Luke chapter 12 Verse 41 Then Peter said unto him, Lord,
speakest thou this parable unto us or even to all? And the Lord
said, who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord
shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of
meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom
his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. Of a truth I say
unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath,
But, and if that servant say in his heart, my Lord delayeth
his coming, and shall begin to beat the men servants and maidens,
and to eat and drink, and be drunken, to be drunken, the Lord
of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for
him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in
sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
And that servant which knew his Lord's will and prepared not
himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten
with many stripes. But he that knew not and did
commit things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes.
For unto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required. And to whom men have committed
much of him they will ask the more." Now we've talked, and
very importantly, to understand the teaching of our Lord here. We have to understand what servants
and stewards are. And it's defined in the text.
He said he'll make him lord over his household. That's a steward.
A steward is a manager of a household or household affairs. A servant
is a more general term, but the definition is instructive. It
means someone who is devoted to another to the disregard of
one's own interests. And it also means this, this
is another definition of it, someone who gives himself up
to another's will. And we talked about in our lesson
last Sunday, I believe, how that the will is not only not free
with regard to our character. We just don't, that's just not
an attribute of ours, a free will. But beyond that even, Our
will is not free in that we are to submit our will to the son
of God. He demands it and his people
are willing in the day of his power. He makes us willing. And
so in no sense really is our will free. But a servant devotes
himself to another to the disregard of one's own interest. And notice
the word devoted. It's one who is devoted to another.
That's a good description of the Lord's people. By His grace,
by His redeeming, powerful love and grace working in our hearts,
we don't serve Him just because we're supposed to. We serve Him
out of devotion to Him. We love Him because He first
loved us. And we serve Him. Faith worketh
by love, not by law. And so that's a good word, the
servant. And then the steward. The servant doesn't define any
specific duty, but a steward does. He's a trusted servant,
a manager of the household or household affairs that our Lord
said in the text. He'll make him ruler over his
household. And let's think a minute about
whose household this is that we're talking about because we
need to, we can't be flippant Or think lightly of this. We're
talking about the household of God. You think about whose house
it is and the vital nature of the affairs of his house. Maybe wake us up a little bit
about what it is to be a steward of his grace. What are the affairs of Christ's
house? What's he doing? What service
are we in? Well he's given us one commission,
go and preach. The affairs of his house are
the salvation of his sheep, salvation of his people. The business he's
given us to do is to go and preach his gospel and the purpose of
that is that it pleased him by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. Are we to have a part in that?
No wonder Paul said who is sufficient for these things. Of course,
the Lord doesn't leave anything up to us. It's not up to us.
As we've seen already in this very text, to be a servant of
the Lord is really to have Him serve you. He's gonna gird himself
in eternity and serve us, it says. And we're gonna see things
as they really are then in eternity, and we need to see it now, that
when he allows us, enables us, causes us to do anything for
him, that's really him doing something for us. That's him
condescending to us. But the affairs of his house
are salvation. And our business in that is to
speak, and that's in the text too. We're going to see that.
But turn with me please to 1 Corinthians chapter 4. Let's read this together. This is the way the Apostle Paul,
the Lord's chosen minister to the Gentiles, understood his
stewardship. And so I believe we're safe to
understand our stewardship in the same light. He was taught
directly by the Son of God. First Corinthians 4.1, let a
man so account of us. How are you supposed to think
about the preacher? Oh, he's a great man. No. He's so smart. Well, y'all missed
out on that one. No, account of us as the ministers
of Christ though, as representatives of the Son of God. and stewards
of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful." Boy, and this is not in my notes,
but as our brother Greg preached here not long ago at our conference,
if it's required, he's gonna have to supply it, isn't he?
Everything he requires, he's gonna have to supply. He's gonna
have to be the one that gives it, that accomplishes it. It's
required. Faithfulness is required. So
you see what we're made managers over though. Stewards of something
unspeakably wonderful and vital. The gospel. His church, his people,
his household is his people. And he talks about here the mysteries
of God, referring to the preaching of the gospel that Paul talked
about in 1 Corinthians 2.7, just before this, in the context of
it. He said, we speak the wisdom
of God in a mystery. That's the gospel. It's mysterious
and yet plainly declared. We use great plainness of speech.
