message takes three different
texts as you know it is in the bulletin. Remember I told you
one time that someone asked Charles Spurgeon. If you could have anything you
wanted anything at all. In this life what would it be. Charles Spurgeon. was a preacher of the gospel
years ago, back in the 1800s. And the Lord saved him at an
early age, made a great preacher out of him. But he answered that
person who asked him, if I could have anything I wanted in this
life, he said it would be this, that I might never sin again. I might never sin again." Now,
that man knew something about himself. That's the same thing that every
true child of God knows. He knows himself. And he knows himself in light
of who God is, who Christ is. You're not going to know yourself
unless you know the God of the Bible, who He is. That means holy. And that's the
difference. the difference in what is preached
here and what is preached in most places. Most everyone this
morning will be bragging to the people or bragging on the people
and telling them how much God loves them and needs them and
what good folks they are. But that's not the language of
Scripture. The language of Scripture is, He's holy. He's just. I've got a broken record here.
Just a broken record. If you've heard me once, you've
heard me a thousand times. If you've read the scriptures once,
you've read this a thousand times. It was Isaiah that said, What
shall I cry? The Lord said, I'm going to send
you, Isaiah, as a prophet. Go out to the people. We said,
What shall I say? He said, You say, All flesh is
grass. It's like the flower of the field.
The grass withereth, and the flower fadeth. All a man's beauty,
all a man's accomplishment wither and fade. Therefore, in all seeing
God, he is nothing. And tell them, Behold your God.
Behold your holy and righteous God, before whom someday you
shall stand. That's old-fashioned, isn't it? This educated society
we live in say, no, that's just, that's old-fashioned. They preached
that 100 years ago. No, they preached it 7,000 years
ago. And we better continue in this
old way. That's what he said in Jeremiah
6, verse 16. He said, You see, you stand in
the old paths, wherein is the good way, the only way, the true
way, and walk in that, listen to that, believe that. The older
here is better. But the people said, no, we're
above that. We've got some new thing now, got a new revelation. Well, the difference in what
we preach, like I said, and what the world is preaching this morning
is not that God needs us, it's that we need Him. It's not that
we're somebody, but it's that we're nobody. And we're all alike, all flesh
is grass. We're going to stand before this
holy and sovereign God someday to be done with as He pleases.
And He'll do right. So Spurgeon knew that. And he
knew the only way he was going to be accepted with this holy
God was to be without sin. Be without sin. Now how's that? You can't do it. I don't care
how hard you try, you can't do it. By ourselves. You cannot do it. No matter how
hard we try, no matter how long we live, we're not going to keep
one jot or one tittle of the law perfectly. We're not going
to keep one commandment perfectly, because God requires it in the
attitude and the motive and the heart and thought. Thought. Well, look back at Psalm 32 before
we look at Psalm 37, I tell you. Look back at Psalm 32, verse
1. Look back there. Psalm 32. Brother Todd Nyberg has preached
here before. We're a very close friend of
mine and yours. He was thought to be dying at
one time. He was laying on his deathbed.
He had Hodgkin's disease. His brain was swollen. A young
man in his early 30s thought he was dying. You remember that
time. And he said that these two verses,
while he was laying on his deathbed with the thoughts of going out
into eternity he's never been to, facing a God he's never seen,
the unknown. He said these two verses comforted
his heart like no other verse. He said it gave him perfect peace. Perfect peace. And he needed
it. That's a time when you'll do
some wrestling. I don't think anybody in here,
maybe, maybe somebody has been at that point where you thought
you were actually dying and going to go meet this God. That's the
way we ought to think, but we don't. But faced with the prospects
of going out into the eternity of never being in the face of
God you've never seen, it's a frightening proposition.
Or look at verse 1 and 2. This, Todd said, this right here
just absolutely calmed all his fears. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Todd said, I kept thinking about
what a rotten person I'd be in all my life, what a no-good person
I am. That's what every true child
of God thinks about himself. And Todd did too. He said, What
a rotten person I am. How has sin come short of the
glory of God? But he said, My sin is covered.
