Thank y'all. One of these days,
James is going to learn how to play the piano. He's working
on it. Thank y'all. John chapter 20. Verse 10, it says, then the disciples
went away again to their own home. They'd come to the tomb and they didn't see the Lord's
body and they went away again to their own home. But Mary stood
without at the sepulcher weeping and as she wept, she stooped
down and looked into the sepulcher and seeth two angels in white
sitting the one at the head and the other at the feet, where
the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman,
why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because
they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have
laid him. And when she thus said, she turned herself back and saw
Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus said
unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the
gardener, said to him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell
me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus
said unto her, Mary. She turned herself and said to
him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master. And Jesus said unto her,
Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go
to my brethren and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your
Father, and to my God and your God. Now Herod and Pilate and
the unbelieving Jews and the unbelieving Gentiles and joined
themselves together to do the very worst thing they could possibly
do to the Lord Jesus Christ. They did the very worst thing
they could possibly do to Him. They poured out hatred that was in them and they
killed Him. That's what they thought. They
nailed Him to a cross and they killed Him. Got him out of there. That's what they thought. But God was ruling every bit
of it. And they only accomplished what God purposed before to be
done. The Lord Jesus Christ laid down His life Himself. No man
took His life. He was in control of everything
taking place as God. Our Savior's lifeless body was
buried, but death had no more dominion over Him. He died under
sin once and death had no dominion over Him. That grave could not
hold our Redeemer. So He arose triumphant from the
grave. But how His people need to hear
the good news over and over and over. We need to hear it over
and over and over. We need to hear our Savior speak
in our hearts like He did John. When John beheld and fell as
a dead man, the Lord said, Fear not. Fear not. That's what the Lord says to
His people. Fear not. It's a different spirit. Fear not. I am the first and
the last. I am he that liveth and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore.
Amen. That's reason not to fear. That's
great reason not to fear. Now, we see right here our need
of the Lord Jesus. We want to repeat a few things
from last week, but we're going to go a little further. We're
going to see our need right here of our Lord Jesus first of all
in verse 10. Then the disciples went away
again unto their own home. Some think they believed Christ
had risen, some do not think they did. It seems from the scripture
they believed someone had taken his body. They went home again
into their own home and later we're going to find them, they
locked the doors and were fearful of the Jews. That doesn't sound
like they believed he had risen. Thomas certainly didn't believe. Unbelief is sin. In fact, it's really It's really the worst sin. If men are trusting to their
own will, and they're trusting their works and their ability
to bring themselves to Christ, or trusting their ability to
keep themselves after they've been brought to Christ, any sin, any sin, any wavering, even in thought, then all is lost. If man's trusting
anything of himself, one little sin, one little thought,
it's all lost. He broken the whole law of God. And you do that every day. So
do I. Sometimes great sins. First law of God commands us
to have no other gods but the true and living God. None. That baby can't come between
you and God. And when a man comes there to
the sepulcher, if he didn't believe the Lord had risen and he went
away in unbelief, he went and turned again to his own home.
If he was in any way trusting himself, all would have been
lost. All would have been lost. God
requires we worship Him alone. God requires we trust in Him
alone. God requires we seek all our
help from Him alone. Get all our comfort from Him
alone. And God requires absolutely perfect obedience. Absolutely
perfect obedience. Not just the second table, but
the first table. To Him. To Him. It must be perfect to be accepted
of God. That's what God said. It must
be perfect to be accepted of God. Now, men can imagine they're
doing well when the sun's shining. But when the darkness comes,
What then? Let trouble come and we find
ourselves going away again to our own home. Weeping. Unbelief. All the many multitude of sins
that accompany that. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
faithful one. He's the faithful one. He's the holy one. He's the righteous one. As God sees it and as God requires
it, that the is absolutely essential because He's the only one. The only one. He's immutable. When he walked
this earth as a man, as the God-man, he was immutable in his perfect
faith to God, in his perfect obedience to God, in his perfect
love to God, and in his perfect faithfulness and love to his
people. Some of his people, nailed him
to that tree. I mean, physically we're there. And all his people nailed him
to that tree as far as him bearing our sin. You just think about, you know,
you see people sentenced to prison that are just, just has committed
foul, foul, wretched sins. You want to obey God. You want
to keep the righteousness of the law that God requires. Take
your only son and give him in the place of that vile convict
and let him die in their room instead. That's the love of God. That's the love of our Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the righteousness of the law. That's the love that
fulfilled the law. God, our father, requires perfection. He requires
perfection. I pray, this is my point in this
and why I'm preaching this. You see, if I just preach that
your drunkenness is your sin, Well then if you don't feel like
you're guilty of drunkenness, you'll be proud about that. And
if you feel like somebody else is, you'll just condemn them
in your heart. That's sin. But I'm trying to tell you, it
don't take that. It takes just your nature. What you are. And I say that because if God
reveals that to us, we won't condemn another. We won't shake
our head at them. We'll bow it before God. as pride and as sin, the same
as what we condemn. We are the sinner, brethren.
