Let's turn to Romans 14. We looked at this, but I want
to go back now and dial it in a little closer and focus on
one subject here. Romans 14 verse 9 says, for to
this end, Christ both died and rose and revived. He ascended
that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. Now our
translation is good. It's what I consider the best
translation but there's a word here that's lost in our translation
and it's a play on the word living and dead. And I want to show
you this. Let's begin back up in verse
4 so we can get the context. Who art thou that judgest another
man's servant? To his own master, to his own
Lord, he standeth or falleth. Yea, he should be holding up,
for God is able to make him stand. Look down at verse 7. For none
of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For
whether we live, we live unto the Lord. Whether we die, we
die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or
die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ both
died and lived again. That's the original. See why
it's that way? He's talking about death and
living, died and living, and the original said Christ died
and lives again. died and he arose ascended to
the Father that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.
So Paul was prone to do that where he would do a play on words
and in the Greek I think if we knew Greek we would see it better
but we kind of lose it in the English. Now Christ Jesus this
was the end purpose for which he died and rose again and ascended
to the Father. The end purpose was that He might
be Lord. Sovereign, all-powerful Lord
of the dead and the living. He is the Lord. God declared
in the 2nd Psalm, I've set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. His Lordship, Christ's Lordship,
His sovereign power, is how we're made to rest in Him as our Savior. Listen to this. Acts 5.31, Him
hath God exalted with His right hand to be a prince, Lord, and
a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of
sin. Today men have that reversed.
Today, men will beg, why don't you accept Jesus as your personal
Savior? And then, when men claim to have
done so, they say, I made Him the Lord of my life. The truth
is, it will only be by Him exercising Lordship in the heart of a dead
sinner that we're going to actually cast our care on Him to be our
Savior. If I can cast my care on Him
as my Savior, it's because I've experienced something of the
power of his lordship. That's the only way we can do
that in truth. Now when he speaks of a believer dying here, let
me say this before we get into our text. He speaks of a believer
dying, he's speaking of physical death. He's talking about physical
death. Some corrupt this passage and
some passage over in Thessalonians and make death to mean God's
elect are just spiritually asleep. And they teach that God elected
you and Christ redeemed you. It doesn't matter if you ever
hear the gospel preached or if you ever believe, you'll be saved.
Well, that's not true and that's not what this scripture is declaring.
Indeed, Christ is Lord over all men. He's dead over spiritually
dead sinners. There's no doubt about that.
A spiritually dead sinner can't wiggle his toe without the sovereign
rule of Christ. That's right. But we're talking
here in the context of believers who've been born again of the
Spirit, who live spiritually and then die physically. That's
what he's talking about. Whether the believer lives or
dies, we are the Lord's. Verse 9, For to this end Christ
both died and now lives, that he might be Lord both of the
dead and living. So our subject's the Lordship
of Christ. The Lordship of Christ. Now first
of all, Christ Jesus, the God-man, is Lord over all because that
was the end for which He died and rose again. He's Lord over
all because that was God's eternal purpose, that was the joy set
before Him for which He died and rose again. As God, He has
always been Lord. As God, He's always been sovereign.
But we're talking about the God-man mediator now. Now He reigns supreme
as the God-man. As the God-man. When Christ died,
He died for a specific people. He died for God's elect. And
only for God's elect. We know that because of what
Christ accomplished for His people. Christ's death is the death of
sin for His people. When Christ died, His people
died in Him and our sin died in Him. Christ's death is the
death of the law's curse for His people. The law, once it's
executed judgment upon a man and killed that man, the law
can't say anything else to him. And we died in Christ. Christ's
death is the death of God's wrath for His people. God accepts His
people and He is, He'll never pour out wrath on His people
because Christ bore that in our place. Christ's death is the
death of the devil ruling His people. He came to set us free
from the devil's dominion who always kept us in bondage and
that's what Christ has done and is doing. Christ's death is the
death of hell for His people. There won't be one person for
whom Christ died in hell. Not one. And Christ's death is
the death of death for His people. He said, though we die physically,
we won't die. We're going to go be with Christ
immediately, and then when He returns, He's going to raise
our bodies incorruptible. glorious to be with Him. In other
words, Christ saved each and everyone for whom He died. That's
what we're saying. Christ saved each and everyone
for whom He died. But after His death, Christ lived. After His death, He arose from
the grave and He revived. He ascended to the Father, sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God. That He might
be Lord, both of the dead and the living. He is Lord of both
the dead and the living. God has highly exalted His Son,
because His Son highly exalted the Father. Philippians 2 talks
about He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
And the next verse says, wherefore God also has highly exalted Him. That means by His obedience unto
the death of the cross, Christ highly exalted His Father, wherefore
God also hath highly exalted Him. He's given Him a name above
every name. And at the name of Jesus, every
tongue is going to confess, every knee is going to bow, and every
tongue is going to confess that He's Lord. That He's Lord. to the praise and glory of God.