How? Henry moved his lips and said,
Do you read my lips? covered under blood. Verse 2,
"'Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputed not iniquity.'"
In other words, he doesn't hold him responsible for his sin. Now, God is either going to hold
us responsible for our sin, or somebody else. And if you can
figure that out, you've got the gospel figured out. And it'll
cause your heart to rejoice. If you'll read for yourself sometime,
all the way down through Psalm 32, look at verse 10. It says, Many sorrows will be
to the wicked. And I've read the deathbed experiences of some
of these people, some of these agnostics and atheists and all,
and it was horrible. Horrible. They said even Charles
Darwin, you know, recounted everything. Recounted, recounted, recounted
everything he said he believed. with the fearful prospects of
facing God. Many sorrows shall be to the
wicked, verse 10, but he that trusteth in the Lord in mercy
shall encompass him without. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
ye righteous." Once again, who's righteous? He who has imputed
righteousness. Not a righteousness you've worked
out, but one that's been given to you. All right? He says, you shout for joy, oh,
you upright in heart. Well, so this brings me to my
text. Look at Psalm 37, verse 5. Now
look at verse 3. It says, trust in the Lord. Verse
4, delight thyself in the Lord. Verse 5. That's the text. Commit by way unto the Lord. I believe the desires of every
true child of God are basically threefold. And I've said this
to you several times. I believe every true child of
God, and if you want to know whether you are or not, examine
your heart concerning these three things. I believe every true
child of God wants these three things. Above all, number one,
he wants to be totally committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you're shaking your head.
He wants to be totally committed to the Lord Jesus Christ, lock,
stock and barrel. Number two, he wants to be in communion. with the Lord Jesus Christ. That
just basically means he wants to walk with Him, talk with Him,
know Him, know Him, know Him better. And number three, he
or she wants to be conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ, wants
to be just like Him. You women that married a man
And when we're talking about, you notice there in the verses
3 and 4 and 5, it said, Trust, delight, commit unto what? Religion? Delight yourself, trust
in your religion, trust in your decision you make, trust in your
baptism, trust in your church attendance. Huh? Is that what
it said? Delight yourself in going to
church. To say that? Commit yourself
to being busy in the church. Is that what it said? What does
it say? Trust in the Lord. Delight thyself
in the Lord. Commit unto the Lord. So here
we're talking about a person. We're talking about being committed
to a person. Barnard used to say salvation
is not a decision. Salvation is not in a creed.
Salvation is not what you believe. Salvation is knowing a person. If you don't hear anything I
hear from here on out, hear this. Salvation is a relationship with
a person. A relationship with a person.
We read this morning how the Apostle Paul met somebody. Somebody
met him. Somebody met him. Paul was headed
in one direction, and the Lord stopped him and revealed himself
to him. And that's what happens to every
son of Adam that God saves. They meet a person. Who is that
person? Jesus Christ. A very real person. You know, I hate to have to say
that, but because men and women haven't seen him, You know, men
and women by nature live by sight, the flesh. I'll believe it if
I see it, they say. Salvation is to see what you
believe. It's to see what you believe.
Jesus Christ is real. If you were blind, that wouldn't
mean that I don't exist, would it? Because you couldn't see
me? I'm still very real. And because
Christ is spirit, God is spirit, and we're flesh, and we can't
see, it doesn't mean he doesn't exist. He's more real than we
are. In him we live and move and have
our day. Right? But salvation is to know a person. And there are people in here
who have actually met this person. I'm not talking about some dream,
some vision. He hadn't spoken in an audible
voice. Anybody that says they've had
that, it's lying to you. Anybody that says that the Lord
spoke to them, spoke out loud to them, and said this and that
and that, that's lying to them. God speaks through this Word.
This is a letter that He writes to His people, and this is how
they hear Him. And this is how they see. They see with the ear.
Like I said this morning. They see just as clearly, they
see the reality of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ just
as real as I'm looking at Henry Smorsov. I'm looking at Henry,
all I can see is his front, from here up. Boy, you see so many
facets of the person of Christ, don't you? And you see it so
clearly from the Scriptures, you say, he's real, he's real.
