Luke 24, 48, you are witnesses
of these things, and of course that's referring not only to
all that's taken place in the previous part of this chapter,
but those things that he had spoken to them before, that they
saw come to pass, which is just the gospel, that he must needs
have suffered, was arrested and tortured and crucified and rose
again on the third day. You're witnesses of the gospel.
You're witnesses of Christ. Now this passage of scripture,
all of this chapter really, and especially just before verse
48 and after, is very clear that what they saw with their own
eyes is not what they're witnessing to. They didn't even know what
they saw until the Lord revealed himself to them. They didn't
even know who he was. Their own eyes deceived them.
So it's not that they were eyewitnesses, though that's true, but they
didn't even know who he was based on what they saw with their eyes.
They knew who he was when he revealed himself to them. They
were witnesses because he had done that and because he had
opened their understanding that they might understand the scripture. You can't be a witness of something
you haven't seen. And though we have never laid
eyes on him physically, he's done both of those things for
us, for all of his people. He reveals himself to us and
he opens our understanding that we might understand his precious
word. He reveals himself in the preaching
of the gospel and we see him and we hear him by the faith
that he gives. It says in the scriptures of
a certain group of people that the gospel didn't profit them,
not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. But if it
is mixed with faith in them that hear it, they see Christ and
they hear his voice. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me. So he reveals himself that way
and he opens our understanding that we might not only know what
he's saying, there's a lot of people that intellectually can
recite doctrine and can formulate deductions from the scriptures
that are true, but also he causes us to receive the love of the
truth. We embrace him in the gospel,
we receive The love of the truth in Christ himself is that truth. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
11 just for a minute. You'll remember that this is
that chapter where it talks about how by faith the prophets and
others were able to obey God, able to
believe. and to obey God. But it says
in the first verse, now faith is the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen. We don't just suppose things,
we don't make suppositions or deduce things, we have evidence.
That's what a witness, a witness gives evidence. A witness is
somebody who has seen and heard, and faith, is the substance of
that, the reality of that. Not eyesight, not physical ears,
faith. Faith is that. Your eyes don't
see evidence of him, but faith does. And for by it the elders
obtained a good report. Through faith we know that the
worlds were framed by the word of God. That's how, not because
You know, we just understand what the scripture says about
it. We believe by grace through faith. So that things which are seen
were not made of things which do appear by faith able offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice. And he was accepted of God because
it wasn't just that he offered the right thing, but he did it
by faith. He believed on Christ. He understood
that that innocent lamb represented the Son of God who laid down
his life for his elect by faith. Faith just has one object. People
talking about, well, I just have faith that everything's gonna
work out. Did God tell you they were gonna work out? Not the
way you think they're going to, necessarily. Everything's gonna
work out just fine because God is on the throne. But that doesn't
mean they're gonna work out the way that you think is good. Faith. By faith, we have chosen like
Moses in the latter part of chapter 11 there. Moses chose the reproach
of Christ. In verse 25, choosing rather
to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ's
greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt. But look up at verse
24. By faith, Moses was able to think
that way. to reckon things that way, and
it's the same way we do. We prefer Christ over the whole
world because he's given us faith in himself. And by faith, we
give witness, as the prophets did, witness of someone we've
never seen with our physical eyes, but that God has revealed
to us. Acts 10, 43, to him give all
the prophets witness. The prophets hadn't seen the
Lord Jesus either. To him give all the prophets
witness that through his name, whosoever believeth in him, whosoever
believeth in him shall have remission of sins. Here's what it does
not say in Matthew 11, 27. I'm gonna read it the wrong way
first. Listen to this, all things are
delivered unto me of my father, and no man knoweth the son but
the father, neither knoweth any man the father save the son,
and he who has received a vision of him or had a personal visit
from him. You know that ain't right. No,
it says he to whomsoever the son will reveal him. That's what happened in our text,
and that's what's gonna happen today if you're gonna know who
God is. We can testify like the prophets
that God is holy and sovereign. No man has seen God at any time. They heard his voice on Sinai
and they were scared to death. And God showed Moses part that
he could see without dying. But the prophets hadn't seen
that, but they knew by faith that he's holy and that he's
sovereign. God cannot and will not receive
a sinner without an acceptable sacrifice. They knew that. They
knew that, didn't they? King Uzziah died because he went
where he didn't belong. Only the substitute could go
in there, only the high priest, only the representative, the
priest, could go into the holy place on behalf of sinners. But he went in there where he
didn't belong and God killed him. But like the prophets, we know
that there's got to be an acceptable sacrifice. And there ain't but
one, the Lord Jesus Christ. He must condemn us to hell unless
we have a sinless substitute. And there's only one who is sinless
and willing to die in the place of his elect. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. God is high and lifted up as
Isaiah saw a vision of him, but we've been to the potter's house
like Jeremiah in chapter 18 too, haven't we? Jeremiah said, I
went down to the potter's house and what did God show him there?
