think you'll find. I certainly
found that Brother Gary's message laid a very good foundation for
what the Lord has laid on my heart for this morning from Luke
chapter 11. Luke chapter 11. And we're gonna read our text
And to begin, we'll read the text with comment. That'll be
the first part, the first portion of our message. And then we'll
go back and just see a few more things that are relevant to what
we've just read. In our text, it begins in verse
33. The whole text is 33 through 36. Our Lord says, No man, when he
hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither
under a bushel, but on a candlestick. He lights a candle, and he puts
it up on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the
light. This is actually not the first
time that the Lord has used this phrasing. He's used these words
before. The first time was in Matthew
5, verse 15, after the Beatitudes. He said this. Then he used it
earlier in the Gospel of Luke 8, verse 16, following the parable
of the sower. And its use has something to
do with God's will being revealed in His bearing of fruit in you,
His children. It's God's glory to reveal Himself
to you. and to reveal that you're his
through his fruit, through his spirit, which bears fruit of
righteousness in his people. It's God manifesting his glory
in fruit bearing. Fruit bearing. And I'm reminded,
and our Lord's saying this here, I'm reminded of something else
he said in John 12, 24, that except a corn of wheat, fall into the ground and die,
it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. And that is first and foremost
speaking of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by his death to
reconcile us. And by his grace, we are crucified
with him. We were crucified with our Lord. And in the day of his visitation,
the day of his grace, he visits us, and we die to self. And we
are born again by his grace and power. And he bears forth fruit
in us, bearing the fruit of faith, turning our hearts to the Lord. making us to hear his voice and
to obey him, to believe him. And so this phrasing of the lighted
candle speaks of God's work in you. Trust Him to do it. Believe Him who speaks the truth. Believe Him who promises to save
you, to do all for you, all that you need to stand before God,
accepted of Him. Trust Him to do it. How so? Walking by faith in Christ. He gives you this word to make
you mindful, to put you in memory of him who speaks these words
of promise to you. Be mindful, be prayerful of his
promises to you in Christ. Hear his word. He gives his word. Come and hear his word. Receive his word and seek him
to give you that single eye. And that's what I mean. When
Brother Gary was speaking this morning, I was thinking of this
passage, that single eye which is set upon the Lord Jesus Christ,
that beholds Him alone. In this context here, our Lord
is addressing the ministry and the purpose of His being there
that the Father gave to Him. the purpose of the father to
send his son into the world and what he should accomplish for
his sinful, ruined, lost people, to reconcile us to holy God. And when he came, after that
30 years of obscurity, when he began that ministry, which the
father called him to do, it was an open ministry. It wasn't hidden. It was made plain. It was transparent. We saw him. We knew who he was. His fame went out throughout
all the land. And he's telling them, take heed. Take heed to what you hear and
what you see. Take heed to it. Lay it to heart. Don't be neglectful of what you
hear. This is God's word to you. This
is God fulfilling his promise to you in sending his son, the
promised seed, all the way back in the garden immediately after
the fall of man. This is what God promised to
do to reconcile, to restore all things which we lost by Christ,
by his promised seed. And so our Lord's word and his
work, it bears fruit in his people. His people hear what I just said.
His people desire to take heed. We want to hear him. We want
to desire him. We know what fools we are by
nature. We know what sinners we are by
nature. We know how we are like sheep who go astray. go astray. I saw I have chicks, and I have
a fence around their setting. And I go out there the other
day to check on them. And I get out there, and I hear
this rustling in the leaves. And there's no leaves in the
pen where the chickens are. So I know something's not right.
Well, this chick had somehow gotten through the fence and
was on the outside looking in and trying to figure out, how
do I get back in there? he had gone astray. He was he was also
I had to get him quick before the cats got him because they
would love to find him first. So I got him inside and had to
put up extra fencing, extra high fencing so they couldn't fly
through it. But that's us. We go astray and
we're lost before we know it. But by the grace of God, we are
turned again to him. And so this fruit, we want to
bear fruit. He makes us so we want to be
partakers of his grace. By his grace, we want to. It's
only by him turning our hearts, showing us what we are by nature,
shining his beautiful, glorious, bright shining light that reproves
us in the flesh, right, reproves us. But we desire him. I mean, you think of Martha.
