I'll turn back in the scriptures
to John chapter 4 and I want us to look at the testimony of
a true worshipper. God creates true worshippers
by the revelation of himself in the Lord Jesus Christ to them
and they worship the Father in spirit and in truth and they
have a testimony. They have a testimony and if
the Lord has revealed himself to us then our testimony is the
same as this woman's testimony. And I want us to just examine
this briefly. This comes from verse 49, and
many Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying
of the woman which testified, he told me all that ever I did. 42 And they said to the woman,
Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard
him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the
Saviour of the world. We've seen, as we've gone through
John chapter four, that true worshipers worship the Father
and His Spirit in truth. It's a promise from God, they
shall. And they're sought by the Father,
they receive the gift of living waters, and the living waters
are in Him, in Him. Please note that, they're in
Him, a well of water springing up into eternal life. The testimony that this woman
bears springs up within a child of God. And it springs up because
of the living waters within them. It springs up because of the
work of the Spirit of God. It springs up because of the
revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ to his people. It springs
up from within a child of God. And here we see these living
waters flow, the living waters that we're told to ask for. And
what do these living waters look like? Here we have the answer.
Here we have an answer and John continues to give us pictures
of these throughout his gospel. The next story we see is the
story of the healing of that man from a distance and the Nova
man believed, the normal man believed in John 4.50, and he
believed in his whole house. So a testimony is something that
you've seen. She has a testimony because she
has personally borne witness to this. This is her testimony
and I trust that when our time is finished, her testimony will
be our testimony because the Lord Jesus doesn't change. He's
the same yesterday, today and forever. His dealings with his
people in this world are the same. in remarkable and wonderful
ways, different all the time, but there is the stamp, there
are the fingerprints of God over all of his dealings with his
people. And she heard some things which brought about her conversion. Her testimony comes from the
experience of meeting the Lord. And what a powerful testimony
it is. And it's a testimony that had
immediate effects. on those villages. And the Lord
and his disciples, the Lord rejoiced. We'll look at that, Lord willing,
next week. He's rejoiced. She has forgotten the water pot
and he's forgotten his hunger because he's rejoicing. They're
rejoicing in heaven, isn't there? They're rejoicing in heaven when
a sinner repents and God works in the hearts of people. What
a picture we have of this lady as a new believer, beginning
her new life and her testimony. Verse 28. Then the woman, the
woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city.
She left her water pot. What a picture of a new believer's
beginning her journey to new life and to beginning for this
testimony. Her first act is to leave something
behind. Something that was so important
to her on her journey, so essential to her earthly life. Something
with which she may well have done good to other people in
this world. The Holy Spirit records this for our learning. Quite simply, someone had become
more significant than the water in the water pot. Something had
become more significant than what she had thought was absolutely
essential for life itself. And what had caused her to leave
her water pot? Let's go back to verse 26. Jesus
saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. And as I said earlier in the
original of this, I am. I am, that extraordinarily powerful
declaration of God being God to his people, he speaks, I am,
I am. And this is in response to her
statement in verse 25, the woman said to him, I know that Messiah
has cometh, which is called Christ, and when he has come he will
tell us all things. She's about to know about all
the things. The Lord, takes us away from
our water pots. Have you left your water pot?
Have you left your water pot? Have the things that were once
essential become things that are left behind? Have the things
that were once necessary for life and so significant Have
they become something that can be left behind? Man does not
live by bread alone, but he lives from the very words of God revealed,
isn't it? And the Lord says to us in Matthew
chapter six, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also. It's interesting, isn't it? It's
the opposite of the way that we normally think. Where your treasure
is, there your heart is also. The water pot draws water, doesn't
it? The water pot draws water from
that well, the well of religion. She'd come there as a religious
woman. Her acts weren't religious there, but she came as a Samaritan,
a religious woman, thinking about where God was worshipped. The
waterpots of our righteousness, the waterpots of our wisdom and
our sanctification and our learning, the waterpots of our esteem in
the eyes of men, the waterpots of our esteem in the eyes of
ourselves. The waterpot is used to draw
water from the wells of this world. And if you're drawing
water from the wells of this world, you're going to have to
keep drawing all the time, because nothing ever quenches. Nothing
ever quenches. You seek the things of this world,
and you'll never ever be satisfied. How much money, Kerry Packer,
how much money do you need? He was a billionaire, and he
said, I just need another dollar. He was never satisfied. It doesn't
have to be real, I must say, never satisfied. There's no peace,
there's no rest for any of them. They're just going about like
religious people, going about to establish their own righteousness. The wills of self-righteousness
have to be made by the presence of God to be something that we
turn from. So what will cause you and what
causes men to leave their water pot? exactly what happened to this
woman. Let's listen to it in verse 28. She met the Lord Jesus
Christ, then she left her water pot. She then left her water
pot. The disciples had come and disturbed
this conversation and she left. There's a then she left her water
pot and she went her way into the city. I love the softened
hand of God in the testimony that he brings, doesn't he? Here
are the circumstances of her to feel uncomfortable so that
she would go by his sovereign providence into this village. She left a water pot and she
went, and she went into the testimony. Let's go down to verse 29. This is her testimony. This is
her testimony. He says, come see a man. Come and see a man which told
me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? It's such a significant, small
phrase, isn't it? And I wish it would become central
to our events Come and see the Lord Jesus Christ. Come and see Him where He meets
with His people. Come and see Him where He reveals
Himself. Come and see Him where He gathers
His people. I love the fact also that she doesn't begin with herself.
