Hinder the pain supported by
Thy Word. That's a powerful hymn and if
you pay attention to the words, very convicting. Very convicting. Isaac Watts wrote so many good
hymns. He was a good preacher also. First Peter, go back there. I
remind you that Peter tells us the theme of why he's writing. He says to testify of the true grace of
God wherein you stand. And we've looked at grace bestowed,
we've looked at grace tasted, grace exhibited, grace exhorted,
continues to exhort us. Here in these verses, we're going
to look at grace that suffers, suffering
grace. We're going to look at it as,
have you ever, I know you've thought about this, that suffering
is the grace of God. It's a gift from God to suffer
for His cause, to suffer trials for His honor and glory and for
our good. That's a gift from God. Suffering
itself is a gift. It's given unto us not only to
believe, although, but to suffer. So suffering itself is the grace
of God. The world certainly doesn't consider
that. Let God's people know that whom
the Lord loves, He chastens. Whom He loves, He sends trials
to for their good, for His glory. And He gives us grace to endure
this suffering. So, suffering grace and grace
to endure suffering. And Peter is writing throughout
this book to exhort us. In the last chapter he says,
after you've suffered a while, establish strength and settle
you. He's writing to exhort us to faith. Three things basically. Faith, obedience or works, which
James said faith without works is dead. Works prove faith. Works glorify God. We've been
reading that, haven't we? People glorify God seeing your
good work. That's what we just read. And
thirdly, to establish us in patience through these trials, through
suffering. So these three things, to establish
us in the faith, leaning on, looking to, trusting our God,
trusting Christ, to obedience and works that glorify our God,
proof that we're His children. And thirdly, to patience, to
establish us in patience and the trial of your faith. These
tribulations, these sufferings, work patience. Wait on God. All right. So, all right, let's
look at beginning with verse Verse 18. Servants. Mattis 3, verses 18
and 19. Servants, be subject to your
masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also
to the fraud, or the evil. For this is thankworthy, this
is praiseworthy, that the man for conscience toward God endure
grief, suffering wrongfully. Servants. He calls us servants. Look at verse 16. Remember? He
says we're free, but he said we're servants of God. We're servants of God. We serve
His cause. We're the servants of God. We
serve the cause of God in truth. Like our Lord Jesus Christ, he
was called the servant. Didn't Peter begin this whole
book by saying to the saints, and he says, elect? Well, Isaiah
42, God says, behold my servants. Mine elect, didn't he? So, like
our Lord Jesus Christ, we are His servants, serving His glory,
serving His cause, serving His kingdom. He's taken us out of
the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son to
be His servants, to no longer serve ourselves, but serve Him. no longer serve divers' lust,
Peter wrote, but to be servants of righteousness, Paul wrote
in Romans 6. A great deal of that. We serve
His glory, we serve His cause, we serve His kingdom, we serve
His people. We're members of His body. That's
why He made us members of His body, to serve the body, not
serve ourselves. Servants. Servants. Be subject
to. Be subject to, be in subjection
to your masters, your employers, whoever it is that has the rule
over you. Be in subjection to them with
all fear. He's not talking about fearing
them. He's talking about fear of God. He just told us that,
didn't he? Fear God. Fear God. We're not to fear men. We're not to fear men. But we
fear God. So he says, but be subject to. Be servants and be subject to
your masters with all fear. Not only to the good and gentle,
but also to the poor. These things are so opposite
of this present evil world. The thing that characterizes
this present world, the things are pride, haughtiness, selfishness. Everybody's out for himself.
