I really like that hymn. I enjoyed
that. Yeah, it's beautiful. Take your Bibles and turn with
me to Galatians chapter 6. We'll be picking up in verse
15. Before we go there, Paul, when
he was writing to the Romans, he said, if it be possible, as
much as lieth in you, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably
with all men. And if you think about it, Romans,
the book of Romans is a very doctrinal epistle. It's loaded with doctrine, the
majority of it is a very doctrinal book and I bring that up because
men divide over doctrine. Men divide over doctrine and
some doctrine is absolutely worth, I mean, we're divided over doctrine. It happens. Some things, Some
things we don't know, we don't see clearly, and we divide over
those things, and that shouldn't happen. But Paul there said,
live peaceably. As far as it depends on you,
live peaceably with all men. And here, as he's writing to
the Galatians, Paul has laid out very carefully and very plainly
Things which concern life and things which concern death. Things
which are life unto the believer and things which are death, death
to us. They're not good. He writes of
things that divide between believers and unbelievers. Things that
divide between the children of God and the children of the devil. And we were just like those children
of the devil, those children of wrath and disobedience and
those who have their partaking in the world. We were just like
them. We walked according to the course
of the world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
just like them. But God, but God, Paul tells
us in Ephesians 2.4, But God who is rich in mercy for his
great love, wherewith he loved us. There's an us. That's a defined
us whom God loved. Even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened, hath made us alive together with Christ. By grace ye are saved. And in
that we understand it's God that makes the difference. God made
the difference and God is the one who makes the difference
between men. If we were to sum up this letter
to the Galatians. If we were to come to a conclusion
of the matter here regarding what it is that divides men,
it's actually not doctrine. That wouldn't be right to say
that it's doctrine, though we do see that doctrine does divide
men. Men have different doctrine and
they separate themselves because of it. But the reality is people
can divide over doctrine and still be children of the devil. Still have absolutely no life
in them. Doctrine is good. The teaching
of God is good. And I'm thankful for the knowledge
and the understanding that God gives us. But doctrine itself
does not save. So you can hold correct doctrine. You can hold a knowledge of what
is true and right and still it do nothing for you. It's just
a head knowledge. The true distinction that Paul
is making here between men is whether or not we are a new creature. Are you born of the Spirit of
God? As the Lord said to Nicodemus,
Nicodemus, ye must be born again. God makes his children new creatures. That's the defining distinction
of God between the children of God and the children of the devil. We, if God is gracious to us,
we are born of the spirit of God so that by his grace and
power he calls us new creatures. He says you are a new creation. You've been born again. of the
seed of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are his child. And if we're not born again,
if it's not the Spirit's work, then at best, all we are is whitewashed
in religion. We have a coat of religious paint
put on us, but we're still full of dead men's bones within. We
must be new creatures. And so the only thing that should
come between brethren is Well, nothing should come between brethren.
The only thing that should come between men is, am I a new creature? Are you a new creature? If not,
there's gonna be a divide. But if we're both new creatures,
then there's nothing but let there be peace. Let there be
peace and fellowship and joy. And so what we see here is that
this division is put here by God. If it's because we're sons
of God, and we're dividing from the children of the devil, God
is the one who has made that difference. Not you, not me,
for ourselves, not by our works, not by our spending and our labors,
it's God that makes the difference. James, James 1, verse 18 and
20, says, of God's own will begat he us. with the word of truth
that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Wherefore,
my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to
speak, slow to wrath. Don't divide over doctrine. Be
careful, be careful, be slow. For the wrath of man worketh
not in the righteousness of God. Again, I should clarify that.
There is doctrine that divides, but it's because we are taught
as new creatures that all the glory of our salvation is the
Lord's. It's the Lord's glory. Not because
you say something a little different than I do or you quote a different
scripture than I quote to say the same thing. Don't divide
over those things. it's God that has joined us together
as new creatures. So we're looking here at the
distinction of a new creature. So does God make a distinction
between men? Does God put a distinction between
one man and another? He sure does. He absolutely does. He does. Paul tells us now in
Galatians 6.15, this is a distinction made by God, he says, 4. In Christ
Jesus, he's wrapping up this epistle here, in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision. And that's a pretty important
doctrine. Should you be circumcised or
should you not be circumcised? That's an important thing. He
says it doesn't matter if you're circumcised or not circumcised.
