Good evening, everyone. Let's
begin our service by standing and singing 296 all the way. My Savior leads
me 296. O'er the way my Saviour leads
me, what have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy,
who through life has been my guide? Heavenly peace, divine
discomfort, hear my faith in Him to dwell. For I know what
e'er befall me, Jesus knew with all things well. For I know what
e'er befall me, Jesus knew with all things well. Oh, the way
my Savior leads me, cheers each winding path I tread, gives me
grace for every trial, feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter,
And my soul a thirst may be, Gushing from the rock before
me, Blow a spring of joy I see. Gushing from the rock before
me, Blow a spring of joy I see. All the way my Savior leads me,
O the fullness of His love. Perfect rest to me is promised
in my Father's house above. When my spirit clothed immortal
Wings its flight to realms of day This my song through endless
ages Jesus led me all the way This my song through endless
ages Jesus led me all the way Thank you. I would like to read Psalm 96,
Psalm 96. Oh, sing unto the Lord a new
song. Sing unto the Lord all the earth.
Sing unto the Lord, bless his name. Show forth his salvation
from day to day. Declare his glory among the heathen,
his wonders among all people. For the Lord is great and greatly
to be praised. He is to be feared above all
gods. For all the gods of the nations
are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Honor and majesty
are before him. Strength and beauty are in his
sanctuary. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds
of the people. Give unto the Lord glory and
strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.
Bring an offering and come into his courts. Oh, worship the Lord
in beauty of holiness. Fear before him all the earth. Say among the heathen that the
Lord reigneth. The world also shall be established,
that it shall not be moved. He shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice and let
the earth be glad. Let the sea roar and the fullness
thereof. Let the field be joyful and all
that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the
wood rejoice before the Lord, for he cometh, for he cometh
to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with
righteousness and the people with his truth. O Lord God Almighty, Thou who
art merciful and filled with goodness and glory. Father, will
you remember us this evening where you have once again gathered
us together as a local assembly. And Father, we thank you for
this opportunity again this evening. And where you continue, Lord,
to provide for us and give us the means and also the desire
in our hearts to come together as like-minded people. Father,
we thank you for this assembly. And Father, we thank you also
for Brother Eric. Will you remember him, especially
this evening again, Lord? Each time is a new time. And
Father, pour out your grace and mercy upon him and us also. Father, will you open up your
word to us this evening? that our rest for our souls may
be increased, that our faith may be strengthened, that our
eyes may be turned once again to the Lord Jesus Christ, our
only hope and our Savior. Father, we thank you for your
full and free salvation, where there was nothing left to do
for sinners. Father, we thank you for choosing
a people, for calling us out, and for feeding us as your sheep.
Remember us, Lord, in mercy in the unknown future. We do not
know what lies ahead, but our eyes may be ever looking towards
you. Father, remember those of us from this local assembly that
are struggling with health issues and various concerns. We think
of Brother Ronnie. Lord, will you continue to be
with him? Give him, Lord, the strength that he may go to the
treatments and bless the health, care that he is receiving. Father,
remember us in mercy. We think of our loved ones, also
our children, our relatives, our neighbors, and those that
we come across from day to day. Father, give us the words to
speak, that we may declare your goodness and your glory to them
also. Have mercy upon us, for Jesus'
sake alone, amen. Let's sing 314. I am thine, O
Lord. 314. I know, Lord, I have heard Thy
voice, and it told Thy love to me. but I long to rise in the
arms of faith and be closer drawn to Thee. Draw me nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to thy precious bleeding side. Secrete me now to thy service,
Lord, by the power of grace divine. Let my soul look up with a steadfast
hope, and my will be lost in Thine. Draw me nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to thy precious bleeding side, O the pure delight
of a single hour that before thy throne I spent. When I kneel in prayer and with
Thee, my God, I commune as friend with friend. Draw me nearer,
nearer, blessed Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer,
blessed Lord, to thy precious bleeding side. There are depths of love that
I cannot know till I cross the narrow sea. There are heights