She was reproved by the Lord. And yet we never hear of her
leaving the Lord. She remained faithful, right? The Lord reproved
her, but he kept her. He gave her grace and the spirit
to hear that word and to receive that word and to see, I'm missing
the one thing needful, the one thing needful. So this is about
bearing fruit in Christ. Our Lord must come. He's the
promised seed. He's given to us of the Father. And so this is the God-man mediator. And his people see him. They
see him and desire him. Nicodemus, a Pharisee, even saw
Christ by the grace of God. He saw Christ and came to him
by night, but the Lord was drawn him and he said the same came
to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou
art a teacher come from God. For no man can do these miracles
that thou doest, except God be with him." What miracles had
our Lord done up to that time? Because this is early in His
ministry. This is early in John chapter
3. very early in the public ministry of Christ. Well, to that point,
he did that first miracle of turning the water into wine in
Cana of Galilee at that marriage feast. He turned the water into
wine, and we're told that he manifested forth his glory in
chapter 211, and his disciples believed on him. They saw his
works, and they believed on him. And then after that, he goes
down to Jerusalem, where the spirit of God comes upon him. And he forms a cord and drives
out the money changers, drives out the sheep and the oxen that
were in the temple, and says, get out. Get out. My father's
house is a house of prayer, not this religious business that
goes on in the temple there. And they didn't understand. They
asked for a sign. What sign shows thou that thou
doest these things? And he told them, destroy this
temple, and in three days, I'll raise it up. I'll raise it up.
They didn't understand. But we're told that many believed
in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. And yet,
actually, it says he didn't commit himself to those people, because
he knew what was in the heart of man. We need more than just
a dead letter outward, religion. We need that circumcision of
the heart. We need that salvation where
only the spirit of God reaches and touches us and delivers us
from the bondage of this nature. Because we're good maskers, right? We can put on a good face, put
on a good show. We're fakers, we're liars, deceivers,
connivers. But by the grace of God, he delivers
us from that death. and were made thankful for. Just
like I know Martha. I'm sure she was embarrassed.
She was reproved. But aren't you thankful when
the Lord reproves you and gives you that heart of grace to say,
Lord, you know. You know. I can't lie. I can't
fool you. You know. Thank you. Thank you.
And he does it. He does it. Oftentimes, quietly,
thankfully, for us. Thankfully, it's very quiet.
And only we know, and he knows, but it's good. It's good. And then there's John the Baptist
and our Lord's baptism. And so Nicodemus says, we know,
seeing these things that we see, we know thou art a teacher come
from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except
God be with him. Take he therefore, what he's
saying, take he, this is the Christ, the promised seed, God,
manifest in the flesh, speaking to us, revealing himself to us,
us, us sinners here in Missouri, us, that he should be so kind
and gracious to us. What a gracious God. So our Lord
did these wonderful and mighty miracles because He is the light
of the world. He is the light of the world.
He's that same light which God brought forth the uncreated light
to shine upon this dark world when He said, let there be light. And there was light. And this
dark world, Just imagine when that light comes on and you're
in a dark room and suddenly there's a bright shining light and your
eyes are all dim. That world was stoked and moved
and the heat of that, you can just imagine how things began
to just move. be affected by the light, the
light of God. And so that's what his word does.
That's what he does when he draws near to us. We need the visitation
of our Lord to visit us, because we can be just as dark just as
cold, just as lifeless as this world when God shone his light
upon it. And we need his grace to bust
through this hardness and dullness of mind and heart that we would
hear him and receive him and be blessed and rejoiced by his
grace and power. And so these works are done in
the open, and they lay bare what we are. He exposes us. He lays us our hearts open. There's not one of us here this
morning that heard Brother Gary's message that doesn't know, Lord,
save me. Help me. Help me to hear. Lord, bless me. Visit me this
morning. And so we always need his grace.
