Alright brethren, Mark chapter
10. And I want to read it again.
I want us to get focused. When I'm preparing, I read a
text over and over and over. And I forget that sometimes when
I stand up to preach and I just read through it one time. Let's
read it again. Mark 10. Mark 10 verse 17. When Christ was going forth into
the way, there came one running. This man was zealous. He came
running, and he kneeled to Him. He kneeled outwardly, and he
asked Him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit
eternal life? Jesus said to him, Why callest
thou me good? There is none good but one, that
is God. This man didn't know Christ to
be God. He just considered him a master,
a teacher. That's why Christ said, you calling
me good because you recognize I'm God? There's only one good,
that's God. He said, It asks him what he
must do to inherit eternal life. What shall I do that I may inherit
eternal life? You don't do anything for an
inheritance. An inheritance is free. What
must I do that I might inherit eternal life? That's an oxymoron. And the Lord told him, verse
19, Thou knowest the commandments Do not commit adultery, do not
kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not, honor
thy father and thy mother. The Lord left something out, didn't
He, when He read the commandments? He left something out. And the man answered and he said
unto her, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. This man's blind, isn't he? He's
completely, totally, spiritually blind. Because he thought he
had kept the law. Thought he had kept the law. And then Jesus, beholding him,
loved him. You know, the Lord saves those
He loves. He never stops loving His people. Nothing should be
able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus. Those He loves, He saved. He
might not have saved this man that day, but He saved him eventually. And the Lord said to him, One
thing thou likest, go thy way, sell whatsoever thou
hast. That means sell everything you
own. Every possession, every valuable,
everything else, sell it all. Then take the money and give
it to the poor, every bit of it. And thou shalt have treasure
in heaven. And then come, take up the cross. Then you're going
to start suffering. Then you're going to be rejected.
Then the enemies of your own house are going to be your enemy.
Now you're going to start suffering. And follow me. And he was sad at that saying
and he went away grieved for he had great possessions. And
the Lord looked around, and He said to His disciples, How hardly
shall they that have riches enter in the kingdom of God. And the
disciples were astonished, and Jesus answered again, and He
said to them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in
riches, there's the problem, that trust in riches, to enter
the kingdom of God. This man, he was trusting his
earthly possessions. He was trusting his money and
what have you. But even worse than that, he was trusting his
law keeping. That was his riches. And the
Lord said, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. For a man
that's trusting in anything of himself, you'd sooner get a camel
to go through the eye of a needle than that man to enter into heaven.
And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves,
who then can be saved? And Jesus, looking upon them,
said, with men it is impossible. It is impossible, but not with
God. For with God all things are possible. This man is like many. He came
running to the Lord, bowed down outwardly, And he asked what
works he must do to inherit eternal life. You know, those in Scripture
who ask this question, what works must I do to be saved? Those
who ask this question and who are calling for works to be preached
to them, in the Scripture, they think they can do those works.
They think they have and they think they can and they think
that they're going to be saved in some manner by their works.
That's what you find in the Scripture. You remember how the Lord told
the Pharisees, He said, you search the Scriptures for in them you
think you have life. What were they doing? They were
going to the Scriptures to find just what this man was doing.
What must I do to inherit eternal life? And the Lord said, that's
what you're searching it for. You think that's what this book's
about. And you're searching it for that.
And I'll tell you something, if the Lord does not intervene
in a man's searching, if the Lord doesn't intervene and teach
a man by divine revelation, He'll let the man find what he's searching
for. Men will think they have done
the works whereby they can be saved. This man thought he had.
This man thought he had. He was expecting Christ to tell
him what a fine job he had done. And the Lord told him, he said,
but these scriptures are they which testify of me. And you
will not come to me, he said, that you might have life, have
it freely given to you by the works of Christ alone. You see,
a man will do anything, anything he's told to do to try to earn
salvation. He'll do anything you tell him
to do, but one thing, one thing a natural man cannot do, stop
doing for salvation. It takes God to make a man do
that. With man it's impossible, but not with God. It takes God
to reveal what we are, and make us cease our working and believe
Christ, see that He's finished the work. I'll give you another
example. Over in Jeremiah 42, I said now,
when a man asks what they must do, they think they can do it,
think they have done it, and they're seeking how they can
be saved. And look here in Jeremiah 42, the children of Israel were
in Babylonian captivity. And they came to Jeremiah and
they asked Jeremiah to intercede with God for them for this. This is what they wanted to know.