You are. Stop looking at others as the
sinner. You're the sinner. You're the sinner. I look in
the mirror and you know what I see? I see the sinner. For God to love me, He had to
love me in His Son. For God to save me, He had to
save me in His Son. There's no way I could be saved
any other way. And that's true of you. Do you
know that? We need grace. We need another
to be our righteousness. We need holiness that only God
can provide Himself. When you just look here and you
see them walk away from that tomb, dejected and broke down,
if they would have been trusting themselves, that's all it would
have took to send them to hell forever. Right there. Because
that was unbelief. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
faithful one. He's the holy one. He's the righteous
one. The only one. He is the perfect
head. But now get that, He's the perfect
head who represented His people. That perfection He is, brethren,
if you believe Him, that's your perfection. If you trust Him,
that's your righteousness. If He dwells in you, that's the
holiness in you. Enough of this looking at our
hands and calling it holiness. Godliness is having God formed
in you. A lot of people do good works
outwardly. A lot of people outshine you
a lot. And they don't know God and don't
believe God and hate God. And you may falter and you may
fumble and you may stumble and you may come under the power
of your sin nature. But if God put a new heart in
you and you trust Christ Jesus the Lord, God's looking at His
Son, and God knows that heart that He put in you, and He's
going to keep you strengthened and keep you looking to Him.
Do you believe that? Have you experienced that? When one of the kids said something
wrong, and you lost your temper with them, and then the next
one said something, you lost your temper with them, next thing
you know, you got World War III going on in the car. Was that enough sin to send you
to hell? What's your perfection? What's
your holiness? It's Christ, brethren. It's Christ
and it's only Christ. Those who preach up man's will,
preach in the center, can come to Christ when He wants to and
believe when He wants to. Who can say, once you believe,
you can keep yourself and you can purify yourself. When Scriptures
talk about us keeping ourselves, you know how you're going to
do that, brethren? Trust in Christ to keep you, and He's got to
keep you doing that. But people that say stuff like
that don't know, they know very little, if anything at all, about
what they are in their sin nature. A sinful, deceitful, wretched
heart that's in every single sinner that walks the top side
of this earth Our Lord Jesus came and He, by
His unwavering obedience to God, brought in an everlasting righteousness
for His people and He conquered sin, death, and hell for His
people. That's what He did. And He's
carrying us through this storm. He's carrying us through this
desert. And He will not lose one of His people. When he said,
no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me
drawing, he wasn't only talking about the first moment he draws
you. He's talking about any moment you come to him. That humbles me. That breaks
my heart. That makes me ashamed at ever looking down on somebody
that failed. That makes me ashamed to look
at the stranger because I know the heart of the stranger. And I've done it. I've stood
with the proud Pharisee and said, oh, I'm thankful I'm not like
they are. How do you say that? I wouldn't drive through that
neighborhood. How do you say something like that? Oh, you
don't want to have anything to do with them. We see in the Lord's disciples
that this is not only so when He draws you to first air, it's
so after you believe on Him, brethren. They went away. They think it's over. They're like the two on the road
to Emmaus that said, we thought this should have been the Savior.
We saw Him die and be buried, now they've stolen His body. But our Lord Jesus purchased
His people with His own blood. When He said it's finished, that's
what He meant. That's what He meant. When it
says He arose and sat down and His people did with Him too,
you sitting right here right now, believer, you're already
in glory with Him. I know we can't get our little
minds around that because all we think about is the tick of
the clock. God ain't in time. He is not in time. It's done. It's finished. And our service here and our
little... One day we're going to know how
holy God is and what He really calls service. It's His Son. It's happiness to a weak, weak,
weak sinner to depend on our strong, strong, strong Savior.