of joy that I may not reach till I rest in peace with Thee. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed
Lord, to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer,
nearer, blessed Lord, To thy precious bleeding side. Good evening. Let's turn to Isaiah 64. Isaiah 64. Now, from the last
chapter and this chapter, we've been looking at the prayer of
the church to her Lord. In our experience, as the church
of our God, in our experience, we're going to learn the love
of our God. We're going to learn what it
is to have friendship with our God, fellowship in the Lord Jesus
Christ, even through the various even through the various difficulties
and captivities and things that oppose, we see that everything
is wrought by the wise providence, the wise hand of our God seen
in the providences of our God for us, that even while we wait
for him, We're learning prayer. We're learning what it is to
call upon him, to seek his face, to know that I can't do this. I can't make something happen
or come to pass as I think it should come to pass. But we're
learning to look to him, and he's teaching his child that
without me, you can do nothing. nothing. And so, through the
difficulties, through the captivities, through the waiting, we're learning
and experiencing what it is to know the love of God who, through
that, is teaching us and drawing us nearer to himself, nearer
to our God. Now, we saw in Isaiah 64 verse
5, where God meets with his people. And he meets his people in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is the mediator between God
and men. And that's where our God meets
with us. That's where he deals with us. That's why he deals
with us in the manner that he does. As our God, who is good
and kind and gracious, who is patient and loving, and who is
merciful to us far, far more than we deserve. He's gracious
and merciful to us. Now it says, verse five, thou
meetest him, thou meetest him. I'm so thankful that God met
my savior, that he met me. met my Savior before me, is what
I mean. That he comes to Christ before
he comes to me and deals with me in the Lord Jesus Christ and
doesn't meet me in the nakedness of my flesh and what I am in
myself, in Adam, and in my sin, and in my wickedness and unworthiness. I'm so thankful that my God meets
Christ and fellowships with Him, and there I meet my God. There I have fellowship with
my God, and I'm so thankful that He meets Christ, that He, that
Christ stands as the mediator between me and my God, so that
I am met in friendship, in fellowship, in peace, and in joy, and in
receiving, because of Christ's sake. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth
and worketh righteousness. Those that remember thee in thy
ways, behold, thou art wroth. We have sinned, and those is
continuance." In other words, we were taught by our God what
we are in this flesh. And we see that iniquity yet
dwells in this flesh. Sin and iniquity is what I am
in this flesh. It yet dwells in this flesh. I yet feel the temptations of
it in this flesh. It continues. I can't put it
off by the works of my flesh. And he says at the end of verse
five, we shall be saved. We shall be saved. And the way
I hear that is, I'm not going to save myself. I'm not going
to fix this. I'm not going to be able to get
myself out of it because I'm sin by nature through and through,
from head to toe. The whole being is sick, full
of sores, a leper, a sinner. Unclean. Unclean. That's what
I am. I need salvation, and God has
provided a Savior. He's provided salvation. That's
what He does in grace and mercy for the sinner for Christ's sake. Not because I start following
His commandments and keeping the commandments of God. Not
because I turn things around and get my life together. That's
not why God is merciful and gracious. That's contrary to what grace
even means. He is gracious to me in spite
of what I am, and He is merciful and forgiving and receives His
people for Christ's sake, because Christ paid the price. He paid the debt of sin for His
people. And so when we come before our
God, we come in the Lord Jesus Christ. We come robed in His
righteousness. Not something I've done, not
something I've woven and put together, but something that
Christ himself has done. And so by Christ, that's how
we have salvation, through the regeneration of the spirit, taking
the things of Christ and giving us life, giving us a new birth. Because what we were in Adam,
what we are in Adam, isn't going to do it. It falls short, and
it can't be fixed. We can't improve it. It's not
made better. This flesh is still corrupt.
It's dead. It's dying. It's going into the
grave. It will be raised again. It will
be raised anew in the image of Christ. But what I am now is
in this flesh is a sinner who is regenerated by the Spirit
of God. And in the new man, I have life. I have peace with my God through
Christ, and He reveals Himself to His people. He gives us liberty
from looking to and trusting in dead works that cannot save.