She doesn't even begin with her infamous history amongst them.
She would have been a very famous woman in that part of the world.
She may well have had five husbands still living in the village,
and the man she was living with, yes, we don't know all of those
details, but she would have been a famous person in Nauru. Infamous,
for want of a better word. She doesn't begin with herself.
She doesn't say, look what I've changed, look how I've reformed
my life. She begins with him. She says, come and see a man. This is the beginning of the
testimony, isn't it? Our testimony is, come and see a man. I don't
want to talk about myself, I want to talk about him. Come and see. And it's interesting, isn't it? These are the first words of
invitation recorded by the Lord Jesus in John 1 verse 39. He says, they say to him, where
do you live? And he says, well, you come and
see. Come and see, and it's the first words of Philip to Nathanael.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come
out of Naurah? Come and see, come and see. It's lovely to hear the Lord's
words repeated back again, isn't it? She's repeating His words. Come and see, come and see a
man. Also, she doesn't say, you go and see. She says, come and
see. I want to go with you. I want
to go with you. One of the essential things in
the Lord's work in our lives is He draws us into community.
She doesn't want to leave His company and she wants others
to be in His company with her. It's all about community. It's
this glorious picture of the church. A garden enclosed is
the church of God. He gave us these people in the
world and those walled gardens that they have in Europe and
England. You can't see in from the outside. You don't know what's
happening in a walled garden. And in a walled garden there's
a different environment. That's why they have these great huge
walls around these gardens to protect them so that you can
grow things in there that you can't grow anywhere else. And
the Lord says, my church is a garden enclosed. A special place where
I meet with people in the world I don't know. Come and see. Come and see. I'll go with you.
I want to see him speaking. I want to hear him speaking again.
I want to see him doing the same things in the lives of these
other people as he's done in my life. These people who probably
would have looked down their noses at her for many a year,
and even in the wickedness and the emptiness of their religion
they would have had a self-righteousness that would have looked down their
noses at her. She said, you come with me. You come and see. I'll go with you. I want you
to experience what I've experienced. Come see a man. Is not this the
Christ? Come see a man which told me
all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Is not this the Christ? She had, earlier in her conversation
with him, perceived that he's a prophet. But the question I
want us to ask is that her testimony involves all things, doesn't
it? And the question that you might ask is, how can a brief
meeting beside a well with the Lord bring about this testimony? He's told me all things whatsoever
I did. She thought earlier, she knew
earlier that when the Christ comes, he'll tell us all things.
He'll tell us all things about worship, he'll tell us all things
about religion, he'll tell us all things about God. But now
the all things are personal. And our testimony's always going
to be personal, isn't it? He told me all things that ever
I did, nothing left out. All of my life. is now seen in light of who he
is. And if you ever really get to
know who you are, you will only ever know yourself in light of
who he is. It's only in the presence of
God that you actually get to see what you really are. And
without his light, it's in his light that we see light. It's
in his light. What's one word? What's the one
word that describes everything, all things that ever you have
done? There is just one word, isn't
it, that describes everything that you have ever done. It's
called sin, brothers and sisters. It's sin. Paul says that in my
flesh dwells no good thing. And that wasn't the testimony
of Paul on the road to Damascus, I promise you, when he was riding
high on his horse there, seeking to kill the Lord's people. But
in Romans chapter seven, he makes that testimony. In my flesh dwells
no good things, no good thing at all. See this, If this describes
all of what you are, it is the description that's come by revelation
of Himself. That's what's happened to her,
isn't it? He's revealed Himself to her, and He's converted her
to Himself, and this is her testimony. I love what Spurgeon said. He
said, the longer I go on in life, the more I feel as if all of
my good deeds and all of my bad deeds need to be thrown in the
same bucket, because the longer I go on, I see so little difference
between the two of them. They all end up in the same place.