The thing that characterizes God's kingdom is humility, lowliness
of mind, meekness, service. Our Lord said, the greatest among
you is the greatest servant. Who's that? The Lord Jesus Christ. Look over at Philippians chapter
2. You know these verses well. Philippians chapter 2. And I
said that, told you, reminded you that Peter's epistle is the
oldest epistle we believe, and Paul and James and Jude and all
of them wrote, they began their epistles with Paul a servant
of Jesus Christ. Paul and Timothy, servants. Jude, a servant of the Lord Jesus
Christ. James, the servant of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Peter, his second epistle. Simon Peter, a servant of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Servants. You know, the Lord
really did something for old Peter, didn't he? He was never
a servant when he was a fisherman. I still think of Peter as being
a big, loud, boisterous, knock-em-down fellow that commanded everybody
to serve him. In charge kind of fellow. The Lord really did a work on
him, didn't he? Made a servant out of him. But
look at Philippians. Chapter 2, verse 2, fulfill my
joy that ye be like-minded, having the same love of one accord,
of one mind. What is that, Paul? That ye do
nothing through strife or vain glory. What do we have this glory
in? We should be ashamed of ourselves. Strife usually comes from our
self being offended. But in loneliness of mind, But
this will prevent strife. In lowliness of mind, thinking
low thoughts of yourself, let each esteem other better than
themselves. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. What can
they do for me? What should they do? No, but
what can I do? What should I do? Let this mind
be in you. It was in Christ. This was the
mind of Christ, who being the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant,
made in the likeness of men. This is exactly what Peter is
writing today. Made himself of no reputation,
made in the likeness of men, We just don't know how the Lord condescended to be made
a human being, like us being made a worm. Made
in the likeness of being, why? To be found in the fashion of
man, He humbled Himself, became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross. So he says down in verse 14,
you do all things without murmuring or disputing. It's our reasonable
service, Paul told, that you may be blameless and harmless.
That's the Lord Jesus Christ. Sons of God without rebuke in
the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine
as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. And this
is what Peter He's going to talk about the principle of suffering.
May I go back to our text? Serve us, be subject to and submission
to. Our Lord said, take my yoke upon
you and learn of me, I'm meek and lowly. Submit, submit, submit. In the next chapter, he's going
to talk about submission and subjection. And the last chapter,
let me turn over there, chapter 5. Chapter 5, talking about servants,
being in subjection. He says we're all to be in subjection
to one another. Submission and to serve one another. Look at verse 5. Chapter 5, verse
5. You younger, submit yourselves
unto the elder. All of you be subject one to
another. Be clothed with humility. God
resisted the proud. He hates the proud. He hates
it. And He giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore,
unto the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due
time. So, Thurman, be subject to your
masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also
to the poor. That's difficult. I've worked
many jobs out in the world. And sometimes the Lord gives
us favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Sometimes we have
good employers, but other times, ooh, I've worked for some mean
people. And you have to, don't you? And
you just, you know. Well, the Lord says, so here, being subjection to, who
put that person over you? Who put that person over you? The powers that lay, we read
from Romans 13, are ordained of God. All of them. Good, evil,
all of them. Verse 19, this is thankful, thankworthy,
praiseworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering
wrongfully. Now, we all suffer wrongfully. We suffer wrongfully because
man is sinful. And we even suffer wrongfully
at the hands of our friends and our brothers sometimes. And they
from us. Remember that. Remember that. But if we endure it, how can you endure that? Well,
endure it out in the world. knowing that God puts you where
he puts you and under who he puts you, and do it from our
brethren or whomever, knowing that they're sinners capable
of and so are we, and forgive them and forget it. That's what
this whole book is about. That's what all of the scriptures
are about. Well, turn with me to, before
you turn, look at verse 20. What glory is it when you buffeted
for your faults, you take it patiently, but when you do well
and suffer for it, or wrongfully accused, or whatever it may be,
you take it patiently. Now, this is exceptional with
God. Why? Because that's exactly what Christ suffered. No one
suffered more wrongfully than Christ. No one. Even his friends. He said, my
own familiar friend lifted up his heel against me. What did
he do? He forgave him. Forgave. All of them turned. All of them
turned again. My, my. The first words out of his mouth
on Calvary's tree. about those who have been spitting
on Him, those who have been hitting Him in the face, Father, forget
them. Forget them. They know not what
they did. So if you suffer, and our judgment, people, is fallible. Our perception of things is most
of the time is wrong. Most of the time, it's wrong.
We don't have perfect judgment. He said, judge righteous judgment.
Don't judge by isolated incident. If it's your brother, you won't
judge him at all. You won't judge him at all. You'll
forgive him. Know in your own self. We met, Mindy and I met a fellow
the other day, and I took one look at him, and my judgment was so wrong.