We always are relying upon him. Because the natural man, when
they're reproved, they despise him for it. They hate him for
it. But that's how the Lord distinguishes
them that are his. Because though we be reproved
by his word, yet we're always thankful that he's not fooled
by us and that he's drawn us near to him. And so the light
of Christ and by his words and miracles shines that light and
reveals the darkness and what we need of him. I know I've shared
this with you before, but when we lived in PA, there were some
workmen working on one of those boxes, those cable boxes across
the street from our house, and they had done something, and
a charge went under the street, through that line, and struck
our house first, and it sent up a little fire up the side
of the house, right around the gas meter and stuff, I guess
the meter coming in. and a woman was going by with
her dog and she comes banging on the door and she says there's
a fire there's a fire get out everyone get out and she called
9-1-1 and the fire department comes and some police come and
they set up these bright lights on the house And it was light
when this all began, but now it was dark. And the garage had
to be open because they had to get into the other side of the
wall to make sure there was no fire hiding out in the wall,
unseen, waiting for them to leave and then break out and destroy
the house. So anyway, these lights are shining. My garage door goes up there,
and I don't know if you've ever seen my garage today, but it
looked a lot like it looked back then. It's my overflow. It's where I store things is
in my garage. I don't leave my garage door
open because It's a catch-all. It's got all kinds of things
in there. And it's just all exposed. And all the neighborhood has
come out to see this action. There's these teenage boys, five
or six of them, gathered together, laughing, hoping to see an explosion
and a fireball go up in the sky. I mean, they were just looking
for it, hoping for it. And there's me standing. with these bright lights and
the garage all open, in my shame. Just everything that was hidden
in the darkness behind that door is now lifted and exposed. And that's what the word of the
Lord does. It exposes the darkness that's
hiding out in the crevices of this heart. And it reveals by
his light. It's good. My garage is still
just as bad, so I didn't learn nothing. I just hope I don't
have to do that again, but it's a good visual though. But understand
that our Lord's coming revealed Himself to be sent of the Father. He is the Christ. He is the Lord. He's the last Adam to whom the
Father gave into His hand our very life, our very sustenance,
our very joy, our blessings, our all. It's in His hand, His
hand, and He's come. He's come to fulfill that word
of promise unto us, and He did it. He did it. When our Lord
was speaking to the Jews in John 10, verse 36 through 38, He said,
Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into
the world, thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of
God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. If
I'm not doing His works, don't believe me. But if I do, though
ye believe not me, believe the works that ye may know, and believe
that the Father is in me, and I in him." This is what we're
seeing here. Christ is the candle lit of the
Father. He is the light of the world
whom the Father has given unto us. Hear him. Believe him. He is the Messiah. He is the
Savior. He is Lord of all. He's our God
and Savior. Believe Him. Now, after describing
Himself the candle lit, that Christ shines, He turns this
light toward us, toward us. And He says, in verse 34, Luke
11, 34, the light of the body is the eye. And just think of
a window in your home. What does that window do? When
you open it up and you take the blinds off and lift up any shades
blocking it, it lets in light into your house, right? It brings
in the light. And that's what he's saying.
Your eye is a window. Your eye is the light of the
body. That's where the light enters
in. And so here stands very God, robed in the flesh, God manifest
in the flesh, this is Jesus, the Christ, the Lord, the Son
of God, the Savior, standing right here before us. He's a candle lit and his testimony
shines brightly, shines a light brightly upon us and our need
of him and our eyes are taking this in. Even our ears, they're
taking us in, we're seeing Christ. Therefore, he says, when thine
eye is single, single. See, do you remember what Brother
Gary was saying this morning? When your eye is single, when
it's focused on him, when it's simple, unclouded, uncomplicated,
not burdened by all kinds of other things, not confused when
it's whole and good, set on Christ. That's what he's saying there.
