself. That's the long and short of
it when it comes to our sin, doesn't it? If we confess our
sins, if we agree with God that our thoughts are vain and we're
sinners, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and
cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness. And James and John at the end
of... One of the first heresies that
came to be in the New Testament church was Gnosticism. People thought, well, I have
this knowledge about God that he's sovereign and a knowledge
that nobody else has. And they drew the natural conclusion
from that is that if my spirit is perfectly righteous and my
flesh is perfectly sinful, then it really doesn't matter what
I do in my flesh. And that came out of Gnosticism. You know,
I can indulge my flesh and all the pleasures of the world because
my spirit is already secure in Christ and I'm perfectly righteous
before God. And that's human wisdom. That's the natural way of thinking
if you're not thinking the way God puts it. And if you don't
have the spirit of God and you don't have the word of God, that
would be the natural conclusion. Antinomianism. And James was
writing against that. Turn with me to James chapter
4. Beginning in verse 7. Submit
yourself therefore to God. Submit yourself therefore to
God. Resist the devil and he will
flee from you. Draw nigh to God and He will
draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners,
and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness.
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift
you up." Oh my God, give us that. What
did Simeon say to Mary? This child, is going to reveal
what's in the hearts of men. And the Word of God exposes the
thoughts and the intents of our hearts. Yes, Lord, I've had those
thoughts. I've justified my own sin. I've been cavalier about
sin. Lord, that's the vanity of my
heart. Lord, deliver me. Some of you didn't think I was
gonna get through all six points of my message, did you? I've
got two quick ones to make. We think too little of God, don't
we? We think too little of God. We go through this world, and
the last two points are two sides of the same coin. We think way
too little of God, we think way too much of the material, natural,
temporal, physical world that we live in. We enjoy His creation, but how
often do we look at creation and glory in His majesty who
made it? We walk in His providence, and
yet we complain when it's not easy, and we presumptuous when
it is. We think, well, everything's
good. And we get disquieted about the
circumstances of our lives I think I shared this with y'all
once before. I remember years ago listening
to someone in religion say, a preacher said, he said, well, that person's
so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. Now, if a person
is using false piety to avoid responsibility, then I would
say, yeah, that could be true. But the truth of that statement
is not, you can't be, you cannot be too heavenly minded. The truth is the more heavenly
minded you are, the more earthly good you're gonna be. That's
the truth. And yet we're so earthly minded
that we're no other good. I hate vain thoughts. Man has vain thoughts of himself. He has vain thoughts of Christ.
He has vain thoughts of grace. He has vain thoughts of sin.
He thinks much too little of God and much too much of this
world. Lord, increase my hatred for my vain
thoughts. God calls us out of darkness
into his marvelous light. He causes us to hate the things
that he hates and love the things that he loves. And we find ourselves
hating the things we used to love and loving the things we
used to hate. Increase my hatred for my own
vain thoughts. Our merciful heavenly father,
we pray that your Holy Spirit would speak truth to our hearts
We thank You for Christ, all that He's done. For it's in His
name we pray. Amen. Number 11 in the Spiral Hymnal.
Just remain seated. We're going to have baptism this
morning. Tom's going to lead us in number 11 on your Spiral
Hymnal. I'm sorry. Oh God be merciful to me. ? Christ lies upon my troubled
breast ? ? With deep and conscious guilt oppressed ? ? Christ and
his cross my duty free ? ? O God be merciful to me ? ? No works nor deeds that I have
done ? ? Can bore a single sin atone ? ? To Christ the Lord,
on whom I plead ? ? O God, be merciful to me ? deep from sin and hell. With all the ransom from thy
dwell, thy raptured song shall ever be. God has been merciful to me. blessing. The Lord's been so
merciful to call to himself young people in our church and I'm
so thankful for that. And I'm thankful for our parents.
One thing that I have believed and tried to teach is that we
need to teach our children respect. And I think we have some of the
most respectful young people anywhere to be found. And I'm
so grateful for that. And I think that's especially
true of Joshua. I've been watching him for some
time and seeing his delight and what he's hearing. And today's
Joshua, Mary's birthday, by the way, is 18 years old. So he won't
forget the day that he confessed Christ in baptism on his 18th
birthday. We're so very grateful for you,
Joshua, and thankful for the Lord's mercy. And it is with
great joy that we baptize you as a brother in Christ, buried
with Christ in baptism. And raise to off a new life in
Christ Jesus. Let's pray for Joshua, our heavenly
father. We thank you for the testimony
of baptism. We thank you for the union with
Christ that you've accomplished and that you've put into our
hearts to believe. Thank you for Joshua. Pray, Lord,
for your hand to be upon him, for you to order his steps and
direct his life and keep him, Lord. Keep him. We ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. All right, let's stand
together. Tom's going to leave us an amazing
grace. 236 will be the words in the hard
hat, 236. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now
am found. Was blind but now I see Was grace
that taught my heart to fear And grace my fears redeemed How
great a gift and grace appear the hour I first believed. Through many dangers, toils,
and snares I have already come. ? Was raised at God ? ? He saved
us all ? ? And grace will lead me home ? ? When we've been there
10,000 years ? ? By shining hands ? A song we know that stays to
sing God's praise and when we first begun. Okay.