I was ashamed of myself. Once we got to know him, he was
such a nice fellow. Sweet and kind, but when I first
took a look at him, I had all this, I thought about him. I
was wrong. I was wrong. Well, look at Ephesians 4. Brother Ron read this in the
study and I told him. We're going to read some of this
tonight. He said, do you want me to read something else? I
said, no. This will be at the mouth of two witnesses. Look
at verse 22, Ephesians 4, 22. Look at it. That you put off
concerning the former conversation. This is what Peter has been talking
about. This is what we looked at in Philippians 3. The old
man, he's corrupt, he's still in us, people. He's the cause
of all our trouble, you know that? It's not so much everybody
else, it's this old man in us. These lusts that Peter said we
should abstain from. Be renewed in the spirit of your
mind that you put on the new man. which after God is created
in righteousness and true holiness. So put away lying, Peter said,
guile and hypocrisy, speaking every man truth with his neighbor
who remembers one another. Be ye angry. We get angry. And
he says down here, put it away. Sin not. Be done with it before
you go to bed. Let not the sun go down upon
your wrath, because you'll give place to the devil. The devil, he comes to steal,
to kill and destroy. The devil is the accuser of the
brethren. There's nothing he wants more than to divide God's
people. Don't be a party and a parcel
to him. Don't be his pawn. Don't do it. The devil uses people. If you don't think he can use
you, The smartest woman on earth, Eve. He used her name. The chief apostle, Simon Peter. Peter is the one that said, the
devil is a roaring lion, seeketh whom he may devour. If he can
get you mad at one of God's people, he's got you. He's got you. Don't give place to him. Read
on, verse 28. Let him that stole steal no more.
I have to lay him to labor, working with his hands that which is
good that he may have to give to him that needeth for the support
of the gospel. Those that need. Let no corrupt
communication proceed out of your mouth. Oh my, didn't Peter
say, be done with evil speaking. Don't speak evil of anybody.
That includes gossip and slander and whisperings. Whisperers separate
their friends, Proverbs said. Read on. But that which is good,
the use of edifying, if you don't have something good to say, don't
say it. Is it true? Remember this? Is it true? But is it kind? Is it necessary? Does this further the cause of
Christ? Does this build up? Does this establish? Does this
promote peace and grace and love? Then don't say it. We may minister
grace unto the hearer because it grieves the Holy Spirit. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. What's the first fruit of the
Spirit? What's the first word of the
Spirit? Love. He goes on to talk about gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, long-suffering. Read on. Grieve not the Holy
Spirit. Verse 31, let all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor, let it be gone. Put it away from you with all
malice. Be ye kind one to another. Tenderhearted. Kind means merciful. Our Lord says with the merciful,
he'll show himself merciful. And with the forward? Forgiving one another. Why? Because
God, for Christ's sake, forgave you. What did it take to forgive
us? He hung him on a tree. by His
stripes, we are healed. He says, Be followers of God,
verse 1, as dear children walk in love as Christ hath loved
us, and given Himself for us, and offering a sacrifice to God
for a sweet-smelling savor. One more, Colossians 3. This
is the theme. You know, this is what salvation
is all about. This is why God saved us. This is why. It creates a new creature in
Christ Jesus, born again, that we might be like Christ. Colossians 3, it says in verse
8, put off all these things, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy,
filthy communication. out of your mind. Lie not one
to another. Be open and honest. See and put
off the old man. Put on the new man, renewed in
the image of him that created him. Verse 12, put on therefore
as the elect of God, like Peter called us, elect holy and beloved. Put on vowels of mercy. Not feelings
of bitterness, but feelings of mercy and kindness and humbleness
of mind and meekness and longsuffering. Forbearing one another. What's
that mean? Love covereth. Putting up with. Forbearing. Forgiving one another. If any man had a quarrel against
any, whatever it is, it's not worth it. Put it away. As Christ
forgave you, do it, he said. Above all these things, you see,
put on love, charity, that's the bond that unites God's people. It's the bond of maturity. A young, immature believer is
easily upset and easily offended. An older, mature believer is
not, but understands. The Lord knows our frame. He
is slow to anger, slow to wrath, ready to pardon. He knows our
frame. He knows us better than we know
each other. Verse 15, let the peace of God
rule in your heart to which you call. Call. Go back to our text now. This is what Peter just told
us. In verse 21, chapter 2, he says,
Here unto you were you called. You're called. Because Christ
also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should
follow His steps. I quote it to you from Philippians
1. He says, It's not only given unto us to believe, but to suffer
for His name's sake. Peter talks about suffering.