The difference here is whether or not you're a new creature.
Because if you're a new creature, you're going to hear. You're
going to embrace the truth of God. You're going to glory in
the cross of Christ crucified. You're going to glory in the
gospel of Christ crucified. That's the difference maker there.
Are you a new creature? And that helps us, too, when
we're speaking to people. Because we speak to a lot of
religious people, don't we? We speak to many people that
have heard and have some knowledge of things. And it's not about
convincing them. of one doctrine versus another,
it's declaring the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and
what He has accomplished for His people. And the Spirit takes
of the things of Christ and shows it unto His child so that they
hear that word and they see and know He's the Savior and He died
for my sins to save me. And that's going to make the
difference. That's going to cause their ear to open and to believe
the truth and to come out of Babylon's religion. The Lord
is going to lead them out of dead letter religion. So in this
mystery of godliness, that which had been hidden from man until
the coming of Christ and the pouring out of his spirit, Our
Lord now makes known, after Christ has come and the giving of His
Spirit and the preaching of His Gospel, He makes known His new
creation. It's His work. It's His work
of salvation that He does for people. It's not our laboring.
It's not our striving, our spending, our working. Christ is the Savior. He's the one who has delivered
me from death. Not because I did the right sets
of things. Not because I got into the right
denomination. Not because I'm faithful to show
up at the services every night. Though that is good and I encourage
everyone to come to the services as often as you're able, but
that's not what saves us. It is the grace of God in the
Lord Jesus Christ. So God now makes us new creatures. Old things have passed away.
The old things, the old understanding that it's by my works under the
law, that's all passed away. That's been clarified. No, it's
not that. It's the grace of God. All things
are become new. New in the Lord Jesus Christ. So when this new dispensation
under the reign and rule of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is risen
from the dead and has ascended up to the right hand of the throne
of God, he now makes known unto us that it is God who puts the
only meaningful difference between men. It's God who makes the difference,
and that according to his good pleasure. according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. There is a distinction
made in that we. It is those whom God chose, as
opposed to those whom God left to themselves and did not choose,
having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ himself according to the good pleasure of his will. That's
an effectual call that all men cannot lay claim to. And they
can't lay claim to it because they have no desire to. They
have no heart. No, they don't care. They're
not sinners. They're not lost. They don't need the Savior. But
you that are lost, you that are sinners, you that have no righteousness
of your own, you hear that glorious good news that Christ came for
sinners to save them, to heal them, to forgive them of their
sins, to reveal to them the Father, and to bless them to obtain eternal
redemption by His grace freely given to them. So this difference
is made known, it's manifested in the new creation of God and
that's made known to sinners in newness of life in the Lord
Jesus Christ. This distinction of God is not
after the manner of men. It means that God doesn't make
this distinction the way that you and I would make the distinction.
We would wait and see. We would want to see, how are
they going to respond in this situation? What are they going
to say here to this? What are they going to do to
that? That's how we would determine how to decide who's who and which
category they fall into. God chooses whom he will. He tells us that the children,
that Jacob and Esau, and we know Jacob and Esau after they were
born. Outside of the womb, it was Jacob that was the deceitful
one. It was Jacob that was the tricky
one and the conniving one that got some things over on his brother,
and yet God loved Jacob and hated Esau. And he tells us the children
weren't even born yet. neither having done any good
or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might
stand, not of works, not of works, but of him that calleth." God,
that call, Romans 9-11. So man is looking for outward
clues to see whether he likes this person. I like, we get along
well. They say things the way I say
things. They see things as I see things. And that's how man classifies
and divides. He looks at Jew and Gentile.
And he says, well, the Jews have their religion, and the Gentiles
have their religions. And the Jews have their way to
God, and the Gentiles have their way to God. And that's good.
No. That's not the truth, because
God, in his word, in the scriptures, speaks of only one salvation,
of one way unto the Father, and that is through Jesus Christ.
