I want to serve the brethren
with my life. Lord, I want to serve the brethren
with my life. Lord, I want to serve the brethren
with my life. With my life. a Christian in my heart. Lord, I want to be a Christian
in my Now, Colossians chapter 3, Sunday
before last, when we studied this the last time, we saw from Colossians
chapter 3 how that the believer Scriptures admonishes us, exhorts
us, admonishes us to put off some things and to put on some
other things. Look again at verses 6 through
10. in which you also walked sometime
or at one time when you lived in them. Verse 5, he was talking
about things that Also, you also put off all these,
anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your
mouth. Lie not one way or another, seeing
that you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put
on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image
of Christ or after the image of God that created him. and unthinking about God, about
Christ, about the Gospel, about the Word of God. But now, God
has quickened us together, regenerated us. We're renewed and therefore
responsible. And he tells us we ought to live I think, Romans 6, doubt it, Romans 6 verse 1, he
says, Romans 6 verse 1, shall we continue
in sin, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that
are dead to sin? live any longer therein? How shall we that are dead to
sin? Listen to what John Gill says
about that. I was reading him on that verse,
and he says it as well as it could possibly be said. Listen
very carefully, would you? How shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein? There is a death for sin. There is a death in sin. There is a death to sin. And this death to sin is what
Paul is talking about. Justified persons are dead to
sin. That is, and I'm paraphrasing
him so that you'll understand. That is, justified persons do
not have sin imputed to them to condemnation and death. There
is therefore now no condemnation. They're dead to the penalty and
the condemnation of sin. They are discharged from it.
It cannot hurt them. or exert its damning power over
them. Sin can do it. That's right. Amen. It is crucified sin. The Lord said, or the Scripture
said, He has nailed these things to His cross. Abolished. Made
an end. Sins have been made an end by
Christ. Sanctified, justified persons
are dead to sin. Sin is not made their business. It is not their course of life.
It is no longer a pleasure to them, but is loathsome and abominable. It is looked upon not as a friend,
but an enemy. It does not reign. It does not have the dominion
over them. It is subdued in them, and its
power is weakened. As to the members of the flesh
and deeds of the body, it is mortified. To live in sin is
to live after the leadings of a corrupt nature. And there are
many persons who do that, who live in it. They give themselves
up to it. They're bent upon it. Sin is
their life. They take delight in it. They
make sin their work, their business. The whole course of their life
is sinful. And that's what he said there
in Colossians 3. One time you lived in it. Understand? There
was one time when we did live in it, but not anymore. And those who are dead to sin
cannot live in it, though sin may live in them. And they may
fall into sin and lie in it sometime, yet they can't live in it. Fake
sin? Huh? Are you with me? Living
in sin is It's not the grace of God. How
shall we, he said. How shall we? The thing is, it's
just not possible for a gracious soul to live in sin. That would
be to die again. He said, you were dead. You weren't
dead. To live in sin would be to become
dead in sin again. Which cannot be. Which cannot
be. So he says, God forbid, how shall
we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? All right,
read on down, verse 11. It says, So reckon ye yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin. And we also saw a couple of Sundays
ago how that real mortification cannot take place unless you
see your perfect forgiveness in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because
the strength of sin is love, and you're not under the law.
You're not under the law. He says, So reckon yourselves
dead in that sin, that Christ indeed was crucified to put away
your sin, and dead indeed unto sin, but alive. Now here's the
positive sense. Alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. In other words, having your ears
wide open. Remember the illustration of
a dead man? He doesn't see, he doesn't hear, he doesn't speak,
nothing affects him. But you're not dead in sin anymore.
You're alive under God. Your ears are open to His Word.
Your eyes are open to see things, see yourself, see Him, see what
He's saying. Your understanding is lightened.
Your ears are open. You've been given faculties.
You're a renewed, regenerated person. And we're responsible,
right? Right. Okay. So, alive unto God
through Jesus Christ. Verse 12, Let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts
thereof. Neither yield ye your members
as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. Do not yield your member. How do we not yield ourselves
to sin? How do we not yield? Well, then
the answer is in the next part. Yield yourselves unto God. Yield
yourselves unto God. And as we've said so many times,
calling on Him. That's the reason He says pray
without ceasing, because without Me you can't do anything. You
can't fight one sin without Me. Without Me you can do nothing.