Christ's resurrection and His ascension declares to you and
me that He accomplished everything the Father sent Him to accomplish.
That's what His resurrection declares. He accomplished everything
the Father sent Him to accomplish. When He died, we died. And when He arose, we arose with
Him. And when he entered into glory,
accepted of God, we entered into glory, accepted of God. Each
elect chosen child of God who Christ died for arose and sat
down with Christ. Ephesians 2 says, says we arose
with Him and we sat down together with Him. And because Christ
is now Lord, each of His redeemed shall have the gospel brought
to them and they shall be born again. every single one of them,
not only that, by His Lordship, they'll be made obedient to follow
Him, they'll be kept, and they'll be glorified. All of this is
exalting His Lordship. A lot of times when people talk
about Lordship, and you'll hear them talk about Lordship salvation,
and basically they use Christ's Lordship as a reason to preach
law, and to scare the fire out of people. Christ is Lord, and because He's
Lord, He's working everything in this world to bring His Word
to His people, to send forth His Spirit to His people, to
give us life and faith, and to teach us and make us obedient
to follow Him, to walk by faith, to be constrained by His love,
to love one another, and He makes us to be preserved. We're kept
by the power of God unto salvation, through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed. He keeps us by His power, and
He'll bring us home by that power. This is who Christ is, this is
what He accomplished after He was resurrected. That's important. After he was resurrected in the
time period before, between his resurrection and his ascension,
our Lord told his disciples, all power, all power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth. He has all power. What's he going
to do with that power? In John 17, in our Lord's high
priestly prayer, He said, As thou, Father, hast given me power
over all flesh, that I should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given me. That's what He's doing. With
all this power, He's giving eternal life to as many as the Father
gave to Him. Christ purchased His people,
brethren. By paying the price of His precious
blood, He bought us. He purchased us and we're His
possession. We're His possession. We're like
Gomer of old. Turn over to Hosea 3. We're like
Gomer of old. We were married, a spouse to
Christ in eternity. As soon as we were born, like
Gomer, she was married to Hosea. Picture Christ naming Savior
Joshua. She's married to him and she
went and played the harlot. She went back to her lovers.
That's what we did since we were born. We went and played the
harlot in our sin and our rebellion. And we were on the slave block.
We came down to the slave block naked and nobody wanted to buy
us because we weren't good for anything. But Christ our husband
wanted us. He wanted His people and He came
and He laid down His life and He paid the price. Look here
in Hosea 3 and verse 1. Then said the Lord unto me, Go
yet, love a woman, beloved of a friend, yet an adulteress,
according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel. This is all a picture of God's
love to His elect Jew and Gentile. to his elect children of Israel
who looked to other gods and loved flagons of wine. So I bought
her to me for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley
and a half homer of barley. Christ bought us to himself by
his precious blood. He paid his precious blood and
bought his people to himself. And so he called and revealed
himself to us. Look here. And I said to her,
He bought her, you think he wouldn't call her to himself? He bought
us, you don't think he'll call us to himself? He said, I said
to her, thou shalt abide for me many days. Thou shalt not
play the harlot, thou shalt not be for another man, so will I
also be for thee. Now listen to this, here's what
it's teaching us. For the children of Israel, the elect amongst
the children of Israel, and also his elect Gentiles. We all did
this while dead in our sin. They shall abide many days without
a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and
without an image, and without an ephod, and without a teraphim.
But afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the
Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the Lord
and His goodness in the latter days. When those latter days
begin, Hebrews 1.1 tells us those days began in these last days
when God began speaking to us by His Son. That's when they
began. Our Lord Jesus Christ came forth
and by the price of His blood He redeemed all His elect Jew
and Gentile. And while He walked this earth,
He began calling out the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
These are the latter days. They've been going on since Christ
came the first time. He began calling out the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. And then through Paul, he began
calling out his elect Gentiles. And he's still doing so. He's
still calling his people out. And now, by grace, through faith
in Christ, we have David, our King. We have David, our King. Christ Jesus, our Lord, our King. You know what Peter said when
he stood up on the day of Pentecost? Look over at Acts chapter 2.
Peter stood up there preaching, and they accused him of being
drunk, because they could speak every man a language that he
hadn't learned. And Acts 2 and verse 34, Peter
said, he said, he said, He shed forth this which you now hear
and see, see and hear. And he said, For David's not
ascended into the heavens, but he saith himself the Lord said
unto my Lord Jesus Christ sit thou on my right hand until I
make thy foes thy footstool therefore let all the house of Israel know
assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom you have
crucified both Lord there's the word master Lord and Christ and
anointed He is the anointed King. That's who He is. And He's at
God's right hand. And so Ephesians 1 tells us that
all His elect are His purchased possession. We belong to Him. We belong to Him. What? Know ye not in your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which you have of God
and you're not your own? You're not your own. If you are
a child of God, you are not your own. For you are bought with
a price. Therefore, glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are God's. Well, how am I going
to be brought to do that? How am I going to be brought
to glorify God in my body and my spirit, which are God's? Go
back to our text, Romans chapter 14. Every born-again child of God
belongs to our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Every one of them
does. Every born-again child of God
belongs to the Lord our Master. Look at verse 4. Who art thou
that judgest another man's servant? to his own master, to his own
Lord, he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holding up,
for God is able to make him stand. Christ is the Lord of my brother. I'm not. Christ is Lord over
my brother. I'm not. I'm not. If my brother's weak, he's abstaining
from certain meats, he's observing certain days, if I take a holier-than-thou
attitude toward him, and these things that are just a matter
of indifference, if I take a holier-than-thou attitude, and I begin to despise
him, look down on him, and judge that, well, he's probably not
even a believer. If I begin to do this, then I'm
sinning. because I'm judging another man's
servant. Jesus Christ is his master. Jesus Christ is his Lord. Now
brethren, our Lord is so sovereign. He's so all powerful. Ephesians
1 tells us God gave him all power in heaven and in earth and in
all deep places. He has all power in this world
and the world to come. Scripture tells us God made Him
the head over all things to the church, which is His body, is
the fullness of Him, and He's the one that fills all in all
His people. Christ did. That's how sovereign
He is. Now if He wanted to, if it was His purpose, He could
turn His people and deliver His people from all sin. He could,
He's that sovereign. But He doesn't. Why doesn't He? Why does He allow His people
to fall into sin? That He might chasten us, and
correct us, and make us to behold that He's our sovereign Lord,
that's bringing us to behold He's the one we need to save
us, not we ourselves. See, we need Him to be Lord so
He can operate in our life to turn us and correct us and bring
us to behold He's also our Savior. We can't be saved any other way
than by Him. He does it to teach you too,
as well as that brother who fell in sin. He's teaching you and
me patience. When we're not the one overtaken
in a fault, He's teaching us patience. And He's teaching us
to bear the burden of our brethren. He's teaching us not to think
too highly of ourselves. Don't judge Him. Don't look down
your nose at Him. He's teaching us to wait on the
Lord. To remember He's our Master. He's teaching everybody involved
when one brother is overtaken in a fault. And now, This is
so too. If my brother falls into sin,
which the Scripture clearly says is wrong, then it's wrong. And I actually have a responsibility
to show him in Scripture that it's wrong and admonish him. If it's something Scripture forbids,
then it's wrong. That's just right's right and
wrong's wrong according to God's Word. And if he's doing something
that's wrong, You have a right to tell him. And to exhort him. But I must remember this. I'm
still not his master. I'm still not his master. I don't
dare start trying to force him into an outward obedience. Because
that wouldn't be of faith. And we know that that would be
sin. He's the master. Christ is the master who makes
him stand against sin. Or permits him to fall into sin.
But through it all, Christ is able to make him stand. Christ
is able to make him stand. He's able to make him stand trusting
Christ. He's able to make him stand before
God, holy and complete in Christ. He's able to make him stand.
