Good Him. Very good. All right, back to Philippians
2. Philippians 2. Do you remember that message? Last Wednesday night on consolation
in Christ, there's more. I enjoyed that message. I enjoyed
it. Even though I couldn't remember
it last Wednesday, I still enjoyed it. I remember the message. All that
we had on consolation we had in Christ, but there's more.
It doesn't stop there. Alright, now Paul, in chapter
1, remember, chapter 1, he said in verse 29, now this is to all
believers, unto you it is given It is given in the behalf of
Christ, that is, as an ambassador or as a representative of Christ.
Now, just me, you, us, all believers, represent our Lord, bear His
name, His glory out there. It's given not only to believe
on Him, that's the opinion. I grace you stay through faith.
I understand. It's a gift. It's given. But
not only that, but it's given also to suffer his sin. Whatever suffering the Lord may
have you go through, and it's different for different ones. But whatever it may be, God's
people are called to show forth His love, show forth His praise,
to magnify His Word by living through and going through this
suffering for His name's sake. Give Him glory. But one thing
that all believers will suffer is persecution for His name's
sake. All believers will suffer persecution
for Christ's sake. Notice it says, for His sake,
that is, for His glory, not our church, not Central Baptist Church. But for Christ's name's sake,
the Lord Jesus Christ. We contend earnestly, vehemently,
that He has more than one nation. He's the Lord Jesus Christ. We
contend for His glory in all His office and all His persons,
His honor. It's given, and our Lord said
this, to all believers. You shall be hated for my name's
sake. You shall. It's not, you might. It's not, it's not if. It's when. It's certain for all
believers. They will be hated for Christ's
name's sake. But Paul said there's consolation. There's consolation. And I think
back in the passage he says, if my father and my mother forsake
me, The Lord will take care of it. It's consolation in Christ. Even though your flesh and blood
family turns on you. And our Lord said that. He said,
You shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. A man's foes
should be those of his own household. He said, I have not come to bring
peace on earth, but a sword. I have come to set a man at Marius
against his father. mother against her daughter.
That happens to all of you, you've experienced that. It's painful,
it's unbelievable, for lack of a better word. But it's tough. And you remember Sunday morning,
that's a token. It's a token of God's help in
you. If everyone loves you, if everyone
is in agreement with you, something's wrong, Blessed are ye, our Lord,
so that men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all
manner of evil against you, falsely, for my name's sake. For so persecuted they are the
prophets." That means you're in the same
company as Elijah. So it's a token of God's salvation. We don't attempt to be hated. We don't want to be persecuted. We want men to believe the gospel,
and that's the way we do it. I hope I'm learning this from
my pastor. He said we ought to preach in
such a way that men, in other words, preach it to men and women
as if, don't you believe this? Expecting people to believe this
truth. Anyway, there's consolation in
Christ. He said there's consolation in Christ for those who suffer
for His name's sake. Because Christ has said, I will
never leave you. I will never leave you. I will forsake you. And Paul, this is where Paul
got his consolation when everybody turned against him. He was all alone in jail, and
even preachers out there Remember what we read? Preachers out there
were preaching in such a way as to lay some... Paul didn't
do things right. His consolation was prayer. Our
Lord said, as a comforter, I will send you. I will send a comforter. When all other comforts are gone,
with home and family and relationships and earthly comforts, I'll send
the Comforter. The Comforter. He will lead you
and guide you. He will give you consolation.
Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4 quickly. 2 Corinthians chapter
4, will you? Now, if you know passages from
the day of God before us, What does this matter? Christ is with us. Our Lord said,
yea, our Scripture says, concerning our efforts, yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shabbat, I'll see her in a week. Why? Without her. Second Corinthians four, you
know these verses, but you might want to mark them and remember
them for future reference. Verse eighty-nine, we are troubled
on every side. I just look up, I just turn the
radio off, the TV on, look at the newspaper, walk out the door
and I see pictures of them on every sign, on every page. I'm not serious. I have no business
like that. I do not consult my, what's these
witches that are on TV, they call them, 800 and over, what
are they called? Witches. Psychic, that's it. I don't consult my psychic lady
or whatever. I'm not distressed. Things trouble
me. In this world, the things that
All around, and they've been troubled. You'd think cowards
and cold and indifferent and hardened to sin, but they've
been troubled. But I'm not. I know who reigns. We don't. We're perplexed. I don't know
if my God allows it. Why he allows it to go on like
this? I don't know. It's perplexing,
really. I just wouldn't do it like that. Would you? But the knowledge
is there. The knowledge is there. Persecuted, but not forsaken. I hope everyone will be against
us, but not Satan, because it's God's fault. Cast down. We do
get cast down, and this is why David said in the psalm, why
are you not cast down? With Him. Oh, my soul, go down
in God. I will get it, praise the Lord. Not destroyed, but not destroyed. You put a man All right, back
to our text in the Biblical Institute. So there's consolation in Christ.
We saw last Wednesday, we had number one, forgiveness of sins.
And we need that verse again. That's the comfort, because the
thing that's ever before us, and plagues us more than anything,
and persecutes us, our sins persecute us, and trouble us. And perplexed. You're perplexed, aren't you?
If I love Christ, if I'm a believer, why am I? Why am I doing this? But knowledge is fair, because
He will perfect that discernment. See, our sins persecute us. Our sins cast us
out. Don't they? Our sins. But our
Lord said, Thy sins be defeated. The iniquity of Israel should
be solved. It won't be back. We never forget. We'll never
forget some things we have done and we'll get those we will never
forget. That's good. It really is. It
keeps us broken. But thank God, here's a consolation.
He said, their sins and iniquity I will remember them no more.
But Lord, do you remember what I did? I'll remember. But what I said the other day,
I don't, I can't recall. That's a consolation. That's
our number one consolation. And all the promises of God,
remember that? Consolation in Christ. All the
promises of God in Christ are what? There's no ifs, ands, or buts
about it. No maybes, no ifs. God, He will
if you should. No, not there. Yet, amen. I say, amen. OK. All right, here's the next thing. There are many constellations,
right? If any comfort of love. Comfort of love. Now, I'll tell
you quickly that 1 John chapter 3. 1 John, chapter 3. You know who found this known
when he turned to 1 John? This is the book which speaks
of whose love? Primary. God's love. Now, here's the comfort. All
right, a little bit down. It's His love for us. Here's
where the comfort comes. But we've got to look at the
love we have for one another and God, all right? This comfort of love. 1 John 3, let's look at verse 1.
It says, Behold what manner of love the Father hath show'd upon
us. Now, every one of us, us. Yes, you. Jesus and me. No, you
there. And I know everybody in here
is willing to take that side in our argument. Like Brother
Tragrant said, there's only going to be one argument in that, and
that's who's true to the chief of sin. But it will be a friendly
one tomorrow. Everybody, everyone in here,
honest before God, know yourself. You say, I'm the chief of sin. I'm not worthy to be called a
disciple. I'm not fit to be called. I'm less than a lead. All right? Apply this first, not in a general
way, but in a particular way. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon me, that I should be called a son
of God, a very loved God, to the workers,
to the prodigies, to the black sheep. That's the love of God. That's the kind of love. Well,
how do we know? How did God display His love? We sang that hymn. Did you notice
that hymn? We read it in the skies. We read
it on the earth. But here's where we read it.
We read it in Christ. That's a good hymn. I'm telling
you. Modern hymn writers, and I'm talking about the 1900s,
they don't have the poetic ability to tell us what to write. They
put in poetry, beautiful gospel. Verse 16, look at verse 16. Hereby
receive we the love of God, that is, Him love us, because He laid
down His life. He laid down his life for us.