Is it mysterious? Of course it is. How can God
be three persons and one God? I don't know. But it's clear
that he is, isn't it? Clear as a bell. So the mysteries of the gospel.
Well, we have the word faithful there, as where we just read
in 1 Corinthians 4, where you looked at it with me, as we do
in our text. Who is that faithful and wise
steward? So what's the most important
trait in a man, if the Lord is gonna equip and qualify a man to preach
his gospel, what's the most important thing in a man whose business
it is to tell people that which is eternal life and death? Let
me ask that another way. If your eternal soul depends
on what I say, And now it doesn't have to be
me saying it. But Paul said we're the saver
of life and death. It happens to be me saying it
this morning. And it's vital. Then how would you want me to
be? Funny? Some people won't listen
to somebody unless they're funny. Would you want me to be creative?
Clever. Preachers love to say things
in a clever way. The gospel's not clever. It's
just vital. It's true and it's vital and
it's a person. Would it be important to you
that I have a college degree? Faithful means someone that can
be believed. That's the way you look it up.
Someone that can be believed, trusted, relied upon. You know,
that's not me by nature. That's not who I am. The Lord
doesn't find faithful people and then use them. He finds sinners
and makes them faithful and uses them in spite of them. Somebody that can be believed.
The word wise in our text, who is that faithful and wise? It
means intelligent. But what this world calls intelligence
is not what God calls intelligence. Listen, intelligent, prudent,
mindful of one's interests. Think about that last part. That
last part of that definition caught my eye. Intelligence in
this world and in worldly things is not the same thing as the
wisdom of God. God hath made foolish the wisdom
of this world. But we as stewards of God's household
are to be mindful of one's interests. And remember that a servant is
one who has given up his own interests for the interests of
another. So whose interests are my interests? Not my own, but my master's. I'm always to
be mindful of His interests. Our interests are God's interests. And God's interests are the salvation
of His people in this thing. He's going to glorify His Son
in the saving of His sheep. Not winning arguments, that's
not the interests of God. Not people thinking that we're
smart. I actually had a man tell me one time in conversation.
It was right out here in his parking lot. He said, our preacher's
so smart, a lot of times I can't even understand what he's saying.
And he said that like it was a compliment. You need another
preacher? Paul said, seeing we have such
vital, wonderful hope, we use great plainness of speech. I must always be mindful of His
interests. What is it that He's doing? He's
not making me a great preacher. He's saving His sheep. We're to see to it that the gospel
is preached faithfully and clearly and plainly and that the purpose
is carried out in that. Now God is saving his people
by the preaching of the gospel, but we're not to understand by
that that the results of our preaching is our business. God
is doing that, but he didn't say go save some people or go
win people. He said go and preach. Turn with
me to 2 Corinthians chapter 2 and let's look at this. What is our
purpose then? Well, let's look at what it's
not and what it is. 2 Corinthians 2.14. And don't be thinking now, you
know I'm going to say this sooner or later this morning, so I might
as well just say it now. And I'm going to say it again
in a little bit. Don't be thinking this only applies to preachers. Peter asked that very question,
didn't he? Are you just talking to us or everybody? We'll talk
about that in a minute. Now listen, 2 Corinthians 2.14. Now thanks be unto God, which
always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest
the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are,
what do you mean it's always a triumph? Paul, sometimes it
seemed like nobody heard what I said. Maybe at times people
got so mad at Paul they tried to kill him. I think they might
have gotten it done one time and the Lord raised him up. Is
that a win? Paul said it was. He always causes
us to triumph when the gospel's preached. Verse 15, for we are
unto God a sweet savor of Christ. in them that are saved and in
them that perish. To the one we are the saver of
death unto death, and to the other the saver of life unto
life. And who is sufficient for these
things? Now, we need to come to the place where we despair
of our sufficiency. And it causes us, as Paul said
in another place, in the context, he said our sufficiency is of
God. Or we just don't have any. Now
in every case, when the gospel is preached, I would much rather
it be life than death, wouldn't you? I'd much rather it be life
and not death. But we understand that that is
God's business. What Paul said makes what we
do a success. To put it, to use His word, to
what makes it a triumph is that it is the sweet savor of Christ. Did you see that in the text?