You can't trust your eyesight. You might be hallucinating, right?
when you see it in Scripture, when you see Christ in Scripture.
So we're talking about a commitment to a person, a person. Salvation is knowing a person,
a person. And how he reveals himself is
through the pages of this book, through the preaching of this
book. Come to know him. All right? It says, Commit thy
way unto the Lord. Wouldn't you like to be—and I
talk to a child of God here now, those that know him. Wouldn't
you like to be completely and totally committed to the Lord
Jesus Christ? I mean, wouldn't you like to
be so enamored with and taken up with Him and in love with
Him that you didn't think about hardly anything else or anyone
else? You know, there have been people like that. David said
it, he said, one thing that I desired for the Lord, one thing. He said,
there's really one thing I'm interested in, that I might dwell
in the house of the Lord forever and behold His beauty. I want
to see Him. Because he was a man after God's
own, he knew Him. He knew Him, Walt, he knew Him.
Wouldn't you like to be totally committed to Him? The Lord Jesus
Christ. You ladies who married a man
I hope you married a man. Two ladies who married a man. What you did when you got married
to him was you made a serious commitment to him. Before God,
before men. When you take the marriage vows,
you promise to love, honor, obey. Yeah, obey. I hope you didn't
take that out of your marriage ceremony. If you did, God doesn't
acknowledge it. Obey. Why? Man is ahead of the
woman as Christ is ahead of the church. That's just the way it
is. That's the way you want to be, too. And you promise to serve
that man until death separates you, right? That's a serious
commitment, isn't it? You men who married that wife,
you promised before God Almighty and before men to love, honor,
cherish, and protect that woman that you call your wife. Those
are serious commitments, aren't they? serious commitment. And those are commitments that
require complete giving of ourselves. That's the reason they don't
last much. Isn't that right? The reason they don't last very
long is because one or the other or both are not willing to do
what it takes. Total submission or giving of
oneself. Husband, love your wives as Christ
loved the Church. And what? gave himself. Gave himself. But you promise
in that commitment to give yourself, to entrust yourself to that person. And that's what we say when we
take those vows. And what we say when we are being committed
to the Lord Jesus Christ is the same thing. The same thing. That we are no longer concerned
with ourselves so much as we are Him. You ladies, when you
first got married, it probably changed, but when you first got
married, all you were concerned about was His happiness. All
you wanted to cook for Him, you got up early, fixed Him breakfast.
Boy, does that ever change. He'd apply to whoever he'd apply
to. Probably 90% of it. Why have early fixes? You better
want to do whatever you could do to make him happy. Why use
it? We're in love with him. And I'm
not saying your love wanes, but you just flesh. The old flesh
gets old flesh. He gets tired, you know. Gets
tired of waking up, laying fixes on the toast or something. I got enough to do in washing
his old thinking. But anyway, he wanted to make
him happy. That's love. Isn't that love?
One to serve him. Well, that's the believer. Upon
confessing the Lord Jesus Christ as his head, his master, his
husband, he's saying he's no longer completely taken up with
himself, but he's taken up with Christ now. He's interested in
Christ now, not so much himself, but Christ. His interest, his
desire. You ladies, whatever your husband
was into when you married him, if they were into racing, you
might not have liked racing at first, but you got into it because
he liked it, right? Motorcycles? He got on the back
of that, scared to death. But you got on the back anyway. You trusted him, you loved him,
you wanted... His desires were your desires now. His interests
were your interests. His pursuits were yours. You
were no longer taken up with your own self nor the world.
Not mama, not daddy, not your former friends. You left them
all. And you committed to that man. You committed to that law. That's real sad that that changes,
doesn't it? It ought to stay that way. But it doesn't. But
that's the way it is with the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can you understand that? That's what it means to be a
believer. Are you with me? That's what it means. It's a
relationship. A believer is a bride of Christ. That's what Scripture said. The
Church is the bride, the wife of Christ. She loves Him more
than she loves her own husband, her own—his own wife, her children,
especially the world. His interests are her interests.