And through everything, he will. So if I try to usurp the authority
of my brother's master, then I'm sinning against Christ and
against my brother. Now lastly, It's the sovereign Lord, Christ
Jesus, our sovereign Lord, who alone persuades His people in
the heart. He's the only one that can do
it. The only one that can do it. Verse 5. One man, he's talking
about a brother in Christ, one man esteemeth one day above another,
another's esteemeth every day alike. Let every man, every brother
be fully persuaded in his own mind. Who's going to persuade
him? Look down at verse 14. Paul said, I know and am persuaded
by the Lord Jesus, by that sovereign Jesus, by my sovereign Savior,
by the Lord Jesus. That's how I know and that's
how I'm persuaded. I can't make you know anything.
I can't persuade you of anything. I can sit here and preach to
you this word and pray to Christ and it's going to take Christ
our sovereign Lord to send forth the Holy Spirit and make you
know and make you be persuaded. Remember that if a brother or
sister does something that's wrong and you show them in Scripture
where it's wrong, don't turn around then and take them to
law and start whipping them and trying to force them to do what
you've shown them in the Scripture. It takes Christ to do that. It
takes Christ to do that. That's what Paul means over there
in Galatians when he says, lest I be tempted. Don't think too
much of yourself or consider yourself lest you be tempted.
You'd be tempted to take that scepter in your own hand and
try to make him obey and only Christ can do that. The measure
of faith I have and the measure of faith my brother has is from
the Lord. So I can't judge my brother in
things that are not revealed in scripture. The all-powerful
Lord Jesus governs the hearts of His people by His faithfulness. Look at Galatians chapter 2. It's not just the faith of Christ
by which we're justified. It's the faith of Christ by which
His people live in this world. Galatians 2.19 I through the
law am dead to the law that I might live unto God. Our scriptures
talk about living unto the Lord. I'm dead to the law. I couldn't
live unto the Lord prior to Christ's coming and being crucified. He
made me crucified so that now I can live unto God. Look, I'm
crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. It doesn't
say I live it by faith in the Son of God. I do. But it says
I live it by the faithfulness of the Son of God. He lives in
me. He's turning my heart. He's directing
me. He's guiding me. And this is
that same Lord who loved me and gave Himself for me. You see,
grace justified me at the cross, and grace sanctifies me in my
heart. And that's why he says there,
I don't frustrate the grace of God. Because if righteousness
comes by the law, if justification or sanctification, either one,
comes by the law, then I'm saying Christ died in me. He does it
all. He does it all. Now that being
the case, brethren, Our Lord, our Master, makes each of His
servants live unto Him. When He works in the heart, He
may not give me the measure of faith He gives you. I may still
think I need to observe a certain day. He may have given you faith
to see you're completely delivered from that law. That's not what's
relevant. It's not relevant how much faith
He gave you or how much faith He gave me. What's relevant is
He makes each of His people live unto Him. In whatever they're
doing, they're doing it to Him. They're living unto Him. Look
at this, verse 6. He that regardeth the day, regardeth
it unto the Lord. And he that regardeth not the
day to the Lord, he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth
to the Lord, for he gives God things. And he that eateth not
to the Lord, he eateth not, and he gives God things. Do you see
what that passage says? It's not the work that matters.
It's not the doing or not doing that matters. What matters is
Christ has given us a heart to do whatever it is we do unto
Him. God looks on the heart. God looks
on the heart. I can't see the heart. All I
can see is the outward. And our outward is not going
to be the same. So that means I'll not look at the outward. That's what Paul meant when he
said judge righteous judgment. Judge righteous judgment. What
did he say? Paul said if I would judge myself, then I wouldn't
be condemned. I got enough business to be judging
myself and trying to take care of my own sin and my own inability
without judging you for years. He said if we judge ourselves,
we wouldn't be condemned. But when we are judged, we're
chastened of the Lord that we should not be destroyed with
this world. When He chastens, when God chastens, when our Lord
Jesus chastens, He does it to turn us, to keep us separated.