Do you remember Romans chapter 3? That's where a good man is
hung on the very day. A righteous man. But God commanded
his love for us. And while we were in sin, Christ
died. Christ died for us. Christ died
for those that spit in his face. I sat with those who said, we
don't want you. Go leave. Go back. That was everyone. That was me for 20 years, Brother
Stephen. That was me. I didn't need you
to cry. As far as I'm concerned, he didn't
need to come here. I'm not interested. That's what
unbelievers say. That's what ignoring the gospel
and going for years without being interested, that's what you're
saying. You died, but I don't care. Let me tell you, let me ask you
something. If you sacrificed the life of your son or daughter,
whom you love dearly, just for somebody, and they counted
it as an unworthy thing, unworthy, what would you, what
would you, just ask me, tell me, what would you do? Don't
you love them? See, this is replacing me. Huh? This is replacing me. You know,
what man would love a child that is so nuts to me that I should
be called one of his sons? I can believe it. In fact, the
brother in the interview there, he seemed pretty loving. And Vicki and others, Dan, one
of the sweetest men I've ever met. He's loving, he's not mean. I read Ross, but I can see that
I've got to love him. He can ask me, me. And Dan said the same thing.
Dan said the same thing in his own heart. He said, I don't know
why he loves me. Behold what man has done. Father,
we, much to my amazement, we say often the issue of disclaimer in our preaching. Prophets didn't
go out saying, God love you. Apostles didn't go out saying,
God love you. We say so often, I say so often,
things against what everybody's saying
about the love of God. But now, listen, the love of
God is wonderful. It's marvelous. The
love of God is... Because God sent His love upon
us, this is what set this whole thing, salvation, in motion. Because God sent His love upon
the people. for His great love for which
He loved us, and sent Christ to die for us. So there's comfort in love. God
loves us. And He does. He loves us. You
see? He loves us to the end. And His
love is saving love. His love is eternal love. His
love is providing love. His love, what can you say about
it? The right love of God. When that song goes, I'm going
to quote this quote. Where the sky of Perth was made,
and every man ascribed by trade, to write the love of God above,
the oceans were filled with ink, and every sock on earth a quill,
and every person to write the love of God above would drain
the ocean dry. And though the strobe did not
contain the hope, it still stretched from child to child. I misquoted it, but that's something
of my category. Love of God. He loves his people. I guess you could say so much
against what's being said today because they keep the love of
God. They make the love of God to
be ignored there. And that's all I'm going to say.
This is our time. It's a comfort of love. It's
God's love. Now, whoever he loves, if God loves you, smile. Honestly now, if you're a believer,
if you're in Christ, if you believe in Christ, If you can live in
Christ, no matter who you are, if you trust Christ, smile, God
loves you. That's why you can live in Christ. God has a wonderful purpose for
your life. See that? Smile, there's comfort
in His love. And there's comfort, look at
chapter 3, verse 14, 1 John 3, verse 14. There's comfort in
our love for one another. Verse 14, we know that we have
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. There's comfort in that. There's
assurance that this ain't real, this salvation's of God, because
we love the brethren. We do. It's not fake. When's the last time we told
each other that? I can't remember. We don't already know that, do
we? But is it? We do. That's just like we said Sunday,
that someone, an empty bucket usually brings laughs. Someone
who really loves you, you'll not put out that phone without
having to tell you. Always spill out anything that
can't help but, you know, pair down with it. But you don't have
to go around telling them. You don't have to go around telling
them. And this is comforting because
we love those who are unlike us. We love those who are different
walks, different backgrounds, different. Bringing together
to make bustle buddies of 76, Charles Ross is 76 years old. Right? Am I getting it right
this time? I thought it was about seventy-one or two. It is just
my guess that he turned seventy. Henry turned seventy. Are you
seventy-one yet? Okay. I'm going to keep track. Seventy-six. I made a seventy-six
year old man a forty. So, forty-six. Buzz and buzz. I'm just saying that. You just don't see them hanging
out together out there in North Carolina, do you? Sitting on
the parking bench or whatever. We're together. I'm with somebody.
