The world is celebrating the
risen Lord Jesus Christ today, or at least what they think of
it. God's people celebrate that every day. As we brought out in our Bible
study the cruel treatment of our Lord and Savior when he went
into the cross, God's people look at that. As part of the
whole ordeal, he had to go to that cross for our sins. He had
to take our sins into the grave when he went into the grave.
And now he sits on his throne, he had to come out of the grave
because death could not hold him. It's a very important thing
that we celebrate, worship, and praise every time we come together. the fact that our Bible studies
have been reconvened. We started last Friday night
with the first chapter of Arthur W. Pink's book, The Sovereignty
of God, and I believe after the reaction of everybody, I'm sure a child of God would
not walk away disappointed. We're just enjoying looking at
our Lord and how he rules all things. I've chosen this morning
our opening hymn on page 295. Before we sing, will you stand
with me, please? And allow me, once again, the
honor Our Heavenly Father, we do praise
and thank you for your wonderful grace. Once again, the love that
you have bestowed upon your people, a love that has been from eternity
past and will continue on through eternity forever. A love that
cannot be thwarted by anything of this world. You've given us hearts that look
to the treasures in heaven. Our treasure is laid up somewhere
beyond the blue. We thank you, Lord, for eyes
and ears and a heart that loves to hear your gospel. We praise you, Lord, for all
of the blessings that you've shed upon us, the blessings of
safety, safety that we've been going through this world with
this virus that's gone around. We just praise you and thank
you, Lord, for protecting us from it. But Lord, if we know that if
it be your will, Pastor Gene and I were talking
earlier this week, as you know, Lord, and I want to share this
with those who are hearing. Oh, how this man puts all of
his rest in what you have before him. power, that this man would give
all the glory to you for whatever comes in his way, including,
including a virus. His comments to you were, John,
the Lord hath my day marked already, just as he hath all days marked. I cannot change it. Oh, we know
we don't go out and jump off given us carnal wisdom to avoid
certain things, so we avoid what we can. But we know, Father,
if it's your will, it shall be done. And we rest in that with
all of our lives. So we ask, Lord, now as we come
before you in song, I'm going to sit again and think. For Jesus to die has now gone
above Hallelujah, thy new glory Hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah,
thy new glory Revive us again We praise thee, O God For thy
spirit of light our savior and scattered our
night. Hallelujah, light of hope. Revive us again. ? Hallelujah, hallelujah ? Judge me, O Lord, for I have
walked in my integrity. I have trusted also in the Lord,
therefore I shall not sly. Examine me, O Lord, and prove
me. Try my reins and my heart. For thy lovingkindness is before
mine eyes, and I have walked in thy truth. I have not sat
with vain person, neither will I go in this dissimilar. I have hated the congregation
of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I will wash
my hands in innocency, so will I condescend and alter, O Lord. That I may publish with the voice
of thanksgiving, Lord, I have loved the habitation
of thy house and the place where thy honor dwelleth. Gather not
my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men, in whose
hand is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes. But as
for me, I will walk it in my integrity. Redeem me and be merciful
unto me, my foot standing in an even place. going, passing the plate for
our offerings. If you wish to support the ministry
that the Lord has placed here in rescue, please feel free to
leave your offerings, your love gifts in the plates in the back
as you leave or whenever. I'd like to read in place of
our offering this morning Bulletin goes along with my message, and
if you'd like to read along with me, it's on the top half of the
inside page, written by Arthur W. Pink, who writes, God can
only be known by means of supernatural revelation of himself. Apart
from the scripture, even a theoretical acquaintance with him is impossible. it still holds true that the
world by wisdom knew not God, 1 Corinthians 1.21. But something more than scriptures
is required before the soul can know God, know him in a real,
personal, vital way. This seems to be recognized by
few today. The prevailing practice assumes
that that came through studying the Word, in the same way that
knowledge of chemistry may be secured by mastering its textbooks. An intellectual knowledge of
God may be not so a spiritual one. A supernatural God can only
be known supernaturally, i.e., known in a matter above that
which we're in nature cannot acquire, by a supernatural revelation
of himself to the heart. 2 Corinthians 4, 6, we read it
this way, God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The one who
has been favored with this supernatural experience has learned that only
in the light shall we see light. Psalms 369. Now, if you would please turn
in your handbooks to page 348. My handwriting is not very well. The number that is in your bulletin
