Good morning. Let's go to Galatians chapter
4. Galatians 4. Paul has been declaring
to the church at Galatia that in Christ Jesus we have been
given life. We have been given everything
necessary by God in His Son Jesus Christ for our salvation. He has given us liberty and hope
and righteousness all in Christ and through Christ sets us free
from the bondage that we are in, in this flesh by nature. God has provided everything in
His Son. And yet, these brethren here
in Galatia, they were desiring to go back into bondage. They were desiring things which
cannot save and are not the things of liberty. They didn't recognize
it as such. They thought they were doing
what was right and they thought they were honoring God. And the
reality is, Paul says, you're going into bondage. You want
to go into bondage. This is what you're asking for.
You're asking to go into bondage. And look at verses 9 and 10. He said, but now after that ye
have known God, or rather are known of God, we love him because
he first loved us, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly
elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? You desire
to be in bondage. What does that look like, Paul?
He says, well, you observe days and months and times and years. I can smell that you guys are
going to Judaism. You're going under the law. This is what you're doing, and
that's bondage. That's bondage. You're not to
be going back under the law. And Paul was concerned for them
because when a professing believer ceases to be satisfied with Christ,
that's a thing of concern. When a believer is no longer
satisfied with the simplicity that is in Christ, And they begin
to search out other things and to try other things. That's a
concern because our God has given us everything necessary in His
Son. And He teaches us all these things,
everything necessary in Christ. And it's a walk of faith revealed
in us by His Spirit. And so what they're doing is,
it seems like they're doing what's right. They're going on to what
they think is more mature things, and that they're being faithful
to God and going on to these things. In reality, it's bondage. It's bondage. They're not trusting
the Lord Jesus Christ alone. They're having to turn to the
flesh and to bear works of the flesh to yield the fruit of the
flesh in doing it. And Paul says, this isn't right.
That's not the fruit of the Spirit. You think you're doing what's
right, and it's not right at all. And so, it's cause for great
concern. And Paul said in verse 11, he
said, I'm afraid of you. I'm afraid for you, lest I have
bestowed upon you labor in vain, lest your faith is in vain. And then look down at verse 20. He said, I desire to be present
with you now and to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of
you. You're showing me that you aren't
satisfied with Christ. You're not hearing the promises
of God made to you in Christ. And Paul speaks about these promises,
and he says that we wait for the Lord to fulfill His righteousness
in us, to teach us, we wait upon Him to keep and preserve us. He says, let me see if I can
find it there. I'm looking in Romans 8. where he speaks of groaning and
waiting. Okay, verse 24, for we are saved
by hope, but hope that is not seen. Our hope that is seen is
not hope for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But
if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait
for it. God has given us great and exceeding great and wonderful
promises in his son Jesus Christ, and we wait for it in patience. We trust God to fulfill his word
to us. So if we have to turn to the
flesh, That's turning away from Christ. If you've got to affect
it by your works, and these are fruits of the flesh, which is
malice and backbiting and tearing one another apart, if you've
got to do these things and turn to works of the flesh, how is
that walking in the Spirit? How is that of God and of the
Lord? If you've got to now do things
of hate and malice, of envy and deceitful things to one another. That's not of the Spirit. And
so Paul is writing a very personal letter to the Galatians and he's
speaking to them about very specific things relevant to themselves
and he's telling them the truth. And because he warned them and
said, brethren, you take heed to what you're doing. You take
heed to what you're doing. Be very careful what you're doing.
And because he told them that, they despised him as an enemy
because he told them the truth. They treated him as an enemy
and turned away from him. They didn't want to do with him. At least some did. At least some
did. And they saw him as an enemy rather than this man's a faithful
minister sent of God who promises to feed his sheep, who promises
that he'll preach the gospel to his people and tell them the
truth and feed them in Christ. But they turned away from him
as an enemy. And so in these verses here, we see this personal
speech that Paul has with the Galatians. And he's putting them
in memory of the liberty, of the blessings, of all that God
has richly given to them in Christ. And he's steering them back to
him whom they've turned from. But while these things are very
targeted, to the Galatians, there's things that we can learn. There's
things that we can hear today as we read these words. They're a good reminder to us
of just how easy it is for us to be offended in the flesh. It's easy. This flesh does not
hear. This flesh fights against the
true and living God. It resists the Holy Spirit. the
Israelites are described as having a stiff neck and it means that
they have an iron sinews in their neck and that's us by nature.