It's always a win if it's the sweet savor of Christ. If it's a message concerning
Him and His effectual redeeming blood. If it's a message of Him
and His perfect righteousness, only righteousness in which a
sinner can stand before God. if it's Christ and Him crucified. Christ is what is sweet to God.
And Christ is what is life to the sinner. If the preaching
of Christ is the savor of death to some, it's not that Christ
is death. You're dead. You're death. And the rejection
of Him is death. You're already dead in your trespasses
and sins. It's the rejection of Him, the
absence of Him that is death. If the Gospel is mixed with faith
in you by God and the result is you believe on Christ, that's
life. If the result of the Gospel preached to you is that you rebel
yet again, which it is your nature to do, if it makes you angry
to hear that salvation is all what He did and has nothing to
do with what you do, and you despise his truth, then it's
death. But that doesn't mean Christ is death. You're death.
Here's what it boils down to. He that hath the Son hath life.
And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. 1 John
5, 12. Now turn with me please to 1
Peter chapter 4. I want to look at one more passage
of scripture with regard to what it is to be a steward of God. It's really very simple, though
impossible in ourselves. It's a simple thing. First Peter
4.10. As every man hath received the
gift. It starts there. We don't have
anything by nature. He said very plainly, didn't
he? Without me, you can do nothing. But as every man hath received
the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good
stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let
him speak as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him
do it as of the ability which God giveth. that God in all things
may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Not you, not me, not
bragging on one another, commending one another in the Lord, but
acknowledging that whatever, who maketh he to differ? The
Lord Jesus did. He giveth gifts severally, and
to whatever degree He pleases to do so, in all spiritual things. And He is to be glorified, to
whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen. If that's not
the result of it, Christ, God being praised through Jesus Christ,
then it's not of Him. But notice that two things are
mentioned here that we do as stewards. of God, we speak and we minister. There are some
that speak and minister, there are some that just minister and
don't speak. But there is speaking involved
in it and there's ministering. If you speak, listen to this
now, if you are one that speaks for God, how are you to do that? What
does it say about that? What makes you a good steward in speaking?
Well, when you speak, it better be the oracles of God. It better
be God speaking and not you, in other words. You see that? Speak as the oracle. Let your
speaking be as though God Himself were speaking. Let it be His
Word, what He said, and nothing added to it, nothing taken away
from it. That's pretty plain, isn't it?
How does that happen? Well, you just say what He said, and you
say it with His authority, not yours. You say it boldly and plainly
as his word declares it. Now if you minister that word,
speaking is pretty specific, isn't it? We know what that is.
That's a specific gift that some have. To minister means to be
a servant. That's the more general term
back in our text of any service rendered, any work done, but
done resigning our will to his. and our interests to His. To
speak again is specific, but if you do not speak for God as
a preacher or teacher, you may serve in some other capacity.
You may still be a minister in some sins. Remember now when
Simon asked in our text, is this for us only or for everybody? Did you notice the Lord didn't
really answer that? He did, but not the way Simon
was expecting, I'm sure. You know what? He answered that.
Simon's asking a simple question. Is it just for us or is it for
everybody that you're saying that? Are you just talking about
your preachers now when you're talking about stewards and servants
and you use these parables? He gave those two parables of
the master gone away for a while and the servants looking for
his coming. They're serving him, but they're
looking for him. They're not focused on their
service. They're looking for him. And so he said, are you giving
those parables to just your preachers or to everybody? And the Lord's
answer was that, who is the faithful and wise steward? What an answer. If you're one of his servants,
if you're one of his, then he's talking to you. If you're not,
then he's not. Who is? Who is? Who is it then? Whoever is a
servant of God, whoever is a steward of his household, this applies
to you. And it's all about Him, isn't
it? We're learning from the Word of God that every lesson, every
text we see, it's not so much Him telling us what to do, it's
Him telling us that it's all about Him. Whatever you're doing
for Him, you're looking for Him. Whatever you're doing for Him,
you're doing it faithfully because He deserves it. You're doing
it out of devotion to Him. Not because of law. He is our
law-keeping. He is our righteousness. He is
our holiness before God. Not what we do. We do it because
we love Him. We don't do it in order to be
accepted of Him. We do it because we are accepted
in Him. And in whatever you minister,
how did he say to minister? As of the ability which God giveth. Don't do anything in the flesh. But do it in the strength and
wisdom that he's gifted you with in the spirit. Now notice next
how the ministry is described in our text back in verse 42.