Well, we've seen what he saw by faith, that God has authority
over the clay. to make one vessel under honor
and another under dishonor. Of the same lump, he makes vessels
of mercy and vessels of wrath. We've seen that too. By faith,
we've been to the potter's house. By faith, we look to Abel's true
sacrifice, just like he did. That was just an ordinary lamb.
The blood of bulls and of goats can never take away sin. or lambs
or anything like that, those Old Testament sacrifices could
never take away sin. Have you ever thought about that?
Imagine all of the blood that was shed in the Old Testament.
Every day there were daily sacrifices. People brought their sacrifices
to the priest, a spotless lamb of their flock. in the dew of
its youth, and they would bring that to the priest, and they
would offer sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice. At the dedication
of the temple, there were thousands of sacrifices offered. And every
day, blood flowed. Can you imagine the ocean of
blood that was shed, and not one sin was put away by any of
it. But the Lord Jesus Christ offered himself one sacrifice
for sins forever, and think about all of the sinners, a number
that can't be numbered, that he redeemed with his precious
blood. One sacrifice, and think of the
throngs that are gonna be in glory that no man could ever
number. That's our Lord Jesus Christ,
but by faith, we look to the same sacrifice that Abel did,
By faith, we enter Noah's true ark. By faith, we look to the one
represented by that brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness where
Moses said, look and live. By faith, we depend, just like
Joseph's brothers, we depend on our spiritual Joseph to open
up the storehouses of God's grace that we might live. We drink
from the water of that rock, that true rock. That rock was
Christ. We eat the true manna from heaven
and by him we have life. Like Abraham, God has provided
for us himself a lamb. And by faith, he is our lamb
before God and we've been spared And we tell anybody that'll listen,
as witnesses of Him, who He is and what He's done for us. Redeemed
us from our sins with His precious blood. He lived for us, as us,
our righteousness, the Lord our righteousness. And gave Himself
for us. And because He did, we're saved.
Not because He did and we did something. Not because of a cooperative
effort. Because of Him and what He did,
we're saved. Now verse 49, and behold, I send
the promise of my father upon you, but tarry ye in the city
of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high. This
promise of the father that was to come upon them is what we
see in Acts chapter one. Let's turn over there, Acts one,
four and five. The promise of the father. And being assembled together
with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem,
but wait for the promise of the father,
which saith he, you have heard of me." There's that same phrase,
the promise of my father. The Lord's gonna send that upon
him, he said. For John truly baptized with
water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many
days hence. So that was the promise of the
Father that he's referring to there, that they would receive
the Holy Spirit in a special way so that they could perform
a very special duty. The promise of the Father, they're
told that they would be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many
days hence, and the Lord told them in our text, I'm gonna bring
that promise upon you. Religion talks about being baptized
or filled with the Holy Ghost. And it's some kind of an achievement.
You ever notice that? It's some kind of an achievement.
If you reach a certain level of spiritual, not everybody,
you know, not everybody gets that. You have to be, you know,
spiritual enough or blessed of God enough to have these gifts
of the spirit, so-called. If you've prayed enough or worked
up enough faith or you're spiritual enough, here the Lord says that
their part in this, receiving of the Holy Spirit, what was
their part? Weight. You just wait, you go to Jerusalem
and wait. When God gets good and ready,
he'll give you what he's gonna give you. That's true of everything. That's true of everything that
we have. What do you have that you haven't received from God?