We have an iron sinews in our neck. We will not be turned.
We will not hear the Lord. We see him as our enemy, and
we fight against him. And if it's not for the grace
of God, we'll never believe. We'll never believe. We'll never
turn. We'll never hear our Lord. But it's a good reminder to see
how easily we can be offended when the stakes are high, and
we passionately care about something, and we'll be fooled. if left
to ourselves. And so we need to look to Christ.
We need to put him first in all things, and that's easier said
than done, because pride is a very wicked sin. It's very wicked,
and it's in this flesh. And that's why oftentimes Paul
says, if any man think he knoweth something, let him think again.
If you think that you've arrived and you know the truth and you
know what to do, be very careful. It was James who said, brethren,
be slow to speak and be quick to hear. Listen. Listen because
this is what we are by nature in the flesh. And we will bring
ourselves right into bondage, desiring it even, thinking that
we're doing good and right in it. And so I've titled this message
An Enemy for Telling the Truth. So Paul makes an appeal to his
Galatian brethren. And he says in 4 verse 12, this
is the beginning of our text here, verse 12, brethren. So
he is being gracious to them. He's hoping that they are brethren. He says, brethren, I beseech
you, be as I am, for I am as ye are. You've not injured me
at all. You've not offended me, your
issue isn't with me, your issue is with the Lord. You're rebelling
against the Lord. And turning from me, it's not
me that you're offending, you're offending the Lord. And so he
says, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as ye are. And what's
Paul mean there? Well, Paul was a Jew. And he
was serving God, worshiping God, under the law. He was in bondage to the law
himself. But in Christ, he's been delivered
from that bondage. He's been taken out of that bondage. Whereas the Galatians, they were
Gentiles. And the Gentiles never served
God. They never worshipped God under the law of Moses. But now they were being charmed
by these legalists. These of the concision, these
lawmongers who had come out of Jerusalem and were now going
to the various churches and places that Paul and Barnabas had been
to preaching the gospel, and they were saying, brethren, you
need to move on to more strong things. You need to be doing
this. And what you're hearing from
Paul, that's not the truth. That's not enough. That's not
sufficient to save you. You need to go on to greater,
more more needful things. And for them, it was the law.
It was legal bondage. And it can be a lot of different
things, but for these Galatians, it was legal bondage. They were
going to the law. And turn over to Philippians
3. Paul tells the church, he tells the Philippians what he
thinks of the law. And we see that Paul wanted nothing
to do with the law for righteousness. Everything had become new for
Paul in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's true of every single
child of God. All things are become new. We
don't now seek and go back to religion, dead religion, dead
letter, law, religion. That's not our salvation. That's
not growing in grace and in the knowledge of your Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. That's growing in the flesh. That's turning to the flesh to
work a righteousness. And Christ said to those people
who said, Lord, didn't we do all these things for you and
in your name, do many wonderful works and cast out devils? Didn't
we do those things? And he said, depart from me,
ye workers of iniquity. I never knew you, ye workers
of iniquity. So that by their law keeping
and their doing, they were actually committing sin and iniquity and
trespassing against the true and living God. And it's contrary
to how we think in the flesh. It's contrary to it. But Paul
says in Philippians 3, 6, concerning zeal, I persecuted the church. I was rebellious when Christ
came, I continued in the law, and it became apparent very quickly
that I was in bondage, in bondage. He said, touching the righteousness
which is in the law, I was blameless. According to the interpretation
and understanding and teachings of the Pharisees, I was perfect
in my law keeping, he says. But what things were gained to
me, those I counted loss for Christ. When Christ came, all
his religion, all his doings, all his perfection under the
law was vile. It became filthy to him. It became
something to be rejected and cast off. Verse eight, yea, doubtless,
and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. And so Christ became Lord to
Paul. He was Lord, but Paul now understood,
this is my Lord and Savior, I follow him. I follow him and I trust
him. And he makes promises to me that
I believe. And I stand in those promises
by faith, trusting my Lord. And so because of his faith in
Christ, all the old things passed away. And Christ, in Christ all
things were new and he worshipped God in the Lord Jesus Christ
alone. And so Paul is saying there,
I'm not clinging to the law at all for any righteousness. I'm
not looking to the law for sanctification. I'm made perfect in the Lord
Jesus Christ. I'm accepted of my God in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And I stand before God trusting
his word of promise to me in his son, Jesus Christ. And so Paul is living like a
Gentile now. Paul is a Gentile as far as he's
concerned. He's not under the law. And that's
why he says to the Galatians, be as I am for I am as ye are. I'm what you guys are. You guys
are Gentiles. You were never under the law.