Jeremiah 42 verse 3, they were asking that the Lord thy God
may show us the way wherein we may walk and the thing that we
may do. That's what they were looking
for. And Jeremiah, verse 6, look at
verse 6, they said, whether it be good or whether it be evil,
we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we send
thee, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of
the Lord our God. You see, they thought they could
do it. They just thought all we need
is God to tell us what to do and we can do it. This was like,
remember those on the day the Lord gave the law And Moses came
down from the mount and they said, whatever the Lord tells
us to do, we will do it. But then they saw the mountain
fire on fire and quaking, God revealing, it's a picture of
God revealing His holiness and His strict justice and what He
requires. And when that happened, they
jumped back and they began to cry out for a mediator. They
needed Moses to go between them and God lest they die. We've
got to be made to hear the law. We've got to be made to see God's
holiness and what He requires so that we see we need Christ
to be our mediator. By nature, we're just like these
folks. We think we can do the works whereby we can make ourselves
righteous or holy and accepted of God. And so ten days later,
Jeremiah went, and ten days later he came and he told them, this
is what the Lord says, abide in Babylon. Stay put right here
in Babylon and trust the Lord. That's what he told them. He
said in verse 10, if you will still abide in this land, the
Lord said, then will I build you then will I build you and not
pull you down, and I will plant you and not pluck you up. He
said there in verse 11, Be not afraid of the king of Babylon,
of whom you are afraid, saith the Lord, for I am with you to
save you and to deliver you from his hand. And I will show mercies
unto you, that he may have mercy upon you. He said, I'll make
the king of Babylon have mercy on you. And he said, and I'll
cause you to return to your own land. And then he went on to
tell them, he said, but if you won't obey me, he said, I'm going
to destroy you. He said, if you go to Egypt,
I'm going to give the king of Babylon power to go down and
conquer Egypt. destroy every vain refuge you
have in Egypt. That's what the Lord said. Let
me give you another example. This is always the answer the
Lord gives when anybody comes asking, what must I do that I
might work the works of God? What Jeremiah told them, what
the Lord told them through Jeremiah was, abide in Christ. Believe
Christ and abide in Christ. But we're in Babylon, and it's
so bad, and if we go to Egypt, it's going to be ease, and it's
going to be so much better. Sell all you have. Give up yourself. Give up your works. Give up your
thought, your wisdom, your understanding. Give all it up. And trust Christ. It's the same message over and
over. Abide in Him. Take up your cross, you're gonna
suffer. But the Lord said, but I'll have
mercy on you. I'll make the King of Babylon
have mercy on you. You abide in me. That's always
the message to anybody that asks what works must I do, the Lord
tells them, believe on me. Believe on me. Believe on me. And Jeremiah told them this,
you can go home and read Jeremiah 42, but the Lord told them this,
he said, while you were asking me what to do, he said, you had
dissembled in your heart already. In their heart, while they're
asking the Lord what to do, they already had gone to Egypt. He
said, you already did it. And that's us, when we're asking
God, what must I do to be saved? What works must I work to be
saved? In the asking of that question, we've dissembled. We're not believing God. This
man that came there asking, what must I do to inherit eternal
life? He wouldn't believe in Christ. He was not believing
Christ. He was dissembled. He bowed outwardly. He looked like he was zealous
for God. He looked like he kept the law. But he had not believed
Christ at all. His heart was far from him. His
heart was far from him. Here's you another example of
men asking what works they must work. That multitude that followed
Christ across the sea after He fed with the fish and the loaves,
you know. They followed Him across the
sea in verse John 6, 28. Then said they unto Him, What
shall we do that we might work the works of God? And Christ's
answer to them was the same as His answer to the Jews in Jeroboam's
day. Same answer. Verse 29, Jesus
answered and said to them, this is the work of God that you believe
on him whom he hath sent. And then they asked him, they
said, well then you do some works that we might believe on you.
The Jews seek after sign. Pharisees, they want to They
want to work for salvation, and they want to see works in others.
And it's all about seeing that outward sign of works. What was
the answer the Lord gave them? Again, verse 30, they said therefore
unto him, What sign showest thou then that we may see and believe
thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers did eat man in the
desert, as it is written. He gave them bread from heaven
to eat. Verse 35, Jesus said to them, I'm the bread of life.