It's the happiness of the weak child of God to depend everything
upon the grace of God. It's the happiness of a poor
weak sheep to depend entirely upon the great shepherd. Because
he seeks his lost sheep and he brings us home again. See, it
says they went away home again. No they didn't. They went to
their home. He's going to bring them back
to their true home. To Him. To Him. By God's grace, we believe,
we pray, we want to honor Christ, we want to serve Him, and we
want to. And I am not listening to anybody
who condemns you. I am not listening to them, especially
if they hate the gospel and do not want to hear it and won't
spend the time to go sit under it. I'm not hearing them condemn
you. I preached that to you from the
first day. But I'll tell you this, it is only by the Lord
Jesus Christ that you're going to do anything for God. We can't
glory in it, and if we can't glory in it, then we can't shame
anybody else when they fall, or when they glory in it. Either
way, both of them are falling. If he let go of our hand, we'd
go away again to our home, unbelieving, sad, fearful, sinful, or anything
else anybody else will do. That's just so. That's just so. Now let's behold our Lord's grace
to Mary. We see our sin in these disciples
that went away. Now let's see His grace to Mary.
Verse 11, but Mary stood without the sepulchre weeping. Last time
we saw how Mary had been forgiven much and therefore she loved
much. When you see a believer do what Mary did, we glorify
God for this. We are not going to glorify Mary,
we are going to glorify God for this. The Lord had forgiven her
much and he put love and affection in her heart and that love and
affection was stronger than what she saw with her carnal eyes.
That love and affection she had in her heart for Christ was stronger
than when she looked in that tomb and didn't see his body.
She stayed there. She said, I'd rather stay here
where the last place they laid his body than go home. I'm going
to stay here where He last was." And she stayed there. That's
God's grace working. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
working in her heart. Love beareth all things, believeth
all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things. And
it never fails. That's not of me and you. That's
of the Lord. That's the love of Christ that
He puts in the heart of His people and sustains it. She waited at
the Lord's tomb. Wait on the Lord. Wait on the
Lord. Be of good courage. He shall
strengthen thy heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. She
waited there. This is all of our Lord. And
we're going to see what He did now. Watch. He's the Mercy Seeker. He's the Mercy Seeker. Why is
a sinner like me, why is a sinner like you going to be showered
in mercy continually by God when we don't deserve it? Why? Christ
is the Mercy Seeker. Verse 11, and as she wept, she
stooped down and she looks into that sepulcher and she sees two
angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at
the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. See? God, by His love
and His grace working in her, made her stay there and wait
and not go away. And she's given a sight of something
the others didn't get to see. when they came. She sees two
angels sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet
where the body of our Lord had laid. Now His body's gone, He's
risen. But when you see one angel at
one end and one angel at the other end, what do you think
about? That mercy seat, that cherubim, that ark had the mercy
seat on the top and there was an angel on each side of it facing
that mercy seat. And I say, I heard them crying,
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts and His glory fills
the whole earth. Why does God show mercy to His
people, though we do what the other disciples did? She was
sinning too. This was unbelief too. Her heart
was weeping. She thought somebody had stolen
the body of the Lord too. Why does the Lord show mercy?
Why does He keep showing mercy, incessantly showing mercy, indestructible
mercy, mercy that can't be turned away? Why does He keep showing
mercy? For the Lord Jesus Christ, His
Son's sake, that's why. whom God has set forth a propitiation
through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. As bad as we are, as sinful as we are, as deserving
of hell as we are, because Christ said, it's finished. God's perfectly
judged. Shower you with mercy. That's
good news. What a question the angel asked
her. They said to her, woman, why weepest thou? Woman, why
weepest thou? There would have been far more
reason to weep if the Lord's body had been in that tomb. This is reason to rejoice that
His body wasn't in that tomb. Why weepest thou? What does His
resurrection declare? Why weep? What does His resurrection
declare? It declares He's the Son of God.
declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit
of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Why weepest thou? Christ's resurrection declares
He's sovereign over all as the glorified God-man, mediator for
His people. To this end, Christ both died
and rose and revived that He might be Lord both of the dead
and the living. He's at God's right hand. He's
far above all principality and power. Every nameless name, and
he's to head over all things to the church, and everything's
working just exactly according to his sovereign rule. Everything. Why weepest thou? Our Lord's
resurrection from the dead declares Christ justified his people.