The smallest, seemingly insignificant thing will be a root of bitterness
springing up in trouble. Call upon me. Pray without ceasing. Yield yourselves unto God. Yield
your members. Members. As those that are alive
from the dead. Alive from the dead. Open your
ears. Right now. We've been reading the Word.
How much of the Word of God have we already read? You've gotten a bigger dose of
the Word of God right now than most people get in a month's
time. in congregations, so-called churches. Open your ears. Lord, speak. I've got little
boys on the front row with their hands cupped over their ears.
The Lord says he's going to speak, and I want to make sure I hear
him. Cup your spiritual ears. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. All right? How
does the Spirit speak? All right? As those that are
alive from the dead and your members, that's your faculty,
your bodies, everything about you, as instruments of righteousness
unto God. Romans 12 says that we should
present your bodies, living sacrifices, wholly acceptable unto God as
a reasonable service. Reasonable service because you're
not your own. You don't belong to you anymore. You're not your
own. You're bought with a price. You
know, we're not to live to sell. All right? Look at verse 14. He says, and I like this, sin
shall not have dominion over you. That's a blessed promise,
isn't it? It shall not have dominion over
you. It once did. It once ruled and
reigned in your members, and you obeyed it in every way. But sin shall not have dominion
over you any longer. You're not under the law. You're
under grace. And we saw that in Romans 7,
how it's not a doctrine, it's a person. You've got a husband
now, a new husband. You're dead to the law now, and
you're alive unto Christ your husband. Yield yourselves to
him. We read that in Colossians 3.
Wives, submit to your husband. Everybody in here is a wife.
Men included. The bride of Christ. Submit to
your husband, your faithful husband. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. Verse 16 says, Know ye not? Yeah, we know. That to whom you
yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to
whom you obey. Yeah, we know that. We know.
Sadly, shamefully, we know that. Whether of sin unto death or
of obedience unto righteousness, but God be thanked, you were
servants of sin, but now have obeyed from the heart and so
on and so forth. So back to the text. So he's
saying something similar here in Colossians 3, when he says,
put off, put on, put off, put off the old man, avoid him, eschew
him. Be like Job, one who eschews
evil. Be like Joseph, be like Daniel, be like
Christ. Put off, put off the old, put
on the new. As one preacher said, With new men, we need to quit
acting like old men. Like you tell an older man, quit
acting like a baby. You tell a new man in Christ,
quit acting like the old man. Quit that. Tell yourself that.
Start emulating the new Christ. Start walking like him. Verse
11, it says, There's neither Greek nor Jew circumcised, since
Christ is all. Christ is all and in all. Since
Christ is all, He is life and He is in us all. Since Christ
is in us all. That's the sense there, the true
sense of that text in context. Since Christ is in us all, therefore,
verse 12, therefore, see there's a therefore in verse 12, put
on as the elect of God, as the elect of God, as God's chosen
as God's choice people. As Paul said in another place,
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. Peter said that. Put on as the elect of God, as
God's obedient children, holy and beloved. That's Christ, isn't
it? That's a description of Christ
there, holy and beloved. He said, My well-beloved Son,
my only begotten well-beloved Son, my holy Son. Put on, therefore,
as sons of God, as the elect of God, as sons of God, holy
and beloved. Put on these things." And He
gives us seven things now in this next verse or two. Seven
things He tells us to put on. All right? As the elect of God.
Seven things. And they are strikingly similar
to 1 Corinthians 13. Seven things, as Christ-like
people, as holy and beloved, he says, read on, he says, put
on bowels of mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering,
forbearing one another, forgiving one another. Mercy, kindness,
humility, meekness. In verse 14, he says, above all
these things, put on love, which is the bond of maturity, or which
is the seal of maturity. Love, true love will produce
these things. Now, I wanted to get down through,
on down to verse 17, but there's no way. We're going to have to
deal with these seven things individually, and there's no
way. I may take this up later on, but let's look at what we've
just read. He said, love is the bond of
perfectness or maturity or Christ-likeness. Love is. Christ said that. He
said, this is my commandment that you love. This is the royal
law Paul talked about, the royal law, which if you, you'll fulfill
all laws. All the laws fulfilled in this
one word, love, love. Above all, love. And if love,
true love, the love of God shed abroad in your heart, It'll make
you not only love God, love Christ, love the things of Christ. It'll
have your affection set on things above, make you seek those things
which are above, no doubt about it. There's no doubt about it.