That's that liberty. He delivers us from looking to
dead things that aren't going to save us. And yet, that's what
we were before He gave us life. That's what we did. And we labored
in fear and worry and in doubts constantly because that's all
we knew is I got to get this right. I've got to do this. I've
still got to work on that. I'm afraid. But he delivers his
people from that fear and laboring and spending on things that cannot
satisfy or save. Our Lord said, I am the light
of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. And that's
what our Savior does for his people. He delivers them from
the works that cannot save and from the works that give no life,
produce no life. So, this brings us to verse 6,
and that's what we're going to look at tonight, is Isaiah 64,
6. And this is a confession, the
confession of a sinner. This is a sinner speaking here
who's been given sight. They've been enabled by God to
see what they are in this flesh. You won't hear the Pharisee You
won't hear the legalist pray this prayer because the legalist,
it's all about putting on the front of righteousness. It's
convincing themselves that they've figured it out. They've turned
things around. They're now on the right track.
They're pleasing God. They've cleaned things up. They
swept up the place and they now have righteousness before God.
And so they don't pray this prayer. If they sin, it's not sin, it's
a mistake. It's a mistake to be corrected
and fixed, not done again, but it's not sin. They won't say
this. So this is the prayer of the child of God who's made to
see what they are. Now it says, verse six, but we
are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. And we all do fade as a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. are used here to describe every
man in Adam, everyone born of Adam's seed. These two illustrations
describe what we are in this flesh and show why we need salvation,
why we need the salvation of Christ. So our Lord is teaching
us that man is fruitless. I'll tell you these illustrations,
but let me just first say that man is fruitless. He's barren. He doesn't bring forth He doesn't
bear fruits that he can bring to God that will please God and
God will accept and receive of him. We're told in Romans 8,
8 that they that are in the flesh, operating by the flesh, working
by the strength and the wisdom and the will of the flesh cannot
please God. They cannot please God. Nothing we do is going to change
that truth. We cannot please God in this
flesh through the works, the strength, the operations, the
will, the works of the flesh. Now this is because in Adam,
when he sinned, we sinned. We were in Adam in the garden. We were all in him. All his seed
was in him. No other sons or daughters were
born of Adam when he sinned in the garden. And so when he died,
everything about him corrupted and died. He died spiritually,
and all his seed died spiritually in him. By one man, sin entered
into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men. for that all have sinned. We all died spiritually. What
Christ said to Nicodemus, that religious man, Nicodemus, you
must be born again. is said to every one of us, you
must be born again. And that's not something that
you or I do in this flesh, not by our works, not by our will. We must be born again. We need
salvation from the Lord. He's got to do that work. And
he's making us to know you cannot save yourselves. There's nothing
you or I can do. We need, we are dependent on
the grace of God. And so we're dying, we're dying. In Genesis 2.17 it says, but
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die. In the King James Bible, it has
a reference to how that could also be translated. That word,
that phrase there, it says thou shalt surely die, is also translated
dying, thou shalt die. We died spiritually. We began
immediately to decay, and these bodies, they weaken. They stop
producing those cells and replacing things with strong living things,
a good replication of it. We get weaker and weaker, and
it pictures what we are in this flesh. In this flesh. good choices and good works,
we're not improving ourselves and getting better and better
and slowly improving ourselves through sanctifying works. If
anything, we see the deceitfulness of this heart, the trickiness,
the conniving, the trickery, the inventions of what we are
in this flesh. So this verse here in Isaiah
gives two illustrations that bear this truth out. And that
child who is awakened by the grace of God is made to know
what he or she is in this flesh and to confess their sin, that
they may embrace Christ, that they may fall into the arms of
Christ who is the Lamb of God. You know, when John the Baptist
stood, and it says two of his disciples were standing nearby,
and he saw Christ coming and said, behold, the Lamb of God
who taketh away the sin of the world. And those two disciples
that stood by and heard him followed Christ. Why would they follow
Christ with that description? because they were sinners. And
that's what Christ, that's what our God makes us to know is that
we're sinners. And that one who's made to know
that they are a sinner, they're going to seek the Lord. They're
going to be made to seek the Lord because they're going to
hear and know and believe that He is the Savior of sinners. We don't follow Christ because
we're perfect people and righteous in ourselves. We follow him because
we're sinners needing the grace of God and it's provided in him
and by his grace he's made us to hear and revealed faith in
us that looks to the salvation God has provided. So these two
illustrations used here, here they are. First, the first one
details or shows us a woman without child. a woman without child,
and the second is a leaf which falls from a dead tree with no