What did the Hebrew writer say? To keep us partaking of His holiness
so that we don't perish with this world. By our Lord, the weak brother
and the strong brother are persuaded to do what we do unto the Lord. Unto the Lord. He said in Corinthians,
whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of
God. Now our sovereign Lord teaches
us not to live unto ourselves. When He's worked this and He's
given you this heart to live unto Him, then He instructs you
in that heart and teaches you not to live unto yourself. Look here in verse 7. For none
of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. Now,
that's an emphatic statement. Paul's including himself, and
he's including every other believer. He's saying there's not any believer
that lives to ourself, and no believer died to ourself. Now,
there's some that are weak in this. There's others that are
stronger in it. Yet each believer in whom our
Lord reigns lives unto our Lord Jesus Christ. Each one does.
You mean even that brother that I don't think is measuring up?
Oh yeah, he's doing it too. And you're thinking he don't
measure up. Don't matter. God's judging him. His master's
judging him. His master's holding him up.
His master's teaching him. And he's living to his master.
That's all that matters. That's all that matters. We're
not our own masters so as to please ourselves. He doesn't
raise you up. Now this is where the antinomian
goes wrong. He hears that we're not under
the law, we're under grace, and he thinks, oh, he says, well
God saved me so that I can just sin. If God's righteousness is
commended by my sinning, God's grace is commended by my sinning,
let's just sin that grace may abound. What did Paul say to
that in Romans 6? God forbid. God forbid. Shall I that am dead to sin live
any longer therein? For one thing, sin doesn't exalt
God's righteousness and sin doesn't exalt God's grace. God's grace exalts His grace. His righteousness exalts His
righteousness. It magnifies it. Not my sin. But he's telling us here to inquire
of our master in everything we do. Lord, what would thou have
me to do? That's the heart he gives his
child. We don't want to... It scares me. Does it scare you
to try to do something just without knowing if this is the Lord's
will? I want to know, is this my Lord's will to do this? Lord,
what will you have me to do? I pray this on a continual basis. Every single week I think these
words come out of my mouth. Lord, what will you have me to
preach? I don't want to come up here
by myself. I don't want to come up here and preach my word to
you. I want to preach what the Lord would have me to preach. The business of our lives is
not to please ourselves. That's not what our life's about.
The business of our life is to live unto the Lord. To live unto
the Lord, furthering the gospel of Christ accomplished redemption. That's why we're here. First
time I came here, I'm almost certain of this, somebody might
correct me, but I'm almost certain it was December 2005. Is that
right? It was December 2005. And what
I saw here, I saw 30, right around 30 children here. That was just
Art and Cheryl's family. And I thought what the Lord might
do in that place. But on that same trip, that very
first trip, I thought there's just a very few families that
are going to stay there. Very few. But my grandfather
taught me something. He said, if God ever called me
to be a pastor, he said, I should not live for myself. He said, give yourself to minister
to those few families. He said, he didn't know about
this work, but he was just giving me an illustration. He said,
if there's just a few families, he said, you minister to them,
giving yourself to minister to them, all your life with the
mindset that God just might not add another one to it. And he
said, but you minister to those he's given you. I've heard people
say things like, we don't have a midweek service because we
only have four or five that show up. That's four or five eternal
souls. That's four or five eternal souls. So he said, you minister to those
few families the rest of your life, even if God never adds
one more to you. He said, give yourself entirely
to study and to prayer. Remember when they came to Peter,
there was at least six or seven thousand in the church at the
time, and the widows were being neglected, and they came and
they said, we need somebody to take care of this, Peter. And
the Lord instructed Peter to choose out seven deacons and
he said, and tell them to take care of this. And he said, so
you can give yourself to study and to prayer. That tells you
how difficult it is because God wouldn't let his minister be
turned from studying the word and praying for God to give him
a message to just simply passing out some things to the widows.
That's what my grandfather was getting at. Give yourself to
the study and to the word. And he said this, use every resource
God puts in your hand to further the gospel. Use everything that
he opens to you to further the gospel of Christ. Our master
doesn't leave us here. This is still my grandfather
telling me. Our master doesn't leave us here
to earn a living to build up our estates. He leaves us here
to build up His kingdom. He separated us and sanctified
us to be His vessels for His holy use. And that use is to
preach this gospel through which He's going to raise up His house. That's whose house we're to be
giving ourselves to provide for. Now don't neglect our own house.
