Salvation is a deeply personal
matter, isn't it? It's you and God. It's you personally and God personally. My great desire in preaching
the Gospel is that the Lord would grant us Just a simple abiding
trust in Him. The essence of the message of
Galatians, the essence of the message of the scriptures, is
look to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a simple message that young
people should be able to understand as clearly as others. You cannot,
Sam, look to me and look to the amazing cake that Jenny Bell
made and in the corner, even though she can't eat it. You
cannot look to me and look to other things at the same time.
And that is the essence of it, isn't it? Isaiah 45 says, look
unto me, all you end of the earth, look unto me and be saved. The essence of all false teaching,
the essence of all of Satan's activities in this world is to
cause you to have one eye, if you call yourself a Christian,
one eye on the Lord Jesus and he's very happy for people to
say all sorts of good and profound and wise and true things about
Jesus, but if he can get you to look at yourself and look
at other people, Then He has won the day. We want, by the
grace of God, to have Him before us high and lifted up and exalted. God is very, very pleased with
His Son. He's very pleased with his son's
work. He's very, very pleased with
his son's law keeping. He's very pleased with the righteousness
of his son. He's very, very pleased with
his son's absolute sovereignty over all things in this world.
And he's very, very pleased with all those who are united to his
son, who are one with him. He's extraordinarily pleased
with them. He says that they are complete
in Him. He says that the work of His
Son is to present these fallen, wretched sinners to His Father,
wholly spotless, blameless, unreprovable before Him in love. He loved
them. because they are his gift, his
special gift of all humanity to his son. And he loves them
because they are in his son. And he will not, he will not
share his glory with another. He will not share his glory the
glory of redemption, the glory of salvation, will not be shared
with another. And these Galatians The ink for
us should be still wet on the pages. The problems of the Galatian
believers are the problems of the believers in this world today. The trials of the people of the
early church, the trials that they suffered when the apostles
were there, are exactly the same as the trials that God's people
go through today. The enemies of the Gospel are
exactly the same in so many ways. And that's why Galatians and
Romans and these books of the New Testament are written. They
are written to us because the Church has enemies, enemies inspired
by Satan. Enemies dressed in religious
garb. Enemies calling themselves the
very servants of God. So turning your scriptures to
Galatians chapter 5, I wanted us to look briefly at the last
verses in Galatians 5. And I will start at verse 16. The issue that is before Paul
here in so many places is that we have a glorious freedom in
the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a glorious freedom and
we are not to use that freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. This I say then, walk in the
Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the
flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh,
and these are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot
do the things that you would. It's one of those glorious buts
in the scriptures. If you be led of the Spirit,
you are not under law. And quite simply stated in the
other way, to anyone, including all of the churches I know in
this town and all of the churches I know of in this country, thus
far. I pray that's not the case, but
it is from all that we've ever seen of them. Verse 18, if you
be led of the Spirit you're not under the law. And the churches
I'm speaking about and the teachers in those churches and the leaders
in those churches are putting people back under the law. Therefore necessarily According
to God's Word that you have on your lap, if they put people
back under the law, they are not led of the Spirit of God. It is that simple, brothers and
sisters. Now they can conceal their law
keeping in all sorts of different ways as a church here in this
town that puts people under a covenant. What a great thing. You sign
up to a covenant and in that covenant you promise to do all
these things. You sign a piece of paper saying
that I am going to hold family devotions every night. You sign
a piece of paper saying I'm going to do this and do that. You sign
a piece of paper about your giving and other things. That is just
law-keeping, brothers and sisters. You cannot sign the piece of
paper and do any of those things and look to the Lord Jesus. You
can't. You must take your eyes off Him
and do those things. If you are led of the Spirit,
you are not under the law. Now he goes to this list. Now
the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings, And that's not an
exhaustive list. There are 17 thus far and he
says, and such like. It's just a representation of
the depths of the sin that lies in the heart of the flesh of
every man. And such like, of which I tell
you before, as I have told you in time past, This was Paul's
constant warning to people. He is just reminding them of
what he preached to them before. Before, as I've told you in time
past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God. If you are involved in the practice
of those things and remain in the practice of those things,
you shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. And then we have a glorious
but. But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's, they
that belong to Christ, that's what that little apostrophe S
