Very familiar passage of scripture
that I love turning to often is Isaiah chapter 40, where the
Lord tells the prophet, the preacher, comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,
saith the Lord, speak ye comfortably to her. Tell her that her warfare
is accomplished, and her iniquity is pardoned, and she hath received
of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Oh, that's my
hope. That's my comfort. We have a
righteousness outside of ourselves, and our sin's been put away through
the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has gotten the victory. He's not trying to redeem. He
accomplished the redemption of his people. Pray the Lord will
enable us to worship him this morning. Tom's going to come
lead us in number 42, in the heart back temple, number 42.
Let's stand. All hail the power of Jesus'
name. Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem
and crown him Lord of all. Bring forth a royal diadem and
crown him Lord of all. He chosen seed of Israel's race,
He ransomed from the fall. Hail Him who saves you by His
grace, And crown Him Lord of all. Hail Him who saves you by
His grace, and crown Him Lord of all. Let every kindred, every tribe,
bond this terrestrial ball. To Him all majesty ascribe, and
crown Him Lord of all. To Him all majesty ascribe, And
crown Him Lord of all. O that with yonder sacred throng
we at his feet may fall, we'll join the everlasting song and
crown him Lord of all. We'll join the everlasting song
and crown him Lord of all. Please be seated. Good morning. If you would please
turn with me to Genesis chapter 43. Greg had mentioned earlier
Christ is our advocate. Another term for advocate is
surety. And Christ's surety ship with
his people, his elect, is throughout the verses of the scripture and
it's throughout the Bible. But one story I really like is
the story of Judah as the surety of Benjamin. And so that takes
us to our scripture. And the famine was sore in the
land, and it came to pass, when they had eaten up the corn which
they had brought out of Egypt, their father said unto them,
go again, buy us a little food. And Judah spake unto him, saying,
the man did solemnly protest unto us, saying, ye shall not
see my face, except your brother be with you. If thou wilt send
our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food. But
if thou wilt not send him, we will not go down. For the man
said unto us, ye shall not see my face except your brother be
with you. And Israel, or Jacob, said, wherefore
dealt ye so ill with me as to tell the man whether ye had yet
a brother? And they said, The man asked
us straightly of our state and of our kindred, saying, Is your
father yet alive? Have ye another brother? And
we told him according to the tenor of these words, Could we
certainly know that he would say, Bring your brother down?
And Judas said unto Israel his father, Send the lad with me,
and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both
we and thou, and also our little ones. I will be surety for him. of my hand shalt thou require
him. If I bring him not unto thee,
and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame forever."
We'll stop there. Let's pray. Holy and just God, you are the
judge, you are the lawmaker, you are the king, and you shall
save. Through your surety that you provided yourself in the
form of your son, Jesus Christ, we thank you. We pray that we
would be found in Christ as he stands perfectly before your
throne, before your court. His faithfulness and perfection
is our faithfulness because he is our surety. His belief is
perfect, and that we also have perfect belief because of him.
He's kept all your commandments, Lord, perfectly. Therefore, if
we are found in him, we have also kept your commandments perfectly,
your law. We pray that we'd be always found
in Christ. Please always keep us, Lord,
as you have promised. Please cause us to always look
to your throne of grace, Lord, not putting our hand on you,
in your salvation, but knowing that salvation is of the Lord.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for your perfect Son, Jesus Christ.
Cause us to look to the cross, where he perfected his charityship
for us and rose again and stands on your right hand perfectly
before you. We pray that you would give an
effectual message this second hour to Greg, our brother, that
he would pray, preach through your Holy Spirit, in your spirit
alone, God's grace, which is good. We thank you, Lord and
Heavenly Father, for your perfect Son, Jesus Christ. In your name
we pray, amen. Let's all stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number 168 from your hardback temple, 168. Lord, I hear of showers of blessing,
Thou art scattering, full and free. Showers the thirsty land
refreshing, Let some drops now fall on me. Even me, even me,
let thy blessing fall on me. Pass me not, O tender Savior,
let me love and cling to thee. I am longing for thy favor whilst
thou art calling, O call me, even me, even me. Let thy blessing fall on me. ? Pass me not, O mighty Spirit
? ? Thou canst make the blind to see ? ? Witnesser of Jesus'
merit ? ? Speak the word of power to me ? ? Even me, even me, let
thy blessing fall on me ? Love of God so pure and changeless,
Blood of Christ so rich and free, Grace of God so strong and boundless,
Magnify them all in me. Even me, even me, ? Let thy blessing fall on me ?