All of our righteousnesses, says the Bible, are nothing but filthy
rags. Nothing about God's view of things,
nothing about God's economy in this world can ever be understood. Nothing about the character of
God and the person of the Lord Jesus and his work in this world
can ever be understood except by the revelation and particularly
the revelation and the personal revelation of who Christ is. I can spend all day talking to
you about the horrors of sin and tell you to get your newspapers
out and read your magazines and watch television and you'll see
the horrors of man's sin laid out before you. But it's only
when Nathan the prophet came to David and said, you are the
man. You are the man that David understood
what had really happened in the midst of all that sin which was
so evident to so many other people in his court and so seemingly
should have been evident to him. You are the man. So when Christ reveals himself
to people, you will see. Turn with me to Ezekiel chapter
36. I want us to see that this is the promise of God in the
Old Testament. You know the glorious resurrection
picture in chapter 37, the Spirit of God has to blow upon those
bones gathered. In Ezekiel chapter 36, there's
a glorious declaration of the work of God. It's pictured. in this woman and her conversion.
He says in verse 25, then will I sprinkle clean water upon you
and you shall be clean. How clean? If he sprinkled his
water upon you, you're perfectly clean. From all your filthiness,
not just a little bit of it, from all of your filthiness and
from all of your idols, will I cleanse you. When God does
the cleansing and God declares you're clean, you're clean in
his sight. A new heart also will I give
you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh
and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in
my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them and
you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you
shall be my people and I will be your God. I will also save
you from all your uncleannesses, and I will call for the corn,
and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you, and I will
multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field,
that you shall receive no more reproach of famine among the
heathen. Then." Note the order of it, brothers and sisters.
God having done all those remarkable things in the life and the person
and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, then, then, shall you
remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not good,
and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities
and for your abominations. It's a good exercise to go through
the scriptures, isn't it, and just look at the people meeting
the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherever they meet him, whether
it's Job who declares, I am vile. And he says, I abhor myself because
he's heard and seen God. Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 6,
met the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, I'm undone. I'm
a man of unclean lips, and I live amongst a people of unclean lips.
Daniel, all of his beauty, all of his comeliness turned to corruption. John, the man who wrote this,
when he meets the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation chapter
1, he falls down before him as a dead man. Peter has a revelation
of the Lord beside the Sea of Galilee, and he says, depart
from me, Lord. You're too holy to have someone
like me in your presence. He says, I am a sinful man, a
sinful man. Come and see a man who told me
all things whatsoever I did. She just has the testimony of
everyone else but the Lord Jesus Christ. And He alone can bring
that revelation to us. I remember when we were in today's
house church after I came back from India and we were doing
Ephesians, don't you remember? And I was trying to just, in
the midst of extraordinary opposition, just say, this is what God says,
this is what God says, this is what God says. And we're looking
at the depravity of man, and I hadn't thought of them, but
I read part of that verse in Ephesians 5.16. The days are
evil. And of course the whole place
broke up in laughter and mirth. There are only a few in all of
that room who really understood. It wasn't just the days that
were evil. But that's the picture of all of us, isn't it? We live
in days that are evil. And the evil's in our hearts.