That's how I live. I don't live by the law. That's
not my righteousness. That's not my sanctification.
That doesn't bring me near to my God. Christ and Christ alone
is is my all, all my acceptance, all my righteousness, all my
hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And for example, he said of Peter
in Galatians 2.14, look at that verse with me, Galatians 2.14,
he said, but when I saw that they walked not uprightly according
to the truth of the gospel, he's talking about Peter and Barnabas.
leaders in the church there, people who had influence over
the other brethren that were there. He says, I saw that they
didn't walk up rightly according to the truth of the gospel. I
said unto Peter before them all, if thou being a Jew livest after
the manner of Gentiles, and do not as the Jews, and not as do
the Jews, why compelest thou the Gentiles to live as do the
Jews? Peter, if you and me, if we're
living like Gentiles, not with the law. We're not looking to
the law. We're not reading the law for our righteousness to
study it to try and figure out how we're supposed to live. We
know how to live. We have the spirit of God in
us who teaches us Christ and he fills my heart with love and
care and kindness and gentleness for my brethren and for others. I speak to them and deal with
them according to the grace of God for me and his son. That's how we're to live toward
one another. Is God gracious to you? Be gracious to your brethren. Has God forgiven you for Christ's
sake? You forgive your brethren for Christ's sake. Does God love
you in Christ? You love your brethren in Christ.
Does Christ love you and lay down his life for you? You love
your brethren and lay down your life for them. you do what God
has done for you in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is not there
sleeping with the Galatians wives, their wives and covening their
things and stealing from them. He doesn't go into the houses
of the Gentiles and skim a little bit of money off for himself
from them. He doesn't lie to them or cheat
them in any way. He's faithful to preach the gospel
and to love them and to treat them kindly, gently. speaking the things of God in
Christ, speaking of turning them to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he's not looking to the
law and yet he's walking upright before them in Christ because
Christ teaches us and is all in all to us. So once Christ
is come, no man is to be going back to the law to learn how
to walk and live and keep themselves unspotted from the world. you
look to Christ, you cry out in the spirit, Lord, keep me, teach
me, help me. Bless my brethren, keep them,
Lord. The spirit teaches us how we are to walk among one another
in Christ. As he said before in Galatians
3.24, He said, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster. And you with the King James,
you see where the words to bring us are italicized, meaning they're
not in the original. The law was the Jews' schoolmaster
unto Christ, or until the coming of Christ. And once Christ came,
that was it. That was it. We stopped looking
to the law for our righteousness, that we might be justified by
faith, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament saints
kept the law which God gave them, looking unto the coming of Christ. And once Christ came, Paul is
saying to us, that's it. We don't look in the law now
to know how to live. We look to Christ. And when we
look in the law, who do we see? But Christ fulfilling all the
law. all our righteousness. We see
him in all the scriptures. We believe that this is all speaking
of him, that Moses wrote of him, the prophets wrote of him, the
Psalms wrote of him. It all speaks of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And now we see him clearly. And that's all we see is Christ
trusting, believing the promises of God made unto us in him. Because when Christ comes, that
veil, which is over the heart, is lifted and the blindness is
removed, the darkness is replaced with the light of Christ, we
hear his voice, we come out of the sheep pen of the world, we
come out from the midst of the goats and we're led out by the
Lord Jesus Christ and brought into his fold with his sheep,
hearing his voice, following him. And so we don't now labor
in the law to try and worship God, to try and weave a righteousness
for ourselves, to ensure that we're saved and to sanctify ourselves,
to add a few more bricks to the wall of salvation just in case
Christ didn't do enough for us. Let me add my hand to the work.