Pass me not thy lost one bringing ? Bind my heart, O Lord, to thee
? While the streams of life are springing ? Blessing others,
O bless me, even me Please be seated. Every time we come together,
like we are right now, that's our hope. That's our hope. That the Lord will be pleased
to to bless us with His grace, with His mercy, with His person. And that's going to be our special
prayer in two weeks when we have our conference. Todd and Joe
are planning on being here, Lord willing. We'll have our, I think
the dates are probably in your bulletin, the schedule for the
services. Not this coming weekend, but
the next. And we'll have our first service
on Friday night. And I want to take just a moment
and have a special time of prayer for that meeting. So let's bow
together. Our Heavenly Father, we come
before Thy throne of grace, thanking You, Lord, that we have a surety
an advocate, one who stands in our stead, pleads our case, one
in whom we have perfect righteousness. Oh, Lord, you said that if he
be lifted up, that you would draw all men to him. We pray that you would cause
him to be lifted up this morning. We pray, Lord, for Joe and for
Todd, and we asked Lord that you would put the messages on
their hearts that we need to hear in order that Christ will
be lifted up in our hearts. During that meeting, we pray
Lord for those that you would have us to invite to come that
should give us opportunity and make them want to be here. Father, we pray for our Children.
We asked Lord that you would open the eyes of their understanding
We pray, Lord, that you'd be glorified, that your church should
be built up. We thank you for the brethren
that will be visiting with us from other places, and we ask,
Lord, that you would knit our hearts together with them and
cause the body of Christ to be strengthened. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. I can't tell you how many times
over the years I've heard people quote, passages of scriptures
from the Sermon on the Mount, and conclude from the Sermon
on the Mount that that is the pattern that the Christians are
to live in their life. If you'll turn with me in your
Bibles to Matthew chapter 6, there are some verses here that
I am just certain that Mother Teresa understood when it comes
to the temporal application of these verses. Anybody can read
the Bible and understand what the Scriptures are saying when
it comes to our temporal experiences and our temporal responsibilities. When it comes to understanding
the spiritual application of these passages of Scripture,
we are completely dependent upon the Holy Spirit. Completely dependent. that the Spirit of God would
open the eyes of our understanding and cause us to see what does
this passage of Scripture say about the salvation of my soul?
What does it say about the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ? What does it say about my need
for Him? Anybody can look at this verse
and say, well, you know, a man cannot serve two masters. Either
he's going to serve God or he's going to serve money. And men
by nature understand that the love of money is the root of
all evil. They understand the attraction of it. They understand
the power of it. But that's not really what we're
going to concern ourselves with here this morning. That's just
a temporal application of this passage that, as I said, those
who have given their lives in sacrifice have seen the truth
of that from this passage of scripture. What does this say
about the salvation of my soul, about the need that I have for
the Lord Jesus Christ, and about what it is he accomplished on
Calvary's cross? We'll begin by looking at verse
22. The light of the body is the
eye. All our understanding of temporal
things comes as we see them in this world. If therefore, thine
eye be single. Now, the natural man would read
that and say, you know, you need to be careful what you look at.
And certainly you do. But that's not the point of this
passage. If thine eye be single, then thy whole body will be filled
with light." What he's talking about is the simplicity of Christ. He's talking about looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ only for all our righteousness. Now man
by nature being ignorant of the righteousness of God, goes about
trying to establish his own righteousness by what he does and by what he
doesn't do. And what the Lord's saying to
you and me here is that the I be single, if God gives you the
grace to look singularly at the Lord Jesus Christ for all your
righteousness, Then you have the hope of knowing that those
saints that John saw in Revelation chapter 19 who had a linen robe
pure and white, for that robe was the righteousness of the
saints. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believeth. having a single
eye towards the Lord Jesus Christ is acknowledging the fact that
all my righteousnesses, all of them, the best thing I've ever
done, man at his very best state is altogether vanity. All my
righteousness, if God took the best deed that I've ever performed,
the best prayer I've ever prayed, the best thought I've ever had,
and used it to judge me by, I'd go to hell for it. Do you believe
that? If the I be single, all my righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. The religious world is all caught
up in what they do and what they don't do. Touch not, taste not,
handle not. And all their righteousness is
bound up in that. The hope that they're going to
be acceptable before God because of some things that they've abstained
from. Surely there's things that the
child of God wants to abstain from. Surely there's things that
the child of God wants to do. But he finds no hope for his
righteousness whatsoever in them. After having done everything
the scripture says, the child of God sees himself as an unprofitable
servant. When Uzzah reached out his hand
to steady the ark, God killed him on the spot. Why? Because when you put your hand
to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, He came into the
world to fulfill all righteousness. He's the only one that ever made
God's law honorable. He's the only one that ever kept
the law of God. A single eye towards Christ will
fill the whole body of the soul with light. But men love darkness
rather than light. The scripture makes that clear.