I'll read it to you again if you're not over there now. But
in verse 42 of Luke 12, the Lord said, who then is that faithful
and wise steward? And we spent most of the lesson
last week talking about how Christ is. He defines what faithfulness
is. I don't. He defines what wisdom
is. He's the wisdom of God. He defines
what it means to be a servant. He's the one who said, Lord,
not my will, but thy will be done. He's the one who said, I must
always be about my father's business. He defines what it is to be a
servant and he defines what it is to be a steward. He's got
to fulfill what he requires. We're goners and faithfulness
is required and so he had to render it for us. In the end
as his stewards we are imitators of him. We want to be like him
as dear children. But who is that faithful and
wise steward whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household,
the household of the faith, the people of God, or his church,
to give them their portion of meat in due season? Peter, do you love me? Feed my
sheep. What do sheep eat? What we've
been talking about all morning. The Gospel. Christ. His flesh is meat indeed. His
person. Who He is. His attributes. His
blood. His drink indeed. His work. His
perfect, successful, invincible atonement for His sheep on Calvary. His drink indeed. Give them the meat. in due season. So what's the household business
that the steward is trusted with? Feeding the members of the household
their portion of meat in due season. Turn with me please to
Acts chapter 17 Acts chapter 17 verse 1 Acts 17, 1. Now when they had passed through
Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was
a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was,
this is the way Paul preached. He said, I'm a steward of the
grace of God. This is how he conducted himself as such. As
his manner was, he went in unto them in three Sabbath days, reasoned
with them out of the Scriptures." Paul didn't have anything to
say except what God said. The Scriptures. The Word of God. Neither do I. Opening and alleging
that Christ must needs have suffered. and risen again from the dead,
and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ. Now let's talk about this for
a minute. The word opening means to open by dividing or drawing
asunder, to open thoroughly what had been closed. Did you know
this book is a closed book to most people? If you don't know the Lord Jesus
Christ, you can't understand the first thing in this book.
You're going to find yourself believing all kinds of nonsense.
Because if you don't know Him, how are you going to know that
which is concerning Him? Which is what the Gospel is.
It concerns God's Son, Jesus Christ. And to open, to divide,
the Scripture talks about rightly dividing the Word of Truth. It's
not to interpret it. It's not in a foreign language.
The Lord has already interpreted it for us, hasn't he? And we
can look up the words that maybe aren't translated perfectly.
It's not to interpret. The scripture is not of any private
interpretation. The key word there is not private.
The key word there is interpretation. You're not to interpret the word
of God. I don't need anybody to tell me what God meant by
what he said. Just tell me what he said. to open that which had been thoroughly,
to open thoroughly what had been closed. And listen, the word
alleging, we use that word in a different
way than what it means in the scripture. If you allege something,
if something is allegedly true, it means, well, it might be true,
we'll see about it. That's not what this word means. This word
specifically and literally means to place beside or near or set
before. comma, food, i.e., food placed
on a table. That's what our Lord said. Feed
them their meat and do season. We take the food. We don't season
it. We didn't prepare it. We just
bring it. We're waiters. You look up the word servant.
The word waiter, someone who waits on others, is part of the
definition. The table is set. The food is
life. And how condescending of our
Lord to even give us a part in the serving of that. We just
set it on the table. I tell you this, I know this,
I've learned this over the years. If you're hungry, you're going
to eat. If you're not, There's all kinds
of different things you're going to get off into. You're going
to be worried about all kinds of things. You're going to find
fault with the servant. Oh, you know, I don't like the
way you brought it. What about the meat? Do you like
that? You didn't pay enough attention
to me, you know. That's not what we're to do.