And that's what Paul was saying there. He said, if it's so that
you are with Christ, then you will seek those things. And you
can't tell an unregenerate man to do what he's incapable of
doing, right? But he says, if you are. then
you will. So if love is there, the love
of God is shed abroad in your heart, it'll make a person love
like Christ. It just will. Only true lovers
of Christ will love like Christ. All right? Let's look at these
things. And the principle in Scripture,
in God's Word, God says it many times. That if these things abound
in you, and you practice these things one to another, the principle
is that God will abound toward you in these things. Right? To the merciful, Scripture says,
He will show Himself merciful. And so forth. See, the principle
is that these things abound in us, and we practice it. Now,
I'm talking to a regenerating person now. You know that. I'm
not talking about salvation. All right? This doesn't have
anything to do with acceptance with God. That's all based on
the blood, blood, blood, blood, and righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ without work. Without work. If you then be buried with Him
in believers' baptism, reason to walk in newness of life. If
you then be risen with Christ, then these things apply. All
right? All right, he says, bowels of
mercy. Put on, therefore, bowels of mercy. And let me say this
again. Let none of us be guilty As we
go through these things, let none of us here be guilty of
thinking about somebody else in reference to these things.
In other words, oh, so-and-so sure needs to hear that. If you think that for a moment,
you need it worse than anybody else. Right? I say us, but me. I've tried
this on. It fits. I need it. It wears
well. Let nobody in here be guilty
of that, saying, well, I hope so-and-so hears this. You hear
this, okay? You hear this. May I hear this?
Put on, therefore, bowels of mercies. Bowels of mercies. It just has a good ring to it.
True heartfelt bowels is your inward, you know, Compassion. Compassion. Mercies. Compassion. Leniency
is one meaning of the word mercy. Leniency. Be a lenient person. Be lenient with people. Sympathy. Bows. Real sympathy. Feeling. Feeling for others. Bowels of mercy. Not a grudge
holder either. Mercy. Not grudge. Mercy. Mercy. Not vindictive. Not vengeful. Mercy. Not unfeeling or uncaring. Merciful. Bowels of mercy. Leniency. Sympathy. Feeling.
Feeling. Caring. Bowels of mercy. Then he says, kindness. Put on kindness. Do something
kind. Do something kind. Even if it's just opening a door
for someone. Do something kind. Do something
for someone. Be kind. Considerate. Thoughtful. Courteous. Do you remember that in 1 Peter
3 verse 8? We studied that a few weeks ago.
Courteous. Be pitiful and courteous. After
you. No, after you. No, I insist.
I want you. I want your comfort, your happiness.
Be courteous, kind, kind, distributed in a necessity, cheerful, sweet,
considerate, thoughtful. Ah, to go back to the old-fashioned
days of some good old-fashioned morality
and goodness and kindness and sweetness It's just practically
gone in our day. And let it not be said of us
at all. Oh, to get back to the days where
children respected their parents, where people respected authority,
where everybody was kind and courteous. I mean, I was watching Andy Griffith
the other day. That's the only show on TV worth watching. And
I said to her, I said, I wish things could be like that again. Oh, my. Look at the next thing. Humility. Humbleness of mind. You know, if we had this, we
might be kind. Humbleness of mind. What that
means is low thoughts of yourself. If we truly had low thoughts
of ourselves, we'd have better thoughts of others, wouldn't
we? If we really thought, well, I'm
the chief of sinners, then we'd never be offended. But if we
really thought, well, I'm less than the least, not worthy to
be called a saint. If we really thought that. That's
the reason Paul, John, that's the reason Paul was the man that
he was. Because he really meant that.
He said, I'm less than the least, I'm not worthy to be called.
And he was abused and maligned and persecuted and railed on. and false witness born against
more than anybody with exception of our Lord Himself. Wasn't it? Oh, but he was a forgiving man,
wasn't he? Forbearing. Because he felt that
way. He thought that. Listen, Len,
I'm worthy to be called. I don't... I don't... If everybody
in here, including me, felt like this, I'm not worthy to be a
member of this church. I'm not worthy to hear this gospel. if we had esteemed this more
highly. I'm not worthy to be here. I'm
the least of everyone in here. I'm not worthy of anybody's recognition.