Why? Because their deeds are evil.
They can't look upon the Lord Jesus Christ singularly for all
their righteousness because they're looking to what they've done
as the hope of their righteousness. And God says what we've done
is evil. It's unrighteous. The natural
man can't help it. He absolutely cannot help it.
He's going to put his hand to the work of Christ. He's going to try to find something
that he can do in order to make himself acceptable before God. Our acceptance before a holy
God can only be found in the glorious person and accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is all our righteousness. If the eye be single, the whole
body will be filled with light. Religion is all based on steps,
isn't it? It's procedures and methods. If I can just follow these certain
things, rules and regulations, somehow I'll make myself acceptable
to God. God said when you build an altar,
told the children of Israel in the Old Testament, when you build
an altar, don't put any steps on it. All those old ancient
altars, you can go to Mexico, they're there right now, today.
They've got steps on them going up to where the priest would
make the sacrifice on the top of the altar. And God said, if
you put steps on an altar, all you're going to do is expose
your nakedness. But that's what, you know, you
don't have to be a Mayan Indian to have an altar with steps on
it. All you've got to do is have some thought in your heart that
there's something that I can do. other than what the Lord
Jesus Christ has already accomplished, there's something I can do to
add to what He did. There's some exercise of my will,
there's some work that I can do, there's some step that I
can follow, and God says when you do that, all you're doing
is exposing your nakedness before God. The Lord told the children
of Israel in the Old Testament, when you build an altar, don't
put a tool to it, Don't put a tool to it. Don't build the altar
with hewned stones. You know how beautiful our altars
are today? God said when you build an altar,
you take rough stones. Don't try to polish them. Don't
try to make them look any better. Stack them up. Put the sacrifice
on that altar. Because as soon as you put a
tool to it, as soon as you try to improve it, as soon as you
try to take the harsh edges off of the offense of the gospel,
making it more palatable to men, you've ruined it. You've ruined
it. If the I be single, the whole
body shall be filled with light. Is your eye single when it comes
to your righteousness? Is all of your righteousness
bound up in the perfect obedience of the
Lord Jesus Christ? How about your justification?
How are you going to be justified before God? Remember that passage we just
read in Isaiah chapter 40? Tell them they've received a
double blessing for their sins. Not only have we received a righteousness
that's alien to us, a righteousness outside of ourselves, a righteousness
that we're not worthy of, but we've also had our sins put away. We've been justified before God.
The shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only thing that
hides our sins from God. And what the Lord is saying here
is, if the eye be single, who is he that condemneth? The law
would condemn. Religion would condemn. Who is
he that condemneth? It is God that justifieth. Yay, rather it is Christ that
died and is risen again. He was offered up for our offenses
and raised again because of our justification. The only hope
that I have to have my sins put away, removed from me as far
as the East is from the West, so that God would be able to
say to me, I remember them no more, is to have a single eye
towards Christ. A single eye. If the eye be single,
if I'm looking to Christ and His shed blood for my justification,
and then I look away from Him and try to find something else
to give me hope, my eye's not single. Oh, Lord, give me a single
eye. Cause me to rely upon the Lord
Jesus Christ alone for all my righteousness, for all my justification,
for all my faith. Faith is not your contribution. Faith is the gift of God. God
doesn't reward us with salvation because we believe. Faith comes
as the result of God doing a work of grace in the heart, saving
us. Paul said, I'm crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. The life that I now live, I live
by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and died for me.