means, they that are His possession, They that are His people have
crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live
in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be
desirous of vain glory, provoking one another and envying one another. Now there's a big list there. and I can't deal with all of
them at the moment. The principle of course that
lies behind Paul writing this list is that he's giving the
activities of the flesh and the activities of the flesh are exercised
in people who are put back under the law. That's what Galatians
is saying. There was a well-known preacher
in England, and I think he did tell me his name and it slipped
me by, but he made a statement that he preached against alcohol
consumption until there wasn't a sober man left in his village. That's exactly what Romans 7
says. And there the Lord mercifully saved him, and then he preached
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He preached Christ to them, and
they sobered up. It is the great irony and the
great mystery of the Gospel, isn't it? We think that if we
whip people and flog them into doing things, then out will pop
all sorts of honourable religious devotion and out will pop faith
and all of these things. The reality is we know, brothers
and sisters, We know something of our own hearts, don't we? As soon as you are told to do
something, what happens? As soon as you're told to do
something, up rises in your flesh, there's no way in the world you're
going to tell me to do that. It happens with young people,
and believe it or not, Sam and others, when you get to my age,
it's as powerful and as strong as it ever was. Just tell us what to do was the
pride of the people at Mount Sinai that Simon mentioned. Three
or four times they said, it's a piece of cake God, you just
tell us what to do and we'll do it, no problem at all. They
said the same to Joshua at the end of his life, just tell us
what to do, just give us the rules, give us the way to walk,
we'll do it, give us the covenant to sign and I'll tick the boxes
and then I can go around and check on the days to see whether
they're really performing. I can check on them, can't I?
And I can look with the eyes of my flesh into their flesh
and see whether they are really, really doing the right thing. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
not part of the equation except in name only. It's not good enough,
brothers and sisters, to get into heaven. It is not good enough. I long for the people that I
love and care for, to know Him. I long for them to be my friends,
not just for a little while, but to be my friends forever."
I thought it was so nice. We've been looking at the book
of Ruth and it's been delightful. But Ruth made this remarkable
statement, that you know so well She says, where you go, I will
go. And where you lodge, where you
make your home, I will make your home. And your people shall be
my people. And your God, my God. And I'll be with you to death. I'll be happy to die where you
die, to be buried where you're buried. Such is the work of the
Spirit of God in the lives of His people. Such is that deliverance
that Galatians speaks of regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave
Himself. He gave Himself. He gave Himself willingly. He gave Himself with love. He
gave all of Himself. He gave all of Himself for our
sins that He might deliver us from this present evil world
according to the will of God and our Father. He gave us to
deliver us. The first activities in the Garden
of Adam and Eve were religious activities, trying to work out
a way of covering their shame by their own activities. Men
are religious. Inherently religious. If he's
going to rescue us from this present evil world, he's going
to have to rescue us from churches that sign covenants, from churches
that put people under the bondage of the law, from churches and
from religious institutions which distort and deny the very character
of God. Deny what He did on the cross. Deny His particular and effective
love for His people and His particular and effective and successful
and God-satisfying, justice-satisfying death on the cross. He was delivered
for our sins and He bore them away. God will not do that to
his son and then allow some self-righteous man to think that somehow by
the works of your hands you can do something to add to that.
Somehow you can polish what he has done. His work was finished,
brothers and sisters. That was his declaration from
the cross. That's the declaration of heaven. That's what they're singing in
heaven right now. a successful, reigning, redeeming
Saviour. And so the question that lies
before us in these verses, as in many other parts of the Scriptures,
is how then do Christians walk in this world? And I suppose just to make clear
of what Paul says in verse 21, that those that do such things
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. It must be stated plainly
and clearly in your hearing and everyone else's hearing, that
those whose direction and tenor of life is in such a way that
the Lord is brought into disrepute by our actions before an unbelieving
world, is profoundly dangerous. You cannot seek His honour, His
companionship, His glory, the good of his people and live with
an indifference to open sin. You cannot blame God for your
sin. You cannot blame Satan for your
sin. And you cannot blame others for
your sin. You cannot even use the boast
of self-righteous legalists as an excuse for sin. I've heard in recent times people
say that that sin that this person is committing is just a matter
between them and the Lord. Or someone has said, if the Lord
wants me to stop doing this, He'll have to do it in His time.