He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. Why weep us down? You know what
His resurrection declares? That He shall regenerate every
one of His children and keep His children and one day He's
going to raise us to be with Him forever. Blessed be the God
and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His
abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Him hath God exalted
with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sin. How does He give you repentance? How does He keep giving you repentance?
Why will He keep giving you repentance? Why will He keep turning you
from you and turning you to Him? Why will He keep doing that?
Because He's the Prince who's risen to the right hand of God.
Why weepest thou? His resurrection guarantees you're
going to sit there with Him one day. Now is Christ risen from
the dead and become the first fruits of them that sleep. He's the first fruit and all
the other fruits are going to follow Him. For since by man
came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive. How often the things that cast us down and make us weep,
just like Mary here, she's cast down, she's weeping, and in time,
the Lord shows us it's really reason to rejoice. You just found that to be so?
Something that just causes you terrible weeping and, oh, it
can't be anything but reason to weep. Think about it. She's
sitting there at the tomb and she doesn't see the Lord's body.
But you see what a great reason it was to rejoice? She just needs
to be shown that. That's all. So do we. Her tears were needless. Her
anxiety was unnecessary. The Lord Jesus was right there
the whole time. And that's so with me and you
all the time. All the time. Then the Lord Jesus asked her
the same question, but he asked her another question. He asked
her the same question, but he also asked her another question.
Look at verse 15. Jesus said to her, Woman, and
I don't, the angels nor our Lord said this in any harsh way to
her. It was as tender as it could be right here. Woman, why weepest
thou? Now listen to this next question.
Whom seekest thou? Whom seekest thou? Why don't
you come here today? Whom are you seeking? Why do
you open this book and read these scriptures? Who are you seeking?
Are you seeking life in your hand? Are you seeking to find
something that will really get somebody else? Who are you seeking? Are you seeking Christ? We come to this table, who are
we seeking? We come to hear this gospel,
who are we seeking? That's a good question. Whom
seek us thou? When you're troubled and you're
weeping and you're sorrowing, whom seek us thou? You just want
to be out of the trouble. We'll never get out of the trouble
as long as that's all we want. Seek Him. That's the purpose. Seek Him. He'll bring you out
of the trouble while the storm's still raging. When the angels
asked why she wept, I love Mary's answer. Look at verse 13. She
said to them, Because they've taken away my Lord. And I don't know where they laid
Him. She saw Him die. She knew His body laid in a tomb.
She didn't know where He was now. But He was still her Lord. He was still her Lord. Nothing
had changed in her heart. He's still her Lord. That's when
you got faith. When everything is dark and it
don't look like Christ is anywhere around and you can't see light,
you can't see Him. I mean, think of how dark that
was for her. And He's still her Lord. At first, when she saw the Lord
Jesus standing and she heard Him speak, she didn't know that
it was Him. But when He spoke affectionately
in her heart, she knew. He said, Mary, and she turned
herself and she said to Him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master. That's the title of ultimate
power. She turned to him and said, Rabona, that's the word
expressing her faith, that's expressing her affection, that's
expressing her reverence, that's expressing her humility, for
her Lord and for her Master. When do you answer like that?
Only when he speaks. Only when he speaks. She believed Christ is the power
and wisdom of God. She believed He's God Himself.
She believed He was our Lord and our Savior. That's what she
said by that word right there. When our Lord speaks affectionately,
He speaks in power, and that's when He makes us know Him. And
that's when He humbles us down. That's when He makes us see Him
in faith. That's when we truly, truly call
on Him. He's the resurrection and life.
He's got to be the life that produces it. He's the life of
the new spirit that He gives in regeneration and He's the
strength for us to believe and to rejoice and to turn to Him.
He is our all, brethren. And then she fell at his feet.