Sixteen times in this chapter, in this book, 1 Peter. Sixteen
times. Suffering, suffering, suffering. And he's talking about all manner
of suffering, but do you know the principle of suffering he's
talking about? Suffering for the cause of Christ. Suffering
for the truth. Paul wrote this in Philippians.
He said, for which I suffer as an evildoer. He said, I suffer
wrongdoing as an evildoer for the cause of crime. All of God's
people will. Look down at chapter 3, verse
14. He said, if you suffer for righteousness
sake, happy are you. Be not afraid of their terror,
neither be you troubled. Verse 17, it's better if the
will of God be that you suffer for well-doing than for evil,
for Christ also has once suffered for sin. Suffer. He goes on to talk about Noah,
who was a preacher of righteousness. What kind of righteousness? Well,
you know, he talks about well-doing, suffer for well-doing, and we
look at verse, chapter 3, look at verse 11, verse 10, chapter 3. He that
will love life and seek good days, let him refrain his tongue
from evil, and his lips let them speak no guile, let him eschew
evil and do good. We need to be do-gooders. I remember,
you know, as an ornery rebel years ago, scoffing at do-gooders. God's people need to be do-gooders.
They are do-gooders. He speaks over and over through
Scripture about doing good. Let him seek peace, verse 11,
and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are
over the righteous, his ears are open unto their cry, but
the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. But he goes
on to say, Who is he that will harm you if you be followers
of that which is good? Generally speaking, if you do
what's right, if you do good, people are not going to hate
you for that. They're not. Right? Remember
our Lord said, for which good work do you stone me? They picked
up stones to stone him. He said, for what good work all
I've ever done? He went about doing good. And
they said, we're not stoning you for a good work. We're stoning
you for what you said about yourself. We're stoning you for your claims
concerning yourself. And men won't generally hate
you because you do good. But if you suffer for righteousness
sake, whose righteousness? Noah, he went on to talk about
Noah in this chapter 3, being a preacher of righteousness.
Oh, did he suffer. 120 years he preached it. And
he suffered for it. He suffered for it. Let's hear
what the Lord says about it. Matthew 5. Matthew 5. His Sermon
on the Mount. Remember this? All of these principles our Lord
teaches in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5, look at it. And this is to His disciples.
This is to His disciples. Although all men heard it, this
was to His disciples. Verse 1, His disciples came unto
Him, and He opened His mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed
are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they that mourn.
Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst
after righteousness. Blessed are the merciful that
shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart.
Peter wrote that, didn't he? You've purified your hearts and
your souls in obeying the truth. Now see God. Blessed are the
peacemakers. You know, there's a difference
between making peace and taking peace. Everybody wants peace,
but the scriptures tells us to seek peace and pursue it, go
after it. You be the one, the absolute,
the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by them that make
peace. We're going to have peace. It's
up to me. Paul even said, suffer yourselves to be defrauded, to
make peace. Just allow it to happen. Why?
For the peace. Our Lord did. He said, blessed
are the peacemakers. They're the children of God.
The ones that are seeking. Blessed are they that are, now
here it is, that are persecuted for righteousness sake. No, you
don't. Theirs is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you when men shall revile you. Peter's going to
tell us this. Our Lord will revile and persecute
you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Christ said, rejoice. Be exceedingly glad, for great
is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted are the prophets
which were before you." Elijah came. Elijah came. Remember Elijah? Never a more
powerful, bold preacher ever than Elijah. And Ahab and the people said,
he troubles Israel. They accused him of being a troubler
of Israel then. He said, I'm not troubling Israel.