No, we don't do that. If you weave your own righteousness,
you're gonna weave a spider's web and you're gonna be tangled
in that web and you're going to be bitten with a venomous
bite and die in your sins, as Christ said. If you believe not
that I am He, that I'm the Christ, that I'm the salvation of God,
you will die in your sins. And so we look to Christ and
stay right there in Him, in Him alone. we're robed in his righteousness. We stand confidently before the
throne of God in Christ. And if you're looking to the
law, there is no confidence. All right, brother, there's no
confidence. When you're looking to the law for righteousness,
you're terrified because you hear the judgment, you hear the
trumpets blaring, you see the lightning, you feel the heat
of that fire, the thunderings, the shakings, the earthquakes,
because you're not perfect. You're not perfect before the
law in your works. You're perfect before the law
in Christ. In Christ. Because God promises all who
look to Him, all who believe Him, shall receive the remission
of sins. Their sins are put away. Glory
to God, we're forgiven. forgiven in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we're given His Spirit whereby we live unto God, calling upon
His name, trusting Him, believing Him, asking Him, Lord help me,
keep me, bless my brethren, teach me Lord. The Lord leads us and
He keeps us. We're told in Hebrews 10 14,
for by one offering He hath perfected forever then that are sanctified. because he's their sanctification.
His blood was shed for the remission of our sins, the forgiveness
of our sins. Now, the next three verses should
prove a blessed comfort to you who have been delivered from
the yoke and bondage of the law. Some of you I know have family
members. You came from families that look
to the law for righteousness. You went to churches when you
were little, churches so-called, where they laid on you the law
for righteousness, the law to be your guide and your determining
factor of whether or not you were the Lord's people. And so
you have family members who trace every affliction that occurs
to somebody back to their inability or the fact that they're not
keeping the law. Did you hear about your cousin? His car blew
up the other day because he doesn't keep the Sabbath. Did you hear
about your uncle? Yeah, he lost his job because
he was working on the Sabbath day. He wasn't keeping the law. And they look to little things
that happen, afflictions and sorrows and trials that come
upon people, and they trace it back to the fact that they aren't
doing what they're supposed to do in keeping the law for righteousness.
None of us keeps the law for righteousness in this flesh.
None of us can look to the law and say that I've been perfect
by the things that I've done, unless we're lying to ourselves.
But in Christ, we are perfect. In Christ, the law has nothing
more to say to us because we have fulfilled the law perfectly
in Him. We're not looking to what we
do or don't do in this flesh. We're looking to what our Savior
did and accomplished in His flesh for His people because we were
in Him. Everything He did was to fulfill
all righteousness for us. He fulfilled all righteousness
for us. And so when you have family members
that tell you, you know why that's happening. You know why someone
broke into your house and took some things of yours. It's because
you're not keeping the law. When you hear that, just know
that the afflictions you have put you in good company. You
that trust Christ, you're in good company with the Apostle
Paul. Because Paul was living like
a Gentile. Paul wasn't keeping the law, and look, he had afflictions. Look here in verse 13 and 14.
Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel
unto you at the first. And my temptation, which was
in my flesh, ye despised not, nor rejected, but received me
as an angel, a messenger of God, even as Christ Jesus. Your Lord, your God, knows how
to give afflictions and sorrows that are good for you and for
his people. He knows how to give you sorrows
and afflictions. He knows how to bring you into
trouble. There are times when we are chastened of the Lord,
but it's not because God is punishing us. It's not because he's up
there swatting us and smacking our hand and showing us because
we're wicked before the law. No, he's teaching us. He's keeping
us. And he's giving us things, trials
and temptations and sorrows and afflictions, because it's for
your good and it's for the good of your brethren. So that Paul,
having these trials and temptations, went and preached the gospel
faithfully to the Galatians there. He said it this way to the Corinthians,
2 Corinthians 4.11, For we which live are always delivered to
death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made
manifest in our mortal flesh. And so Paul, who lived like a
Gentile, it was good the afflictions he had. because it was decreasing
and diminishing him. It was putting down his flesh.