He that cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on
me shall never thirst." See, the answer is the same. For folks
crying out, tell me what works to do, the answer is the same.
Believe on Christ. They murmured at him when he
said that. They murmured at him. But our master told them, he
just kept declaring to them, except you eat my flesh and drink
my blood, you have no life in you. They murmured. He just kept
preaching Christ to them. Except you believe on me, you
have no life in you. And they murmured again. And
he spoke very pointedly to them. He said, some of you do not believe
me. Because he knew. And he said
to them, don't murmur. He said, no man can believe me
except my Father teach him and draw him." And you know what they did? They
said, this is a hard saying. This is a hard saying. He's a
hard man and he's preaching a hard gospel. And they were angry.
And they turned around and they left. And you know what they
did? They went to find somebody that would tell them the works
they must work that they might be saved. The Lord Jesus Christ told the
rich young ruler to sell all that he had. Sell everything
he had. This man said, I've kept the
whole law from my youth up. He said, you're lacking one thing.
You're lacking one thing. You know what the one thing was
he was lacking? He was lacking Christ. He was lacking any righteousness
whatsoever. Well, hadn't he done righteousness
in all he had done? Not a bit. Not a bit. And the Lord's going to show
him he had no righteousness whatsoever. And this is how he showed him.
He's showing him how covetous he is to show him that you break
one law, you've broken them all. And he's showing this man he
can't keep the law, that he needs Christ to be his righteousness. So the Lord tells him, sell all
that you have and then give the money to the poor. And then you come and you follow
me and that's going to involve you having to suffer because
you're going to be rejected of men. You're going to be rejected
of men. This man probably had the rich
young ruler, some think it was the Apostle Paul. He probably
had spent a lot of time, he had Pharisees that were his friends.
Well soon as he believed Christ, he's going to bear exactly what
the Apostle Paul bore. They're going to reject him.
Because light and dark is not going to get along. Works in
grace are never going to fellowship. Those that are born of the Spirit
and those after the flesh, they're not going to get along. And it's
never the Lord's sheep that are persecuting the unregenerate. It's always the unregenerate
that persecute the Lord's people. It's always that way. Now, so he tells him to do this
to show him he hadn't kept the law, nor could he keep the law.
Now you think about this. You're sitting here right now.
If the Lord commanded you right now to sell all your possessions,
give the money all to the poor, follow Him, and suffer for His sake, You
couldn't do it. You couldn't do it. You sitting
here that believe Him, that are born of Him, we couldn't do it
without sin of our flesh being mixed with it, and without unbelief
being mixed with it. If a man did muster up the strength
that he's just going to be fanatical and I'm going to prove that I
can do it and he sells everything he possesses and he starts following
the Lord. You know what he does? He thinks
God owes him something and the moment he suffers he's going
to blame God. Well, I gave up everything. Well,
that's not following him. He still hadn't given up everything.
Because you think by selling everything and giving the money
to the poor, now God will bless me. You see what I'm saying?
That's not what the Lord is saying to him. The Lord is not telling
him if he'll do this that he's going to earn salvation. The
Lord is telling him this to show him he can't fulfill the law. He can't do it. He can't do it. We can't make ourselves righteous.
We can't make ourselves accepted of God by our works. Just like
Israel and Babylon, the very question of asking, what works
must I do to be saved? The very question is betraying
a heart that is dissembled from God. A heart that is covetous. You see here, when the Lord told
this man in Mark 10, Look at the law there. Do not commit
adultery. I've said this to you recently.
Trying to come to God by our works of the law, by not committing
outward adultery, we've committed spiritual adultery because we're
not trusting Christ our husband. It says do not kill. Trying to
come to God and expecting God to receive us because we kept
that commandment is to slay Christ afresh and crucify Him afresh.
Rather, you know, trying to come in that without trusting Christ.
Do not steal. It's stealing Christ's glory
to try to come in the law instead of believing Christ. Do not bear
false witness. It's calling God a liar because
He tells us there's none righteous, no doubt one, and you can't keep
the law. Life can't come by the law. And we're calling God a
liar if we try to come by the law rather than trusting Christ.