So we can't glory in that. He said, I'm gonna send him,
the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father, and you're gonna
wait until I do. Is that all right with you? You
know, religion just always have to do something. It's got to
be up to them, doesn't it? It's got to be up to them. You're
not going to receive anything from God but condemnation that
way. And what happened when this promise
was fulfilled? When these disciples were endued
with power from on high, what was the result? Well, they were
filled with the Holy Spirit, as he promised, and they began
to speak with other tongues. which simply means, and we're
told right there in the text what that means, what it means
to speak in other tongues. In fact, look at it with me,
Acts 2, verse 7. Acts chapter 2, verse 7. Here's when our text, verse 49,
was fulfilled right here. And they were all amazed, all
the people that heard them speaking in tongues, If you look up at
the first part of Acts 7, I've already said that they were filled
with the Holy Ghost, and that's what that says. And all the people
that heard them were amazed and marveled, saying one to another,
behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear
we every man in our own tongue? It wasn't some weird heavenly
language, like religion talks about, that nobody could understand
unless somebody interpret. They were hearing, in a way that they could understand
it. And God made it happen. You know, just like the Lord
did that. If I'm not a Galilean, if I'm
from Phrygia, and I can't understand a Galilean to save the world,
and God makes it so that I can, that's just a clear picture of
how he's got to give us ears to hear the gospel in our own
language. Even if we're hearing it in English,
he's still got to give us ears. But look, it says, how here we
every man in our own tongue wherein we were born. They're from Galilee,
we're from Parthians. Look, Parthians and Medes and
Elamites and dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia,
in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the
parts of Libya about Cyrene and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the
wonderful works of God. So this promise of the Father
was that God's gonna give them the ability to speak the gospel
in such a way that people are gonna hear in a way that they
can understand. What are they gonna hear? They're
gonna hear what God did. Not what they needed to do. The
gospel is not about what you need to do. You haven't ever
done anything You're not doing anything, and you're not gonna
do anything that's gonna have any bearing on the gospel of
the truth of God. What we do for God, and it's
hard to even say that, because you know, we've seen from the
various scriptures how if we ever do something for God, it's
Him doing something for us. But that's a result of salvation. That has nothing to do with salvation,
except that it's a result of it. The fruit of the Spirit is
all of those things. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
faith, gentleness, goodness. Now, many in religion say that
believers didn't have the Holy Spirit before this. You know,
that God gave us the Holy Spirit, you know, in the book of Acts.
Then how did they believe in Christ? How did Moses believe
on Christ? It says, by faith, Abel was able
to offer a sacrifice that God accepted. And it wasn't that
lamb he slit the neck of. It was Christ. The more excellent
sacrifice is the Son of God. And by faith, he was able to
say, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. with a sacrifice
that God would receive, the only one he will, the Son of God.
But they say, well, we didn't have the Holy Spirit before that.
Wait a minute, where does faith come from? If Abel believed, if it was by
faith, where does faith come from? But the fruit of the Spirit. capital S is love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. Sounds like the Holy Spirit
had something to do with Abel and Moses and everybody that's
ever been saved. You can't have faith without
the Spirit of God giving you life in Christ Jesus. Now there are a lot of others
in religion that say we still have these special gifts of the
Spirit. Man goes to every extreme and will come up with every possible
error that you can think of just about Many say we still have
these special gifts of the spirit like healing or speaking in other
languages Then how do you explain Acts chapter 8? Let me read you
Acts 8 18 and when Simon this is not Simon Peter. This was
a Not good Simon saw that through laying on of
the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them
money, saying, give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay
hands he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him,
thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift
of God may be purchased with money. This Simon, you know,
Simon Peter condemned him and said, you know, you go to hell
with your money. That's what he said. And here's
what this Simon guy noticed, though, that the apostles were
able to lay their hands on people and transfer these gifts, these
spiritual, special gifts for that time. Think about what they
were tasked with doing. They're told to go into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature, a world that
hates the Son of God that hates God, his son, and everything
God ever said. And they, by their enemy's own
account, they turned the world upside down. How are you going
to do that? God's going to have to gift you and equip you to
do that. They faced death everywhere they
went. How are you going to have the
courage to do that? The Holy Spirit. How is anybody gonna
listen to you? Can you imagine just going out
and nobody, like Noah, to say to the people, it's gonna rain.
It's gonna do what? It had never rained before. Can
you imagine going out and talking about this Jesus of Nazareth
that people have never heard of? Nobody's gonna listen to
these quacks unless they can make the deaf hear and the blind
see. unless they can make that lame
man walk, then all of a sudden, how many thousands of people
were saved that day? God gave them these gifts to
be, so that they would be clear witnesses of the truth of God.