In a sense, therefore I can continue in this sin until He acts to
stop me. I remind you again of what I've
said so often, don't play games with God. Don't play games with
God. You have, in the quietness of
church, the opportunity to be honest, to be honest with God. Don't lie to yourselves. There's no point lying to Him.
He sees everything. He sees our thoughts. He sees
the forming of our thoughts in our minds. And don't lie to yourselves,
don't lie to God, don't lie to others. Christians' sin, that's
so evident in the scriptures that it barely needs speaking
about, but in Galatians chapter 6, if you just look down there
a little bit, it talks about if a man be overtaken in a sin,
caught as it were by surprise in a sin. On that night that
he betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ, was proud of the fact that he
thought he was strong enough, and yet hours later he fell into
grievous, grievous sin. He fell for a little while, and
the Lord will not let his little ones stay there for long. They
will be restored. The other thing that is so grieving
to us, and we have borne witness to it in many ways, is the sad,
sad situation of someone in my place, or in your places, countenancing
the sin of others so that mine can be allowed to continue unchecked. Lord, make me a friend. to eternal
souls of those that I love and worship with. The sins that lie
before us are the sins of flesh, but also, as we will see, they
are sins in doctrine. It is a grievous sin to lie about
God, to lie about His character, to lie about His salvation, to
lie about His people. The flesh is a great description
of us as the children of God. We need to define some words
here and we'll look at this list. We'll look at it briefly and
I again encourage you, we are, when we see lists like this,
like Paul, he could have gone on and written pages, he writes
enough to carry the weight of it and then he wants us to glance
at those things and gaze at the Lord Jesus Christ. The flesh of man is corrupt and
God, Genesis 6.5, and God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth And listen to these words, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. God looked
upon the earth and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had
corrupted his way upon the earth. We have not only corrupted ourselves
and corrupted those around us, we corrupt this earth as well. The Spirit of God is that which
is that new man, isn't it? It's that spirit that indwells
the children of God. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. It is that new man that's in
all of God's people. And there is, according to Galatians
5, there is a war. There is, in verse 17, the flesh
lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,
and these are contrary one to the other. They are contrary
one to the other. Only those who have the Spirit
of God know anything of what that verse is saying. Only those
who have the Spirit and the flesh know of that battle. know of that warfare, know of
the frustration of the fact that you cannot do the things that
you would, and know of the wonder of God's intervening
grace that you cannot do the things that you would. You cannot
do them in a positive sense, you cannot do them in a negative
sense. And as Simon so rightly pointed
out to us in verse 18 says so clearly, if you are led of the
Spirit, you are not under law. You cannot go back to the law
to try and solve this problem. Believers feel this warfare constantly. But we are led. To be led of
the Spirit is to be led by God. is to be led as children of God. Only living people can be led. It's to be led to Christ for
righteousness. It's to be led to Christ for
sanctification and redemption. It's to be led to Christ crucified
and to see in that remarkable event when God slew His Son,
to see our sins completely and perfectly dealt with. to see
Him risen, to be led to see Him risen, and to see that we are
completely free, we are justified. God's children are children who
in God's sight have never sinned. Isn't that remarkable? They have
no sin that God records or remembers. as perfect as His dear Son. Those who are led of the Spirit
are led away from the law and are led to Christ. Believers
do not need the law to force them to do things. The love of
Christ and Christ in them and the Spirit's work in them causes
them to delight in the law of God after the inman man They
long the children of God. They long to be used of Him for
His glory. They're not paid mercenaries. They're servants. They're willing
servants. Their struggles are more when
they are not serving than when they are burdened by it. It's
never a burden. We're not motivated, the children
of God, we're not motivated by fear of punishment or promise
of rewards or loss of rewards. We are led by the Spirit of God. The works of the flesh. We must
look at them. The scriptures lay them out here
before us and it's very interesting that he begins that list with
adultery and fornication. And the question immediately
arises, why? Why are sexual sins mentioned
first? And I think there are several
reasons, and there may well be more, but they directly and necessarily
attack the very thing that typifies Christ in His Church. The union