Are you with me? The church had committed to him,
committed to him. His ways are their way. His pursuits
are their pursuit. They're no longer taken up with
everything else. And listen, this is the heart
of the matter here, committing to Christ. Listen to me. What
does it mean to commit to Christ? First of all, I said it's a commitment
to a person. a commitment to a person. It's
a relationship with a person. It's not to join in the church.
I don't want you to join our church. We're not making some drive to
get members. It's not my church. It's Christ's
church. Huh? What I want is you to be
vitally joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Paul said. Yeah, I want you to marry Him,
not us. I don't want you to be taken
up with me. You should be taken up with Him. That's the reason
I try to preach Him. Not me. Not us. I'm not trying
to preach our church to get you to fall in love with what we
do around here. I don't want you to fall in love
with this. I want you to preach Christ. I want you to fall in
love with Christ. But I can't do that. Only the Holy Spirit
can. And He does it through the preaching
of the gospel. So it's a commitment to a person, and here's the heart
of the matter. In committing to Christ, what
is it to commit to Christ? Well, when you commit to Christ,
when you commit to Christ, what you're saying is that you no
longer are leaning to your own understanding, your own strength. In other words, you're no longer
trying to save yourself. You were once, Jeanette, Ed,
everybody, you were once a church member somewhere, a goody-two-shoes,
holier-than-thou, self-righteous woman, weren't you? Church member.
You were so smug and comfortable in your religion. You were religious.
And most people, like my pastor said, have just enough religion
to make them miserable. You know, can't touch, can't
taste. and make everybody else around them miserable. You're
miserable to be around. You're not a man, you're not
a woman, you're not a natural, you're not just a person. You're
religious. You know exactly what I'm talking
about. Oh, he's religious. He's so religious it makes me
sick. That's what one of our brothers said about some fellow
he works with. He's so religious he makes me
sick. You've seen him. They can't walk and talk like
normal people. They're afraid to act like they've
got normal desires, you know. At any rate, you were trusting
in that, weren't you, Jeanette? Can I pick on you? She's shaking
her head out there. I wish she was sitting on the
front row, because she's just saying, yes, that was me. I'm giving
your testimony for everybody, okay? She's agreed. She's still
shaking her head. Hear it rattling? You were a
goody two-shoes, going to church, grew up in church, baptized. Baptized? Sure, good church. You trusted in that, didn't you?
Why you saved, Jeanette? Somebody asked her, she'd say,
well, I was baptized. I believe on Jesus. Well, I joined
the church. I've gone to church. My mama
and daddy are Christian. And I'm living the victorious
life. Wouldn't you? Would you pretty
much have said that? Because you might have thrown a little doctrine
in there because Jesus died for me and so forth, you know, for
good measure. But basically you were trusting
in yourself, weren't you, at religion. Jeanette, one day the
gospel came to you. I know your election, Jeanette
Barry, beloved Lord, because the gospel came to you one day.
And not just in word only, but in power, convicting power. She found out one day, hey, I
ain't no good at two shoes. I'm a rotten, no good sinner.
And the worst part of my scene is I'm self-righteous. Self-righteous. And she quit
trusting all that. She said, that's not going to
save me. My religion's not going to save
me. My church's not going to save me. It's going to damn me.