When thine eye is single, the simplicity of Christ, thy whole
body is full of light. When your eye is single, set
on Christ, your whole body is full of light. Christ is leading his heroes
here to spiritual things, to a spiritual understanding, but
he uses this very familiar analogy. If you have a room with a window,
or even if you have a lamp in that room, a light, what happens
when the light is on in that room, in a dark room? You don't
see anything. When that light is turned on,
you see everything that's in that room. You can see where
it is on the floor. You can see what's sticking out.
You can see where your shoes are. You can see where you have
your backpack. You can see where this piece of furniture is. And
what do you do? You can move around it. Oh, almost
stumbled over that. If you can't see it, you stumble.
You fall. People have hit their heads,
knocked themselves out, been hurt very badly. People have
died. in their fall, right? And it's a relevant illustration
for us. When you see, when you have light,
you can move around those things that would cause you to stumble
and fall and get hurt or die. It saves you from it. It protects
you from it without stumbling. And he goes on, but when thine
eye is evil, when it's evil, thy body also is full of darkness. And that word evil, well, just,
I mean, think about that. You would think if it's single
or double. No, it's single or evil. Evil. That word evil is used
77 times in the New Testament. And it's translated a little
differently. It has a couple ways in which
it's translated in the New Testament. And when we take it as a whole,
it gives us a good understanding of what he's saying there and
why he used the word evil. When an eye is evil, your body's
full of darkness. Now, one way in which that word
is translated is the evil one. It speaks of the evil one, the
wicked one. For example, 1 John 5, verse
18, we know that whatsoever is born of God sinneth not, but
he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one
toucheth him not. It's translated wicked one there,
doesn't touch him. The man Job could be touched,
but the new man of Christ in him could not be touched. He
couldn't be moved from that. And that's what John is saying
there, by the way, is this old man of flesh sins, only knows
sin, but the new man in you cannot cannot not believe. All the new
man can do is believe and trust Christ. The new man, that creation
of Christ in his people, does not and cannot sin, cannot be
turned from Christ. The new man believes. This old
man of flesh is weak and faithless and foolish, but the new man
of grace in us cannot not believe Christ. And so, This evil one,
though, gives us a sense of that word. When an eye is evil, when
it's evil, right? And then the other sense there
is how it's used with it being evil, where it's translated evil.
And that's, I think, the most that it's used or translated. And what that speaks of is one
that is full of labors. full of toil, full of distractions. Constantly these things, these
troubles are coming in and just distracting us from Christ and
preventing us from seeing Christ. All our attention is taken off
of Him and we get taken up with the things of the world. And
then we stop coming and hearing Christ. And just our thoughts,
whatever word was sprinkled here on the heart, it just proved
to be a hard surface, a pathway trodden, and the birds of the
air just came and picked up that word and carried away. So it's
forgotten as soon as we walk out the door. It's just forgotten. And so that word evil means one
who's full of labors and toils and harassing difficulties, things
that distract. Things that distract from Christ.
They're distracting from the one thing needful. And when you think of Martha,
you see that. Martha, Martha, thou art cumbered
about with many things. That's what he's saying. He's
saying your eye, Martha, is evil. It's evil. You're missing the
one thing needful. The light is here. And Mary sat
at my feet. Her eye is single, single. And she's chosen that good part,
and it will not be taken away from her. And so that's why it's
amazing that we can be rebuked. We can be reproved by the word,
just as Martha was. And by the grace of God, it's
good. It's good. And that's what our
Lord is saying here. Take heed, take heed, because
the light of the world is here, Christ, in Christ. And so when you take those two,
the evil one and evil, our distractions, we see that description of us
by nature in Ephesians 2. That one who's under the dominion
of the prince of the power of the air going the course of this
world, which is nothing but distractions. and in league and in shoulder
to shoulder with the children of disobedience and the children
of wrath, with our eyes all under that control of the evil one
doing evil and wicked works. That's what he's saying, that
by the grace of God, we need his grace to save us from that
and keep our eyes single upon Christ. And that's what our Lord
does, he warns us in verse 35, take heed therefore that the
light which is in thee be not darkness. And he's warning the
Jews here, in the context here, he's warning the Jews to attend,
to give heed to what the Christ is saying and doing. He's saying,
take heed, I'm a candle burning. God the Father has lit this candle,
take heed that it bring forth fruit, that it bear fruit in
you, that this light that you're hearing and seeing is not darkness."
