Let's all stand and sing, open
our second service by standing and singing from 208, 208, Are
You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb, 208. ["Are You Washed in
the Blood of the Lamb"] Come into Jesus for the cleansing
power. Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His
grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless,
are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you walking daily by the
Savior's side? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Do you rest each moment in the
Crucified? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless,
are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? From the bright brook cometh,
will your robes be white? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Will your soul be ready for the
mansion's bright, and be washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments shroudless? Are they white as snow? Are you
washed in the blood of the Lamb? aside the garments that are stained
with sin, and be washed in the blood of the Lamb. There's a fountain flowing for
the soul unclean, though be washed in the blood of the Lamb. Are you washed in the blood,
in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of
the Lamb? Thank you. You may be seated. You can read from Micah 3. Micah chapter 3. I'll give you
a minute to find it. It's buried in there. Right after Jonah. Micah chapter 3. And I said, here I pray you,
O heads of Jacob, and you princes of the house of Israel, is it
not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good and love the
evil, who pluck off their skin from off them and their flesh
from off their bones, who also eat the flesh of my people and
flay their skin from out them, and they break their bones and
chop them in pieces, as for the pot and as flesh within the cauldron,
Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them.
He will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have
behaved themselves ill in their doings. Thus saith the Lord concerning
the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth
and cry, peace, and he that put not into their mouths, they even
prepare war against him. Therefore, night shall be unto
you, and ye shall not have a vision, and out shall be dark unto you,
and ye shall not divine, and the sun shall go down over the
prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. Then shall the
seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded, yea, they shall all
cover their lips, for there is no answer of God. But truly,
I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgment and
of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel
his sin. Hear this, I pray you, ye heads
of the house of Jacob and princes of the house of Israel that abhor
judgment and pervert all equity. They build upon Zion with blood
and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward
and the priests thereof teach for hire and the prophets thereof
divine for money Yet they learn they lean upon the lord and say
is not the lord among us none evil can come upon us Therefore
shall zion for your sake be plowed as a field And jerusalem shall
become heaps And the mountain of the house as the high places
of the forest Let's pray Father we come to you again this
morning thankful for our time, and Father, for that first message
is hopefully, Lord, you open hearts and eyes and ears as that
message was preached. Father, we're thankful. We're
thankful for the man you've given us that's brought the message. We ask that you continue to strengthen
him and that he feel strengthened by us and support from us and
love from us. Father, we just ask that you
again just open our hearts as the second message is brought.
And Father, take away distractions and just let us hear the word
that you would have come to us this morning. Father, we ask
that you watch over and care for us in Christ's name. As you remain sitting, let's
sing 212, Nothing But The Blood. 212. So, What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. ? For my part in this I sing
? ? Nothing but the blood of Jesus ? ? For my cleansing this
my plea ? ? Nothing but the blood of Jesus ? ? How precious is
the flow ? ? That makes me white as snow ? No other fount I know,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing can force in a tone,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Naught of good that I have done,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Thank you. Alright, brethren, let's turn
to Ephesians chapter 4, and we'll be looking at verses 17 through
24. Now Paul, in the middle of our
text, in verse 20, he says, But ye have not so learned Christ. Every believer learns Christ. and we learn him in the new man
which is created in us by the Lord Jesus Christ. The new man
is born of the seed of the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. This work is done in us by the