He alone is the way, the truth, and the life. And no man comes
unto the Father, but by the Lord Jesus Christ, through the blood,
through the blood of Christ, who gave himself for the sins
of his people. Paul said it this way about that
one salvation. He said, I'm not ashamed of the
gospel. It doesn't matter what country
I'm in. It doesn't matter which people
I'm talking to. I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
I'm going to declare the truth of God. I'm going to speak the
truth in Christ. Why? It's the power of God unto
salvation. There's only one salvation. So
I'm going to speak it, he says. I'm not going to be ashamed.
I'm not going to disagree and say, it's fine for you to go
bow down to your stones and your stumps and your sticks and to
do your things. No. There's one salvation that
all men must hear. Because there's one Savior. And
they must hear that truth. God has sent his word out to
the ends of the earth to declare the salvation that he has for
his people. And so, and he says, to the Jew
first and also to the Greek. That's because, what's the power
of God unto salvation? To everyone that believeth. Let
me say that. Everyone that believeth. That's
the identification. To the Jew first and also to
the Gentile. And he listed in that order because Christ came
to the Jews. Because to them was given the
scriptures. To them was given the prophets
to declare that God would save the world. all his people scattered
throughout the world by the Christ, the one Savior, the one Christ. And so he came there and beginning
at Jerusalem, then he sent his gospel out into all the far reaches
of the world to save them who are marked by God. Marked in what way? They have
that identifying mark. They believe. They hear the gospel. And in the hour of their grace,
in the hour of their birth, just like all you mothers, when you
gave birth to your child, there was an hour when it was time
and that baby was to be delivered. And that child came forth. And
that's how it is in our birth, in our spiritual birth. There's
an hour. There's a time. There's a calling.
When that child shall hear that word and believe. They'll believe
and be delivered from death. There's the mark. There's the
identification. They believe. God reveals it.
He manifests, that's my child. That's one whom I chose and put
in the care of Christ, who came and redeemed them with his own
blood. Now this is, well it's a bit
lengthy and I've gone on a bit, but it's from Ephesians 2. In
the back half of Ephesians 2, it describes an error, I'll just
jump down, he's speaking of Jew and Gentile, and let's jump down
to verse Well, 14 tells us that Christ is our peace, that he
made from both one, one, and broke down that middle wall of
partition that was between us, right? The divisions of men.
He broke that down. Verse 15, having abolished in
his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained
in ordinances for to make in himself of two one new man. So making peace, right? Removing the natural divisions
and making peace between all believers because we all come
under the blood we all come under the same gospel the same way
as sinners who have no righteousness of our own but Christ and that
he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross
having slain the enmity thereby and came and preached peace peace
to you which were far off and to them that were nigh. For through
him we both have access by one spirit unto the father. Therefore,
we're no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the
saints and of the, the single household of God. There's one
salvation, brethren, one salvation. And so all the divisions of men
are rendered meaningless. You know, as your children get
older and they start to marry, and you meet your daughter or
your sons-in-laws, and you get to know them, and you find out
that the way their parents raised them was different from how you
raised your kids, right? And you begin to hear this little,
like, there's differences, different traditions, different cultures,
different responses to certain things, and how they dealt with
them. The truth is, people can get
upset about those things, but the truth is, if they're believers,
if they love the Lord Jesus Christ, who cares? Who cares? Don't let those things divide.
And that's with neighbors, that's with friends, that's with family.
People are going to do what they do. And people are different
from one another. And they respond to things differently,
and they say things differently. I say things often that I regret
or wish I could take back or wish I could reword or do differently. It happens. And so be generous
in that same way to other people. They said this to me, and I don't
know if I could ever forgive them for that. Well, maybe they're
upset about it too and wish they could take it back and wish they
would have said it differently and been more thoughtful and
careful in how they said it. I think it was Solomon who said
that, I guess as the king he must have said it, but he said,
don't listen too closely to the things that your servants say.