is my mistake. Please turn to 348. Let's sing together, Sing to the rock that is high. Now bless the song of ages, I'm
hiding in thee. Hiding in thee. Hiding in thee. Now bless the song of ages, I'm
hiding in thee. Hiding in me. Hiding in me. Now less than the ages I'm hiding
in thee. I was led to my refuge and freed
out my woe. How often, when trials I've seen
them all, have I hidden in thee? Let us not worry. Our text this morning will be
Philippians chapter 2. It is my prayer that this day
when The world around us is celebrating the Risen of Christ, the Risen
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, or the one that they think is
Him. It is my prayer that the rock
of my soul, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of the Living God, We'll look to each and every one of his
children this morning through this message and say, blessed
art thou. For flesh and blood hath not
revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
I pray the Lord will bless you with the revelation from God
the Father of who his Son is, what he has done, and where he
is at right this very moment. The world around us cries out
for good works. They call out for good works
in those who call themselves a follower of Christ. One who
claims they follow Christ must also be a Christ-doer of good
things. They must be like Christ. Do you realize how ridiculous
that is? How can you or I be like God? As long as we're in this flesh,
we can be nothing like God. Be like Christ, or at the very
least, strive to do the works that Christ did, they say. Serve
the poor, give till it hurts, or as they say, sacrifice themselves
for mankind. Kind of like, for instance, that
lady nun that was inducted into sainthood by the Catholic Church,
remember, a few years back? A little, very thin lady, all
dressed up in her nun outfit, and she had a couple hundred
children around her that were poor and looked like they were
hungry, and she had spent all of her life doing all these good
deeds, and that was what got her into being a saint. I'm here to tell you this morning
that if you are in Christ Jesus the Lord, you are a saint of
God. Not by anything you have done. Not by anything of you in the flesh
at all, but by what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. And only
by what He has done. Indeed, these verses that we're
about to read Encourage us to do good works. Read along with
me, if you would, the first 15 verses of chapter 2. Philippians
2, chapter 2, verse 1. If there be therefore any consolation
in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the
Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be
like minded, having the same love, being of one accord and
of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife
or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem another
better than themselves. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this
mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself
of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, and
was made in the likeness of men. And being found in a fashion
as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly
exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven,
and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye
have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much
more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear
and trembling. For it is God which worketh in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. do all things
without murmuring, without murmurings and disputings, that ye may be
blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the
midst of the crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as
lights in the world. My title this morning is Light
in this World. You see why I started with that
introduction a moment ago. We've all heard this story once,
but it bears repeating. There are churches in this world
who do nothing but brag about what they do. That's what their
light is. They show the world this is what
we do. We feed the poor. We go down to Mexico. We raise enough money that this
poor Mexican village can have an ambulance. And they'll spend
their worship time. We come here to worship the Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. Not what we do, but what He did. And they'll spend their time
worshiping about what it is that they do. I've heard people say every time
I speak to them, oh, we had 20 people get saved in our church
today. Oh, yeah, they all came because
we were feeding the hungry and they were hungry. And they heard
the Word of God preached and the Word of God saved them. I've seen a pool full of children. Like a party in a baptismal.
And it was called worship. Did you see all the children
we baptized today? Wasn't that great? This is what the world looks
to as light. Show me your light. What glows
inside of you? What does it mean to be lights
in this world? What is our Lord and Savior speaking
of here? How can I be as a light in the
world walking this path that is set before me? How can I let
my light shine? To answer these questions, one
must first understand what this light that shines in the true
children of God, the true children of the Most High is. And the only way to understand that
is to do what I talked about last Sunday. Turn to the Word
of God. This is where truth is right
here. The world believes that your light is your good works.