living root. So let's look at these two illustrations
here that are spoken to us and we'll see what we are in this
flesh, what we're confessing in confessing Christ, what we
are confessing of ourselves in confessing Christ. So first it
says, we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. So this is speaking of every
man, every child, everyone born of Adam, their inability to bring
forth fruit unto God by the works of this flesh. We are an unclean
thing. Now man tries to do good works. There's often times where we
come to a point in life and we begin to realize that everything
I do ends up wrong or messed up or broken. are ruined, and
it doesn't turn out the way I thought it would turn out. And we begin
to get into trouble, especially as young men. I can speak for
myself. And maybe you others would agree,
but I began to get into trouble as a child. A boy who kept getting
older and older, I would get into trouble. And in my teenage
years, I'd get into trouble. And my dad, I mean, there was
a lot of times where I got the belt, and that was dealt with
in that way. But as I got older, my dad would
speak to me. He would talk to me. And he called
it lecturing. He said, I'm going to, I know
you don't want to hear me lecture you. I don't want to hear me,
you know, hear anybody lecture me, but I'm going to tell you
some things." And I actually enjoyed it because he was a very
good storyteller and he would tell me stories about what other
people did or what he himself did and experienced and I liked
it. I liked the way that he communicated
those things to me. And it would help me for, I don't
know, maybe a few minutes, but it left me pretty quickly. But
I will say that later on as I grew up and I began to make the connection
that, oh yeah, the things that I say or the things that I do
have a consequence to them, and I could then begin to piece together
and notice that. The trouble I was now in was
the result of something I had done. It takes men a little bit
longer, usually, to get that. But I began to see and recognize
the wisdom of what my dad was telling me. And so oftentimes,
men and women will try to make better choices. make better decisions
to make things to improve their lives. And we usually find out
that it still doesn't work out the way that we thought. But
we do. We try to surround ourselves with better people and whatnot.
And a lot of times, that takes place in religion. In religion,
people get some religion. They think, well, I'm going to
turn my life around. I'm going to go to church services. I'm
going to try better to learn something about God and something
about religion. And we look to those things. We think that by surrounding
ourselves with different types of people is going to make us
better. And it's not. That's not salvation. Christ
himself said that, except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no
wise enter the kingdom of God. You're not going to stand before
God faultless before his throne in your own works, in your own
works. And so the Lord teaches his people
that we're not going to produce good fruits by the works and
labors of this flesh. He gave that one illustration
when he said, every tree is known by his own fruit. For thorns,
men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. In other words, this flesh is
corrupt. It's cursed. It's under the curse
in Adam because of our sin. It produces thorns and bramble
bushes. It doesn't bring forth figs and
grapes. It doesn't bring forth lasting
things before the Lord, eternal things. And so the Lord is comparing
our works to cursed things, the things that are ruined, things
that aren't eternal and acceptable to the Lord. And so the carnal
mind, what we are in the flesh, we look to what we've produced
as righteousness And the Lord teaches us saying, no, all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Now this particular description
of filthy rags has to do with a bloody rag or with menstruation
of a woman. And what it means, I'm not gonna
dwell on it very long, but what it means is when a woman menstruates,
at that time of month, that means she's not pregnant. She has no
living child within her. She's produced no fruit. That's
what it means. It just means that, and that's
what this illustration is saying. The thrust of it is that when
we have done all we can do in religion to atone for our sin,
to reconcile ourselves to God, to be better persons, when we've
done our best to bring forth something, the result is there's
still no life in us. We've produced no life. We've
brought forth no fruit. We've done nothing to please
God and to atone for our sins and to make ourselves acceptable
with Him. All we've brought forth is a bloody rag. That's it. We've done nothing that pleases
God or is acceptable with Him. There's one way to bring forth
fruit unto God. And that's by being married to
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the husband of His people. By Him, in Him, we bring forth
fruit acceptable to God. We bring forth precious things
because it's of Christ, the precious Son, the husband, the faithful
one, the Savior whom God has provided, the bride is the church
she's described as the holy city new jerusalem coming down from
god out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband
the bride is the lamb's wife the lamb who was slain and once
we're married to him We're no longer married to that covenant
of works. We were in that. We were married
to that covenant of works. But being dead in sins, we produced
no living fruit. And at the end, we were left
with nothing. No fruit. No fruit. Turn over to Romans
7 verses 4 and 5. And it describes this. Romans
7 verses 4 and 5. Wherefore, my brethren, verse
four, wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the
law by the body of Christ. You're dead to that covenant