That was it. Now we have the entire word of
God, and we don't have these gifts, and we know that it was
by the apostles laying their hands on other people that they
received those gifts, and so think about it. When the apostles
all died, and everybody that they had laid their hands on
and transferred the gift had all died, how are you going to
get that? It's not going to happen. So these errors that people come
up with, it's just not according to scripture. This in doing with
power, filling these apostles with the Holy Spirit was a special
temporary gift from God. so that they could preach the
gospel to every creature with boldness. Simon Peter there,
who denied the Lord three times to save his own skin, stood there
before those that had killed people for preaching the gospel
and said, you crucified the prince of life. You killed the prince
of life. It's on you. And you're going
to have to bow to him. That's going to take grace. Boldness. In Acts 4, we see that even when
they were arrested and threatened with their very lives, they continued
to preach the word of God with boldness, verse 31 of chapter
4. And that's why God gifted them. So the Lord gave his apostles
a special indwelling of the Holy Spirit when they needed it. But
all of God's people, all believers, have the Holy Spirit and always
have. God's never saved anybody either,
any other way. I need his power this morning
to preach to you. I don't have these special gifts,
but you know what I've got? The word of life that's able
to make you wise unto salvation. This is the means by which God
raises sinners from the spiritual dead and gives them everlasting
life in Christ Jesus. That's what we have. I'd rather have that than I would
the gift of speaking in a different language. What good would that
do now anyway? They had to preach the gospel
to all the world. God sends his preachers everywhere
now to preach in different countries and things, and they just learn
the language and they preach it. But when he sent them out, boy,
he gifted them with great, the power to do miracles so that
anybody would listen to them. There were hardly anybody listening
to us now. Can you imagine them, what they had to face? It's still the Holy Spirit that
gives us the ability. The Holy Spirit of God takes
the things of Christ and shows them to you. That's what he said.
I can't do that. I can preach it. But God's Spirit has got
to shed light. It's the Holy Spirit by whom
sinners are born again. by grace through faith in Christ
as his gospel is preached. The Lord has not left us to ourselves
in 2021, aren't you glad? His Holy Spirit is still, still taking the things of our
Lord Jesus and revealing them to sinners. Listen to Matthew
28, 18. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power
is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and
teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Teach what I taught
you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end. Not just as long as the apostles
live, not just as long as all of his disciples that went out
preaching, but until the end of the world, I'm with you. Amen. And then verse 50, back in our
text in Luke 24, verse 50, and he led them out as far as to
Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. Boy, these are all, this whole
chapter could just be the chapter of what we need. We need him
to reveal himself to us. We need him to open our understanding.
We need to see his hands and his feet every time the gospel's
preached. We need him to show us his hands
and his feet. We need his blessing. That's just another way of saying
all of it all goes together doesn't you know if you have his blessing
then you see He reveals himself. That's part of his blessing He
raised up those hands picture it Our imagination is not worth
much, but we can picture things that happen in the scripture
Not in detail, but we know this he lifted up those hands that
still had the wounds from the nails in And bless them from when he gave himself for
their sins. The wounds were still there and
he blessed them. When he lifted up those hands,
only the Lord Jesus Christ can do that. I know people say bless you and
things like that. Well, we want God to bless those
that we love. We want God to bless sinners,
don't we? I don't know what sneezing has to do with that, We say God
bless you, and that's good, that's fine. But I tell you that only the
Lord Jesus, now all of the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ. Only the Son of God, only through
Him can we be blessed. And it's because of those wounds.
It's because of who He is and what He did for us. Apart from His Son, God has no
blessings for you. You can call them blessed, well
I got a raise on my job, what a blessing. Not if you don't
know the Lord Jesus Christ, you don't. It's not a blessing. No,
it's not. Nope. All of his promises of
salvation and his love and his grace are yea and amen only in
Christ. But if you do have Christ, listen
to this, you know where this is, I don't even have to tell
you the chapter and verse, listen to it. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us. Here's what
God does when he blesses sinners. Blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And then he starts naming some
of them. According as he has chosen us
in him before the foundation of the world before I ever sinned The love of God had already washed
my sins away By the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world
chosen in him as that we should be holy and without blame. That's
what I just said. No sin, God's chosen in him. You see, him choosing is not
eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Him choosing is, I love you. I love Jacob, and I hate Esau. That's the purpose of God according
to election. Holy and without blame, having
predestinated us. This is part of that. predestinated
us Unto the adoption of children By Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will your will didn't have anything
to do with that It was because he wanted to do that And he did
because he loved you if you're his to the praise of the glory
of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted Beloved in whom
we have redemption through his blood all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ and when you're blessed of God
You're all the way blessed all the way The forgiveness of sins
according to the riches of his grace hmm His blessing Turns
a trial into a trial doesn't Prisons would palace as proof
if Jesus would dwell with me there. His blessing turns tears into
joy. His blessing turns a sinner into
a new creation in Christ Jesus. His blessing, it's because of
His blessing that we have all that we have. Mark 10, 13, they brought young
children to him that he should touch them. And his disciples
rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was
much displeased and said unto them, suffer the little children
to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom
of God. Fairly I say unto you, whosoever
shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he
shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms
and put his hands upon them. Isn't that beautiful? He put
his hands upon them and blessed them. His hands are mentioned in this
passage and in our text for a reason. The hands are a symbol of work.