What a sad thing that so few see themselves as sinners. Sinners are precious things,
brothers and sisters. Only the Holy Spirit makes sinners
to be sinners. Where did she find out? about
this being herself. So even a sinner of notoriousness
sinner still believes that there's some righteousness in her. She
still believes that somehow given time and effort and other things
that she can somehow make herself right. Maybe not quite as bad
as someone else that she knows. Always in the pecking order of
humanity there's someone a little bit lower than you. And you think
that you're going to be somewhere a little bit better off because
of that. She found this out about herself because she knew who
he is. That's the issue, isn't it, brothers
and sisters? The issue with religion. The
issue with all those who make some sort of profession and still
hold their righteousness. The issue again and again and
again. And I pray that he meets them
in this life before they meet him with their righteousnesses
in their hand. People die, according to the
scriptures, with a lie in their right hand. The lie in their
right hand is the lie of their own righteousness, their own
works and their own worth and their own will. She's brought to him this lovely
conversation that brings this lovely testimony. She's brought
to him and she's told that true worshippers will be sought by
God, found by God, made by God to worship, to bow in submission,
delightful submission to him, his word and his declaration
of who she is and who he is. See, religion can move lost people
from one place to another. So he wasn't interested in her
guy turning from the Samaritan religion to the Jewish religion
of the day. He wasn't interested in her just
being taken out of paganism into Judaism. People want to take
rescued Catholics and make them Protestants or rescue Armenians
and make them Calvinists. Rescue people who are conservative
in their worship and want to make them charismatic. But none
of this matters, does it? None of this matters to our souls
until you come to Christ. This is where she is led. This
is where her destiny begins. You come and see Him. You come
and see Him. You come and see Him who has
told me all things that I have. You come to Him and not a doctrine. You come to Him and who He is
and you'll find in Him there's just one refuge, there's one
place of safety, there's one mediator, there's one God, there's
one salvation, there's one baptism, there's just one Christ, there's
one church and there's one body. She came to him, she found out
who the Lord Jesus Christ really is, and it made her conclude
that everything about herself was only sin. Only sin. Is this your testimony? All things
whatsoever I have done are nothing but sin. Everything I've ever
done in my flesh is sin. You see, it's a picture of what
grace is. Grace comes to sinners, doesn't
it? always and only ever deals with
people on the basis of sinners. It's not grace if you can do
something to earn it or do something to add to it. It's the grace
of God that brings repentance. It's the grace and the kindness
of God that brings us to this place to see who we really are. See, he came to her and revealed
himself. He revealed himself to her and
then he revealed herself to herself. And it's all in the one and glorious
moment of his conversion of his people. It might in many other
ways be a process. It seems like Nicodemus had to
go through a process of having to stand up and testify to the
Lord Jesus Christ before he finally comes and publicly identifies
with the death and the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ. She
comes. Is not this the Christ? is not
this the Christ? You see, a saving testimony is not just
that I'm a sinner. Many people want to boast of
what sinners they are, but a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ
is seeing something more than that. Just read with me. In verse
29 she says, come see a man which told me all things that ever
I did, is this not the Christ? But her testimony had something
to do with him being the saviour of the world. And verse 39 says,
and many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for
the saying of the woman which testified, he told me all that
ever I did. And said unto the woman, now
we believe, not because of thy saying, but we heard him ourselves
and know that this is indeed the Christ. The saviour of the
world. All things that ever I did has
something to do with him being the saviour of the world. The saviour of the world. I don't want to get into discussions
about the world in John's Gospel, but the world so often in John's
Gospel means just the world of his elect. There is only one
saviour in all of this world and he saves his people out of
this world by his own omnipotent power and grace and by his blood. But it's much more than just
confession, isn't it? Her testimony is much more than
just that I am nothing but sin. Her testimony is this, not this.
It's the Christ. And we looked earlier at what it was to be
the Christ, and He reveals Himself as the Christ throughout John's
Gospel. He's revealing Himself as the Saviour, the Saviour of
those people, the One who is the door to the sheep, the One
who is the good shepherd who gathers His sheep, the One who
is the light of the world that shines a light on who He is and
shines a light on who we are. He is the light of the world.
All things whatsoever I did in her testimony is a testimony
of He's the Saviour. He's the Saviour. He's the Saviour. I've met a Saviour. The Christ
is the Saviour. And that's exactly what Christian
baptism is all about, isn't it? Baptism is saying, is confessing,
is testifying that I am so sinful. that the only hope I have of
any salvation is the perfect life, the redeeming death and
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was put to death
because of our sins and he was raised because of our righteousness. But baptism is confessing something
more than that, isn't it? It's confessing that I'm united
to Him. I'm in union with the Lord Jesus
Christ. I'm in an eternal union with
Him. I'm confessing in baptism my
identification. We're baptised with Him. You
are confessing in baptism that when he lived before the law
of God, I lived before the law of God, because I was united
to him. He kept the law of God perfectly,
and I kept the law of God perfectly. He lived before God, worshipping
God with all of his heart, all of his soul, all of his mind,
all of his strength, and every single one of his members did
so as well. Not a bone of his will be broken.