It's called works religion. But once I tell you, we must
look to Scripture. But as I once told you before,
we must look to Scripture to find the answers of truth. Would
you turn over to the book of John with me for just a moment,
please? Mark, your place here in Philippians. We'll come back
to it. Turn over to the first chapter
of John, if you would. In John 1, verse 1, we read this,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not
anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life
was the light of men. Are we beginning to get a picture
of what the true light in God's people is? I'm not talking about
some glow. Oh, look at that sweet little
lady that is helping the poor people out there. I love people
like that, don't get me wrong. I'm not making fun of her. What
she does is admirable. Giving to the poor is a good
thing. Taking care of our poor is something we should be doing
out of a heart of love for those that God has brought into this
world around us. But that's not the light of the
world. Looking to those things as being
heavenly things is missing the point. It brings people to think that
if I could just do that too, I would be saved also. And that's
a false hope. There is no good thing in this
flesh. What our Lord does that's good
in us is of the Spirit. You know, there's a reason why
God tells us not to let our right hand know what our left hand
is doing, because if it does know, you know what's going to
happen. We're going to start bragging on that right hand. It's our nature. It's what we
do. It's what we are in the flesh.
A young man came to me, he says,
you know, I just... I don't know that I even want
to live anymore. He goes, I see all the wickedness
that is in me. And it brings me so far down.
And I said, Son, the reason you see that wickedness is so that
you can see the grace of God lifting you up. And that grace
is something that comes from Him alone and from no place within
you. It's His grace. It's His salvation.
It's His love that holds us up in this world. And at the end
of that conversation, that young man, the Lord had lifted up his
soul to see what our Savior has done for us in love, having predestinated
us to be into the adoption of children. Look over. Wait a minute. We're not talking
about some glow and the way that one is or a specialness by the
way one acts in a certain way. We're talking about the light
of this world. Now look at verse 5. And the
light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it
not. Turn over to John 3, 16 for just
a second. Hold your place. We're coming
right back. You know these words. You know
these words very well. Most of the world does, but they
don't look to the words that follow afterwards where it says
in John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into
the world to condemn the world, but the world through Him might
be saved. He that believeth on him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son." And
this is condemnation. That light has come into the
world and men loved darkness rather than light. Because their
deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh it to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. Now back to John 1, please. This light is not the light that
natural man can see, for our darkness is loved by us. We love what we do. We love what
we are. We love the darkness for it hides
the truth. It hides the truth about what
we are. I understood what this young man said when he came to
me. He said, I don't know if I can handle it. I see the sin
that's in my flesh. I understand that. And if you're
a child of God, so do you. Because you deal with the very
same thing that this young man did. We have to fight against
what's in us. We have to turn away from what
the flesh wants to do. Paul was troubling with that.
He says, I do that which I shouldn't and I don't do that which I should.
Is there anyone here today that can relate to that? We love the darkness because
it hides the truth. It hides what our nature is.
It hides what our state is. It hides what our standing before
God the Creator. I tell you here this morning,
thus saith the Lord, all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. We come into this world born
in darkness and we love that darkness. The darkness gives
us false sense that we are more than what we are. It gives us
a sense that we have power over creation. Satan put it this way
when he deceived Eve in the garden. He said in Genesis 3, 4, And
the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for
God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened, and ye shall be as little gods. knowing good and evil. In the
darkness we think of ourselves as gods having power to do whatever
it is that we do because we willed to do it. There's no such thing as free
will. Oh, you have a will. God has given us all a will.
For 40 years, John Reeves walked in his will, which is really,
when you think about it, God's will. God allowed me to wander in this
world for 40 years. There was a time when I got a
little bit stuck on that because Moses wandered in the wilderness
for 40 years. Don't let yourself be compared
to other things that God has spoken of. It'll turn your thoughts away
from the truth. But for 40 years, God allowed me to exercise my
will. And then he arrested it. And
he showed me that it's always been his will. He showed me that
it was His will to call me out of darkness and bring me into
the loving, warm, wonderful love that He has for me. A love that He has had for me
from the beginning of all things. That 40 years I walked was nothing
more than me walking according to my nature. Sinning against
God. Not believing. John the Baptist came crying
in the world in the wilderness. In Matthew 3.3, you don't need
to turn there, for this is He that was spoken of by the prophet
Isaiah saying that the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make His path straight. He came
speaking of Christ. How can you shine your light
in the world around you? You do. If you belong to the Lord Jesus
Christ, to God Almighty, to our Savior, you go through this world
giving Him all the glory. You realize that we give God
the glory when we say it is His hand who brought this virus into
our country right now. That's giving Him the glory.
That's admitting that He works all things out according to His
will. You give God all the glory when you're driving down the
road and all the lights are turning red and you're saying, oh, the
Lord is protecting me from something. You give God all the glory when
you're out working on a building somewhere, hammering it to wood.