I'm trying to get them out of trouble. I'm trying to preach
in such a way that they'll repent to God and God will forgive them. I'm not troubling Israel. I'm
preaching the only way to have peace with an offended God. I'm not troubling Israel. Everybody's
in trouble. We're born in trouble. All right. He said, our Lord said, blessed
are ye that persecute ye. They accuse us of being hate
mongers for telling truth, for calling sin, sin. Hate mongers. They have the phobia about sin,
you know, like homophobia that calls people to say what God's
Word says that accuses them of being hate. Warning people is
not hate, it's love. You don't warn those that you
hate. You leave them alone. It's love. It's love to warn. If you don't love them, you leave
them alone. Our message is a message of love,
trying to tell people. God is not what men say He is. He doesn't love everybody like
everybody says He does. But God is merciful to those
that fear Him, to those that repent, to those that ask Him
for mercy, to those that know they don't deserve His love,
to those that aren't presumptuous. He is merciful, gracious, and
kind, only through Christ. And what it took to put away
the sins of God's people was to put His Son to death because
God told Him. Because God is just. And it requires
death. An old, archaic message, as old
as God Himself. But the only way of peace All
right, look back at our text. Our Lord said, blessed are you,
blessed are you. He said, if you suffer for your
faults, that was going to have us turn to Psalm 19. Let me just read it to you. Let me just read it to you. Our
Lord said, you're blessed if you suffer for righteousness'
sake, his righteousness, for his cause, for his truth. You're
blessed if you speak out for his cause, for his glory and
honor. But if you suffer for your own faults and take it,
that's nothing. Here's what David said. He said,
Lord, listen, I just dealt with this. He said, Lord, the fear
of the Lord is clean. The judgments of the Lord are
true and righteous altogether. He said, there is more to be
desired than gold and fine gold, sweeter than the honey in the
honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant warned. And he
went on to say, who can understand his errors? Who can understand? The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And he said,
cleanse me from secret thoughts. I have so many, some I'm aware
of, most I am not. Keep back thy servant from presumptuous
sins. No, it was one faultless man
to live, Jesus Christ. And he's going to present us
faultless for his presence. How? He had to die. He had to
take our weapon. Read on. This is what he's talking
about. Christ did no sin. Verse 22. Neither was guile found
in his mouth, who when he was reviled, reviled not again. Oh, my. You know the story, how
he opened Noddy's mouth. They all accused him falsely.
Everything they said was false against him, you know. They accused
him of blasphemies against God. How do you think that affected
his holy nature? How do you think that affected
his love for God when they accused him of blaspheming against God? He's the only man that ever lived
that didn't blaspheme. How do you think it made him
feel when people accused him of that? But he didn't rebel. He didn't
answer a man. You know why? He said he opened
not his mouth. You know why? He became you. And we're guilty. Whatever the
law says, it says to them under the law that every mouth must
be stopped. We're guilty. We're guilty of everything as
charged. Our Lord was being our substitute. He did no guile, no sin, no fault
in Him, no blame, but He did this for us because we're full
of faults. The hardest thing, two of the
hardest things, impossible. It's impossible for us to take
blame for something we did not do, for somebody to falsely accuse
us. It's the most painful, it's the
most hurtful thing that we can go through and we just, it's
almost impossible to take it. Our Lord took it. He took all
the blame. All the blame when He was blaming. The second
thing is to give people the credit for something we've done. To give them the glory and the
honor and the credit for something that we did they had nothing
to do with. Our Lord did that to them. All our glory is vain glory. Vain glory. Oh, man. See, this is the motive. This is the only thing, really,
that will cause us to reconcile. This is the only thing that will
really cause us to forgive. This is the only thing that will
cause us to forbear. This is the only thing that will
keep us from violence. This is the only thing. Only
thing. When he was reviled, reviled
not again. And I like this, when he suffered
he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judges righteously. The Lord tells us to submit and
commit. Submit, take it, whatever it
is, take it at whoever's hands, take it, it's less than we deserve. Remember, I love Spurgeon. Remember what he said? He said,
if people say bad things about you, just be glad they don't
tell it all. Be glad they don't know it all
and take it. And I remind you of David. Remember
David before Bathsheba. Before the Lord let him know
what he really was capable of doing. He came to a fellow named Nabal
who was married to Abigail, remember? And Nabal wouldn't give him and
his men something to eat. And David said, strap on your
sword, we're going to cut them to smithereens. We're going to
kill them all. And Abigail, remember, interceded
with him. She said, oh, let me take the
blame. Boy, that's a picture of Christ is what that is. That's
a picture of the believer too. Well then, after Bathsheba, after
Uriah, after the Lord let him see what he really was, Shimei did the same thing as
Nabal. Shimei cussed him, kicked dirt
on him, the king now, and cursed him. And David's man, one of
David's men said, let me go take his head off. And David said,
no. The Lord sent him to cuss me. I deserve worse than a cussing.