of works and trying to bring forth fruit of yourselves, being
married to the law or to works religion. That ye, you're dead
to it by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to
another, even to him who was raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the
flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our
members to bring forth fruit unto death. And so the Lord saying,
all our righteousnesses of this flesh are as filthy rags. But Christ, but Christ laid down
his life for his bride. He shed his blood, and she died
with him, and he shed his blood for her sins, to make an atonement
for her, to separate her, to deliver her from that covenant
of works, that she might have life in Him. And when He died,
she died, and when He was raised, she was raised, being made a
partaker of His life, and receiving all those precious gifts by our
God and Savior, in the Lord our Savior. and now in Christ she
brings forth fruit unto God. So that's the first illustration.
First illustration, by our works we can't bring forth any fruit
to God. The second For what we see is
a leaf here, fallen from a dead tree with no living root. Now the symbolism of that leaf
takes us back to the garden when Adam and Eve went off to the
woods to try and sew fig leaves together to make an apron to
cover their nakedness. But we're just like them. We're dead leaves which fall
from the dead tree of our father Adam. dead tree of our father
Adam. He brought forth nothing living. Just as things in nature decay
and die, so does the strength of our works by this flesh. They come forth, they bloom,
they look precious for a little while, but they're not eternal.
They're not lasting. They decay and they all die. So rather than Getting better
and better by our works, we're waxing worse and worse. Turn
over to Isaiah 40. Let's go to Isaiah 40 verses
6 through 8. Verse 6 there. The voice said,
cry. And he said, what shall I cry?
All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the
flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely
the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower
fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever. And so that most beautiful display
that you see in a meadow, in a field, those beautiful flowers
that come forth, they all die. When the season's over, they
die. And that's how it is. Our works
perish with us. When our season is over, all
that we've done is found to be dead. It's not lasting. It's
corrupt. It falls and dies and withers
away. And so Thankfully, our Lord has
provided the Savior. He has given salvation. He's not looking to our works. He knows what we are in this
flesh. He knows that we are but dust,
which returns back to the dust. And we're not going to produce
lasting things of this flesh. And so He comes, and He gives
life. And He's that root, that lasting
root, and He waters us well with everlasting, with an ever-flowing
fountain of water, because it comes of Him, from Him, by Him,
it's His life, it's His precious life, His righteousness, His
grace, which is given unto us by Him. Turn over to Jeremiah
17. And here we see this rooting
of the Lord's people to Christ. Jeremiah 17.7 Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a
tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots
by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh. But her leaf
shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought,
neither shall cease from yielding fruit. You know, it actually
reminds me, this last summer, where our house was, it seemed
like it was raining just a few blocks over from us, but right
where we were, we were getting no rain, and I had a nice tree
a unique exotic tree, it was outside in a pot, and I forgot
all about it, and it lasted for a long, long time, but eventually
it just about died. It died. It held on there for
a long time, but it did just about die. I caught it right
at the last moment, thankfully, and most of the higher stuff
died, but the lower stuff lived. But what he's saying is, even
in the heat, because it was hot, it was 100 degree days, and it
was kind of drought-like for many weeks, but connected to
the Lord, that drought won't affect you. And whatever the
heat is, the difficulties, the persecutions, the trials, your
leaf, your leaf of profession shall never fall. Your hope in
Christ shall never fail you, because it's of Him He's the
one who gave you that faith. He's the one who gave you that
hope. If it's a product of your flesh, it'll die. It'll fail. It'll perish. But if it's of
Him, you that are connected to Him shall not be careful. You'll not be full of cares and
worries because you've denied your Lord. He'll keep you. to
the end. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord,
search the heart. I try the reins even to give
every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of
his doings. And you that are in Christ are
preserved, kept by the Lord, by his grace. If it's by your
flesh, your ways will be found out. But if your way is Christ,
then you're on the good way, the right way, the narrow way,
which is Christ. Because you shall be brought
unto the Father in Him. So everything you need is freely
provided for the sinner in Christ. He fulfilled every obligation
for his bride as their surety. Turn over to John 15. John 15. We're going to pick up in verse
5. John 15, 5. I am the vine, ye
are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye
can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he
is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and men gather them
and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide
in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will,
and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified,
that ye bear much fruit. So shall ye be my disciples."