of a man and a woman is about and originates in the union of
the Lord Jesus Christ to His Bride. No wonder marriage is
under attack by the forces of this world. No wonder it's under
attack. the glorious picture of the union
of the Lord Jesus. The marriage supper is a picture
of the glorious marriage supper. The two becoming one flesh is
a picture of the Lord Jesus and His bride as one. And so the
marriage is the foundation of life. It's a foundation of family. If the foundations are destroyed,
says Psalm 11, what can the righteous do? And it's a sin which operates
on the very core of our being. And it's a sin that in these
days and in all days can be hidden from view. The Lord Jesus says,
if you just look at a woman lustfully, you have committed adultery with
her in your heart. The adultery is the defilement
of the marriage bed. But fornication is the word that
we get our word pornography from. And it relates in the scriptures
always to all sexual sin outside of marriage. And as I said before,
for those who think the Lord Jesus said nothing about homosexuality,
this is the word He used. He spoke as strongly against
it for those who wish to hear as anyone. And when Paul spoke,
he spoke. When Moses spoke, he spoke. Don't divide the Word of God. He will not have it divided,
no matter what men do. Fornication, adultery, uncleanness,
it's the lack of chastity in thought or word or action. The
next one is lasciviousness. It's the lustful and sensual
desires and those things which lead to acts of uncleanness such
as impure words and filthy gestures giving way to lust. We think that we live in a particularly
pagan world now where sexual sins are paraded before us in
ways which should cause the people of God to be horrified. Horrified
at what they are doing because their sins are on display and
humbled because God is allowing it. It's his judgement on this civilisation
of ours. He says in Romans 1, he gave
them over. So please don't ever think that
he has lost his seat on the throne of this universe because things
don't seem to be going as we would wish them to. He is sovereign. When he gives people over, and
when he gives people over to delusions, I figure that they're
given over and they're deluded. Idolatry is the worship of idols,
witchcraft. was a means by which people were
induced into the worship of idols. But the thing that's interesting
about witchcraft is it's the word that we get our whole understanding
of pharmacy and pharmacology from. It's about drugs. Drugs
were the entrance into it as they are today. For those who
play around with drugs will know how deceiving it is. And for
those of us that have played around with drugs, you will know
how often people who play around with drugs get into all sorts
of spiritual discussions and things and they think themselves
extraordinarily wise and amazingly insightful. They are none of the above. Sorcerers
used them, and all of these magic arts and witchcraft were connected
with idolatry. The next ones are hatred and
variance, which is fighting and quarrelling. Emulations is boiling,
rising up of temper because of honour or the happiness of someone
else is enjoyed. Wrath is the violent passion
that seeks revenge and it leads to strife. A wrathful man, according
to Proverbs, stirs up strife. Strife always occurs when men
are moved by selfish motives. craving honour, craving position
for themselves. He that loveth transgression
loveth strife, and he that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction. Strife is always the result of
pride. He that is of a proud heart stirs
up strife. Seditions are schisms and factions
and division. divisions, and they can be social
divisions and domestic divisions or religious divisions, seditions
or schisms. Again, it's human pride on display,
heresies. It really quite simply means
a choosing. I can choose. You can have God
like that. I'll have God like this." You
can interpret the word of God like that. This is my interpretation. literally choosings or preferences. I prefer this. I prefer to think
of God like this. The headmistress of the school
we worked at in India brought in her little idols of God one
night. She had two pictures she had
set up in her room in her house. She had a little sort of shrine
and she had sort of pictures there and it was an aid to her
devotions. every morning and she had pictures
of God there and she brought the pictures, the various pictures
of God into the staff room so that we could sort of contemplate
and meditate on them. And then you could have a picture
of God as a loving God and then you have a picture of God as
a just God. So you could then, you could
then in the staff room, we could then choose. You can choose which
God you wish to meditate on. You might at the moment need
a loving God. You might at this other time
need this. So you can actually choose. You
can choose. You can prefer. Heresies are bad principles in
doctrine that subvert the Gospel. And again, heresy is a result
of that miserable pride that sets itself up as judge, judge
and jury over God's Word. It's interesting that heresies
are mixed in with all of this. It's about life and it's about
doctrine as well. Envyings are the next ones. Again it's feelings of ill will.