It was stripping him of his pride and the hope that he had in his
own flesh and his works. It's good that the Lord puts
the yoke on a man when he's young, not the law, but brings him into
trials and afflictions that he would fall on his face and cry
out to God because he sees, I'm nothing, Lord, and I can't do
a thing without you. There's nothing I can do. I can't
do a thing for myself. I can't do a thing for my brethren,
except you do it. He says the watchman, you could
set a watchman on the wall of the city, but they watch in vain
unless the Lord is keeping that city. unless the Lord does it. And that's the same thing for
us. You could do all you want in the law and in religion, and
it does nothing except God give it to you. And he gives it to
his people in Jesus Christ by his spirit, walking in faith,
walking in faith, not in the flesh under the law. And so these trials, these temptations
proved profitable to God's people because they bore fruit in bearing
and receiving Paul and his infirmity in the flesh. They bore fruit
in that because they trusted God. They believed the Word of
God. They trusted the promises of God. They weren't put off
by the infirmities. They believed God was in it.
and that God had blessed it to their hearts. So then Paul said,
death worketh in us, but life in you. 2 Corinthians 4.12. Death
works in us. We're stripped of our pride,
of our arrogance, of our confidence in self. and life is given to
God's people and they're blessed by it. So having recalled this
blessed fruit in their minds, he asks them in verse 15, Galatians
4.15, where is then the blessedness you spake of? You were full of
rejoicing and joy and hearing of Christ. For I bear you record
that if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your
own eyes and have given them to me." And that's, this is a
good lesson for us. because trials and difficulties
come. Times of darkness come to the
family of God, to his people. There's difficulties and setbacks
and trials that come, but remember the blessed fellowship which
you enjoyed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Where is that blessedness
ye spake of? If God blessed you, If God fed
you together with your brethren, then when difficulties come,
and your pride is offended, and you don't see what you think
you should see, why don't you trust the Lord? Why don't you
believe the promises of God made to you in His Son? Why would
you now turn against your brethren? And they were turning against
Paul. Why would you turn against your brethren when trials come? Don't be so quick to write off
brethren. Don't be so quick to cast them
off and to count them as though they're not brethren and to be
turned away from them, infidels from the faith. Where is then the blessedness
ye speak of? You've already forgotten the
confidence you had in your God who blessed you, who promised
to feed you, and then when a trial comes, you fall away. And like
Paul, he's saying, you received me in my weakness and infirmities
then. Why don't you receive me now?
Why are you turning away from me now? And so Paul was being
faithful to the Galatians and he was speaking the truth to
them, but they were offended. He spoke the truth to them and
they were offended and counted him an enemy for telling them
the truth, saying to them what they needed to hear, take heed,
and they didn't like it. They didn't like it and they
were offended. And so that's what he says in verse 16, am
I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
If I'm speaking to you as a faithful minister of Christ, does that
make me now an enemy of yours? Because I tell you, take heed,
brethren. You're going to the law for righteousness. You're
being turned from Christ. You're not hearing the promises
of God and Christ, and you're taking things into your own flesh
to deal with them in a fleshly manner. And it's not faithful.
You think you're doing good, and you're really doing evil.
You're not doing good. You're not edifying the body.
You're not edifying the church. You're tearing it down. You're
taking away. Your minds have been corrupted
from the simplicity of Christ. And just as Eve was beguiled,
the serpent has beguiled you. That's what he's saying to these
brethren there. And so They were committed to
what they decided to do. Their minds were made up. They
weren't going to be turned. They didn't want to hear what
Paul said. And so when Paul warned them,
you're going into bondage. You're going to make trouble
for yourselves. You're standing on dangerous ground where you're
going. It's not life. It's death. and
you're destroying yourselves and your families. And so they
resisted Paul's words, thinking, I don't know, we're being faithful.
Doesn't it sound good that we're going to the law? Doesn't it
sound good that we're going to these things in the flesh? But
Paul says, no, trust Christ. Wait for the hope of righteousness.
Believe the promises of your God made to you in Christ. Where
is the blessedness that you speak of? Why do you doubt God now?
Why don't you believe Him? Why don't you trust Him? He's
brought you into the temptation and trial. Why then do you think
that turning to the flesh is going to be the thing to resolve
it? And so Paul says in verse 17,
they zealously affect you, but not well. In other words, these
false teachers, these voices that you're listening to, they're
jealous for the people to follow them and not to follow Paul. And it wasn't in a good light.