Defraud not, that's what we're doing. We're robbing God. We're
trying to steal the glory that belongs to God. Honor thy father
and thy mother. We're not honoring the father
who says, this is my son, believe on him. Break the whole law of
God by trying to come to God by the works of the law. Do you
get that? That's so, brethren. And the
very question of asking, what must I do that I might work the
works to be saved or to inherit eternal life, the very question
betrays a heart that has departed from God, doesn't believe God. This man's morality and his religious
deeds, they were his riches, the same as his money and his
possessions were. He couldn't give them up as his
acceptance with God and trust Christ alone as his righteousness
and holiness with God. Neither could you and me. Everything
in man's religion is covetous idolatry. Everything in man's
natural religion is covetous idolatry, just as much as his
temporal outward possessions are. It's covetous idolatry. And unless God intervenes in
sovereign, irresistible grace, we'll perish, hanging on to the
riches of our morality, and our law-keeping, and our religious
deeds, and all those things, and thinking God's going to receive
us. God's going to receive us. I've told you this, Sermon on
the Mount. You'll hear being preached the Sermon on the Mount.
They get to the end, and they hear the Lord say, Many shall
say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, didn't we do many wonderful
works? And I'll tell them, depart from
me, I never knew you. And men will just preach works
and works, and you've got to do these works, you've got to
do that work. He said, the only one that's
going to enter heaven is the one that does the will of my Father. And
He just declared it to us in John 6. This is the will of Him
that sent me. That you believe on Him whom
He sent. And the less we believe on Christ,
it don't matter how many wonderful works we've done, the Lord's
not going to receive us. We don't have the requirement
to come into glory. The righteousness that God demands
is Christ alone. It's not sin that keeps men from
Christ. It is not sin. It's not sin. It's self-righteousness. That's
what keeps men from Christ. And what God has to do is He
has to show us that those deeds that we think are righteousness
are sin. That's what He's got to show
us. Then you'll come to Christ. Because then you'll realize,
oh, if that's sin, then I know everything else about me sin. You can hear men betray this
in their language. Men are always talking about,
I'm trying to make up for something. I'm not trying to make up for
any sin I've ever committed, brethren. I'm not trying to make
up for anything. Christ has paid it all. The Lord used this man's love
of his works and his money to teach him just how far short
of the glory of God he'd come. Now I want you to go with me
over to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. And I just want to use what the
Lord told this man to do to show you how God's people are made
righteous. The Lord told this man, sell
all you have and then give it all to the poor. Give all the
money to the poor. Take up your cross, he told him,
and follow me. You will have treasure in heaven.
Well, verse 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, this is how Christ fulfilled
the whole law of God right here. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes
He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich. This rich young ruler may have
been wealthy, but he was not rich in comparison to Christ
in glory. In heaven, before Christ came,
everything was His. He's the Creator. He said, Every
beast of the forest is mine, the cattle upon a thousand hills.
I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field
are mine. If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell thee. The world's mine in
the fullness thereof. But beyond creation, Scripture
speaks of the riches of God. We can't even enter into what
that might be. The riches of God. And Christ,
He's the solitary God. He needed nothing. He had everything. Rich. Rich. You take all the
men in history, the richest men, and combine them all together.
Take the riches of the poorest man. Put all our riches together. They can't equal the riches Christ
had in glory. He needed nothing. Needed nothing. Christ told that rich young ruler,
sell all his possessions. He couldn't do it. Tell them
all. Yet in order to fulfill the law,
that law and all the law for His people, our Lord Jesus Christ
in love to God and in love to His neighbor as Himself, in love
to God and in love to His people, our Savior showed all. He became completely,
thoroughly, perfectly poor. He came down and took the likeness
of sinful flesh. He came down and took a body
conceived in the womb of the virgin. And he chose to be born
to poor parents. He came forth in poverty and
born in a cow stable. This one who owns all things
had not where to lay his head. He never owned a possession when
he walked this earth. He didn't own a piece of ground.
This one whose the glory of heaven was despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, the one who holds
the waters in the hollow of his hand, said, I thirst. But more
than all that, far more than all that, he gave himself to
be made sin for his people. We're talking about poverty now.