I came close, but the Lord saved me from putting a nail through
my finger. You give God the glory when you're speaking with people
around you, and your family, your friends, and you say, God,
Dad, I don't believe in luck. They might tell you, oh, man,
you're lucky, you know? No, I wasn't lucky. There ain't
no such thing as luck. My God rules over everything.
You don't have to hit him over the head with a Bible. You belong
to the Lord. You're calling him for who he
is. The light's shining in you. Even if you don't see it. This young man who was distressed
about the sin he sees in the flesh, he knew who the light
was. And by the end of that conversation,
he was declaring it. What a blessing. And you do the same thing, folks.
Oh, we don't. We don't do it like we want to. Does anyone here do things the
way they want to? I want to be as good as I can. I want to turn away from sin
every chance I can. I want to be helpful to those
who need help. I want to show my love to my
brethren. But I fail. I fail desperately. But when I fail, I look to my
Savior and I say, See? He has not failed. Everything
He did is perfect. It's what He did. It's not what
John does. It's not what you do. It's what
He did for us. That's our light. That's the
light that lights up in us as we go through this world. Look
at that guy. He did that. And you call yourself
a Christian? I know I did. I'm sorry. I'm
so sorry. But my Lord did it perfectly.
And that's the righteousness I stand in in Him. John the Baptist was an example
of that light. John the Baptist was no different
than you and I, folks. In fact, if you think about it,
he was walking around with burlap sack on him and eating beeswax
or eating honey. He was kind of a weird guy for
that time of day, wasn't he? For that time of the world? A little different. He wasn't dressed up in all those
nice clothes that all the religious people had. He didn't come talking
about, you've got to do this, and you've got to do that, and
you've got to do this. No, he came, salvation is of the Lord. Jesus Christ is the one who's
coming. The one who will come and save
his people. John the Baptist is our example
of walking in the light of this world, letting our light shine. You can do all the good works
you want. And I encourage you to do all the good works you
can. But nobody's going to see Christ
in you through those works. Not the true living Christ. Christ
did all those things as He walked this earth and nobody saw Him
then, did they? You want the light to shine and
you shine the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty, in your life. We trust, we believe our faith
is in Christ Jesus the Lord. We declare Him as He is revealed
in Scripture. That's what it means to go forth
unto the world and preach, to proclaim the good news of the
Gospel, Christ and Him crucified. We declare He is God in the flesh.
In Philippians 5 it says, we read this just a moment ago,
"...let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,
who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon
Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men."
Look at verse 6-15 of John 1. There was a man sent of God whose
name was John. The same came for a witness to
bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe.
He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that
light. That was the true light which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world. He, speaking of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the one that John could bear witness of, was in the world
and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own and His
own received Him not. Read this carefully, folks. But
as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons
of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born,
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God." And the Word was made flesh and
dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory, the
glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth. John bare witness of Him and cried, saying, This was He
of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred
before me, for He was before me. Light in this world. The true
light. Jesus Christ, the light of the
world. Go back to Philippians chapter
2, if you would, please. We declare who He is, what He
has done for us. Not for the world, but for those
whom He gave power to become the sons of God. But we must also consider verse
13 of John chapter 1, shouldn't we? Which were born not of blood,
nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. In the third chapter of John,
verse 8, we read this, the Lord speaking Himself, the wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst
not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. The wind is
blowing in all the different directions, but you don't know
where it came from. You know, in this little valley we have
here, we've heard Pastor Dean speak a time or two about how
blowing the leaves out there in the parking lot is just amazing.
You can blow a leaf this way, and the Lord will pick it up
and bring it around and set it behind you. Where'd that wind
come from? Where's it going next? I'll go
over there behind and move that leaf. Our Lord says, so is everyone
that is born of the Spirit. We declare His works and salvation
for His people. Look at verses 6, 7, and 8 again
of Philippians 2. Who being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Our Lord and
Savior thought it not robbery to be equal with God because
He is equal with God. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit are one God. Three distinct persons. Absolutely. Absolutely. But one God. That's Scripture. Now you ask
me, John, to define that. I can't do that. His ways are
not my ways. How can any man define that?