grace of God apart from our works, apart from our doing of good
works, or following the law, or anything that we would do
to earn that. It's apart from that. We don't
merit the grace and salvation of our God. What this tells us,
this new man, what this reveals to us is that every believer
has two natures. Now, one of those natures is
consistent with everyone that comes forth being born of Adam's
seed, the first Adam, meaning it's defiled and corrupt. It's called the old man or the
old nature, and it's the nature that we're born with, born of
Adam's seed. And Paul describes it in verse
22 saying that it's the old man which is corrupt according to
the deceitful lusts. And then there's a new nature
which is unique to the believer in Christ. We have a new man,
we have a new nature which we are born again with. It's the nature that we're born
again with. And Paul describes it in verse
24 as the new man, which after God is created in righteousness
and true holiness. And this tells us that this new
nature can only and must be created by God himself. It's a perfect
righteous nature. This nature cannot sin. This
nature can only believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This nature
cannot sin. The old nature can only sin and
has no righteousness. But this new nature created in
us by the Lord Jesus Christ of His seed is righteous, and pure
and undefiled and believes God, trusts Him, stays upon Him, cannot
not believe the Lord our God. And this nature is righteous
because it's wrought, our righteousness is wrought by the Lord Jesus
Christ. And He's created this nature
in righteousness. It's created in holiness, that
is true, meaning it's only of God. Only He can work this in
us. It's not by man's defiling hand
and his false, corrupt, and vile works. It's created in us by
God, after the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul here, he's writing to
believers in Ephesus. He's not writing to the whole
city of Ephesus. He's writing to the believers
in Ephesus who have this new nature. This is those who have
learned Christ. They've learned Christ. They
believe him. They trust him. They have faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, I want to speak to you this
morning about the two natures of the believer. The two natures
of the believer, because Paul talks here about putting off
the old man and about putting on the new man. to the self-righteous,
to the legalist, that might sound exciting, because they get to
show off. They get to show all the fruits
of their labors, of their discipline, and their works. They want to
show what they've learned. And at the same time, by a casual
reading, or as we read through this, if we read through this
quickly, the believer, the believer, the one who has a new nature,
may be troubled by what they read. Because we know by experience,
we've never been able to put off the old man so as to no longer
sin in this flesh. We've never been able to cease
sinning in this flesh, or cease from this flesh being what it
is. We can't free ourselves from
the sin in this flesh. And so this old man, what we
find is this old man is utterly depraved. It's defiled. Its works are darkness and evil. They're sinful. They trespass
against our God and against one another continually. And this
flesh cannot believe, it will not believe, it does not trust
the true and living God. It's defiled, it's corrupt and
dead to the things of God. And for the believer, our old
man is crucified with Christ. This flesh is not yet buried
in the ground. This hunk of dead, sinful flesh
is yet going about with us. It's yet with us. And so, what
does Paul mean? What is Paul saying about putting
off the old man and putting on the new man? Well, I want to
assure you right from this point, I want you to understand that
he's speaking of grace. This is about grace. Because
just as our new birth, our being born again was a work of God's
grace, that's how we learn Christ. We learn Him by grace. And we
put off the old man by grace, and we put on the new man by
grace, and we are continually renewed by the Spirit in grace. We're renewed by the Spirit in
grace. And so, if this is, this putting
on the new man is a work of righteousness and true holiness, as Paul says
here, then it's got to be a work of grace done in the believer
by the Spirit and power of God. It's His gracious work in us. So I've titled this, Put Off
the Old, Put On the New. And we're going to begin here
with the old man put off. Paul is writing to believers
in Ephesus and he exhorts them in verse 22 saying that he put
off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt
according to the deceitful lusts. Paul is not implying that you
can be free from sin in your flesh. He's not implying or saying
that believers don't sin in this flesh. In the new man, we do