She fell at his feet, she laid hold on him. Now listen here,
this verse 17, Jesus said to her, touch me not, I'm not yet
ascended to my father. Here's what he's saying. He's
saying, you don't have to grab on to me, hang on to me right
now. I'm not going to my father right this minute, Mary. I'm
going to be here for about 40 days, you're going to have time
to be with me, you're going to have time to see me again. That's
what he meant. It ain't some big mystical thing
that men make it out to be. He's just saying, let go of me. I'm not leaving right now. You
got me. I'm here. I'm not leaving. But isn't that
how you feel when he reveals himself to you and you haven't
seen him? Don't you just want to lay hold
to him and not let go? And I think too it could be that
he wouldn't let her be so taken up with his bodily presence to
teach me and you something. Because we don't know him anymore
after the flesh. We know him after spirit. And
she didn't either after he ascended. They didn't either. He told Thomas
later, blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. We worship him in spirit. It's
the new spirit. that He gives. That's where we
worship Him. That's where we worship Him. Whom having not seen your love,
in whom though now you see Him not, yet believing you rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Now here's the last
thing I want you to see. Here's another reason He told
her to let Him go. He had an errand for her to run. He wanted
to send her with a word And she needed to go do this right now.
Now right here, we see our Lord's faithfulness and His love and
His mercy to His people. Right here. I wish we could see,
I wish we could really see how sinful it was for them to go
away in unbelief. I wish we could see it. I wish
we could see it. The disciples had all forsaken
the Lord when He was crucified. They bragged that they wouldn't.
Oh, they were strong in their faith. These others might, but
I won't. That's just a pride. That's all
it was, a bunch of pride. And they all did. Peter wasn't
the only one, but Peter did the name three times. Oh, but they
were just young believers. Don't be so proud. Stop being
so proud. That's just arrogance is all
that is. If you are a wise believer, aged believer, you don't think
like that anymore. Because you know better. That
ain't an aged believer. That's a young punk is what that
is. Don't think like that anymore. You ain't that old. You ain't
that old in the faith. The disciples had all left and
now they're all doubting greatly. Sin was mixed with every bit
of it. And our Savior said this. Now listen to this. Hear this
believer. Hear this believer. He said,
Go to my brethren. He is so, he's everything I'm
not. Do you know how offensive they
had been to him? This would be like you spitting
in, me spitting in your face and giving you a cousin. And whatever else you can think
of is just sinful as you can think of it. He bore all your sin, child of
God. He bore all their sin. And yet he says, go to my brethren. Go to my brethren. The church
of God will be such a loving, merciful place that the thought
of not being here would make us weep and just put our face
in the dust and ask God to have mercy. It's not that, oh, we're
going to put them out. Nope. You ought to be with such
love and such mercy and forgiveness that the thought of being put
out would break your heart. Go to my brethren. Go to my brethren. He says that to you today, believer,
when you sin. He sends a word for you, the
gospel, and says, go to my brethren. That's God of glory speaking.
But he's speaking, brethren, of unchanging grace and love
to his people. Whom he did foreknow, he also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. over whom he did predestinate,
and whom he called, and whom he justified, and whom he justified,
and whom he also glorified. In other words, he did it all. We did the sinning. He said,
go tell my brethren. I've done all this for them. What shall we then say to these
things, if God be for us, who can be against us? Can't anybody
lay a charge to you, just God justifies you. What about Peter's
denial of him? Peter denied him three times
and cussed and said, I don't know the man. In another place he said, and
tell Peter. Go tell my brethren and tell
Peter. I'm going to come see him, my
brother. Listen now, both he that sanctifieth,
that's him, and they who are sanctified, that's you he sanctified,
are all of one. For which cause he's not ashamed
to call you his brother. Am I going to be ashamed to call
you my brother? Are you going to be ashamed to call me your
brother? Not if we know he's not ashamed to call us his brother. Why can he say that? Because
he put away all the sin of his people. Because he perfected
forever them that are sanctified by his one offering. There's
no other way he could not be ashamed to call you his brethren,
unless you're perfect. He abides in those born of Him. Both He that sanctifieth and
they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause He is
not ashamed to call you His brother." That's astounding. That's the
best news. That is the best news. Then He declares this inseparable,
unchangeable oneness with this next word. He said in verse 17,
saying to them, I have sinned unto my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God. Now listen, He's God. He's the
Son of God. He's equal with God the Father.