They're a symbol of what is done, by a person, we work with our
hands. And the Lord Jesus accomplished the work of salvation. That's
what they saw in his hands, his finished salvation and redemption,
the redemption of his elect that the father gave him to do. What
the law couldn't do because of our flesh, because of our sin,
God sent his son to get it done and he did it. He became our
righteousness as the perfect man who did always those things
that pleased his father. And he received the nails into
those hands as he laid down his life for his sheep, that they
might never perish, but have everlasting life. He laid those
hands on those children and blessed them. And he raised them up and
showed them again the wounds in his hands as he blessed them. His blessing is salvation. It
doesn't say he lifted up his hands and blessed the world. Our Savior would not even pray
for the world in his great high priestly prayer in John 17, but
for those that the Father gave him. He blesses his own. And
his own want nothing more than his blessing. Jacob said, I can't
let you go. The Lord Jesus wrestled with
Jacob in Genesis chapter 32 all night. And the Lord said, let
me go, the sun's coming up. Enough of this, let me go. And
Jacob said, I won't let you go until you bless me. We're desperate
for his blessing. Look at verse 51 in our text.
And it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from
them. Carried up into heaven The Lord had taught these men
what it meant What they were seeing here him going imagine
them sitting there watching him ascend into the clouds After blessing them And he had
taught them why he must go to his father. He told him it was
gonna happen. He taught him why By faith we
know why he did we know why he ascended upon high places because
he has gone to the father, we have a perfect mediator and intercessor. Hebrews 8, 1, now of the things
which we have spoken, this is the sum. We have such an high
priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty
in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true
tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man. In that old tabernacle,
the high priest went in there into the holy of holies, To intercede
on behalf of this sinful nation of Israel you picture God's elect
And they went in there not without blood Not without blood So our
great high priest entered into the very holy of holies Not made
with hands with his own precious blood and obtained having obtained
Eternal redemption for us So we see him going up into heaven,
we know why, we thank God, we bless his name for blessing us. Because he has gone to the Father,
one day we will too. If he don't, we don't. He's our
forerunner. Listen, Hebrews 619, which hope
we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, in which
entereth into that within the veil. In other words, the most
holy place Whether the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus,
the forerunner. The Lord Jesus Christ entered
there that we might. So we rejoice to see him carried
up into heaven. Verse 52, finally, and they worshiped
him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. He revealed himself
to them. He preached himself from the
scriptures. He showed them in all of the
word of God, the things concerning himself. He opened their understanding
that they might understand what he spoke. He showed them himself
and his hands and his feet and he blessed them and they worshiped
him. And that was his blessing too. They worshiped him. He did everything
for them, and they worshiped him, which was also a gift of
his grace. You imagine there's hardly anybody
worshiping the Lord this morning on this earth. Can you think of anybody? I know
a few people that are, I reckon. Think of all the people that
you know, that you work with, or your neighbors, or whoever
you know. You think they're worshiping God this morning? truly worshiping him as he's
revealed in this book. What a blessing of his grace
to be enabled to worship him. You'd have to be crazy not to,
but that's the problem. We are insane, we're spiritually
insane by nature. Him who is altogether lovely, We crucified and slew the prince
of life. But by his grace this morning,
we worship him. What a blessing. What an honor. And we're going to be doing that
from now on. We're not ever going to stop. We're just going to
do it better one day. Oh, what a day that will be.
We're going to be occupied with this throughout all eternity. Heaven is being with Christ,
being like Christ, worshiping Christ for redeeming us unto
God by His precious blood. But by His grace, we get to do
that even now. Worship means to attribute worthiness
to. That's what they were doing.