not sin. We cannot sin in the new man. But this flesh can only sin. This flesh only does not believe. The Apostle John said in 1 John
3 2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear
what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we
shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. When our Lord returns, we shall
have a new body. We shall have a new body that
is not corrupted and defiled with sin. That old man will have
been put away, buried out of sight forever. He has no power
over us now. His works cannot plunge us to
hell if we are saved by the grace of God. This old man has no power
and dominion over us. We're saved by the Lord Jesus
Christ. But we see in this flesh it's
still sinful. It's still corrupt and defiled. And so what Paul is saying, though,
is that we're not to be indifferent to our sin. We're not to just
go about saying, c'est la vie, such is life, and that's just
how it is, I'm just a sinner, and then just do whatever the
old man would have us to do. This old man that we have is
never to be an excuse for us to sin. It's not to be an excuse
for our disobedience to our God. We're not to make excuses or
provision for sin or indulge ourselves in it and to obey it
in its lusts. That being said, we're not going
to remove sin and those lusts in the flesh. We're not going
to be able to remove them from this flesh. We're not going to
change this flesh. We're not going to improve the
flesh or reform the flesh. The sinful nature of this flesh
is not going to be altered by our works any more than the leopard
can change its spots. This flesh is still dead, it's
still corrupt, and it does not believe the true and living God. So, what Paul is saying is, it
must be of grace. For us to put off the old man
must be in grace and of grace. When he says there that you put
off concerning the former conversation, the old man, really the simplest
way to hear that, the simplest way to receive that, is don't
live the way the old man wants to live. That's really what he's
saying. Don't live the way the old man
wants to live, but seek to live to the glory and honor of your
Lord. And that's in the new man. We're
going to seek to honor him and live unto the Lord, honoring
his name and doing his will in the new man. In the new man. Seek the Lord. Seek your God
for this. But don't make promises. Don't
put your stake in the ground and say, never again. I'm never
going to do that again. We've tried it and we failed. We should want to never do sins
again. And the Lord brings us to hate,
especially certain sins in us where we see how grievous they
are. We can't make promises to the
Lord and say, well, if you do this for me, I'll never do that
again. We shouldn't say those words. That's not what the Lord
is calling us to do, is make empty, vain promises. But we do seek Him that we may
live in a manner that honors His name, that is a walk worthy
of our calling, that the Lord has called us unto as He's taught
us and as He's teaching us by grace. He's teaching us in grace
and so we don't want to regard or we want to show no regard
for what the flesh wants to do in sin and in lust. We're not
to defer, just give in to it and just do it because, well,
we're in the flesh and this is what the flesh wants to do so
I'm just going to cater to the flesh. In Luke 22 verse 44 we
read that he being in agony, Christ prayed more earnestly,
and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling
down to the ground. Our Lord didn't entertain him. He didn't pursue the lusts of
the flesh. He sought the Lord. for mercy,
he sought the Lord for help and strength and support, and he
sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. And so we're not to
make provision for the flesh. And, you know, the promise of
sin is that it ought to be pleasurable. It'll satisfy you. It'll satisfy
that urge, that lustful urge, if you just do it and give in
to it. And yet, when has it ever been a lasting pleasure? When
has it ever satisfied you? No, sin just hardens, and it
just hardens the heart, and you find yourself right back there
again, where you were, because this old man, even knowing what
we know in the Spirit, this old man, This old nature of ours
is still corrupt, it's dead, and it's ignorant to the things
of God, it's crafty, it's deceitful, it lies, it plays games and tricks,
and works under cover of darkness for as long as it can, and it
can only sin, and it rages against the truth. But we have the new
man, born of Christ in us, and in that new man, We do not sin. We trust Christ. We love Him.
We seek Him. We cry out to Him for mercy and
to save us and to deliver us from the corruption of this flesh. There in the new man we serve
Him and we rejoice in Him. Therefore, being weak in ourselves
and continuing to feel the infirmity of this flesh by the Spirit,
we cry Abba, Father. Save me, Lord. Help me. Deliver
me. Lord, I need You to do this.