And I would always remember that as when I was a manager, I didn't
listen to what my employees said. If there was something rolling
out that I knew they weren't going to be happy with, I didn't
want to hear it. I didn't want to hear them blaming me and saying
things because it's got to be done anyway. So I just didn't
even listen. I didn't want to listen in to hear what they thought
about it because I know they weren't happy anyway. It just
upsets you to hear what people think. And it passes anyway. But the point is, if they're
Christ's, if they're the Lord's people, do you really want to
dig in and get upset with them about how they do things versus
how you do them? No. They're the Lord's. They're
the Lord's people. Love them. Accept them. End that. Because the only difference,
the only thing that matters is, are they a new creature? Because
if they're a new creature, Wonderful, wonderful. I mean, if they're
doing some sin or crimes that are hurting people, I guess you
have to talk to them about it, yeah, but otherwise, if it's
just differences, let it go, let it go. Next, God teaches
us that what matters is His creation work. That's the difference that
counts, all right? So let's look at this verse 15
one more time. Galatians 6.15, for in Christ
Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but a new creature. A new creature. All the outward
works of man that he does to justify himself and to sanctify
himself before God, in the face of Jesus Christ, it counts for
nothing. It counts for nothing. But what
should I do with this big heaping pile of all these works that
I've laid up for myself against the judgment day? Discard them. Disown them. They're not your
salvation. They do nothing for you before
holy God. Now, good works are good. It
is good to be kind to people, to do things for people, to help
others, to be kind and gracious and generous and loving to others. By all means, the scriptures
Paul encouraged Have the people do good works. Good works are
good for others. But that's not our justification.
That's not even our sanctification. Christ is everything. Christ
is all to the believer. He's our righteousness. He's
our sanctification. He's our wisdom. He's our redemption. He's everything. God the Father
has made Christ everything to the believer. Paul counted all
his other works that he had done to justify himself. He called
it dung. That's what you can do. You can
put a label on all your good works and say, see that pile
there? Dung. It didn't do anything for
me. It did nothing for me. All that matters is whether God
has given you the Spirit of His Son, the Holy Spirit and pour
it out on you, that hope, that life, that salvation which comes
by the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Men, glory in their works. And that's what this word circumcision
here pictures. That was the example, circumcision
or uncircumcision, that Paul was dealing with in the Galatian
church. And men glory in their works. And that's exactly what circumcision
pictures here. The glorying of something I've
done for God. It's my glorying in my flesh. And the issue is that that's
what man by nature trusts in. When we didn't know the gospel,
I can tell you, when I didn't know the gospel, that's what
I kept looking at. I looked at my faith. I looked
at my works. I looked at my obedience. I looked
at my repentance. I thought that was my salvation. And I was always troubled. I was always afraid. I was always
distraught because no sooner do you have one thing that you
think is good, then you do or say or think something that is
really bad, that you know is sin and evil. And so, you're
just a wave tossed in the sea, to and fro, ruined, casting up
mire. It's just, it's awful. But when
we hear the truth, we know it's Christ and Christ alone. And
sadly, our eye still gets taken off of Christ, and we still look
to the things that we do or say, and we still are troubled by
our sin, and we ought to be troubled by our sin, but not that we're
lost, but that we cry out to the Lord, Lord, cleanse me, heal
me, forgive me, save me from doing these filthy works. whatever
it is, save me Lord. And so we don't trust in those
things, but that's what natural man is doing. He's trusting in
those cuttings of his flesh, those wounds he's laying on himself
and sacrifices he's making, those duties and obediences and all
the things that he's doing, that's what he's trusting in. That's
why man does them. and you can plug in any word
for that word circumcision because it represents works and it becomes
works when it's required for your salvation and as soon as
it's required for your salvation it ceases to be the gospel and
it becomes a false gospel something something that the lord must
deliver us from because we can attach ourselves to all manner
of things that are not salvation except the lord be gracious and
merciful to us. So man has his distinctions and
God has his distinction. It's one distinction, the Lord
Jesus Christ. But when a man's distinction,
well, when a man's works is his salvation, it sounds like this,
except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot
be saved. That's what the Judaizers had
said in Acts 15.1. They came down to the Christian
churches saying that unless you're circumcised after the manner
of Moses, you can't be saved. And you just plug in there anything. Because religion is still making