And when John saw those angels in Revelation and also the 24
elders and the beasts, not just the angels, but his people redeemed
by his precious blood. What were they saying? Worthy
is the lamb. That's worship, attributing worthiness. Worthy is the lamb that was slain
to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor
and glory and blessing. That's worship. And we get in
on that today and every creature which is in heaven and on the
earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all
that are in them heard us saying blessing and honor and glory
and power unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the
lamb forever and ever. You reckon that such as are in
the sea is that fish worshiping? I believe that's people that
whose bodies were in the sea or they are people on the sea
at the time. I don't know. But it was sinners
redeemed by his blood in the sea. And they returned to Jerusalem
with great joy. They did what the Lord told them
to do. He said, Terry, in Jerusalem,
you wait there until my promise, the promise of the Father comes
upon you. And so they went to Jerusalem as he told them. to
do, and they did so with great joy. Just as the fruit of the
Spirit is faith, the fruit of the Spirit is joy. It's all one
fruit. It's the fruit of the Spirit,
not the fruits. If you have one, you have them all. You have the
fruit that is manifest in all of these things, love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, I preached a message one
time on joy, the forgotten fruit. It's the hardest thing and we
can't do any of this without his grace. What the world calls
love. Come on. This is the fruit of the spirit.
All of these things. Joy. I don't know about you, but I
don't go around rejoicing much. Boy, I sure ought to. I wish
I would. I pray that God would give me
grace to rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say, rejoice. We don't have these special gifts
of the spirit that the apostles were given at Pentecost, but
by God's grace, I can and do believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
because the fruit of His Spirit in me is faith. And by His grace,
I do rejoice in Christ. I do. I just wish I could all
the time, don't you? We rejoice in Christ Jesus together,
and that's a good way to do it. That's a good way. Well, verse 53. And we're continually in the
temple praising and blessing God. They couldn't get enough. Worshiping Him. You know, I know
you can worship God anywhere. You can do that, can't you? You
can worship God in your car. You can attribute worthiness
unto God. There are moments when we think about what God has done
for us and who He is to us and who He is, period. and just rejoice
in him and worship him at different places. You can worship him,
you know, I've heard people say, well, you can worship God when
you're fishing. Well, yeah, probably could. But I'll tell you that,
this, if that's, I've heard people use that as an excuse as to why
they don't attend the public worship of God. And if that's
what it is to you, an excuse, then you're in a bad place. You're
in a bad place. We praise God for all spiritual
blessings. Praising and blessing God. All spiritual blessings, all
earthly blessings. We don't have anything that we
didn't receive from Him. They're all ours in Christ Jesus
and we bless His holy name because He is He's the holy, sovereign, and
just God and a Savior. There's no God like me, he said,
a just God and a Savior. How can he be just and still
save me? A just God's got to put me in
hell, doesn't he? Yeah, except for Christ, crucified. We bless his name, we bless him
for who he is, and we do that together. That's the way to do
that. And all the time, of course, but we do that publicly. They
did that publicly. They did that in the temple.
In his church. His body, we gather with his
body, the body of Christ. He said he purchased it with
the blood of God. God has loved his church and
purchased it with his own blood. And there's nothing that we do
that's more important than publicly worshiping God Almighty in the gospel of his son. The
one thing needful was what? What was Mary doing that the
Lord said she has chosen the one thing that's needful? She
was sitting at his feet and hearing his words. You might be able to do that
somewhere else, but there's only one place I know that that happens
for sure, where two or three are gathered in his name. He doesn't ever leave us in a
sense, but he's ordained this public worship of him, and there's
nothing more important, there's nothing that's more of a blessing
to his people than to gather in his name and learn of him and find rest. We're just a group of weary people
that need rest. We're a group of wretches coming
together to be comforted by the Lord. Refuge from the storm. If there
was just one refuge from a storm that was deadly, wouldn't you
want everybody you love to gather there with you in that safe place
till the storm passes by? Nothing more important. And the
reason that that is the one thing needful, sitting at his feet
and hearing him, is because he is the one thing needful. You
say, well, wait a minute, Chris. You said two different things
are the one thing needful. No, they're the same thing. They're
the same thing. It's him. And may he ever, ever meet with
us and show us his hands and his feet. and open our hearts to worship and rejoice in Him
alone. Amen.