But I know it's so. He says, I and my Father are
one. Does he not? He says in the book of Genesis,
there is one God. Yet here he calls himself, he
thought it not robbery to be equal to God, but made himself
of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and
was made in the likeness of men. Heaven came down and glory filled
my soul. Heaven came down and was made
flesh. And being found, verse 8, in
the fashion of the man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. We declare salvation is of the
Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ willingly
went to the cross, obedient to the covenant that was made between
the great three and one. God the Father chose a people
before the world was as we read in Ephesians 1-3. You don't need
to turn there. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According Because,
as it should be, as it will be, because He has made it so, He
has determined, according as He has chosen us in Him, in Christ,
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blame before Him. We're holy and without blame
right now. I know it doesn't look that way
when you look in the mirror, but we are! God's Word! In love, it says in verse 5,
"...having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will." By His sovereign grace, He gave
His people to His Son. In the 10th chapter, verse 29,
our Lord and Savior says, My Father which gave to me is greater
than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's
hand. I and My Father are one. We declare that salvation is
accomplished. It is finished, is what our Lord
cried from the cross. The work is done. Israel, your
warfare is accomplished. The power of God was shed at
that cross and the sheep of God were saved by the works on that
cross and our sins were laid upon Him. He who knew no sin
was made sin that we would be made righteous in Him. He bore
our sins and His own body is what the Word said. God looks
upon His people and He sees the perfect blood of His Son and
He sees no sin in us. I never get tired of hearing
that. Do you? If you do, may God allow you to
fall into your sin for a moment that you look to Him for grace.
That's what happens when we call on the Lord the most, but when
we're the weakest. In our weakness, He is made strong. Our sins are gone. The ones we
have committed before, the ones that we are committing this very
day, and the ones that we will commit until the Lord takes us
out of this world. And you will continue to commit
sins. If you say you don't, then you
call God a liar. We must battle this flesh until
the day the Lord takes us home. The day that has been marked
from before anything was ever made. The means by which we will
leave this world has already been set. Our sins are gone, never to be
seen again. A poem had been made, Blessed
Redeemer, Jesus is mine. Not by any works of my own, but
by His own blood. I didn't choose Christ, He chose
me. and nothing can stay in the hand
of God. Isaiah 14.24, we read in last
week's message, I read again, "...the Lord of hosts has sworn,
saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, and
as I have purposed, so shall it stand." Was it God's purpose
that Christ should come to this world and shed His own blood? Was it God's purpose that that
blood should save a people? Those who say God came and died
for everybody don't say that. They say that the purpose of
God can be turned by the will of men, by the creation. I tell you this, if Christ died
for the whole of mankind, then all mankind would have been saved. Grace. That's what was exercised
on that cross. Grace is what was exercised when
the Lord bled every drop of blood out of His body. Grace is what
was exercised when God died. in our stead. We declare by the life-giving
power the Spirit is calling. drawing, bringing all that the
Father gives to Christ through the preaching of His Gospel of
Good News. The same Gospel that feeds the
sheep of Christ calls His sheep unto Himself. We read in 2 Timothy
1, verse 9, who has saved us, speaking of Christ, speaking
of the Spirit, and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to His own purpose. There it is,
that word purpose again. His purpose, not ours. Not our
decision, but His decision to choose us as a people before
the world was. His own purpose which was given
us in Christ Jesus before the world began. The light that shines
in God's people is Christ Himself. We speak of grace. We speak of
how our Lord is gracious to us because we know what we've earned. We know what we deserve. But
we also know what our God, our Lord, our Savior has done for
us. He took what we deserve upon
Himself. Does that not bring cheer to
your heart? Is that not something you need
to hear over and over again how our Lord loved Himself and gave
Himself for us? I do. The light that shines in God's
people is Christ Himself. Good works will follow, yes,
because He who has begun a good work in us, He who has begun
a good work in His people will finish it. In Philippians 1,
verse 6, we read this, being confident of this very thing
that He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. But folks, good works is not
that light. Christ is our light. John 8 verse
12 says this, Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am
the light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. What does
it mean to be a light in this world? It means to have Christ
in you, the hope of glory. Christ is our light. He is the hope of glory. We declare
this light sits on the throne of glory. Death could not hold
Him. 1 Corinthians 15 verses 55-57,
we read this, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where
is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Whew! Does the light get any better
than that? Does it get any better than that? Oh, it doesn't get
any better than that to this poor sinner. Look again at our
text in Philippians 2 verses 8-11. And being found, speaking
of our Savior in the fashion as a man, He humbled Himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the
earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Folks, Christ is on His throne
this very moment. God the Father has made Him the
object of all worship. The weakness of men will draw
them to worship themselves. We would be standing exactly
in that same position if it wasn't for the grace and mercy of our
Lord. Worshipping ourselves. Worshipping
what it is that we do. Worshipping the good works that
we do. Our Lord is on His throne. All
power in heaven and earth are given unto Him. They are His
to use as He sees fit, and He shall lose nothing. As the King of kings, as the
Lord of lords, He is right now making intercession now for all
for whom He died. Can anything stay in the hand
of God? I tell you this this morning,
folks, all the fullness of the Godhead, and this is what the Lord says,
all the fullness of the Godhead dwelleth in Him, in our Savior,
in Jesus Christ. When you worship the Son, you
worship the Father. If you don't worship the Son,
you don't worship the Father. We declare Christ as Lord of
all, King of kings, Lord of lords, sovereign ruler of all that is. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Our great God tells us to take
His yoke upon us. Take His yoke upon us. I don't know about you folks.