You're with somebody. I like it. That's just my life,
you know. Take a young hippie and a little
truck driver and make them best friends. So you tell me, is that
a God or what? All right, the next thing. Comfort and love. Back in Philippians
2. We know we passionately love
life. We love it forever. If there's any fellowship
of the Spirit. Fellowship of the Spirit. Turn
quickly. 2 Corinthians 13. 2 Corinthians
13. Now, I want you to notice here how similar this is. The parting words for the Corinthians
are almost identical to what we're reading in the religions.
Almost identical. We have 2 Corinthians 13, verse
14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, see
that's a consolation in Christ, the love of God, communion of
the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Thank you. Communion, this fellowship
of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. It's with you all. This fellowship, this communion,
alright? Listen carefully now. Paul uses this word fellowship
often. John uses it. Remember John 1? Is it chapter
1? Truly our fellowship is with
the Father. Paul talks about fellowship with
mystery, fellowship with God's Son, fellowship with the Gospel,
fellowship with the Spirit, fellowship, fellowship, fellowship, fellowship. All right, here he says, now,
if there be any fellowship of the Spirit, what he's saying
is he's laying some, he's giving some evidences that should give
us some surety. Like in chapter three there,
worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ. Paul had been a lawyer. He was a law, he was a lawyer,
in the law of God. And he lays down incontrovertible
or hard-to-argue-ness arguments, evidences, facts, proofs. That's
what he does over and over again. You'll notice his writing. He's
just one after another for our time. All right? He says, now,
if there be any consolation in time, If there be any love, comfort
of God above you, love of the brethren, if there be any fellowship
of the Spirit, how wise do you come here? Everyone in here,
I want you to ask yourself this question, this personal question. There's no faith in this. There's
no way you can faith in this. Why do you come to this
one? Is it for the choir? No, I'm
kidding. It's our band. Our four-piece
band. Five-piece. It's not fair. The decor. It's obviously not
bad. or it's hard when you trip over
the ribs. How long has it been? 1963, finally got curtains up. What is my youth? Is it the women's
clothes we had? All the women would get together. Clothes. Breakfast, spring. Our youth ministry. My youth. But it's not like they say. Why
do you want to be a prophet? One thing. Huh? One thing. Can you say that
from your heart? That you're here for one reason? You're here
to do one thing. To get one thing out of this. Tell a different gospel. Hear
the gospel. Now this is just not natural. Man, this is just not natural.
A natural man It's got to be your thing. He's got to be, he's
got to have something new all the time in his campaignership,
you know. Look, we just have to keep doing
the same thing, the same thing. The gospel, the gospel, that's
it. That's the Godly part. That's
why you've got to live. That's why you've got to live. Fellowship. That's
what the fellowship of the Spirit is. Fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who
gathers God's people together. He's the one who goes out and
rounds them up, the sanctifier, if you will. He's the one, as
it were, who lassoes them with cords of love in order to demand
the message he uses. That which he uses to draw the
cords, the lasso, It's the message of the man, Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit's the one who
goes out and finds all of those who are left with blood on them,
and gathers them to his people, brings them together from the
East, West, North, and South, brings them together to do what?
Take the things of Christ and show them to them. And they just, from then on,
they're part of, they're joined together in the church to do
what? Well, they're the bride, the
priestess, the groom, and what they do is just worship the bride.