So our Savior, he's the root. He's divine. We're connected.
We're the branch of Christ. Bearing the fruit of His sap,
of His life, we bring forth fruits by the Spirit. Love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It's all of the Lord. It's all
of His grace and mercy. We seek Him. We follow Him. We
love Him. And so we trust Him to preserve
us unto the end and to never let us go. We cry out, sometimes
that tree is shaken, and we cry out, Lord, keep me. Lord, save
me. Deal with me, Lord, in mercy. Have mercy upon me. And you that
call upon Him, asking Him for grace and mercy, for Christ's
sake, have a good hope, a good hope. because he's the one that
gives that hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you start asking for
mercy for something you've done, that's a wicked hope. That's
a hope that will perish, and you'll die with that hope in
your sins. But you, that hope in Christ, you have a good hope.
And so this knowledge of our inability is taught by the Lord
to every one of his people. He makes us to know that we can't
save ourselves, that we would find all our salvation, all our
hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. So faith in Christ always is
given by the Lord. Faith in Christ is always given
by our God. It's the manifestation of His grace and mercy for us. You that hope in Him. Now I'm
just going to close with Philippians 3 verses 1 through 3. Where Paul
said, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same
things to you, to me indeed, is not grievous, but for you
it's safe. Beware of dogs, beware of evil
workers, beware of the concision. And don't look to those that
are turning you to the works of your flesh away from Christ.
If you follow Christ, He's the one that turns you from the flesh.
He's the one that keeps you looking to Him, trusting Him, not walking
in the ways of darkness, not using your profession as a cloak
of unrighteousness. He keeps you. It's of Him. It's by His grace and power.
Four, we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. That's what your God is teaching
you in this. Have no confidence in the flesh.
Have every confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your patience
in teaching us To look to Christ, to look to
our Savior, to see our salvation is entirely in Him. That we would
cry to you and pray to you asking that Christ would dwell in our
hearts by faith. That we would stay in Him, stand
in Him, be rooted in Him by your grace and power. Lord, we have
no ability of ourselves to make that happen. Lord, we know that
when we pray, seeking you for your grace, you give it because
you're the one who gave the prayer in the first place and stirred
us up to see our need, to see our insufficiency in the sufficiency
of Christ. Lord, we ask that you would indeed
stir us up, deliver us from darkness, deliver us from death, deliver
us from a vain false hope, that we would see our Savior, see
our fullness in Him, that we would bring forth fruits of good
works, that we would bring forth good works being connected to
Him, being joyful, happy in the Lord Jesus Christ and what He's
done for us, knowing that it's not for our justification, that
it's not to sanctify ourselves, but that because we have been
saved, because we have been delivered, because we have been given life
by Christ, we bring forth fruits that testify of His grace and
mercy, of His power, of His glory, of His goodness to His people. Lord, keep us in the way of Christ. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen. Our closing hymn will be 77.
Son of my soul, 77. Son of my soul, thou Saviour
dear, It is not night if thou be near. O may no earth-born
cloud arise To hide thee from thy servant's eyes. ? When the soft dews of kindly
sleep ? ? My weary eyelids gently sleep ? ? Be my last thought,
O sweet to rest ? ? Forever on my Savior's breast ? Abide with
me from morn till eve, for without thee I cannot live. Abide with me when night is nigh,
for without thee I dare not die. Be near to bless me when I wake. E'er through the world my way
I take. Abide with me till in thy love
I lose myself in heaven above. Thank you.