And so what he means, because he's saying, how can your light
be darkness? He's saying the light you have
These were Jews. They had a notional understanding
of these things. They had the oracles. They had
the oracles given to them. They had the prophets. They had
the writings of Moses in the law. They had the temple and
the sacrifices and all those pictures and types that were
there given to them. That was the light they had.
And he said, take heed that the light you have, that notional
understanding you have, be not darkness. But go on, because
the fulfillment is here. That's what he's saying. The
promised seed is here. And you guys, you were taught
to expect the Messiah. He's here before you, and you're
about to completely miss him. He's going to go right on by
you, and you're going to be left in your sins. and die in your
sins. And so he's talking about that
external revelation that they had, that was the light that
they had, they were about to, it was gonna be nothing but darkness
for them, they were gonna miss it. Verse 36, if thy whole body
therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall
be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth
give thee light. And so this speaks to the new
creature. This is speaking to that new
creation of our Lord, the gospel light of the burning candle that
enters the soul, that gives light to the new man, born of the spirit
of God, born of his grace, which is in every one of his chosen
redeemed children. If you have not the Spirit of
God in you, you're none of His, Paul said. But if you're His,
He gives you His Spirit with which to hear these things, to
know that this is Christ, to know I need Him. Lord, cleanse
me, wash me, as Peter said, wash my whole body. And he said, you
that are clean need not save you wash your feet. And so he
washes our feet here with his word, in the gathering of his
sheep, in the communion of the saints, feeding upon the bread
of heaven. Rejoicing in him, feeding upon
the bread of heaven. And so it's just like now, we're
coming into spring. What happens? The more we stay
upon Christ is like that time of spring where the sun is rising
higher and higher. There's greater and greater light
coming upon the land, staying upon the land longer. There's
heat, more and more heat warming that soil and that seed which
is dead in that soil begins to move and come forth and it goes
up and it bears fruit. It eventually bears fruit. And
what happens, you tend to those things, to those plants. You
give time to those plants. You're mindful of where they're
put. You're mindful of how much they've
received water. And you take care of those things
that they bring forth that fruit. You know, I've tried to grow
some things in the wintertime. I've tried. I've tried to get
cold hardy things and I have not been successful yet. There's a few things that'll
sprout up, you know, like you could get garlic going and lettuce
and some cilantro, but Other than that, it's usually going
to get destroyed in that cold, dark thing, because there's no
light and there's no heat. And Christ is that light and
that heat that we need. He's saying, take heed. Come
and partake of these things. This is the rising beam of the
Son of God. This is the day star rising in
your hearts, warming us. partake of those things, partake
of them freely. It costs you nothing to come
and partake of Christ. It's given to us freely by His
grace and mercy. And that's what he's saying.
So we're influenced. The single eye is influenced
wholly by Christ. believes his word, believes his
word and his work, believes the witness and testimony of Christ
illuminating that which he's created, that new man in us.
And that one has a right understanding whose eye is simple and single
upon Christ. And so it's as a room illuminated,
full of light. You can see what's in your way.
You can move away from that, step aside, go around it, move
it out of the way, and not stumble and fall. It really is that simple. It's all by His grace. I don't
mean to make it sound like it isn't. It's all by His grace.