And the Lord Jesus is our God. Whether we believe Him or not,
He's our God. But he's sending this good news
to comfort his sinning, Christ denying, sinful, unbelieving
disciples. And he's sending this word, this
strong word of love to renew them and assure them that they
are inseparably united. He declares the oneness between
Him and His people, and God our Father, because He's our victorious
head. He's our representative God-man
mediator. When He says, I'm going to my
God, He said that in perfection. You and me might say that. We
got so much sin mixed with it. If it was up to us, we'd follow
the way, and God wouldn't have us. And He said, I'm going to
my God. He did it, and made God say,
I'll receive him." But he did it on your behalf. So he's saying
to his people, I'm going to your God and my God. I'm going to
your father and my father. This is as the mediator. This
is as the God-man. This is as the one who served
God perfectly in place of his people. Now due to God's grace,
brethren, by his covenant made with Christ, due to his obedience,
fulfilling the covenant promised for his people due to him, Making you to be born again of
His Spirit. You're united to Him. One with Him. United to Him. One with Him. And what He's showing
us right here, nothing will ever separate you. Nothing. Nothing. Listen to John 17.21
again. Look there at it. It's just right
there. John 17.21. I'm going to go a little longer
today. We watch hour and a half movies.
We can stay a little longer. John 17.21. He prayed to the Father, and he prayed for you too, them
that shall believe only through their word, that they all may
be one. He's not just talking about you,
you know, lovey-dovey, acting like we're one. No, he's talking
about really being one. Look how much so. That they all
may be one as thou, Father, art in me. That's how one. And I
in thee. That they also may be one in
us. And the glory which thou gavest
me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one. And that the world may know,
that's his people everywhere, that thou know that thou hast
sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. I'm telling you, brethren, that's
the best We're going to be learning about this the rest of our days,
but we're going to be learning about this for all eternity because
this is what Christ accomplished by representing his people and
by him being formed in you. a new and bringing you to him,
father's in him, he's in you, and you're one in the father
and the son. When he said, I'm going to my
God and your God, your father and your father, he's declaring
this is oneness. Paul said that about, he's the
firstborn among many brethren, how he justified us and called
us and glorified us and it all was done in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then he turned right around and he said, what shall separate
us from the love of God in Christ? Try your best. I don't know what'll do it, God's
gonna have to give us the spirit to do it, but try your best to
see yourself as the foulest wretch there is. I mean the foulest
wretch there is. You mad at somebody, somebody
really offended, or somebody did something that you just,
it just turns your stomach, try to see yourself as that very
one. Cause that's what you see in
them walking away right there that day. That's, it was that
bad. Sin is sin with God. It was that
bad. And Christ said, you're my brethren,
and you're one with me, and you're one with my Father. That's what
Christ accomplished, brethren. That's what he accomplished.
That's what he accomplished. That ought to, man, that will,
that will humble us, that will break our heart. You know, when
I talk about you being humble and broken-hearted, don't think
you ain't going to get in an argument with your spouse by
this afternoon. You're going to do that. You
shouldn't, but you're going to. And when you do, think of this
message, because that's what will make you go back to one
another and say, I am sorry. I'm a sinner, and I am sorry. Please, please forgive me. And
I'll tell you what it'll also do. It'll make the other one,
both of you, say, You didn't even have to come tell me, I
forgive you. I want you to know I forgive you. I love you. I'm
telling you. That's the only thing that'll
do it. That's the only thing that'll do it. So what I'm saying
is when your brother has sinned, stop holding it up to him. You
ain't no better than him. Ain't no one of us in here a
whit better than the other one. Not a whit better. I'm sick of
that. I am sick of it. Let's stop doing
it. It's sinful. If I didn't have
any confidence in somebody, I'd go somewhere where I could hear
the gospel. That's all there is to it. Your life's too short,
your soul's too important, and time is fixed to be over like
that. I'd get where I can hear the gospel. But if you come to
this place, put away everything else, and let's hear God, and
let's worship God, Because that's how one we are in Christ. When
Paul and Barnabas fell out and parted, they were still that
one in Christ, even though their flesh fell out with one another.
And you know what? Usually, well, not all the time,
but sometimes by the end of life, God brings folks back together. But this is certain. When you
drop this vile flesh, they was one. They were that one. And
then they saw they had never been separated in Christ. I believe
that with all my heart. That's all my hope and all my
salvation right there. That's it. And I pray God will
bless that to us. When you take this bread and
you drink this wine, it's going to become one with your body. It's going to go in you and become
one with your body. And more real than that, when
Christ entered you, you became one with Him. You're one with
Him. That is not going in. You're
one with Him. You're one with Him. Remember
that. Remember Him. Remember Him. All right. Ben, you and Brother
Adam, we all come pass these out.