He became poor before God, His Father who He loved. He gave
Himself to be made sin for us and then the Father forsook Him
on that cross instead of His people. He forsook Him and made
Him a curse in our place. Poor. There's one hanging between
God who has turned his back on him and his people have turned
their back on him, his enemies hate him. He's all alone and
he has absolutely nothing. And he's doing that for God and
he's doing it for his people. And then he told that rich young
ruler to sell all that he had. Christ gave his life. And then they buried his body
in a borrowed tomb. He became poor. The Lord Jesus
told this rich man to take that money, take the money that he
got from selling everything he had and give it all to the poor. did all of that, gave everything
he had that he might make all His people thoroughly rich. His poor people, His people who
were so poor, we had nothing. Christ became poor. He sold all. He gave all. He laid down His
life and died in the room and saved His people that He might
give us His unsearchable riches and make us rich. He gave all that he possessed
to honor God's holy law, to declare God just and the justifier. And he gave all that he possessed,
his life, everything he gave, shedding his own blood, that
he might give his people eternal life. That's the love that is
the fulfillment of the law. That's the love that is the fulfillment
of God. That's how righteous God is.
That's how holy God is. That's how God is love. He gave
His only begotten Son. Christ gave His life for God
His Father and for His people. to declare God just and justifier,
to justify His people at the same time, to cover us in the
riches of His righteousness, to fill us with the riches of
His holiness, to give us the unsearchable riches of peace
with God. That's what He came to do, to
make us rich. When those disciples were arguing
over who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven because of something they had
done, because of how they had served God, Can't you just hear
that? Don't you know they were probably
pointing out one of those faults? And how one of them didn't serve
as good as they did because you got this fault and the other
fault or whatever. And the Lord Jesus Christ took
a little child and set him in their midst. And He said to them,
He said, He that is least among you, He that is least among you
shall be great. Who's least among us? Christ
is. He made himself the absolute
least that ever was. and He's the greatest in the
kingdom of God. That highly exalted God, Paul
said in Philippians, wherefore God also has highly exalted Him,
giving Him a name above every name. Christ manifests the greatest
love, perfect love, perfect righteousness, the fulfillment of the law in
what He did on Calvary's cross. brought in His everlasting righteousness
and justified His people by loving God and His people as Himself,
by bearing our sin and our curse to declare God just and justifier
and justify His people. Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friend. That's Christ.
That's what He did. That's what he did. Only Christ
is the fulfillment of the law. Only Christ is the righteousness
of God. Only Christ is the righteousness
of his people. He has worked the works of God
that his people might be saved. And that's why God calls his
people and says, this is my son, hear him, believe him, trust
him. And I see fully why God will
not accept anybody else. He will accept nothing less than
faith in His Son. He's going to honor that Son
who honored Him to the highest. Scripture says, Christ loved
the rich young ruler, and those He loves He saves. He covered
him in His riches. He saved that man. He's going
to save all His people because He paid this price for them.
And He's going to give them these riches and save every one of
them, brethren. Now let me ask you something.
When you think about these riches that Christ has given, when you
think about the riches Christ gives, this is the question Paul
asked. Who's made you to differ? What
do you have that you didn't receive? Everything, all the riches we
have, Christ gave them to us. He freely gave it to us because
he poured out his life's blood. We have nothing in which to glory.
Everything Christ gave, spiritual and eternal life, faith, repentance,
justification, holiness, peace with God, the fruit of righteousness,
all things that pertain to life and godliness, preservation,
resurrection, glorification, everything that we will receive
came from Christ because He laid down His life, sold all, gave
all, and then gave us all these riches. And that, brethren, is
the fulfillment of the law. That's the fulfillment of the
law. What does it mean for you who he's given faith? I'm going
to be very brief here and I'm going to finish. What does it
mean for you who he's given faith to trust him? Now listen carefully
to me. I'm going to make a statement
that might get your attention. Before God, Every hour of every
day, I love God and my neighbor perfectly with absolutely no
sin. Every hour of every day before
God, I do only that which pleases my Heavenly Father. I do it in perfect righteousness
and perfect holiness. And there's no sin. And to any
that would condemn me, God says, who are you to lay a charge to
my child? I'm God to justify. To any that would lay a charge
to me, He says, who are you that condemneth? My son laid down
his life. He rose again. He's making intercession
to me for him. And if you rest in Christ, that's
the same is true of you. The same is true of you. None
of it is true in us personally, in what we do. Sin's mixed with
everything we do. But it's true because that's
what Christ did for His people. And that's how God sees His people.