We'd never get our feelings hurt. I'm not worthy. I'm a nothing.
That's humbleness of mind. I'm a nothing. If you really
felt that way, Inferior to others, then we would esteem others better
than ourselves. We'd quit looking on our own
things and start looking on the things of others, wouldn't we?
Sure we would. Humbleness of mind, and therefore
doing things out of gratitude to God. It's what he said there
in Romans 12. I've already read it to you.
I beseech you by the mercies of God that you present your
body. And we would do things out of gratitude to God for this
gospel, for putting us here, for giving us this precious privilege
of just being in on this. What can I do out of gratitude
for this gospel? What can I do? If we really had
that humblest of mind, that would be our attitude. What can I do
out of gratitude? What can I do? I want to do something
to show my thanks. Wouldn't you do that to somebody
if they did Just kept showering things upon you. God showers it. This gospel and
what we have here, a high honor and a gracious privilege. And we just come in time and
again and just act like it's just going to be here from now
on. It's there for us. It's our right. We pay our due,
you know. You know, if we did all that
we could do, all that we could do, if we did what, we'd just
be doing what was required of us and we'd still be unprofitable. We'd still be unprofitable. Look
at the next thing, meekness. Meekness. That's the most Christ-like
of all characteristics. Meekness. That's what Christ
said about himself. He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me. I'm meek. I'm meek. Meekness means a couple of things,
or more than one, but more than two. But meekness means this. It means not envious of the gifts
and prosperity or happiness of others, but rejoicing It goes
back to what we were just talking about. Who am I? Why should I? And we have people like that
here, really. Meekness. Quietly submitting to God. That's
meekness. Quietly submitting to God. Quietly
submitting to men. Submit yourselves one to another. Whichever you do, do it heartily
as to the Lord. He went on down through their
wives, to your husband, husbands, love your wife, children, obeying
the parents, and so forth, servants or employees. That's meekness. Submitting. Submitting. Submitting
to authority. You see, in the last days, that's
going to be gone. It is. It's gone. But not in the church
it's not. Not in the church, because all
authority It comes from God, and it's delegated on down. And
the people see that, and what they do, and everything comes
from the hand of God. Submit, submit, submit. Meekness. Submitting to God, submitting
to men. Submitting to men. Be the best employee on that
railroad, Steve. That's a testimony to your Lord. What you do is
do it heartily as unto the Lord. That's meekness, not, who do
they think I am? I'm a union man. We've discussed
that, haven't we? That's the attitude of the day,
isn't it? The foreman and the boss and
so forth, they're at the beckoning call of the man. Not to a believer. Not to a believer. Meekness.
Meekness means patiently bearing insult and injury. Boy, that
describes our Lord, doesn't it? Patiently bearing insult and
injury. It says Moses was the meekest man on the earth. That
describes him. Patiently bearing insult and
injury. Every time he turned around, somebody was questioning
his authority. Every time he turned around. No matter what he tried to do.
And every time the Lord would tell him to do something, he'd
go to the people and say, this is what the Lord said to do now.
And they'd say, who do you think you are? He'd say, I didn't bring
this. I didn't. That's just not me.
I didn't ask for this. It's not my thoughts. It's what
God told me to tell you. Didn't he? And he'd fall on his
face every time somebody confronted him. His sister. Aaron, his brother. Miriam, his sister. Everybody.
Sons of everybody. Who do you think you are? I'm
nothing. I'm no Elmer Shepard. I was just
called here. God, this is what God says. He
just told me to tell you. I didn't want to do it. God said
go. Who do you think you're going
to fall on his face? Meekness. Patiently bearing insult
and injury. Meekness. Meekness usually produces
this, too. Quietness. Less talk. Less brag and less
boast. That's your That sure describes our Lord,
doesn't it? You know, he was really a man of few words. Didn't
the scripture say, Ed, that he shall not cry or cause his voice
to be heard in the street? He shall not cry nor lift up
or cause his voice to be heard in the street. They didn't hear
him on the street corner. Scripture has much to say about
a fool's voice. A fool's voice is heard everywhere
and all the time. You don't have to strain to hear
it. It will be heard everywhere and
often. A wise man will be heard seldom, and when he is, it will
be discreet. Look at the next thing. Long-suffering. Long-suffering. Scripture says the long-suffering
of the Lord is salvation. That word has a special meaning
to me, the believer, to you. The long-suffering. Because that's
what Peter said. The long-suffering. Brethren, account. You need to
account this, that the long-suffering of the Lord is salvation. The
fact that the Lord puts up with you. And He's going to. He's
going to put up with you, Nancy, until the day you die. He's going
to suffer along with you. Suffering, you know, is hurt
and pain. You're grieving. You're grieving.