up various circumcisions that man must do in order to be saved. Baptism, he'll plug in, there's
a whole denomination just built on the fact that they tell you
you must be baptized or else you cannot be saved. And yet that is a false gospel. And so whenever man testifies
that, well, you could have Christ, you got to believe on Christ,
but you also got to do this. And if you don't do this, you
cannot be saved. that man has not submitted himself
to the righteousness of God. He's still trusting in his own
righteousness, his own works. He's opposing the revelation
of God's righteousness, the salvation God has provided graciously in
his son, Jesus Christ. Whether it's baptism, some people
say repentance, I've got to repent for my sins, otherwise I can't
be saved. And they mean it. So for some
it's baptism, for some it's repentance of sins, for some it's church
membership, although I don't think it's as popular these days
as it was back when we were younger. But all of it is ignorance of
God's righteousness by grace in Christ. They're ignorant of
the salvation of God by grace. And so what they're doing is,
especially with baptism, especially with attendance in church and
hearing the word of God, in repenting and turning from sin. Those are fruits. They're not
the works that justify us. Christ did all the work that
justifies us. We don't make that fruit a requirement
for salvation and speak as though it's something that me, by my
flesh, do that. And they're taking things that
only God can do in us and saying, if I don't do this, I cannot
be saved. And they're taking what's a fruit
of the spirit and making it a work of the sinner, a work of the
flesh. They being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. You know, it's not even that
the act of circumcision is bad. In and of itself, circumcision
is not bad. I didn't have any sons, so I
didn't have to do this, but there's a lot of sons in America. That number may have reduced
now, but a lot of people have their sons circumcised in America. It's not the act of circumcision
that's bad. It's doing that act for salvation,
for religious reasons, and trusting in that circumcision as a mark
of salvation. That's the evil. Do you know
that Paul circumcised Timothy? Timothy was a grown man, or a
young man, and Paul circumcised Timothy. in order to silence
the critics, in Acts 16, you can read about it, early in Acts
16, I think verse three, in order to take away them from being
able to say, why are you bringing that man into the synagogue?
You can't go into the temple with him. They knew that his
father was a Greek. And so that would have gotten
around, that Paul was going in and out with an uncircumcised
man. So to just cut that whole thing
down so that people could hear the gospel He took Timothy and
circumcised him because Timothy was useful to the ministry. So the act of it isn't bad. It's
trusting in it. It's trusting in that thing that
I've done to save me. And that's where it becomes evil. That's when man becomes or brings
himself under the curse of the law. Because as soon as you say
that, except I do this in my flesh, I cannot be saved, you
now have to do everything spelled out in the law, otherwise you're
under the curse of the law. And we can't be saved that way,
because none of us can keep the law perfectly. That's why Christ
came, to deliver his people from the curse of the law, to deliver
us from having to work a righteousness for ourselves, which we could
never do. The Scripture is already concluding
that all are under sin, that we would hear the promise of
God in the Lord Jesus Christ. What of baptism and the Lord's
Supper? These are ordinances that the
Lord gave to the Church. He spoke only of baptism and
of the Lord's Supper, but the observance of those things, of
baptism and the remembrance of our Lord at his table, those
aren't works that the believer does, trusting in those things
to justify themselves. That one who's a new creature
doesn't trust in those things. They believe God and they trust
God. They're not means of grace. just
because you're baptized or each time you remember the Lord at
the Lord's table, there's no sprinkling of grace dust upon
you. There's no special blessing in
those things. We do it in remembrance. We do
it in thankfulness, remembering what our Lord has done for us. And we walk in obedience to our
Lord in those things. And so these things, when we
walk in them, they're wrought in us by the Spirit. It's his
fruit who's given us a heart and a love for Christ to be identified
with him publicly in Believer's Baptism, to remember him at his
table. That's the grace of God that's
given us a heart, that's given us faith, whereby we believe
and walk in the truth. And so we do those things. Someone
might ask, then what's the difference between a work like circumcision,
or anything as you say, and faith? Don't I have to believe in order
to be saved? And that person's talking about
the fruit of faith, the fruit of the Spirit. Again, it's not
a work of the flesh, it is the fruit set by the Spirit on trees
of the Lord's planting, trees of His righteousness, of His
work. in his garden, in his household,
fruits that he produces in his child, that living child, that
born again child by his grace, they hear the gospel and believe. It's fruit. It's not a work.