Again envy is aroused by pride. when we see others having something
that we would like to have ourselves. Envy, according to Proverbs 14.30,
destroys the soul. Envy caused Cain to murder Abel. Envy caused the rebellion against
Moses and Korah and Dathan and Abiram and the earth opened up
and took them alive to hell. Envy kept the law-keeping prodigal's
brother out of the father's house when there was rejoicing. Murders. The Lord Jesus said,
of course, didn't he, that if we hate someone in our heart,
we have murdered them already. And we are responsible for both
that murder and the murder of people's characters. Murders. Drunkenness. It means drunken
excesses. Revelings. Revelings are the
drinking parties that they used to have in honour of the god
Bacchus. It's getting others to join with
you in your activities. And such like. Such like. It's not meant to be exhaustive,
but it's meant to be representative. The thing that is shocking isn't
it? The thing that is shocking is that in the scriptures those
who are under the law and look into their works are still in
the flesh and these are the works they do. Simon spoke of the Pharisees
in regard to the Lord Jesus Christ. They killed God. They killed
God and preached sermons after it. They had before them the testimony
of God in his word and they knew it off by heart. And they had
the pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ and His sacrifice laid
out before them, morning and night, 365 days of the year,
and then much more on the big feast days. And they put their
head on the hand of the sheep, and they slid its throat and
they were there as its blood poured out and it kicked its
way to death. And it was there as a picture,
a picture of the Lord Jesus, a picture of what sin deserved. A picture, maybe I'm just weak
of stomach, but a picture that is designed to humble man. And yet those very same people
who did that day in and day out, took the Lord of Glory and did
the same to Him. Such is the blindness of religion,
brothers and sisters. And no doubt, no doubt, through
the last 2,000 years when religious legalists read this list, automatically
they think, well, I don't do them. I haven't committed adultery. I haven't murdered anyone. I
don't even drink at all. I'm not involved in any sort
of witchcraft whatsoever. And then they would say that
I keep myself from being involved in those things. As someone told
me a couple of weeks ago, I need the law to guide my life and
to keep me on the straight and narrow. And yet you go through this list.
and you think about them in a spiritual sense and you'll see that that
man in his very statement had committed every single one of
them. He was committing spiritual adultery. He was married to himself and
his works at the same time saying he was married to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He was involved in idolatry. He was involved in hatred and
variance and emulation and wrath and strife and sedition and heresies. He was standing opposed at the
very same time he was boasting of his religious righteousness. He was standing opposed to the
Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and God's people. There is, there
are sad blindnesses in this world. The most deceiving and dangerous
one of all is the blindness that is set before us here in Galatians
and in the rest of the New Testament where people turn from the Lord
Jesus Christ and think they are honouring Him. and think that
they can do more and add something to his perfect finished work. The flesh is the proud, proud
root that lives in the hearts of all people. It's a God-hating
rebellion, but it always exalts itself in self-righteousness. either
in religious self-righteousness or in blatant God-defining immorality."
What a great picture of this world that we live in. God-defying
immorality and proud self-righteousness. If you live after the flesh,
you shall die. Henry Mahan said, understand
that these sinful practices are characteristics of the flesh
and though we have done these things and the potential to do
them is still present in our flesh. as evidenced by Abraham,
David, Lot and Peter, yet this is not the pattern of life, nor
is this the practice of a believer. The tenor of our life and the
bent of our wills is holiness, righteousness and peace. Those
who still live by these principles and practices of the flesh are
not redeemed. And as Paul says at the end of
verse 21, they shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But, it's
one of the glorious buts in scripture, but the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance, Against such there is no law." So here
Paul, in glorious manner, describes the fruit of the Spirit. It is
just one fruit, and I don't have much time to go into it in detail,
but it is one fruit, and it's wrapped up in love. and it's
energised by faith. Paul says over in Galatians 5,
he says, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision, neither
all of your Jewish activity and all of your Jewish legalism avails
anything. It doesn't have any power to
do anything, nor uncircumcision. It has no power to do anything
but faith which works by love. And there is just a wonderful,
wonderful contrast, isn't there? The fruit of the Spirit, it is
just one fruit. It is one fruit of the Spirit.