And Habakkuk put it like this. He said, now the just shall live
by his faith. By his faith. And when our hearts condemn us,
and how often they do, He remaineth faithful. Is your eye single? Is it single? Is it looking to Christ alone
for all your righteousness, for all your justification, for all
your faith, for all your hope? Is Christ your hope? It doth
not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He
shall appear, we shall see Him as He is and be made like Him. Is that your hope? Your eye is
single towards Christ. You're not looking for a reward
from God. God said to Abraham, He said, Abraham, I am thy shield
and thine exceeding great reward. We're not looking for rewards
outside of seeing Him in all of His splendor and glory. We're
not looking for being reunited with deceased loved ones. We're
not going to have that kind of relationship in glory. If you have a deceased loved
one that's gone to be with the Lord, your relationship with
that person is going to be just like it is with every single
other person in glory. perfect love, perfect love. No, we're looking for and waiting
for Him. Is your eye single toward Christ
for all your righteousness, for all your justification, for all
your faith and for all of your hope? If it is, then the whole
body will be full of light. But now look at the next verse.
But if thine eye be evil. Now the natural man would read
this and say, well you know, we shouldn't be looking at bad
things. You can look this word up. I
looked it up. It's easy to look up words in the original language
now in the scriptures. This word translated evil right
here in this verse means full of labor. Full of labor. If you're not satisfied with
the labor that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished all by Himself
to put away all your sin once and for all. If you think that
you've got to make some contribution of labor, then the Scripture
says your eye is evil. It's not single. You're not looking
to Christ. You're looking to something that
you can do. It's Christ plus, plus my will. Well, I know that Christ died
for me, but I still have to accept Him, right? That's the I being
evil. I know that He did this for me,
but I still have to do my part, right? I still have to do my
work. That's the I being evil. Full
of labors. What did the Lord say? Come unto
Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Take my yoke upon
you and learn of me. I love that. Learn of me. Learn who I am. Learn what I've
done. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face.
Oh, the things of your world will grow strangely dim in the
light of his glory and grace, won't it? Lord, give me the grace
Take my yoke upon you, learn of me. My burden is light, my
yoke is easy. I've already carried the burden
of your sin. I've already put it away. I bore
the burden of the law my whole life, and I satisfied it perfectly. If thine eye be evil, thy whole
body shall be full of darkness." So if it's Christ plus something
that you're going to bring, then you're being double-minded.
And the scripture says if you're double-minded, you're unstable
in all of your ways. And you don't have any clarity.
You don't have any truth. the whole body is full of darkness
notice what it says if therefore notice the way the Lord worded
this if therefore the light that is in you be darkness how great is that darkness you see if a person believes
that something they did or something they did not do, a prayer they
prayed, something they've abstained from, some decision that they've
made is what secured for them their salvation. If they believe
that, then the light that is in them is darkness. Here's the trick. It's a whole
lot easier. I had somebody recently, a very
lifelong irreligious man and a lifelong religious woman, husband
and wife, and the man hears the gospel and he says, who could
have a problem with that? And the wife is fighting it tooth
and toenail. Why? Because the offense of the
cross robs her of her salvation. And the simplicity of the gospel
gives him hope. That happens all the time. If therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? The Pharisees thought they could
see and the Lord called them blind guides leading the blind
and they said are you suggesting are you talking about us are
you suggesting that we're blind and we've been lifelong students
of the Bible we we know God we're children of Abraham the Lord
said to them if you were blind then your sins be forgiven you
But because you see, your sins remain. If the light that be
in you be darkness, how great is that darkness! If I've got a single eye towards
Christ, then my whole body is full of light. If I'm trying to add to what
the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished, then my whole body is full of
darkness and that's the worst kind of blindness is the
person who thinks he can see when he can't. That's the worst
kind of blindness. Now, as I said in the introduction,
Anybody can read this. Mother Teresa could read this
and devote herself to a life of poverty in hopes of achieving
some righteousness with God. But that's not what he's talking
about here. Let me ask you a simple question. Why do you go to work?
Why do you go to work? Somebody says, well, I enjoy
my job. Why do you go to work? You go to work for that paycheck,
don't you? Just let them quit paying you and see how much longer
you go to work. So that's what the reward for your labor is
your payment. All right? So the spiritual application
of this, look at verse 24 now, understanding the spiritual application. No man can serve two masters.