Don't you? Sure you do. Sure we all do.
Long suffering. He tells us to do the same. Be
long suffering like your Lord. Patiently bearing evil words. And we're all guilty of this.
We're all going to rail on one another. We're all going to say
something we wish we hadn't said. We're all going to do it. Especially
husbands and wives. Because the more you're around
somebody, the more likely you are to fly off the handle of
that. Right? We're all going to hurl
evil speaking and so forth like he talked about. We're all going
to be guilty of that. But the other person, put up
with it. Take it. Take it. Evil words, actions, injuries,
long suffering. That's what it means. Our Lord
puts up with that in us, doesn't He? He's long suffering. Oh,
He's so long suffering. Forbearance. What's the next
word? Forbearance. Forbearance. The word bear in
the Scriptures generally means to carry. To bear. Forbearance. Bear in the Scriptures
talks about bearing one another's burden. What's your burden? Ask yourself. Ask yourself about somebody else.
What's their burden? How can I help lift it? Ask yourself that about someone. Not about you say, oh, I wish
somebody would help me. Like I said, don't anybody give
you that. If so, then this is written to
us. Right? Forbearance. How can I
help Rebecca back there? What's her burden? What can I
do to alleviate it? What can you do to alleviate
mine? Or Stan, Rebecca. Think about Stan Anderson down
there. What's his burden? Stan, you think about Charles
Ross over there. Right? And so on and so on. What's
their problem? What's their burden? What can
I do to help with it? Forbearance. Forbearance. It
also means bear, it means to carry bear, or forbear also means
to put off. Bearing one another's burden,
you put it on yourself, but it also means to put off. Forbear
evil. Not rendering evil for evil. Not rendering evil for evil.
Forbear. Forbear. words and forbearing
deeds and rendering evil for evil. Look at the last thing
here. It says forbearance and it says forgiving one another. Forgiving one another. All things and at all times. All things and at all times.
Peter You remember Peter one time thought he was being quite
charitable, and he said, Lord, how long, how many times shall
I forgive my brother if he sinned against me? Seven times? I mean, if he does me wrong seven
times, surely that's being lenient enough. Isn't it? Seven times? You remember what the Lord said?
I say unto you, seventy times seven. And He didn't mean just
stop at four hundred and ninety. what he was doing was saying
he was multiplying, he was sending, what's the word, alliteration
or usage of the same 70 times, Peter, 700 times. In other words,
don't stop. Why? Why should I, Lord? I'm going to forgive you. I laid
down my life for you. you you're worthless you're worthless
the lord said you're you're worthless i am from above you're from beneath
i lay down my life for you if i your master done this for you
shouldn't you do it for your equal there's no respect we're
all equals here on this planet we're all equals and uh so he
says that That principle should certainly apply among equals.
But if we figure, if we're meek and have that humbleness of mind,
we would consider others better than ourselves. So we would most
definitely want to do those things. Forgiving. Forgiving also means
to forget. It's implied there. Forgiving
forgets. Well, I forgive you, but... You
didn't forgive me then, did you? You're waiting, you're harboring
something. Don't dig up bone. Don't dig
up bone. I don't care what Randy Travis
say. Don't be guilty of it. Don't dig up bone. Bury them
and leave them buried. Out of sight, out of mind, you
know. Out of heart. Don't dig up bone. Forget that. Forget that. oh brother i'm sorry
when i did that so long i said that's a lot of the same don't
you remember when i said i don't know yeah we were together and
i said that oh yeah i remember i don't think anything about
it i've forgotten that's the lord isn't it isn't
that the lord? isn't that christ like? isn't that what he does
to us? what if he were to bring up one
sin what they were not for you forget it once in the past and
we're going to get it to the day we did it's uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh... uh...