We're to bring the meat and set it on the table. And what is it that Paul opened
and said on the table? That Christ must needs have suffered. And that this Jesus which I've
preached unto you is Christ. He identified a person And preach
the gospel of his redeeming love and grace. How that he shed his
precious blood to redeem a people. He came to save a specific, elect,
chosen, loved from eternity people. And when he had done so, he said
it's done. It's perfect. It's finished. That's our message. Who he is,
he identified the person. This Jesus is the Christ. This
one who went about doing good everywhere he went, who always
did those things that pleased the Father. This Christ who did
as he pleased. He was able to say to a sinner,
your sins are forgiven. And they were. That's the Christ
now. The Jesus preached down here
who's trying and begging and wants to, he's not the Christ. But this one who forgives sins
whenever it pleases him to do so, for whomever it pleases him
to do so, that's the Christ. The one who was able to save
when his precious blood was shed. Not it's available or I've done
my best and now it's up to you. He said it's finished. That's
the Christ. And he had to suffer. He had
to suffer for God to be glorified. And he had to suffer for sinners
to be saved. May we never set anything else
on the table. You know the Lord has a table,
a physical table that he brings us to. You know what's on it?
His person and his work. Who he is and what he did. You can't live without food. He must
needs have suffered. It is a vital necessity to sinners
that he did. And it must have been real important
to God too, you reckon? It pleased the Lord to crush
him. And he saw the travail of his soul and was satisfied. And think about this, now we
can't live without food, but it's not just about survival,
is it? There's nothing I enjoy anymore than sitting down to a good meal
with those that I love. Isn't that just the best thing
in this world you can do? Just sit down at a table with
people that you love, friends or family, your church family,
your family in Christ, and enjoy a meal together with gratitude
in your hearts for the good things that he set on the table that
came from his hand in gratitude and thanksgiving for the for
the family that you're sitting there with for the his loved
ones and ours and enjoy a meal together. This is kind of like
that isn't it? In fact the only thing I can think of better than
that is this. Isn't it good? Now sheep There's only one food
and drink for sheep. And it's this person who accomplished
this work. It's got to be the holy, eternal,
spotless, successful, invincible, sovereign Lamb of God who accomplished
salvation for His people. It's not complicated. I know
you can read books that thick on the doctrine and all that.
That's good. I've read some of them. It's not that complicated. He is the Savior who came to
save and saved. And the way he saved was by taking
our sin. The scripture says he bore our
sins in his own body on the tree. The Lord laid upon him the iniquity
of us all and he bore the wrath of God that was due my sin. And when he did, he obtained
eternal redemption for his sheep. That's the simple difference
between the gospel and a lie. Christ did what he came to do.
He did it by himself. He did it without your help.
He did it in spite of you. He did it for his people. Blessed is that man that is found
so doing, our Lord said. Not qualified is that man, not
boy better than others is that man, not boy I'm sure glad I
found him, I needed some good men. No, blessed of God is that
man who he finds so doing. Not talking about what he's done.
What's done is not worth talking about, is it? and not talking about what we're
going to do. We spend a lot of time thinking about what we're
going to do, don't we? What are you doing right now? What's important to you right
now? What are your interests right
now? What's valuable to you right
now? What are you looking for? What
do you look forward to? What do you look to? What's important
to you? What's precious to you? Right
now. So doing. You can't serve two masters. You know why? The Lord gave a
reason for that. And there's no question who the
two masters are. One of them is you. and the other one's him. And
he said, you can't serve two. You know why you can't? Because
you're either gonna love yourself and hate him or you're gonna hate yourself and
love him. In both scenarios, someone's
hated and someone's loved. May the Lord teach us this. Notice that the unfaithful one
in our text says in his heart, the Lord delayeth. And we say a lot of things in
our heart and they're not ever good, are they really? Not unless
it's that new heart speaking. He wasn't saying it in a new
heart, he was saying it in his old heart, in the only heart
he had. the Lord delayeth. You know what the Lord said?
The Lord said, behold, I come quickly. So this man's heart
said exactly the opposite of what the Lord said. That's usually
true. Don't listen to your heart. Don't
follow your heart. This world will tell you to follow
your heart. Don't follow them or your heart. Behold, I come quickly. So this
man's heart was deceived. He was simply wrong. Surprise,
surprise. His heart was wrong, wasn't it?