From then on. They do it down here, they start
here, and then when they get up there, they have a good birthday
party. And that's it. Can you say that's why you're
here? And this spirit, listen to this,
in Romans 8, he says in verse 16, the spirit bears witness
to our spirit, that we're sons of God, we're the children of
God. The spirit bears witness to our spirit. How does he do
that? This is the fellowship of the spirit. All right, we're
all a bunch of no good sinners, aren't we? Let's see who that
is. Who is the worst sinner? I would
expect every man's residence, all right, where all of us, this
is a hospital for sinners. This is, this is a central, that
is no good church. Let's just say, all right. Why do we come here? We come
here to hear the good news of mercy and grace for sinners such
as we are. That's why we come dragging in
here. We come dragging our table between our legs, our heads hanging
down, our hearts broken over sin, ourselves. And we come in,
and what does the Spirit do? He gives us something. We hear the gospel. We hear the
gospel of mercy and pride, even that the chief of sinners and
the spirit bear witness for thy spirit, that we're sons of God. Not by patting us on the back
and saying you're a good boy. Why not? Through the gospel. Yes you are, man, if you're a
sinner who trusts Christ, no matter how weak, no matter how
young, no matter how sinful, Black sheep are sheep. We were down in Pasco County
some months back, and this man had a whole flock of sheep, and
both of them, in the midst of all these white sheep, white-faced,
white sheep, one of those black sheep. I'm one of the lower chiefs,
like the W.I.P.s. Here bears witness to our spirit
that we're a part of the fellowship. We're a part of the fellowship.
I love that word. I like the sound of the word fellowship.
If you've ever been on a ship or in any close quarters with
a bunch of people and it required all of you to get pulled together
in order to get where you're going, you know what this fellowship
meant. You men in the Army. I had no
experience on a ship, 10 days. I wasn't much help after a while.
I went off with him. I'm the landlord. My friend,
he went with me. You're talking about bringing
on a landlord. He was literally bringing. I mean, literally bringing
for eight days. He couldn't. We had to clean
up after him for eight days. Oh, it was awful. But nevertheless, he's on the
ship. He's on the ship. After a while,
even at the end of that time, there were a couple more days,
but he helped us grow to this. And we all pulled together. Every person on board here was
part of this gift, from the cook in the galley to the cook out
on the mast. That's because you know who chooses
every member on board here. My favorite book to read is the
old St. Mary's books. A good captain
back then would go out on land and choose every member of his
ship. Every member. Not one single
member that wasn't chosen by the county. Not one. I mean, down to the boys of the
county of Houston. Every one of them. Some of them,
what's the word for? That way I could be well-read,
because I worked up. I was going to capture a ship,
and they would like grasp me, you know. You were captured.
You're a member of the ship. What's the word? Huh? What? Not available? Anyway, whoever they captured
was, they might have been a part of the ship, or they weren't.
And if he's a good enough captain in history, those who were taken
captive were mighty glad that they were on board that ship.
Mighty glad. Now, what does it get you that
excited? We're late captains. You're late
on all else. Commandeers. The captain chooses everybody.
Everybody, are you a member of this church? Are you a member
of Christ Church? Are you a member of your own
church? The captain of the church? You've got a job to do, be it
a cook, a cleaner, a lookout, whatever it may be. So, that is here, a spirit. And
folks, we are through. Like Paul said, I love that story
of Paul, when the ocean and the storm was against him, the waves
and all the sails, the mast broke and they were just drifting insane.
Paul said, now, sail the ship. Now, can anybody live in a ship? Remember that? Paul said, everybody's
going to be on this ship. They're not going to hide in
their hair and perish. Nobody's going to perish if they
don't give. Nobody! How do you know the dog? Sure enough, they made it to
the door. On the shift. Stay in the shift. Stay in the course. Stay in the
shift. Fellowship. Here's the next thing
I quit. It'd be vowels and verses. Vowels
and verses. Now Paul used this term a lot
in his study. I read three more pages of that. Paul uses this term in front
of me. Now, get over, let's get over our childish thoughts about
vows, okay? This is a scriptural term, Maulam
Kul. Vows is a good word. You'll see
why it's used here. This is often used in the scripture.