Because only You can work this in me. Because I have no strength. This old man has no will to serve
You or to follow You. And so, we're to seek Him for
grace. In time of need, we're to pray
and cry out to Him and continue to seek Him for His grace. And we learn We're learning Christ
through the temptation, through the trial, through the affliction
we go through. We're learning Christ. We're learning Christ. We're
learning the perfection of our Lord, how faithful He is, how
faithful, how just, how perfect, how kind, how wonderful He is,
because we certainly see how weak we are and insufficient
we are. And yet our God, our Savior,
is the perfect, spotless Lamb of God without sin. Without sin. We look forward to that day when
we stand before our God and worship Him without sin. Perfectly. Having no sin, having no wants,
having no extra thoughts in our head. So we learn it's all of
His grace. We learn that we need him every
hour. We learn that we need him to do this and that we can't
do this for ourselves. We can't sanctify ourselves by
our works, by our looking to the law, by our disciplining
and beating on ourselves and trying harder. We can't do it. but it's all of His grace. It's
all of His grace that keeps us, and it's all of His grace that
does turn us from sin, and that does keep us, and that does draw
us near to Him. And so we're taught to seek Him
for grace. As He says in Ezekiel 36, at
the end of that chapter, He said, I, the Lord, have spoken Him,
and I will do it. That's His grace. He's declaring
His grace. Thus saith the Lord God, in verse
37, He says, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of
Israel to do it for them. And so our Lord, He's showing
us it's all of grace and He'll be sought for. He'll be sought
for. He's teaching us how to seek
Him, to care, to cry out and say, Lord, I don't want to do
these things. I want to live in honor to your
name. I want to adorn the gospel that
I believe and not bring shame or any ill word against my God
and my Savior who loved me and gave himself for me by whom I
now live and hope in the true and living God. And so Paul says
to believers that you put off concerning the former conversation
the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. and that can only be done by
the grace of God, and we that have learned Christ seek Him
for that grace. We seek Him, and He teaches us
to seek Him. He teaches us that. Now, coming
back to verse 20 and 21 in Ephesians 4, we understand that believers
are new creatures in Christ, and so He says, ye have not so
learned Christ, That is, you've not learned by the Spirit of
God to walk in sin and walk in your fleshly lusts, if so be
that ye have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth
is in Jesus. And so because we're Christ's
purchased possession, Having His Spirit in us, there is a
desire to not live according to our sinful lusts. There's a desire that He creates
in us, because the Holy Spirit dwells in us. And we don't want
to grieve the Holy Spirit. We don't want to grieve Him who
dwells in us and dwells with us. And so, the Spirit of Christ
remains in us. He's the one revealing to us
that we're His people. We've heard Him preached. We've
heard our Lord declared in His Gospel. He's revealed to us that
we cannot save ourselves, that it's not by our doing and our
practice of some form of religion, just doing anything, In God's
name, He shows us the folly of that, the ignorance of that,
and the darkness of that. He's delivered us from that,
and He's caused us to hear our Lord and Savior preached in power
and in glory, giving us a hope in Him that our sins are put
away, we are forgiven, we are loved by God our Father. who has given the greatest gift
of all in sending His own darling Son to shed His precious blood
for sinners, undeserving, unworthy sinners, that we should be made
righteous in Him, holy in Him, walk in Him, be led by the Spirit
of our God. We've learned Him because we've
heard Him. We've heard Him preach, and in
the preaching of Christ, we've heard Him, and had revealed in
us that faith, which is peculiar, the peculiar gift of God for
His chosen, elect, redeemed saints, those He gave to Christ before
the foundation of the world. And so being taught by our God,
we see the truth of his word as he said no man can come unto
me except the father which hath sent me drawn and i will raise
him up at the last day and he tells us that it's written in
the prophets here in this word and they shall be all taught
of god every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of
the father cometh unto Me." And so we continue to come unto Him,
because He's our life, and He's our food, and we're taught and
grown in His grace by a work of the Spirit of grace in us. And He shows us what the old
man looks like. He shows us the darkness and
the corruption of the old man. Look at verse 17. This I say
therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk
not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind." Just
continuing to walk in those things that the Lord tells us in his
word. are practices done by those who
know not the true and living God. And they do those things
which incur the wrath and the anger of God against man, and
for which cause he's coming to judge the earth. And he says,
don't walk in that darkness that you were under before the grace
of God came to you. Those things that you could so
freely and easily do without any remorse or care or worry,
before the Lord don't do those things. The Spirit has showed
you the ignorance of that way and the darkness that you were
under in that He's shown you the light and life of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Some focus on the religion of