And he obeyed the law, I obeyed the law. perfectly. When he died,
I was crucified with him, says the scriptures. Such is the union
between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. That's what we're
confessing in baptism, that when he was raised from the dead on
that glorious day 2,000 years ago nearly, I was raised from
the dead. When he ascended into glory, I ascended into glory.
Ephesians 1 says that when he was seated on that throne in
glory, we're seated together with him. Such is our union. Our union with the Lord Jesus
Christ is what's being confessed, isn't it? When God says that
He's well pleased with His Son, He's well pleased in Him, He's
well pleased with everyone in Him. Because the Christ is always
represented in the Scriptures as in union with His people.
It's not just a surname, it's a title that reflects His union. It's the great mystery of the
Scriptures. That God, when God accepts his son, he says you
are accepted. You're accepted in the beloved. When Christ lived in this world
and didn't sin. God's children lived in this
world with no sin. God had forgiven it and it's
gone in the death of him. Such is the perfect union of
us with our Saviour. That's our testimony, isn't it?
That in and of myself, I'm nothing but sin. He's told me all things
whatsoever I did. And in Him, all things whatsoever
I did are perfect in God's sight because of my union. This is
my confession. This is the only hope that when
I meet Him in glory, my testimony won't change. It's the testimony
of those saints around the throne in glory in Revelation chapter
12, isn't it? This was their testimony. They
overcame him, they overcame the beast, by the blood of the lamb
and the word of their testimony, and they loved their lives unto
death. She says, Come see a man, which
told me all things whatsoever I did. Is not this the Christ? Come with me, she said. We spoke
earlier about what it is to be the Christ, and I'll refer you
back to that, but the Christ is the I Am, isn't it? He is,
it means, to be the Christ means to be the anointed one of God.
God's anointed, there's only one anointed. And all the pictures
in the Old Testament of the anointing of the prophets and the priests
and the kings were pictures of the anointed one who is the prophet.
He is the prophet of God, he is the anointed prophet of God.
He brings the word of God to us. I am. He is the Word, isn't
He? The Word was made flesh and made
His dwelling among us. And she had heard the Word of
God speaking to her personally. And so have these other people.
He is the priest, the priest who brings men to God. You cannot come to God on your
own. In the Old Testament, everyone
who was named amongst the children of Israel are brought into the
very presence of the Holy of Holies, in the very presence
of God himself, with their names written on the breastplate and
written on the shoulders of that great high priest. Such is the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is the anointed priest. And
he's the anointed king. I have set my king on my holy
hill of Zion. The Lord Jesus Christ reigns
and rules over absolutely everything. There is nothing out of order
in this world or in this universe. Nothing out of his order. Certainly
a bunch out of our order, but he's in absolute control. Nothing
wriggles or moves in this universe, thinks or acts apart from the
will and the purpose of God. And men are completely and utterly
responsible for their free and uncoerced acts. And at the very
same time, the Lord Jesus Christ is absolutely sovereign over
all things. Otherwise, he can't work all
things for our good, brothers and sisters. And he does. He is, is not this the Christ? Is not this the Christ? So the
Christ is only known by revelation. Who say ye that I am? Who do
you say that he is? Simon Bar-Jonah says, thou art
the Christ, the son of the living God. And the Lord turns to him
and says, blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood
has not revealed this unto thee. You can't learn this about me
by flesh and blood and by learning. You learn it by revelation from
heaven. Her witness created an interest,
in verse 30 it says, and they went out of the city and they
came unto him. And many of the Samaritans of that
city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified,
he told me all that I ever did. So where there's a testimony,
there's fellowship, isn't there? Where there's a testimony, There
is a witness. She bears witness to him. She
bears witness to who she is. See, all true testimony comes
from this witness, isn't it? Verse 42, I love what they say.
Now we believe. Now we believe, not because of
thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves. Our testimony
resolves around something that we've actually witnessed, we've
actually heard from God ourselves. Faith always comes by hearing,
and hearing by the preaching of the Gospel. Now we believe,
now we believe because we've heard from him. It's so, so incredibly significant,
isn't it, that we actually hear from him. When do you know that
you've heard from God? You hear men speaking all the time.