And if you have a new spirit created in you by God the Holy
Spirit so that you believe and worship the Lord Jesus Christ
and have no confidence in your flesh, if your worship is in
spirit and heart and truth and no confidence in your flesh and
you rejoice in Christ Jesus, Behold, I have received commandment
to bless his people, and he hath blessed his people, and I cannot
reverse it, nor can any man reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity
in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord
his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them,
and that is true of all his people. That's true of us, brethren,
because the Lord Jesus loved God and His neighbor as Himself.
He perfectly fulfilled all righteousness for us and He made us perfectly
righteous and holy by what He did. And it's in that holiness
by which we know it and receive it and see it and understand
it is Christ in you who is the holiness of the new man. And
before God's judgment seat, all that sin we see in ourselves
that troubles us and it gets us down and gets us sideways,
that old man died over 2,000 years ago on Calvary's cross
and our sin was put away. And God says, as far as the east
is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions
from us. I see my sin, I hate my sin. What about when I fall? Due to
Christ justifying His people. Christ is the propitiation for
our sin. God is faithful and He's just
because of Christ so that He only shows His people mercy. He corrects us, He forgives us,
He cleanses us and He keeps doing it and He's just to do it because
of Christ. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness
and their sins and their iniquities. I will remember no more." Some
people talk like that just only when He first called you. No,
that's your whole life. That's your whole life. I'll
be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities.
I will remember no more. He'll turn again. He'll have
compassion upon us. He will subdue our iniquities.
That will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Because He said, I am He, even
I am He that blotteth out thy transgression for my own sake,
and will not remember thy sin. And let me tell you something
here. Now, we want to do good works for Him. We want to. We
want to serve Him. Where do you learn to do good
works? By hearing the preaching of Christ and Him crucified.
hearing the preaching of Christ and Him crucified. When I hear
God say that for Christ's sake He has mercy on His people, He
will not condemn His people, He forgives His people, that
teaches me that in all matters the just thing to do and the
only just thing to do is to be merciful and forgive and help
restore my brethren. Just like God does for Christ's
sake. He does me for Christ's sake. Anything else is unjust. Hearing Christ is King, risen,
reigning in the hearts of His people, ruling His enemies, I'm
instructed that when trouble comes, to trust Christ. I'm to
submit to them that have the rule over me, knowing He has
the rule over them. How do you know this? Hearing
how He's King and ruling and reigning because of His righteousness,
knowing He's going to do it all in righteousness, because He
is righteousness. So if He opens the door for me
to speak, I'm to remind anybody who will listen, including my
troubled brethren, Thy God reigneth. This is the message. And I'm
to pray to Him to work in their hearts, and I'm to wait on Him
to work in their hearts, and when He's worked in their hearts,
I'm to give Him all the praise and all the glory. We learn all
this through preaching of Christ and crucified brethren. I'm instructed
and I'm motivated to submit to those that have the rule over
me because I know Christ is ruling them. I'm motivated to love my
neighbors as myself because I see how Christ loved me. If I see
the poor, I want to give them whatever I can give them because
I see how Christ fulfilled that law. How he who was rich became
poor and made me rich through his poverty. Through Christ and Him crucified,
I'm taught all. Christ is all in all. And through
the preaching of Christ in Him crucified, this message of Christ
our Redeemer, Christ our Holy One, is the message He blesses
to the hearts of His people to keep us believing Him and keep
us motivated in our heart to do what we do because we want
to do it for Him. And we can do it with joy. He
said, drink your wine with a merry heart And he said, because God
now receives all your works. All your works. Used to, the plowing of the wicked
was an abomination of God. Now when you plow, God says,
that was righteous, perfect plowing. Now when you sweep the floor,
it used to be God said, that was nothing but wickedness done
in self-righteousness just to get the applause of men. Now
God says, that was a perfectly swept floor. You mean everything? I mean everything you do, God
says, perfect. Not because of you, because of
Christ. That's joy, that's comfort, that's
peace. You can serve God that way. You
can't serve God under fear and bondage thinking you've got to
do something. That ain't serving Him. That
ain't serving Him. I pray God bless that and make
us truly, truly, truly believe Him and serve Him because we
want to. Amen.