Joseph, this is it, when Joseph saw his brother Benjamin before
he, before he made himself known, he says, I will turn this way,
brother. He said, run Christ's way. I will turn. The woman whom Solomon, you remember
Solomon, one, two women slept in the same bed with their two
babies, two born babies? And one of the babies was smothered
to death. And they both claimed the baby,
the living baby. And you remember Scotland just
whispered to him, said, well, we'll just cut the baby in half
and give each other half. And he says, the woman, the child,
it was. He says, sir, how old is your
daughter? She said, nine. He said, her? It's a Shulamite
maiden in the Song of Solomon. Shulamite maiden, when her beloved
put his hand by the hole in her door. There's no handle on there. There's
a whip. He makes one. In the hearts of
his people. Said, when he put his hand by
the hole in her door, she said, my bowels were moving. How do you figure why this is
such a good word? This is the innermost being.
This best describes feelings which we go through often in
this lifetime, feelings down deep, the deepest recesses of
your person, feelings of trouble that go much further than just
your head. I mean, deep trouble. You ever had any trouble? Sure
you have. Sorrow. Sorrow down in the depth of the
recesses of your being. Bow down. We've all felt it.
Here Paul talks about bowing to the mercies. Whose mercies is he talking about? Let me ask you a Roman 7th century
example. Roman 7th century. Have you not felt a deep sense
of your sin and your guilt at times? Just a deep, deep sense
of your sin and your guilt coming down from the depths of your
person? Only to hear the gospel at some
point in time and then feel a deep sense of relief. Huh? You know what I'm talking about.
I mean it in your Bible. Deep. David said it this way. He said, have mercy on me, O
Lord, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Liar. Watchman. Thinker. Lamentation 3 says that the mercies
of the Lord are pure, great, and His compassions, they fail
not their deliverer. His compassion. That's what this is. The bowels
of God's mercy. I've got a question. And now, this is how Paul appealed,
and if you so will know why he says, Is there any consolation in Christ? Do you have any comfort or sorrow? God shown you any consolation? Got any reason to believe that
you're in Christ? Got any reason to believe that
God loves you? Got any reason? Every reason. And fellowship, you have any
fellowship here? Simple though you may be, and
less than the least though you may be, you can still find a
little fellowship here in the comfort of the brethren. Bowers
of mercy. Y'all have not been merciful
to you over there? And so he said, well, you know,
and you do the same. See, that's how Jesus came. Then
be like mine. Verse two. Okay. Fulfilling my
joy. This would give me more joy each
day. This would fill me with more joy than anything else.
That you'd be like mine. You'd be just like our Lord was
to you. You see how He's appealing?
You see how the Scripture reveals that? Having the same love. What kind of love? Uncreated
love. Right. A wonderful, wonderful
man. No strife or pain for it. Loving
his mind. Seeing God as better than himself.
Looking on things above him. Let this mind be his. That's
it, right? No remaking himself of nothing. He became a servant.
Even to the worst. Be even worse than that for all.
Therefore God is making him, is yielding him above everything. So if you say a crippled man
does it, you do the same thing. Is that not motivation? It's
all, it all is motivation. Reward is motivation. The goodness. the riches of His grace, the
comfort of His love, the consolation, everything in this world. That's
what motivates me. All right, stand up. Our Father, we thank You for
making this a happy city. Verse one, and every verse preceding
the next, we thank You for this word. Thank you that you, in
mercy and grace, have retained it all these years,
kept it for us. We might not have had it in the
majority of it, but we thank you for it. It is indeed our
comfort, our consolation, all our hope and help is found here. We do find great comfort and
fellowship around the mystery of the Word of the Gospel. Thank
you for these people that you have chosen, that you have gathered
together to have a gospel table in Christ. Thank you. Keep us
fellowshipping together around this same gospel until that day.
I pray that, in the name of the Lord, we will remember Christ,
and we will worship Him with a perfect heart, and we will
know even as we've been known. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Thank you very much.