But that's why He's given it to you, to bless you, to keep
you, to encourage you, to grow you, to make you stronger and
stronger, to bring forth fruit, some hundred, some sixty, some
thirtyfold. It's all by His grace. And so,
what our Lord is showing us here is that this is basically a commentary
of everything He's been teaching us. If we just take it from Martha
and Mary, because that was the first half of it there, and he's
basically saying the same thing that he taught us there with
Martha and Mary. But in between came all these
lessons, all these little lessons, seemingly disparate things that
didn't seem related, but they are all related. And so these
words here are like a capstone class. When I went to college,
typically college is four years. And the first year, they give
you the 101 classes. The second year, you get the
201 classes. The third year, you get the 301s. They're getting a little harder
and harder. In the fourth year, there's a few 401s. But the 405,
I think the numbering is the same. That class, that 400 level
class, is the capstone. And the capstone class was what
brought everything you learned together. That's what it's supposed
to do, to bring everything together. So I was in business and management,
and so it took your economics and your finance, along with
your human resources stuff, along with your strategies and tactics
and things like that in business, and it brought it all together
in a final project. That was your capstone. And that's
what Christ is doing. He's bringing us to the capstone,
saying, this is it. This is everything I've taught
you is for this understanding, for you to get this. And so just
real quick, lesson one was what? At the beginning of the chapter,
he taught us to pray. He taught us to pray. And specifically,
the example that he gave after he taught his disciples to pray
was he gave that example of the importunate sinner, the importunate
knocker, meaning the shameless knocker. At midnight, he comes
to the door, banging on the door, shamelessly at midnight, dogs
in the neighborhood are barking, a cat, meow. Garbage cans get
knocked over, lights go on inside the houses, someone opens the
window and says, what's going on down there? And you're there
still knocking, knocking, knocking, not giving up. A shameless knocker. Have you no shame? Be quiet.
Trying to sleep. Shameless knocker. It's because
we've been awakened as sinners. We've been awakened by God. A
friend, he says, has come to your house. That friend being
the law of God that says, Sit here before me now, your righteousness. What reason do you have hope
to stand before God accepted of him? I need some righteousness. I need to be satisfied with a
perfect righteousness. Well, before that friend came,
I thought my cupboards were full. I thought I had all I needed.
I went to church. I prayed my prayers, I read my
Bible, I gave, I fellowshiped with the people, I did nice things,
I went to the hospital and visited the sick, and I did this and
I did that, and I thought that was my righteousness. But as
soon as he came at midnight, and I went to the cupboard thinking,
oh, I was fine, and I opened him up, Whoa, it's empty. I don't have anything to set
before you. And so you fly to the house of your friend, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and you bang away. Save me, Lord, save me.
I don't have what I need to stand before you in perfect righteousness.
It's a friend because he comes now before the day of judgment.
He visits us now to make us to see and to know, I'm a dead man. I'm a sinner. I have no righteousness
of my own. Save me, Lord. And we knock and
knock and knock until he opens the door and gives you all you
need to satisfy the justice of God. The holy law of God. He's satisfied in Christ. He
gives us that, brethren. He described it as three loaves. Three loaves. The first loaf,
a bread, a loaf of bread, a fish, or an egg. That first loaf being
the bread of heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. We need him who
is the bread of heaven. the one who gives us life and
sustenance. The fish, I believe, a picture
of the washing of our sins by his blood, the cleansing of our
souls, the cleansing of our hearts and minds. And an egg, which
is a symbol of what? Life. A new birth. He gives us
that egg. He gives us the spirit who gives
us a new birth in Christ. That's 101. That's your 101 class. When he shakes you, brings you
down to nothing, when he shakes the earth, all the things made
of man and the earth fall. But that which is made of him
stands and does not fall, because it's his heavenly work. It won't fall apart. And then
he taught the people in the next thing that it's Christ alone
who saves his people. It's all of him. It's all of
his work. And he delivers his people from
the strong man's house. We see more and more it's our
Lord who did it. He's our Savior. He's our man
of war. He's our captain. He's the Lord. He's the one who went into that
house and bound him, shut him up, and delivered us the spoils
out of the strongman's house and then divided the spoils,
meaning he gave his ascension gifts unto us. Preachers and
teachers to preach this word, to feed you this word, and his
many gifts that he severally distributes to his people, such
as faith and hope and love in him. And he brings us together
all for his purpose. And we see more and more. how
that we were brought out of bondage and continued to be delivered
and kept by His strong arm. It's all of Christ, all of Christ
who does this. And I liken that to Class 201.