You can't have a single eye towards Christ and be looking to something
else as the hope of your salvation. Anything else. No man can serve
two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other. If you're trying to serve two
masters, you hate Christ, and you love your works, and you
love your will. You love what you've done. Or
else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. You can't have a single eye towards
Christ believing that he all by himself got all the glory
for accomplishing all the salvation of all of God's people and at
the same time think that God's going to reward you for something
you did. You can't serve God and mammon. Romans chapter 4 verse 3 says,
Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Now to him that worketh, turn to me there, Romans chapter 4. You see this in your own, in
your Bibles. Verse 2, we'll begin in verse
2 of Romans chapter 4. For if Abraham were justified
by works, he hath whereof to glory. And that's all man-made
religion is, is men glorying in their works to get the praise
and approval of other men. Men love the praise of man more
than the praise of God. And so the Lord says, if Abraham
were justified by his works, then he would have reason to
glory, but not before God. God's not impressed. God's not
impressed. For what sayeth the scriptures?
There's the final question, isn't it? Always, what does God say? Abraham believed God. Abraham had a single eye towards
Christ, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now
to him that worketh is the reward, not reckoned of grace, but of
debt. In other words, if a prayer that
you prayed or a decision you made or a work you performed
somehow contributed to your salvation, then God saved you because He
was obligated to. He was obligated to save you
because of something you did. And your salvation is not of
grace. You're still under the law. You're still under the law. But to him that worketh not. That's the hardest thing to do.
To not work. To believe God. To labor, to enter into His rest. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly. Lord, whatever work
I do, whatever prayer I pray, whatever decision I make's gonna
be ungodly because I'm ungodly. God's pleased with Christ. Oh
Lord, give me a single eye towards Christ. His faith is counted
for righteousness. That's the application of this
verse. Go back with me to our text. The spiritual application
is, anybody can see, you know, if I'm sold out to the material
things of this world, what does a profit a man if he gains the
whole world and loses his own soul? Man by nature is attracted
to this world, he sells himself, his soul to it, but the spiritual
truth here is what men don't see. You cannot serve God and
expect at the same time God to reward you for something you've
done. The favor of God is by grace,
and that is by the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A single eye towards Him for all my righteousness, all my
justification, all my faith, and all my hope. An eye that's
evil, full of labors, looking here and there, trying to figure
out what he can do in order to obligate God. That life is full
of darkness. There is no light in it. Therefore I say unto you, take
no thought for your life. Again, people read these verses
and they think, well, God will give me clothes to wear. He'll
give me food to eat. He'll give me drink. I don't
have to worry about those things. No. Yes, He will. He provides for His children,
no question. I've never seen the righteous
forsaken. I've never seen their seed begging for breads, what
David said, and that's not going to happen. God's going to provide
the necessities of life for His children. He may not give us
a lot of other things, but you will have the necessities of
life for His children. No question about it. But that's
not what He's talking about here. That's not what I want us to
see. Anybody can see that. You don't have to have the Holy
Spirit to see that, do you? What he's talking about is what
the Lord said when he said, my body is meat indeed, and my blood
is drink indeed, and my righteousness is your clothing. And unless
you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have no life
in you. the life that the Lord Jesus
Christ lived in this world, a single eye looks to His life for all
their righteousness. Everything Christ did, I did
in Him. He's all my righteousness before
God. Therefore I say unto you, take
no thought for your life, your spiritual life, What you shall eat or what you
shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on, is
not life more than meat and the body than raiment?" See, Christ is my life. I can't find
meat outside of His body. I can't find drink outside of
His blood. I can't find righteousness outside
of His righteousness. Now he's going to illustrate
it like this. Behold the fowls of the air.
Look to the birds. They sow not, neither do they
reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are you not much more than they? Now the scripture likens the
people of God to birds in many places. He said, talks about
the mustard seed growing into a great tree and the birds coming
to that place. And there's several illustrations
in the Bible about believers being likened to birds. He's
saying, look to the birds, behold the birds, consider the birds.