It is opposed to all those works of the flesh. The fruit of the
Spirit is love. The works of the flesh is hatred.
The fruit of the Spirit is joy. The works of the flesh in that
list are emulations, envying, strife and seditions. The fruit
of the Spirit is long-suffering gentleness, goodness. The works
of the flesh is wrath and murders. The fruit of the Spirit is faith. The works of the flesh is idolatry,
witchcraft and heresies. The fruit of the Spirit is temperance. The works of the flesh is idolatry. adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, drunkenness and reveling. Against such there
is no law. Simon spoke about it out of Hebrews
8. The fruit of the Spirit is the
gift of God in the lives of His people. It's active and it's
powerful. The fruit of the righteous is
the tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. In Song
of Solomon the bride says, As the apple trees among the trees
of the woods, so is my beloved among the suns. I sat down under
his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my
taste. Our God says in Isaiah 57, He
says, I create the fruit of lips. Peace, peace to him that is far
off and to him that is near, saith the Lord, and I will heal
him. See, it's the fruit of the Spirit. It's produced in the heaven-born
soul by the almighty grace of God the Holy Spirit. See, the
fruit is one. There is just one fruit. He's describing just one. You can read it there. It says, the fruit, the fruit. And it's that which is produced.
It is God's fruit in the lives of His people. It's God's fruit
that's produced by Him indwelling us. It's God's fruit and they
are great pictures of the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. What
a glorious description of the character of our Saviour. Love. Joy. For the joy that was set
before Him, He endured the cross. peace. He is the Prince of Peace. Long-suffering. What remarkable
long-suffering He displayed towards sinners. All of the sins that
I committed in 40-odd years and all of the sins I've committed.
What remarkable long-suffering. It's because of His love and
His gentleness that is long-suffering. The long-suffering of the Lord
is salvation. Goodness. He alone is good. He alone is good. Faith. He is the faithful one and He
works faith in the lives of His people. Meekness. Meekness is often considered
to be weakness, but I love the description of Moses. Moses was
the meekest man on the face of the earth. If you want to find
out what meekness is, go and ask Pharaoh about Moses. Meekness is knowing whose you
are. It's being able to make a stand
in this world because you belong to him. You're his child. You're his possession. you are
his, you're held in his hands. He committed himself into the
hands of his father. Meekness is not weakness. Temperance. Quietness and gentleness of spirit. Against these There is no law. No law produces these. No law. The law stands against
all what was there in that list of the works of the flesh. The
works of the flesh of men. The works of the flesh of men
made worse by their religious legalism and they know nothing. The legalists and the self-righteous
know nothing of this fruit of the Spirit. It is the gift of
God. It's a glorious, they call it
a cluster of fruit and I don't know that that's the best description
because you can take a cluster of grapes and you can have one
and hold it separate from the rest. This is something that's
much more together in terms of fruit. It works in the hearts of God's
people. It works in the hearts to produce
a Ruth out of a country of idolatry. It produces a Ruth, as I said
the other night, who can stand against all of Moab and walk
out of there and not lose a single thing. Why? She knew the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's where she was going. That's where her journey was
going. That's who she was led by. We've run out of time. I think we might close. Let's in finishing spend some
time contemplating our Lord Jesus Christ. by a plea that you just look
to Him. You simply look to Him. Whatever you look to in your
flesh should cause you to turn away from it and look to Him,
to be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, which
is through the law. but which is the righteousness
of Christ. We are the circumcision which
worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. Not just a little bit of confidence,
no confidence whatsoever. May our God work that in your
hearts. my brothers and sisters. Let's
pray.