And so they put Paul in a bad light. Those men from From Jerusalem,
they spoke ill of Paul to make him appear awful to these people. And in doing that, they were
putting the souls of the Galatians on very dangerous ground. He said, yea, they would exclude
you. In other manuscripts, it says they would include you,
and the sense being that they wanted to monopolize your affections
and bring you into bondage with them. They wanted to make sure
that you wouldn't hear Paul and be swayed by him, and so they
monopolized your affections and kept you sealed off, that you
would remain with them in bondage, that ye might affect them, that
you would be on their side. And so they were very careful
in what they did and what they said and the strategies that
they used to keep them away from Paul, that they might control
them and have the sway over them. And that's a wicked and sinister
thing to do and not to be done. And we don't see it when we're
doing it. We oftentimes don't realize when we're the ones being
a problem in that regard. But here it is right here, and
they're not trusting the Lord. All right, verse 18. But it is
good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not
only when I'm present with you. Paul said, when I'm with you,
you're zealous for me. You're buddy-buddy with me. You're
friends with me. You speak well to me. But as
soon as I go away, now you side with them. And you talk about
me, against me, behind my back. He's just saying there that it
is good to be zealous for the right thing. But if you're working
in the flesh, it's not good. And so ministers of the gospel,
they want to see faithfulness in the Lord's people. We do.
We want to see our brethren grow in the grace and knowledge of
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And I can say as a pastor now,
I see more why Paul said, I have the care of the churches on my
mind, weighing heavily on him. Because you see just how, how
proud and arrogant the flesh can be. And we're brought, we're
made to see by the Lord. You think you're low and the
Lord brings you lower in yourself that he might use you. for his
good, for his glory, for his purposes. And that doesn't all
come at once. That's why Peter wrote to the
elders, the under shepherds, because we need to hear and we
need to be taught and led by the Lord ourselves. And so we
grow too. And we're stripped of pride and
arrogance. We're stripped and brought low
in ourselves that we would know that without Christ we can do
Nothing. And that we desperately need
him in all things. And no more is that more apparent
than with our brethren to whom we preach the gospel. And we
preach the gospel to ourselves. And we see that we're powerless
to affect obedience, to change minds. We have nothing of ourselves
to help another to hear it. And so all we can do is pray. Pray, cry out to the Lord, trust
Him, believe His promises to us, not to be turned to the flesh
ourselves, but to trust the Lord. And we don't turn the brethren
to the law, and we don't try to affect an obedience in them
through the preaching of the law, but through the preaching
of the Lord Jesus Christ, to declare what He's done for sinners.
to declare what he's done for his people and how that he fulfills
all his word to us to believe him, to trust him, to stay there
because it's Christ's voice that you need to hear. All we can
do is lift up the banner and say, look to Christ. Look to
the servant of God, the faithful servant of God who fulfilled
all righteousness for his people. And we preach him, but we don't
turn to the law. And that's what a lot of people
do is they turn from the gospel to the law in order to affect
obedience, but that's wickedness. That's doing works of iniquity. And so I'll just close with the
last two verses. My little children, verse 19,
of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.
I desire to be present with you now and to change my voice for
I stand in doubt of you. We labor, until Christ is formed
in the hearts of his people, preaching that gospel, preaching
Christ, going through trials, going through infirmities, going
through sorrows, going through difficulties to die to self that
we might find our all and all in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's a blessed thing. And that's where the Lord blesses
you, his people. And so when we go through these
difficulties and trials, we're in good company. We're in good
company with Paul and like-minded believers who are not living
under the law, not living according to the flesh, but leaning on
the Lord, trusting the Lord, waiting upon the Lord for his
righteousness in his son, Jesus Christ. Amen. All right, let's
pray. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your grace and mercy. We thank you for your mercy,
your power in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, Lord, how
that you show us that without you, we can do nothing, that
you are our all, that you are our salvation, that you are our
glory, our hope, our faith, our everything, and Lord, We thank
you that you don't turn us, you don't allow us to be turned to
the flesh, but that you keep us, and that you show us again
our need of the Savior, and how that you fulfill all promises
to us in the Savior, the one whom you sent. And Lord, we pray
that you would keep us ever looking to him, not being turned away
to the flesh, not being turned away to ourselves, our own works
and what we think is right, but to believe the promises of God.
It's in Christ's name we pray and give thanks. Amen.