And so our faith to the point that it's required for salvation,
and it is. All his people believe him. His
people trust the Lord Jesus Christ. They believe that's not a work
of the flesh. That is the fruit of a child
who has been born again by the grace of God. By grace are you
saved through faith, and that, that faith is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. It is a spiritual work. It is
spiritual fruit born in the child. And they can't help but bear
that fruit, because it is the grace of God working mightily
in them. And so only the Spirit regenerates
dead sinners, giving them spiritual life. When men are working for
justification, they're believing that their works give them spiritual
life. And only the Spirit of God raises
a sinner, a dead sinner, and dead in trespasses and sins,
only the Spirit raises His people from the dead, not our works,
only the Spirit. Works or lacks of works cannot
save, but a new creature, a new creature born of God, that's
the mark of salvation, that's the mark that they're His, they
believe. They have the fruits of the Spirit
born in them. Even faith does not save us,
Christ saves, and faith is the evidence of things not seen. You can't see the circumcision
of the heart that only God does. We don't see it. Faith is the
evidence of things not seen. Faith is the evidence that God
has circumcised the heart. That God has filled that vessel.
with his spear, that God has cleansed that sinner with the
blood of Christ and given them life and hope. Faith is evidence
that there is hope in that sinner, that Christ is all their righteousness
and their acceptance with God. Faith is simply the evidence
of those things that we cannot see, that God is God and gracious
to me and gracious to you that believe him. Now Paul says, just
real quick, we'll step through these, in verse 16, as many as
walk according to this rule, peace beyond them and mercy and
upon the Israel of God. And so men do works to please
God, to justify themselves because they're looking for peace. They're
terrified, they're afraid. When you have to do works to
save yourself, You're always thinking, have I done enough?
Did I push it enough? Did I do quite enough? Is God
going to accept this? Was it pure enough? Was it good
enough? No, it wasn't. I can tell you right now, it
was not good enough or perfect enough or pure enough. It is
not perfect. and you're under the curse of
the law. Only Christ worked perfect righteousness for his people. You that want peace with God,
look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Behold the servant of God who
came and laid down his life to obtain eternal redemption for
his people. And so the Spirit takes the things
of Christ and shows them unto the child, shows them unto that
sinner, and applies that life, that blood to them, making them
to hear that word as it is to all the saints of God, good news.
Only God makes it good news to us. And to the rest, it's death. It means nothing. And so the
good news that our sins have been put away, By the blood of
Christ is why the testimony of Jesus Christ and Him crucified
is called in the scriptures the gospel of peace. It's the gospel
of peace because God comforts us and gives us rest
from our labors and peace in our souls to know that He has
provided everything in full. through Christ. That's how the
new creature has such boldness to have peace with God, to have
peace before God, to look rejoicingly to that day when Christ shall
raise them from the dead. That's boldness. That's boldness
wrought in us by the grace of God through the Spirit. That's
our rule of life. Paul said, as many as walk according
to this rule, peace beyond them and mercy. Our rule is the rule
of faith, the rule of the gospel, the rule of Christ. He's our
righteousness. The men who would boast them
Most of their cuttings in the flesh made by circumcision, right,
because that's what they're doing. They cut themselves and are saying,
look, I've cut my flesh for God. I've done these religious holy
things for God. Paul says, you want to talk about
cuttings in the flesh. I've been whipped many times. I've been beaten. I've been stoned. I've been shipwrecked. I've been
imprisoned. I've been stripped down naked. I've been left for
hungry and cold and just left for dead many times. You want
to talk about that? And so he says from henceforth
I've laid out the truth from henceforth let no man trouble
me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ. He received those cuttings in
the flesh because he gloried in the cross of Christ. He glorified
in Christ crucified. That's why he bore those marks.