this world and others focus on the pleasures of this world and
all of it delights their flesh. They do that which excites them
and that which gives them joy and boasting and pride in themselves
and so In either case, we're found in pleasure and seeking
pleasures and seeking those things that we naturally love to do. He says in verse 18 that they
have their understanding being alienated from the life of God
through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness
of their heart. And that's how we all were, alienated
from our God until the life of our God was revealed in us, was
manifested in us, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so now, having the
Spirit of Christ in us, we see in the scriptures, and by the
testimony of the Spirit, we're alienated from this world. We're alienated from those who
love the darkness of this world, who delight in that death and
in that darkness. Peter says it this way, that
we've become strangers and pilgrims. We've become strangers and pilgrims
to this world. Not to our God, as we once were,
but now we're alienated from this world and he says, dearly
beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly
lusts which war against the soul. And sadly, to our shame, we know
what that is. We know that when we've believed
the lie and gone after that lie, knowing full well that it's not
a lasting pleasure and it doesn't satisfy, We'll be hungry and
thirsting for that sin in just a moment. When He's shown us
that, and it wars against the soul. We see how it hardens the
heart, how it makes us to feel guilt and shame before our God
again. And we've nothing to be guilty
or shamed of, because Christ has put it all away. But when
we go in practicing those things, all that condemnation comes flowing
in. That feeling of guilt and shame
and horror comes flowing in to our hearts and we feel filthy
and defiled and corrupt in it because sin is a hardening thing. And the more you practice it
and continue on in it, you get harder and harder and more callous
and indifferent to it. Paul says in verse 19, who being
past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work
all uncleanness with greediness. And so sin hardens and we've
seen in the churches those who walked with us at some point
and due to some sin have gone off and disappeared and broken
families and done things that have hurt those believers who
said that was my brother or that was my sister and they're hurt
through sin, because they've pressed on in it, and they get
harder and harder in it. And so they war against the soul,
and war against the soul, but it's only of grace, it's only
by the grace of God that we are delivered in it, that we are
delivered from the sin, rather than continue in that sin and
becoming harder in it. Alright, so now we've learned
put off the old man and it's a work of grace. It's something
that we can't do in the flesh because the flesh is the problem.
The flesh is the old man and it's deceitful and corrupt and
has no strength or will to turn things around and to stop sinning.
It's a work of grace done in the believer by the Lord himself. Well, the same is said of the
new man. The same is said of the new man.
And so he speaks here in verse 23 of a renewing in the spirit
of your mind. a renewing of the Spirit in your
mind. And this is a grace. In the beginning,
it's a work of grace of the Spirit, and it continues to be a work
of grace by the Spirit in us. In the beginning, as we read
in Titus 3, 5, he says, it's not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by
the washing of regeneration and renewing. of the Holy Ghost,
a renewing of the Holy Ghost. Now these Ephesians, they're
believers, they've already been born again, they've been regenerated,
born again, and they've been renewed by the Spirit. They've had a renewing of their
mind in the Spirit. But the believer continues to
benefit from being refreshed and renewed by the Holy Ghost. We need that renewing by the
Holy Ghost, so that as we learn Christ, as we grow in Him, and
He turns us from sins, and He reveals Himself to us, and we
learn of His grace, how that He's keeping us, how precious
His life is, how precious the light of Christ is made to us,
and He's increasing that light, and increasing that understanding,
and He fits us into the body, and He makes us useful there
in the body, and He's correcting us, and instructing us, and He's
healing us of sin. We think of David, and what David
said in Psalm 51. David was a man matured by the
Lord. grown in the Lord, walked with
the Lord for many, many years, and he sinned grievously against
the Lord. And he cried out in Psalm 51
verse 10, creating me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me. Lord, I've done wicked. I've hurt myself. I've done a
sin which is warring against my soul. Renew a right spirit
within me. Cast me not away from thy presence. The Lord will never cast away
you, his people. But when we sin, it feels like
we've been cast away. It feels that God would be just
to cast us away. And so he cries out, don't throw
me away. Don't turn me over to my own
sin and wickedness. Take not thy Holy Spirit from
me, restore. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit. One called it a renewal of spiritual
youth. A renewal of spiritual youth. And it made me think of when
I'm with the grandkids and their hands get dirty. And I wash my
hands and I can get it pretty hot. And I like the water nice
and hot when I'm washing my hands. But for the children, the little
babies, I have to turn that water pretty cool. It's not that warm
because their hands are so tender and they're so easily burned.