God would be just, Psalm 51, to send me to hell. But I'm praying that the Lord
will have mercy on me. And in the meantime, by the grace
of God, I want to show some mercy. I want to show some mercy. It's a lesson I deserve. A whole
lot of lesson. Who his own self, and he committed
himself to him that judges righteously, who his own self, verse 24, bear
our sins in his own body." Oh my, this is the gospel. Substitution. On the tree. Made a curse for
us. Cursed is he that hangeth upon
a tree. And it did this, and this is
what Peter is talking about, that we might be dead to sins. Christ was made sin for us who
knew no sin, took the blame, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Christ died to take our blame, look at verse
24, by His stripes. How would you feel if somebody
was being beaten with a cat-or-nine-tails because of you? Huh? What if you did something?
What if you did something worthy of that? And I said, I'll take
it. Don't do that to me. Let me take
it. How would that make you feel? That's exactly what Christ did. By His stripes, the chastisement
of our peace, peace with God, was laid on Him. And by His stripes,
He took our weapon. That we be dead to sin, dead
to sin. Not live any longer therein.
You know how much the Scriptures talk about being dead to sin?
Christ died for those sins. How can we that are dead to sin
live any longer? How can we, because Christ died
for our sins, how could we still sin against Him? You understand that? How could
we do that again? That's what that's talking about.
Dead to sin. Insult and injury and dead to
pride, dead to it, dead to it, dead to it. Christ was, wasn't
he? Died for all those sins. Oh,
he says in verse 25 in closing, you were as sheep going astray. Oh, we like sheep have gone astray. We turned every man to our own
way. That's Isaiah 53 in it. That's where Peter got this. We did esteem Him smitten. We
despised and rejected. We were always sheep. God's people were always sheep,
but they sure didn't look like it for a while. They sure didn't
act like it for a while, did they? All of God's sheep were
sons, but they acted like that prodigal. All of God's sheep
were His bride. All of God's people were His
bride, but they acted like harlots. Why did Christ die? Bring him to himself and make
him faithful, to make him followers, to make him like himself, to
bring him out of that for his glory and his honor, the glory
of his mercy and his grace and the glory of his cause. We were
a sheep going astray, but are now returned, returned unto the
shepherd and bishop of your souls. We are now returned. To whom
coming? Isn't that what Peter said? To
whom coming? Keep coming. Keep coming. It's not to say
we won't go astray again. We will. I remind you, David,
in the last verse of Psalm 119, 176 verses, he said, I've gone
astray like a lost sheep. Before that, he said things like,
I've kept Your Word. I've followed You. I heed Your
Word. I love Your Word. But then he said, I go astray. But what was he doing though?
Returning. He was returning. That's the place you come back.
To whom? To who? Your shepherd. Your shepherd. And the bishop. That's the overseer. The master. Your master. Old
master. He's a good master. He'll never
turn away one sheep that wandered and comes back. Never, never,
never, never. Oh, dearly beloved, dearly beloved.
Strangers and pilgrims, servants of God, submit in subjection. Oh, man. Christ is our example. Christ, our substitute. We're
His sheep. He's our sheep. All right, stand
with me. Our Lord and our God, we
thank You for Your Word. Oh, it's convicting and yet comforting.
It's rebuking and yet encouraging. It's approving and yet consoling
and strengthening. Oh, Lord, we need it all. We
need it all. Like a father. You told us, be not forgetful. Whom the father loveth, he chasteneth. Oh, how we need these rebukes
and these reproofs. We've come so far short of Thy
glory, the glory as Christ glorified Thee in every way. We've come
so far short. And that's what we want to do.
That's what we want to do. We want to glorify Him. We want
to love. You as Christ's love, we want to love each other as
Christ's love does. Oh, Lord, make it so. Lord, deliver
us from self-love. Cause us to love our neighbor,
our brother, as brethren, as ourselves. Oh, Lord, forgive
us. Oh, Lord, forgive. Oh, Lord,
hear. Oh, Lord, forgive. Oh, Lord,
do. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. I thought that was a great
sermon. It was Peter Dutton, I think.