And what'd she do, like old blind Bartimaeus, so he had that old
robe wrapped around him, you know, and he was hovering over
it, and it kept him warm all the time, blind Bartimaeus, begging
with his cup, you know. When he heard Christ passing
by, boy, he jerked that robe off and threw it away. Don't
need that. I need Him. And that's what Jeanette
did, and that's what every one of you did, if the Lord did this
to you. You quit trusting your religion, quit trusting yourself,
lean into your own self, and you committed him. I need him. I need Christ. I need what he
did, who he is, what he's doing now. Everything I've ever done
will avail me nothing. It'll just get me in trouble
with God. With Christ, I need that. That's what it means to
commit to him, come to him. Same word. Come to Christ. How? Well, don't move a muscle. Old Scott Richardson said that,
an old wise preacher. Just an old coal miner, had an
eighth grade education, but he's an old wise preacher. He said,
you come to Christ, but don't move a muscle. Now preachers
everywhere with their PhDs will say, come to Christ and do it
now while every eye is closed and every head is bowed. You
come down, Christ ain't down front. He's seated at the right hand
of the majesty on high. Don't move a muscle. Coming to
Christ is not you getting up and coming down and shaking the
preacher's hand or signing the church register or doing anything. It's from the heart. Believe
in Christ right where you sit, calling on Him right there. Lord,
I come. Help me. I don't know how to
come, but I come. Here I come. That's what it means to commit
to Him. It means to trust Him and Him alone, looking unto Him
for your all, depending on His righteousness to make you accepted
with God. God won't have you the way you
are. He just won't have you. It's not good enough. If I do the best I can for it,
it's not good enough. Leviticus 22, 21 says, It must,
it shall be. perfect to be accepted. God requires
perfection of thought, word, thought, word, and deed. Can anybody in here do that?
I can't do it. Who can? Jesus Christ could and
did. That's the reason he came down
as a man. He came down to do that, to establish that perfection
as a man. You know, Dan, your kids should
be able to understand what I'm trying to say right now. I'm
trying to make it that simple. The reason Christ became a man
was not to show you how to live. If he showed you and said, there,
there it is, you'd fail. He came down here to do it for
you. And he did it perfectly, and
he stood before the Holy God, and God looked at his mind and
said, you're thinking perfect thoughts. You always have. God
heard the words out of his mouth, and they were prayed, never complained,
never murmured. God looked at everything he did
with his hands and his feet, every move he made, and it was
perfect. God said, Now I'm well pleased.
Said it out loud. God Almighty spoke out loud that
one time. Couldn't help himself. That's
my son in whom I'm well pleased. You better hear him, hear what
he's saying. Well, what did Christ say? That's
what God said from heaven. He said, This is my son in whom
I'm well pleased. Hear ye him? What did Christ
say? Well, Christ said, No man cometh
unto the Father. How? But by me. You have to come to
me. You can't get there. He can see
right through you. You're only going to get there
if I take you. And he came down here as a man and established
that perfect righteousness. You understand what I'm saying
about perfect righteousness? That means he lived the life
that God requires of us. You understand that, Polly, don't
you? More than a doctrine, this is what Christ did. It's what
he had to do. And he lived a perfect life, and then that word impute,
we read it there in biblical words, Psalm 32, 1 and 2. You
know what that means, don't you, Roberta? Sure you do. Most of
our women, if I asked them to stand up and tell me, if I asked
them to stand up and tell you what the word impute means, they
could tell you. It means charge it. You know what that means, don't
you? Stand. She knows what that means, doesn't
she? How are you going to pay for this? Charge it. Well, how are we going to be
accepted with God? Christ said, charge it to my
account. Here, but he's saying, charge
it to my account. Christ said that. But he's come
far. He hadn't lived like he ought
to. You charge that to my account. You charge me to his account. You charge what I've done. In
other words, you fill up his bank account. You make him rich,
Lord God. You make me poor. You give him,
you give old John Davis there, your elect, Lord, you give him
my righteousness and give me John's sin. Boy, that makes it
more than a doctrine, doesn't it? What does John deserve? John would tell you, wouldn't
he? Tell us, John, what do you deserve? Hell. And everybody, if they would
admit it, I had no good. I haven't deserved, all I deserve
is to have... You know what Christ said? Christ
said, give me that. And said to the Father, give
him what I did. Give him my righteousness. And
God looks at me through that transaction, looks at old John
there, as if you'd never sinned in your life. Just if I'd. Just if I'd never sinned. He looks at old John Davis' life
and said, Perfect. The debt that he, the debt that
old John, you know, incurred all his life for
his sins, it's high, it's over your head. Paid in full. In red ink. On the books of this
John, Jesus paid a dollar. Now, who wouldn't want to commit
to Christ now, huh? That's what it means to commit.