When do you know that you've heard from God? When are you persuaded that it
is God who is speaking? when his word comes with power,
and it's no longer an opinion to be debated or discussed. It's a truth that is revealed,
and a truth that is revealed in such a way that you know that
it is God who is speaking to you. The Thessalonians heard
the word of God, They heard Paul, a man, a sinner just like you
and I, a sinner like us. And they heard, he never ceases
to give thanks, thanks to God without ceasing because when
you receive the word of God, which you heard of us, you received
it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of
God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. We're witnessing to what we have
seen and heard. I'm bearing witness as the Lord
might enable me to say, this is the Christ I have met. The
successful Christ, the sovereign Christ. The Christ who comes
and reveals himself to people through the preaching of the
gospel. The Christ that comes and gathers his people together.
The Christ that comes and gathers in such a way that he is in their
midst. What an amazing two days. Isn't
it lovely that we aren't told what happened and we're left
to think of the wonder of that fellowship that they had for
two days in that little Samaritan village. There was a place where
God met with his people. There was a place where the Lord
Jesus Christ was worshipped. There was the Father worshipped.
There was the very Word of God delivered to these people again
and again. They got to fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. and
he left the Jews. It's a glorious picture, isn't
it? The Lord's church and the Lord's people gathered together
with him will never be understood by the world and never be understood
by the religious world. The religious world of that day
would have looked upon what happened in that Samaritan village as
an act of blasphemy and deceit and would have been proof in
their minds that this could not be the Christ, that he would
live and he would fellowship with those defiled people. The
wonder of the Gospel is that where the Lord meets with his
people and where he touches his people and where he abides with
his people, there is no defilement in him. And a holy God can live
in the presence of these people because they are made holy by
his touch and his presence. And he says to the disciples,
you're clean. You're clean because of the the
word I've spoken to you. He declares you to be clean.
You're clean in the sight of God, and it doesn't matter what
the world says, and it doesn't matter what the religious world
says, and it doesn't matter what you say, and it doesn't matter
what Satan says. When God has spoken, he's spoken,
and it's true. We know, we've heard him ourselves. If you've heard from him, you've
heard him. We know indeed that this is the
Christ. I'd love for you to go home and
look up all the weenos in John's writings, particularly in the
book of 1 John. We know that He's the Saviour
of the world, that everyone He intended to save, He saved, that
the Christ can never be a failure. We believe that if everyone is
saved, they're saved. In this same way, by a personal
meeting, as a word is brought to the people's hearts. Is this
your testimony? Everything that I've ever done
in thought and word and deed, in motive and action, is nothing
but sin. Everything that's ever done in
my flesh is nothing. I can't look to one act for my
justification and my acceptance with God. As my testimony, also
everything that I've ever done before God has been perfectly.
I've perfectly loved God with all my heart and my soul and
my mind and my strength in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've perfectly
obeyed God's holy law such that God looks over me and says, perfectly
clean. Welcome into my presence. And
all of this because of my union with the Lord Jesus Christ. All
that he did, he did as one in union with his people. flesh
of His flesh and bone of His bone, one with Him, eternally
united, accepted in the Beloved. See, grace is because of union, an
eternal union, an everlasting, unchangeable union. And grace
reveals this union and then grace reveals leads to communion, the
truth of who he is and the truth of us meet in a mediator, meet
at the mercy seat with all of our sins gone. All of our sins
are gone. There is absolutely no reason
for God Almighty not to be in delightful, loving, powerful,
saving, comforting, peace-bringing fellowship with us. have. Let's pray. Heavenly Father
we do pray yet again that you would take the words of mere
men and cause them by your Spirit's work to be words that reveal
the Lord Jesus Christ in his saving mercy and his glory. And
Heavenly Father we do pray that you would cause us yet again
to know that he is the Christ, the Saviour of the world. Oh,
our Father, we thank you. We thank you that you sent him
into this world because of his union with his people. We thank
you that he set his face like a flint to go to Calvary's tree.
And he bore in his own body all of our sins, and he put them
away completely and forever, our Father. And now there is
nothing in any of your people to hinder communion and fellowship
with you. Cause us to ask, our Father,
causes us to ask and to know the gift that he brings and he
is in himself. As we take these elements that
remind us of his broken body and he shed blood on our father,
we pray that we would do this in deep and sincere remembrance
of him, knowing that you can't remember someone that you don't
know cause him to be known to us heavenly father that we might
remember him delightfully yet again we pray your blessing on
us and your fellowship for those that aren't with us today our
father that we pray in jesus name and for his glory amen