uh... uh... uh... uh... Barclay bridge and didn't give it back
or less reason to be mad at. And hard work that's about that's
about the extent of our growth is it. I'll never speak to you
again. So. Forgiving and forget forget
it forget it forgiving willingly lovingly not begrudgingly And
here's the example, and here's the motive. Here it is. It's
the whole motive behind it all. Verse thirteen says, "...if any
man have a quarrel against any," a complaint against any, oh, even as Christ forgave you, so do you. In many things we all James said,
didn't he? We're all offended in many things.
We can't help it. The old man still pops up at
times. And he's an offensive fellow,
isn't he? He stinks. And he pops up every
now and then. And he's offensive. Offensive
to others. But Christ forgave us. And we're
to do the same. Even as Christ forgave us, so
also do you. Forgive and forgive. How did
Christ forgive us? And I'll put it with this. Four
ways. Christ forgave us. This is the
way we're to do it. How? Freely. No conditions attached. No strings attached. Forgiven.
Freely. No bias. Freely. Not, you know, I'll forgive you
if. Unconditionally. You might do
it again. Forget it. Really. Freely. Secondly, fully. I've already
said that. That's forgetting. Fully. Fully. Thirdly, forgive without constraints. And this is the reason I said,
if the love of God is there, you won't have to. Think about
it. Yeah, I'm going to make myself
forgive her. If you love Him, you will. For the love of God is there,
you will. And lastly, without asking for repentance. Forgive
without asking for repentance. That's exactly the way the Lord
forgives us, isn't it? The greatest example of all,
when our Lord was hanging on that cross, burying our sins
and our iniquity, shedding His own precious blood, riding in
anguish and pain for the likes of us warriors. Here's what he
said. I'll never forget this. This
is one of the scriptures the Lord used to start breaking my
old hard heart. I'll never forget the day. Well,
I'll never forget it. What was the first thing that
he uttered when he was hanging on that cross? First thing. Out
of his mouth. Anybody know what it was? They don't know what they want. Father, forgive them. That's without asking repentance.
They hadn't repented yet, you see. They hadn't repented yet. And He forgave us. They repented later, didn't they?
At Pentecost, they did, Ed. They repented. They sure did.
It was the goodness of God that led them to repent. So, brethren, sisters, Beloved,
put off the old. Put on the new. Quit acting like
that old man. Start acting like Christ. Put
on, like, as the elect of God, as Christ is, holy, beloved. Put on bowels of mercy, kindness,
humility, meekness, longsuffering. Forbear one another. Forgiving
one another. Anybody has a quarrel or complaint
against one another? Well, we all do. Even as Christ
forgave you, you forgive Him. Okay? Put on love. That's the
bond of maturity. That'll tail it all. That'll
be the tail sign. Love. If you love Him, you'll
forgive Him. You'll forgive Him. And it'll shine. Can't help it. All right. Stand with me. Our Heavenly Father,
we ask that You would Grant us your Holy Spirit and
your strength without which we can do nothing. Grant us your
power, your strength, your Holy Spirit to work these things in
us, perfect these things in us. Lord, we want to be a Christian.
We want to be Christlike in our hearts. Start there, Lord. Start
there. And in our life. service toward
thee, and we serve thee by serving one another. Nothing we can give
you but praise and thanksgiving and worship. We sure can give
one another a lot to do for one another. I ask, Lord, and that's
what you said. You said that when you were naked,
we clothed thee. When you were hungry, we fed
you. Without a home, we took you in, a stranger. Our Lord,
Make us like Christ. Grant these things for us by
Your Holy Spirit, by Your power. Work in us to do us the glory
of the Father. Here in us the Father glorified
that we bear Christ's likeness. Bear for us the thing we long
for, the thing we want more than anything. Be done with this old
man. Be done with him once and for all. And be just like Christ. There's peace. There's peace. There's joy. There's a fullness
of joy. fellowship with the Lord, we
ask it for Christ's sake. Yes, we call you to your word,
call you to your promise to do these things. You who have begun
a good work, may you perfect it, perform it, and finish it
in us. Hasten the work, Lord. In Christ's
name we pray. Amen.