So is yours. So is mine. The faithful man,
if you notice in the text from last week, before what we read
today, he doesn't care when the Lord comes. The unfaithful servants
say, well the Lord, I don't know when he's coming but it ain't
going to be now. He delays. It's going to be a while. The
true servant of God, by his grace, second watch, third watch, what
difference does it make? He knows best. His time is good. I'm fine with it. See that in
the text? Second watch, third watch. By
his grace we're going to be serving him. We're going to be worshiping
him. We'll be looking for him. Remember that story about Mephibosheth
and David? He didn't care about the inheritance.
He was just glad David came back. The unfaithful one is the only
one thinking about when. And he says in his heart, it's
not going to be now. Why in the world would somebody
say that? Why would it matter to you? If the Lord did say it's
going to be a year, Why would you not want it to be now? Why
would you say in your heart it's not now? Well, it's because it
sounds like you kind of want to get away with something, doesn't
it? It's a guilty thing. I'll act
a certain way now while the Lord delays, but then, you know, there's
time to straighten up before he comes back. And that's borne
out in the text, isn't it? How does he act? How does the
unfaithful servant act? Well, he's bad to the Lord's
people. Well, the Lord takes that personally, doesn't he?
He beats the Lord's people. You know how the Lord's people
are beaten with the law? With legalistic, Lord's done
all he can do now it's up to you type preaching. And he's selfish. He's eating
and drinking and enjoying himself. He beats the people of God rather
than what the Lord say to comfort. Comfort my people. You don't
need to be beat up. Your sin will beat you up and
the Lord will come and say are you weary? Are you heavy laden? Are you tired? Come to me and
rest. And notice in verse 46 that the
Lord will come while that man is not looking for Him. Let me
ask you a question, an honest question this morning. Is there
ever a time when you're not looking for Him? I hope not. This is the unfaithful
servant. He'll come at a time when he's
not looking for Him. I hope that there is no time when I'm not
looking for Him. Boy, this world can distract
us easily though, can't it? May we be warned about that and
always be looking for him. And notice that he's only pretending
to be a servant anyway. He's not a servant. He's a, he's
a, he's an idiot. He's not doing, the Lord said
comfort, feed, and he's beaten them. And so his portion is with
the non-servants, the unbelievers. Of course it is. That's what
he is. He's an unbeliever. And in the
last couple of verses there we see that there are degrees of
punishment in hell. I wouldn't take a lot of comfort
in that. It's still hell. He that hath not the Son hath
not life. And there is no good way to have
not life. The Lord just gives us that to
show that to know and to rebel against clear light is worse
than having less light or no light and rebelling. Everybody's
got some light, don't they? Romans chapter 1 is pretty clear
about that as well as other scripture. But there's only one blessed
man in the text. The faithful and wise one. The
believer. Faithful and wise in Christ.
And you know what? He works in us, not a meritorious
faithfulness. I've never met anybody that I
would want to stand before God with their faithfulness, but
I've met some faithful believers. I thank God for their faithfulness,
I'll say that. And I've met some that I consider
to be very wise in the things of the Lord by His grace. But Christ is our faithfulness.
And Christ is our wisdom, the believer. By grace through faith
in the Son of God, we're servants and stewards and ambassadors
and soldiers and sons and wives. Think of all the relationships
that we have to the Son of God. You can't picture his relationship
to his church with just one picture, can you? We're his servants,
we're his stewards. He's made us stewards of his
grace and that ought to sober us up a little bit. To preach the gospel of the glory
of the blessed God has been committed to our trust. But we're not just servants.
He said, I don't call you servants, but sons, because a servant doesn't
know what his master's doing. He's revealed to us what he's
doing. And not only that, as servants, he's let us in on it.
Isn't it good to just be in on it? Now, is that you doing something
for him or him doing something for you? You being here to worship
him this morning, who did something for who? Oh, thank God. for a hunger for
Him and a thirst for Him and His precious blood. The believer,
the one who is able faithfully to preach that Christ must needs
have suffered because by God's revealing grace we've seen the
necessity of that. We've felt the necessity of that. Because Christ has suffered for
us and showed us our necessity, our need of Him, and how that He must glorify
His Father in that. And so my simple, simple prayer
this morning is, Lord make us faithful, wise stewards of Your
grace. And I know this, a faithful,
wise steward of the grace of God doesn't trust in his own
faithfulness or wisdom. He knows that Christ is both. He is made unto us everything
that we need. Let's ask the Lord's blessing
on his word. Gracious Father, thank you.