And the slightest heat can harm them and hurt them. And that's
what David's praying, bring me back down to that tender feeling. To where I feel the heat before
I even touch it. I don't want to be at that point
where I'm hard again and just touching things that I shouldn't
be touching and hurting myself and bringing war against my soul. Let there be a restoration, a
renewal by your spirit. Bring me back to a young, tender
spirit. that needs you, that rejoices
in your grace, that doesn't want to sin, that wants to walk in
that new man. Jeremiah said in Lamentations
521, turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned,
renew our days as of old. Bring me back to when I was just
a tender child. Make me to remember the joy and
the peace of your salvation and not this hard, sin-defiled rogue
that's just doing what he wants. So he says, be renewed in the
spirit of your mind. We're gonna seek the Lord for
that. We can't make ourselves be renewed. We can't renew ourselves. David cried out to the Lord.
He sought the Lord to renew him. And that's how we're brought
to to do it as well, to cry out to the Lord because it's a work
of His grace. And so instead of doing the will of the old
man, Paul says, verse 24, in that ye put on the new man, which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, so that this
new man, it's the creation of God. It's the creation of our
God who did this work gloriously in His power, by His grace, and
because it's of Him, it's created in righteousness and true holiness. And if it's created of God, it
must be true holiness. If Paul was turning us back,
if the Holy Spirit was turning us back to this flesh, to discipline
ourselves and to make this thing happen and stop that and don't
do this anymore, by our own strength, It wouldn't be true holiness,
would it? It would be that hypocrisy. It would be that show and that
putting on of a false pretense before others to show how disciplined
we are and how pious we are. But the Lord shows us it's of
Him. It's of Him and it's true holiness because He is holy,
holy, holy. And there's no darkness, no shadow
of turning in Him. He's perfect in all His ways.
And He's able to keep you, His people, His children, from being
hardened in sin and to restore you in grace and mercy. And He
gives us a desire for that. A desire to seek Him for, to
remember Him, to desire Him and to pray, Lord, restore unto me
Thy Spirit as in the days of old. Make me tender and ever
looking to You. And so it's of righteousness
because it's created by the Lord Jesus Christ who is Himself our
righteousness. So the putting off and the putting
on is all of grace and therefore we seek Him for it because we
cannot do it in this flesh. It's of grace, brethren. So I
pray the Lord bless you and keep you ever looking to Him and hearing
His Word and seeking Him in grace. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you, Father, that it is all of grace. Lord, we thank
you that you're not turning us back to the law or back to the
flesh to do that which we cannot do. But Lord, we thank you that
your Spirit, that you are able to keep us, that you do keep
us, and that you do restore us and renew us in the Spirit of
your grace. Lord, help us to not live as
this old man of flesh would have us to live. But Lord, give us
a heart and a desire to walk by your Spirit, being led by
the Spirit of God, and that we would always seek to honor your
name, to walk in love to our God and love toward one another. Lord, we look to you because
we know only you can do it. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing a closing
hymn, 514, we're marching to Zion, 514. do We that love the Lord, and let
our joys be known, join in a song with sweet accord, join in a
song with sweet accord, and thus surround the throne, and thus
surround the throne. We're marching to Zion, beautiful,
beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. Let those refuse to sing, who
never knew our God, O children of the heavenly King, my children
of the heavenly King, may speak their joys abroad, may speak
their joys abroad. We're marching to Zion, a beautiful,
beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God. The hill of Zion yields a thousand
sacred streets Before we reach the heavenly fields Before we
reach the heavenly fields Or walk the golden streets Or walk
the golden streets We're marching to Zion, a beautiful, beautiful
Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
a beautiful city of God. And let our songs abound, and
every tear be dry. We're marching through Emmanuel's
crown. We're marching through Emmanuel's
crown. To fare her worlds on high. To fare her worlds on high. We're marching to Zion, the beautiful,
beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God.