That's what it means to commit. All right, look at the next text.
Look at the next text over in 1 John, chapter 1. All right,
I'll hurry. I promise you. 1 John 1. But you know how men's promises
go. 1 John 1. We have one service today. You
can make it, can't you? Can you make it? Yeah, you can. If I can stand
up here and do this, you can sit there and listen. 1 John
1. All right, look at 1 John 1. My second thing, I said that
every child of God wants total commitment to the Lord Jesus
Christ, total. And wouldn't you like to be totally
committed to Christ? I'm ashamed, people. I'm the
preacher. And I'm supposed to live an exemplary life. But I'm
not totally committed to Christ. I am in principle. I am in desire. I am in basic, you know, it's
there. But I got a long way to go. And
you know, I'll never be, as long as I'm in the flesh, I'll never
be totally committed. But I want to be. Is that in
you? Jenny, is that in you? You want
to be, don't you? Well, that's of the Lord. That's
of the Lord. Because most people could care
less. Right? There may be some in here just
enduring this right now. Well, look at number two. The
second thing I told you that every child of God wants is total
communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at 1 John 1, verse
3. That which we've seen and heard...
Now, he's talking about a person. John says it's just so such mysterious
and he's just so glorious at that. you women, when you first met
the man of your dreams, that may have been the way you—oh,
he—you should—oh, he's—oh, that man. That's what you may have
thought. Barbara still talks about, well,
love's blind, isn't it? No, I see it in you, buddy. Beauty
is in the eyes of the beholder. That is for certain. That's a
beautiful man. He looks like Christ. But Barbara
still talks about him the way she talked about him when she
said, Oh, that man, I couldn't get him up, she said. Still do,
she said. I do too, Barbara. He's lovely
because he looks like Christ. But, you know, that's the way
the believer talks about Christ. Oh, that, oh, he's altogether
lovely. 1 John 1. John leaned on his breast, didn't
he? This is the way he talked. "...that
which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you
also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship
is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ." Now, that's fellowship. real
fellowship, communion with Him. You know, the best times of your
life, humanly speaking, are when? When your family gets together
at Christmastime and whatever. Thanksgiving, you all sit around
the table together. Dad, if your dad is still living,
you love your dad. Huh? Yeah, sure you do. No matter how rotten he was or
is, Old son of mine, you still love him, don't you? He's your
dad. You love your dad. Yeah, you do. And your brothers
and sisters, no matter how rotten they are, no matter how much
they hate your religion, you love them, don't you? And the
good times you have is with them. You know, I should say, and I
will say it, that better times yet are still to be had with
God's family. And we all, everybody in here,
although we look different, we have the same Father. If you're
a child of God, have the same Father. And there's no fellowship
like that than sitting around a table. That's what we're doing.
You got enough there, Debra? Here, somebody help Debra with
another portion of righteousness. You get enough? Another helping? You need another helping of blood
over there, Bob? Here it is. Sitting around a
table, a table of God's Word, God the Father sitting at the
head, over there smiling on his children. That's fellowship and
communion with the Father. And I'll tell you, it's just
something that—and our elder brother. I've got an older brother
who I'd like to see. I love him. He passed away. But I'm telling
you, Jesus Christ, the elder brother, he is something now. He's something. He's something. I told you about
my brother was captain of the football team. Well, Jesus Christ
is the captain of my salvation. My older brother went off to
war and won medals. Oh, but Jesus Christ, fought
all the battles for me, and won them all single-handedly. He
talked about a big brother, strong. I used to think my older brother
could just lift thousands of pounds, you know. I used to watch
him lift weights, you know. My Lord, my older brother hold
the weight of the world on his shoulder. You know, my older
brother went off to war and got killed. He got killed Didn't
come back. Well, my elder brother, the Lord
Jesus Christ, he went to war, too, and got killed. He's coming
back. He's coming back. My older brother,
when he went to war, he wrote me a letter. I've still got it.
It's been a long time since I've read it, but every time I read
it, I enjoy it. I enjoy it. Jesus Christ wrote me a letter.