they're glorying in the works of the flesh and that's why they
had the cutting of their foreskin and that's it that's all they
had and finally Paul says verse 18 brethren the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit you know those words can
only be a blessing to you if you have a spirit and those outside
of Christ have no spirit They have a soul, but they don't have
a spirit. They don't have any spiritual life. They have only
the flesh. They're dead sinners. But you
that live, you that believe, you that hear Christ and rejoice
in Him, you have the Spirit of God. And in you is the Spirit
that testifies to your spirit that you are the children of
God. You are His sons and daughters. And so you are blessed by God
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so The only difference, with all
the differences that men have, political and race differences
and socioeconomic differences and wealth differences, educational
differences, all those things are worthless. All those things
are meaningless. The thing that makes the difference
is God. And he does that in the new creature,
as a new creature. And when you meet somebody that
is a new creature, you embrace them, and you rejoice in the
Lord Jesus Christ with them. And when you speak the truth,
they'll hear it, and they'll rejoice with you, and they'll
be glad with you. And praise God, because it's
so rare to find a sinner, a sinner saved, a new creature made by
the Lord Jesus Christ and not their works. Amen. Let's close
in prayer. to cover our sins with His blood,
to make us righteous in Him, and to raise us from the dead,
to give us newness of life and your Holy Spirit, whereby we
hear and believe and rejoice in Christ Jesus, our Lord and
Savior. Lord, help us. Help us in our
weaknesses. Lord, overcome this flesh by
your Spirit. Help us to walk in the Spirit
by faith. Help us, Lord, to do good works,
to be a help and a blessing to others. Lord, because of the
love and the joy and the hope that we have received from you,
Lord, let us do all things in faith and rejoicing in our God
who has saved us and delivered us from death and darkness. Lord,
we do pray for our brethren. I just pray again for Brother
Scott, knowing how much the things that lie before him weigh on
his heart and mind. Lord, help us to be there for
him and help us to encourage him. And help him, Lord, in this
difficult time. Help Johnny as well as he tries
to be there for him. And Lord, give the doctors wisdom. Lord, if you will. heal his foot,
heal his leg, and spare him of this. But Lord, if you would
take it, we do ask that you would bless him, that you would comfort
him, that you would give him the right thoughts and the right
understanding in this, to trust you, and that you would help
him and let him see your blessing in him, Lord. We do thank you. We do trust that you are doing
all things right and well and perfect for our brother and that
you are keeping him and sustaining him. We pray for all the other
difficulties and trials and temptations that your people have. We pray
that you will bless us here, that you would establish this
work, that you would bless the word. to the hearts of your people,
that you would send it out, and that you would cause your people,
yet in darkness, to hear it, to believe, and to come out and
to join with us as fellow helpers in this gospel. It's in Christ's
name we pray and give thanks. Amen. Our closing hymn will be Victory
in Jesus. Victory in Jesus. Heard an old, old story How a
Savior came from glory How He gave His life on Calvary To saviors
like me I heard about His groaning Of His precious blood's atoning
How He forgave me of my sins and won the victory. O victory in Jesus, my Saviour
forever! He sought me and bought me with
His redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew Him, and
all my love is through Him. He plunged me to victory beneath
the cleansing flood. Heard about His healing, Of His
cleansing power revealing, How He made the lame to walk again,
And caused the blind to see. And then, oh, dear Jesus, Come
in Him again, Spirit, And somehow Jesus came and brought you ?
To me the victory ? Oh, victory in Jesus ? My Savior forever
? He sought me and bought me ? With his redeeming love ? He
loved me ere I knew him ? And all my love is due him He plunged
me to victory beneath the cleansing flood. I heard about a mansion
He has built for me in glory. And I heard about the streets
of gold beyond the crystal sea About the angels singing and
the old redemption story And some sweet day I'll sing up there
the song of victory O victory in Jesus, my Saviour forever! He sought me and bought me with
His redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew Him, and
all my love is new Him. He plunged me to victory beneath
the cleansing flood.