You're growing and seeing more and more. It's Him. He's my mighty,
gracious, almighty God and Savior. And then He taught us that our
true blessing which is a new ear that hears, and an eye that
sees, and a heart that's turned and believes Christ, that it's
this new creation which he's done in us. He's done it, right?
We know it technically, I mean, from a textbook sense, right,
that we must be born again, but he makes us to know that he's
done this work in us, that we are new creatures, that by experience,
it's his work and not mine. If it was relying on me, I'd
be way off in left field or right field or somewhere else, but
I wouldn't be where I'm supposed to be. But by His grace and power
overruling my foolish heart, He keeps me. This new creation
is His work so that we hear His word and keep it, meaning we
believe Him. We continue to walk in faith,
ever looking to Him. And when He turns us, what are
you doing? look to me, and he sets our eye
singly upon him again and again." That's his grace and his power,
brethren. That's what he does. He spoke
of Sheba, and he spoke of Jonah the prophet. signaling that that sign that
Jonah had done was of him. He shows us more and more that
this whole book is Christ. It's not teaching me to be a
religious hypocrite, it's teaching me Christ. It's showing me Christ
over and over again, that he's the perfect one because we've
tried, we've spun our wheels in the mud and the dirt and got
nowhere. All we did was get better at
hiding our sins and masking ourselves and trying to be good, even though
we couldn't. And we finally, by His grace,
He tears that false work down to see that Christ is all. He's
the righteousness. He's my hope, not because I've
improved myself and fixed myself. Rather, he's made me to see and
to love and to desire Christ more and more because all I've
seen in myself is I'm just more of a sinner and even deeper in
sin than I knew when I began in the first place. So he brings
us to see that salvation really is of the Lord and that Christ
is all. That's being settled in him and
being brought to peace with God and resting in him. and breathing
out and sighing hymn saying, thank you, Lord. Thank you for
showing me Christ. That's your 301 class. You're
being settled in hymn, your 301. And they're all related because
they're all built upon the foundation, which is Christ Jesus. And he's
taking all these things as precious stones and making us a living
stone that he fits in his house upon his foundation with our
brethren, the other living stones. And he builds the house shining
more brightly upon us, meaning that our eye gets more and more
singled on him, on him. And we see all these distractions
are just distractions. And we see him more brightly,
more clearly. And that brings us to the capstone
of our learning, the capstone class, which is where he brings
it together, as he's doing here, saying, put your eye on me. Keep your eye on me. Don't miss
me. I'm your salvation. He's the
Lord. He's the Savior. And he brings
us in and sits us right next to Mary at his feet and shows
us that he's the one thing needed. And we're made to sit right there
next to her and hear the words of Christ. To know, as the Apostles
John and the Apostles Paul so often said, and we know. And
we know. We know these things because
we're hearing his word and he's blessing us with his word and
showing us these things more and more that Jesus Christ is
the light of God given unto me for my salvation. To take me
out of the dung hole and set me on the foundation of Christ,
the rock of God that he's given for my salvation and the salvation
of my brethren. to bring us out of this death
and to set us in that inheritance of Christ, to deliver us from
the inheritance of man, which is death and darkness, and to
set us in the inheritance with the saints and light in his kingdom. And it's a blessed, blessed thing.
So again, verse 36, if thy whole body therefore be full of light,
Having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when
the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light. So we're taught that capstone,
Christ is all. Christ is the one thing needful. Keep your eyes stayed upon him. Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are
fully blessed. Finding as he promised, perfect
peace and rest. And so brethren, I pray, That's
the class you're hearing, the capstone class, where the Lord
puts it together in us by His grace, for His glory, honor,
and praise. Amen.