I love to read it. And I know it's his. tell his
handwriting. And I want to see. Forgive the emotion. There's
many things, but what I'm saying is he's real. He's real, and
I want communion with him. I want to be with him. I want to sit right there and
actually, and that's what David said when he said, I want to
behold your face in righteousness. Remember that? John, I forgot
what the text was. At any rate, David said this,
didn't he? Over in the Psalms, he said,
As for me, I am going to behold thy face in righteousness. It's
the only way. The only way we're going to be
with the Holy God is in righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. But he said, I'm not going to
be satisfied until I awake with thy likeness. Be with him and
be like him. My last point, and the text is
found over in Romans chapter 8. All right? Romans chapter
8. Look over there. I want total
commitment. I want to commit my daughter,
my life, my home, my family, everything. Wish I could commit
you to it. Everything. My way. Roll your
way on the Lord, Scripture says. I want to do that to Christ,
I believe I have, by his grace. Trust him, him alone. I believe
I'm going to make it. I believe I'm going to get to
God someday, not because I'm a preacher, not because I'm religious,
because Jesus Christ did what he did. And I want communion
with him. Right now, I've already enjoyed
a little bit of that today. Have you? That's what this is.
God speaking to us through this Word, being with His family and
with Him. Someday, we're actually going
to see that man. We're actually going to see.
And lastly, until then, I want to be just like Him, conformity
to Him. Romans 8, 28, we know that all
things work together for good. to them that love God, to them
who are called according to his purpose for whom he did foreknow
or elect, he also did predetermine to be conformed to the image
of his Son." None of you ever met my older brother. None of you here ever—many did. But they say I look a lot like
him. They say, I talk like him. I've got habits like him. I catch
myself, and there's nobody else in the family that curls their
toes up. They laugh at me. When I sit
at the table and my shoes are off, I curl my toes up under
me like that. I just like, it feels good. I
don't, it's just, as soon as I sit down and take my shoes
off, I do that. My older brother did that. He's
the only one in our family that ever did that. Still does it.
And I do it. I've got habits like him. When
I had hair, I used to twirl it. That's the way he did it. I remember
him twirling his hair like that all the time. I used to do that,
too. Maybe that's why it's gone. You know, he was thinning, though.
He was very young when he died, and he was thinning even then.
I looked like him. walk like him, talk like him,
same interests as him. He was a car enthusiast. I got
that from him. He was a mechanic. Boy, I hope I resemble the Lord
Jesus Christ, a little bit, just a little bit. Don't you? I want to be just
like him. Oh, he's perfect. I want to walk
like him, paths of righteousness. I walked like the world long
enough. I still walk like it sometimes, don't you? I look
like a sodomite too much. I want to be the son of Abraham.
I want to talk like him. He said, Grace poured from his
lips, didn't it? Christ? He said, Grace. He said,
No man spake like this man. Grace poured. Too much bitterness
comes out of my mouth. I get tired of it. just spewing
out all sorts of... I get tired of that, don't you?
I want it to be just as quick out of my mouth the grace as
now, as it is sometimes bitterness, don't you? Conform to Him. Look like Him. Says someday we
will. God's people. Someday we will. We'll see Him. Face to face. We'll know Him, even as we've
been known, and we'll be like Him. Let's sing, sharing in closing,
number 511. 511. 511. Face to face with Christ
my Savior. And that's basically what this
whole message is about—a person. Knowing, believing, trusting,
looking to fellowship with, someday be with a person. The Lord Jesus
Christ. Stand with me. Brother Joe, would
you come up here please? Face to face. Number 511. I'll get it started and you carry
it on. Okay? Praise to Christ, the Christ,
my Savior. Praise to His word, my King. In the air I behold Him. Jesus Christ, who died for me. Second one is the last. Oh, we thank you for our Savior,
who lives in us and lives in me. That our blessed day is coming, we sing His glory ever still. Praise
to praise the Lord before, of the other starry sky. Wishing,
wishing only for the day I shall be there by your side. Everything you do, without a
reason, you.