But, that's whose house we're to be giving ourselves for. So,
and this is what God, I'm just using a pastor as an example,
but God's saints do the same thing. You live, you that are
here, we wouldn't be where we are and have this place if you
didn't live unto the Lord. And not only that, we die unto
the Lord. Go over to Philippians 1, we die unto the Lord. Whether
we live, we live unto the Lord. Whether we die, we die unto the
Lord. Whether we live, therefore die,
we are the Lord. Look at Philippians 1. Pause
the example. He says, verse 19, I know that
this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply
of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. He was in prison. He says, according
to my earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing I shall
be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also,
Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life
or by death. For to me to live is Christ,
and to die is gain. That's the last scripture my
grandfather gave me on the day he died. For to me to live is
Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this
is the fruit of my labor. This is what I'm going to be
doing, yet what I shall choose, I don't know. For I'm in a strait
betwixt two, having the desire to depart and to be with Christ,
which is far better. This is what he means dying unto
Christ. We don't want to just die and put off this body. We
don't want to just die just to escape hell and go to heaven.
We want to die and go be with our Lord. We won't die unto Him. It's like we live unto Him. Look
at this. He says, nevertheless, verse
24, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having
this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with
you all for your furtherance and joy of faith. That's the
reason. that your rejoicing may be more
abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you. So what
did he exhort these Philippians? If that's the heart Christ the
Lord gave him, what did he exhort the Philippian brethren to do.
Verse 27, only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel
of Christ that whether I come and see you or else be absent
I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit
with one mind striving together to build up your own houses.
you know, striving together for the faith of the gospel. That's what he'd have us to do.
Paul knew he was going to suffer at the hands of wicked men and
he said, none of these things move me. Neither do I count my
life dear unto myself. I'm not living for my own pleasure.
He says, so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry
which my Lord Jesus gave to me." What is it, Paul? To testify
the gospel of the grace of God. Paul said, that's why I'm alive.
That's why I'm alive. That's what I aim to do. That's
why he told Timothy, no man that warreth, no man that wars in
this warfare entangleth himself with the affairs of life, that
he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. This country would have sank
a long time ago if we sent our soldiers to war and made them
depend on making a living for themselves while they were in
the middle of war. If they had to go part-time and go to work
and part-time come back and fight, we'd have been overtaken a long
time ago in this country. But they go to fight, not entangling
themselves in life, they go there so they might be a good soldier
and fight the fight. That's what he's telling us.
This is what the Lord teaches us in our heart. Go back now
to Romans 15 and we'll end. To live and die for the name
of our Lord is the end purpose for which our Master saved us.
Now listen to this now. If I try to usurp Christ's authority
and force my brother to do this or that, or if I decide I'm just
not going to live under Him, or I'm not going to die under
Him, you realize I'm interfering with God's eternal purpose? Look, for to this end, verse
9, that means to this end, this purposed end, Christ both died
and lives again that he might be Lord of the dead and living. He died and rose again that he
might be Lord of the dead and living. What did Paul say in
2 Corinthians 5? Y'all ever notice when you get
to look at these scriptures, Paul just preaches the same message
over and over. In 2 Corinthians 5 he said he died for all. Talking
about all His people. He died for all that they which
live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him
which died for them and rose again. Are you living for Him? Is your life living for Him? If you have to work, that's understandable. But why are you working? Some people live just for this
world. Just for this world. Just for
stuff. Just for pleasure. Just for whatever
they can get in this world. So does a cow. So does a hog. I want to live for him, don't
you? I want to take that job he gave me and that salary he
gave me and use it for his purpose. not for my own. I pray our Master
will give us, I pray He'll give some believer, some unbeliever
faith to behold that He is the Lord and Savior and bring them
to believe on Him. If He gets faith, it's going
to be because our Lord Jesus gave it. And I pray that He give
grace to us to bear the infirmities of our weak brethren to strengthen
them with the truth of the gospel and to wait on the Master to
work in their heart. And also, I pray that our Lord
give us grace to live for Him and to die for Him, doing everything
to Him. When you think you live under
Him well enough, then you can start worrying about your brother.
Until then, as the old country writer said, mind your own business,
you won't be minding mine. We got enough to do minding our
own, hoeing our own potato patch, don't we? Christ will take care
of the rest. He'll take care of us. I pray
he bless that.