They sow not, neither do they reap, neither do they gather
into barns. You know, in fact, birds do so. but they don't know they're doing
it. They do reap. They reap what
they sow. You know how seeds get scattered
through birds, do they not? And the very dung of the bird
provides the fertilizer for the seed to grow, but the bird's
not taking notice of that. What did Paul say about his works? He said, that which I thought
was saving me, that which I thought was good, that which I thought
was to my merit and to my favor, I understood was to my loss,
and I now count it as dumb. Believers, like birds, do sow
the seed, but they consider the works that they perform in doing
that, they consider it to be dumb. They don't take notice
of it. It's the means by which God scatters
the seed of the gospel. No believer has ever shared the
gospel and then walked away feeling proud that they did a good job. No preacher has ever preached
the gospel and walked away from the pulpit feeling proud that
they did a good job. See, everything we do, And yet,
those are the means by which when God's people care for one
another and pray for one another, they feel so ashamed of how little
they do and how half-hearted they are when they do it. And
yet, it's the very means by which God uses. Consider the birds. Consider the fowls of the air. Verse 27, when he says in verse 25, therefore
I say unto you, take no thought for your life. He's talking about
caring with distress and worry. In other words, don't take that
kind of thought for your life. Trust Christ for your life. Paul put it like this in Colossians
chapter 3. He said, Christ who is our life, and when He shall
appear, we shall appear with Him in glory. Verse 26, Behold the fowls of
the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into
barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not much
better than they? The Lord's going to provide for
his children. In physical ways and in the spiritual
ways, which of you taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? What are you going to do? This
word stature actually means age. He's not talking about our height. He's talking about age. He's
talking about what are you going to do to provide for yourself
eternal life. Taking thought for what you do
is not going to provide anything for your eternal life. And why
take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow. They toil not, neither do they
spin. Stop trying. Start trusting. The lilies of the field, they
don't toil. They don't spin. And yet Solomon in all of his
glory was not arrayed as one of these. The Lord's given us
these as an example of how He plants the flowers, He makes
them to grow, He makes everything beautiful in His time, and He
dresses them with His righteousness. Verse 30, Wherefore, if God so
clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow
is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you? Not talking about physical clothing.
Not talking about temporal needs being met, God's gonna meet those.
He's talking about having your nakedness covered before God.
He's talking about having a white linen, clean and pure, standing
in the presence of God. He's talking about that wedding
garment. And when that king gave a wedding feast for his servant,
There was a servant at the door that provided everyone that came
in a wedding garment, and there was a man found in the wedding
who had on his own clothes. Don't you know that guy came
in the door, and he's probably well off, probably had some real
snazzy clothes on. And he looked at that wedding
garment that everybody was wearing, and he thought, I'm fine just
like I am. I look pretty good. And when
the king found him, he cast him out into utter darkness where
there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Oh, the
Lord, he's got to do for us what he did for blind Bartimaeus.
He's got to strip us naked, cause us to realize that our clothes
are filthy rags, and we've got to drop them on the wayside.
And he's got to clothe us with his righteousness. If the eye
be single, the whole body shall be full of light. But if the
light that is in you be laborious, if it be evil, full of labors,
how dark is the darkness thereof." Look what he says in verse 31. Take no thought saying, what
shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or whither shall we be
clothed. Don't look anywhere other than
Christ for your food, for your drink, and for your clothing.
You've got no place else to go. The Lord told the woman at the
well that If she knew who it was that saith unto him, give
me to drink, he would give her rivers of living water and she'd
never have to go to the well again. She said, Lord, give me
that water so I don't have to come back to this well. He said,
you'll never thirst again is what he said. In other words,
you'll never have to thirst for a righteousness, a justification,
or a salvation outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your eye will
be single. Take no thought for what you're
going to eat or what you're going to drink or what you're going
to wear. For after these things do the Gentiles seek. This is
what the unbeliever is doing. He's looking for something other
than Christ for his salvation. For your heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of these things, but seek ye first the kingdom
of God." What is the kingdom of God? Who is the kingdom of
God? He's ruling and reigning right
now at the right hand of God. He's interceding on behalf of
His people. He accomplished the work of redemption
when He died on Calvary's cross. He was rewarded by God and raised
from the dead and He's coming again. Seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness and all these other things will
be added unto you. Take no thought for the morrow. You know, here we are on the
beginning of a new year. A lot of people making plans
and thinking about the future. And I suppose there's some place
for that when it comes to temporal things. Man makes his plans,
God orders his steps. But here the Lord says, take
no thought for the morrow. Again, the word thought here
is the word care, anxiety, anxiousness, fear. Don't be afraid for tomorrow. Why? For tomorrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. In other words, tomorrow is going
to come, and when tomorrow comes, sufficient will be that day for
the sin thereof. See, you and I have a big enough
sin problem right now. right this very minute. That's
what the Lord's saying. What are you going to do about
your sin? You think worrying about it? You think planning
for it? You think trying to put it away
by something other than the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and
His death on Calvary's cross and His imputed righteousness?