I assume. But I don't know your hearts. Our greatest weakness. Our greatest
foe. It's not that thing called devil.
It's not that being called Satan. He's just a barking dog. And
he's God's dog on a chain. He goes about roaring as a lion. No. Our greatest foe is right
here. It's within us. It's within me. Our greatest struggle is the
struggle within. The weakness of the flesh. I
encourage you, put your flesh aside and rest in Christ. Let Him be your light. Lean on it. Turn it over to Him. He says, My grace is sufficient. He wasn't just speaking to Paul,
He was talking to you and I. He was telling us, as we struggle
with those things, that flesh inside of us, turn it over to
God. Lord, help me with this. My grace
is sufficient. He is risen from the dead, and
He is working all things out as He always has, for the good
of His people, for the good of His call, for the good of His
chosen. for the good of the people that
He has loved with an everlasting love. Can anything separate one
from God who is loved of God? No. Turn over to Matthew chapter
5 if you would. We'll bring this to a close. Folks, it's not our good works
that shine in us. It's His work. While you're turning
to Matthew 5, allow me to read from John 6, verse 27 where our
Lord is speaking. He says, "...labor not for the
meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto
everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you." For him hath God the Father sealed. Then said they around about him
unto him, What shall we do that we might work the works of God? You think the Lord said, well,
here's what you need to do to do the works of God. You need
to go down to the mission three days a week and feed the poor. You need to turn over a third of your money to those
who don't want to work so that they can continue to live. You
need to help the sick. Did the Lord say that? No. Let
me tell you what He did say. He said this, Jesus answered
and said unto them, this is the work of God, that ye believe on Him who He
hath sent. You want the light to shine in
your life? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved. That's what he says, isn't it? You want the light to shine
in your life? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. We declare the works of the Lord. As we see in John 3.14, it says,
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. Our light shining in us is lifting
up our Savior before the world around us. Where is the hope
that you have? How do you go about through this
virus that's tearing the world apart around us right now? How
do you go about it with such a wonderful attitude? My Savior
is in control. That's how. I love life still, even though
the people are dying around us. I love life still because my
Savior is still in control. He still sits on His throne.
He still works all things out according to His will. Whosoever believeth on Him shall
not perish, but have everlasting life. John writes it this way, he says,
I must decrease. No, you know, I think that was
Paul, I'm sorry. Actually, I didn't write down where I got that verse,
but it's there, and I'll get it for you. I must decrease that
he may increase. That's the left hand not telling
the right hand what it did, but what Christ did. and going about
doing what we need to do as we walk through this world. Look
at Matthew chapter 5 verse 14 through 16. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill
cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle
and put it under the bushel, but on a candlestick, and it
giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light
so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and
glorify your Father which is in heaven. Our light is Christ
in us, the hope of glory. Go out, folks, today. As you
leave this building, go out into the world, the valley of the
shadow of death, and fear no evil. For he is with us. His rod and his staff are our
comfort. He prepares a table for each
and every one of us. A table before us in the presence
of our enemies. He anoints our heads with the
oil of his word. Our cups really do runneth over. Surely, goodness and mercy shall
follow us all the days of our lives. And we will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. So let your light shine. Amen. Stand with me, if you would,
please, and turn your handbooks to page 97. Let's sing.