You think there's something that you're going to do? No. Take no thought for the morrow.
Sufficient is the evil of today. We've got enough sin in our own
hearts right now. Faith can only be experienced
now. Now. Now, the just shall live
by faith. Now, faith is the substance of
things hoped for. Paul said, forgetting those things
which are behind. Everybody's reflecting on last
year, all the mistakes they did. These are false refuges is what
they are. It's where men run in order to
find some hope. Well, if I had done this, or
they take glory in their successes, or they wallow in their failures,
or they plan for their future, You can't have faith yesterday,
you cannot have faith tomorrow. Sufficient is the evil of today. You got enough sin right now
for you to flee to Christ right now with a single eye looking
to Him alone for all your righteousness, all your justification, all your
faith, all your hope, all your salvation. If the eye be evil, They'd be
full of labors. How dark. There's no light there,
is there? No hope there. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
for the spiritual truth of Your Gospel. And Lord, we pray that
Your Holy Spirit would make it true to our hearts and cause
us to find Christ to be our all and in all. Lord, we thank you for this table
for the reminder of the bread being the body of Christ and
the wine being the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray Lord
that we would never go anywhere else to feed our souls. We pray right now that you would
cause us to be fed with the bread of life, for we ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. I want to ask the men if they'll
come and distribute the bread and the wine. You just remain
seated, please, and then your Sop Act hymnal will sing number
one. Number one. See the table spread before you,
see the feast of bread and wine. These are symbols of our Savior,
tokens of His love divine. Bread that's broken is his body
Crushed beneath the wrath of God Wine poured out is a reminder
of our Savior's precious blood. Children of our God, remember
how he bought your soul and mine in remembrance of our Savior. drink the wine. Jesus came, the
God incarnate, to fulfill God's holy law. On the cross he made
atonement and retrieved us from the fall. Let us never forget
the promise Jesus made to come again. Soon He comes, our King,
to call us home to glory. Praise His name! With this hope
and expectation, we rejoice to keep this feast, celebrating
our redemption till we lean on Jesus' breast. There's no saving power in this
bread. You know that. It's a symbol. It's an ordinance. The Lord's
commanded us to to observe as a memorial. It's a time of celebration. Salvation comes through faith.
When we look at this bread, we believe in our hearts that the
bread of life that came down from heaven had no sin. And when he died on Calvary's
cross, he was charged with the sins of all of his people. imputed
to him by God, bore in his body the sins of God's people and
put away our sin once and for all. So he said, as often as
you do this, you do it in remembrance of me. Because of the frailty of our
flesh, we often lose sight of the blood of Christ. Why, we
have to keep hearing the gospel. But God didn't say, when you
see the blood, I'll pass by you. He said, when I see the blood. The Lord Jesus Christ shed his
precious blood on Calvary's cross, and the scripture tells us he
put it on the mercy seat, not made with hands, a mercy seat
in heaven before God. And God's always looking at that
blood for the covering of our sin. When I see the blood, I'll
pass by you. We do this in remembrance of
Him. And all God's people said, Amen. Maria Isabel and Eliseo have
been with us now for six or eight weeks, I guess. Are you still
planning on having the baby in the morning? Okay. She's going
into Arnold Palmer in the morning to have their firstborn child
induced labor. So I want us to pray for Maria
Isabel. Rinaldo, would you, let's stand
together. Rinaldo, would you close our service and be sure
to pray for Maria and Eliseo. Thank you. Dear Father, we are humbled.
Thank you for this ceremony. We give to us, to your spirit,
thank you for, we know that we have to keep our eyes and testify
as a part of what we can do for ourselves.