I'm going to get right into the
message here, John. Turn with me to Philippians chapter
one. Philippians chapter one. The title of this message is
A Pastor's Prayer. for his people. And you won't
mind if I get a little mushy tonight, will you? But I'm just going to say some
things from my heart here, from God's Word. Now, I don't want
to sound proud nor appear to be presumptuous, but in all sincerity,
I can take the words of the Apostle Paul here in this chapter as
being my very own. I don't think that's being proud
nor presumptuous. I think it's just the grace of
God, the love of God shed abroad my heart for you people. But
I can take these words as being my very own, and so very often
in many of his letters to the churches I read the very feelings
of my heart for you people, toward you people. And I know this must
be so if God has truly made a man a pastor of a people, of a particular
people. God said he would give his people
pastors after his own heart. And they'd feed his people with
knowledge and understanding. So a pastor after God's heart
would be a man with a heart for God's people, wouldn't he? So
you just have to believe me. Time hasn't run its course, I
know, but God is my witness. I'm going to say the things I
have to say. I know that time is the final test of our sincerity. But right now, I can truly say
with the Apostle Paul here in Philippians 1, that I have you
in my heart. He said that in verse 7, I have
you in my heart. Now, this is not a job for me. This is not a job for me. I didn't
have to take this this this past trip. As a matter of fact, I
was fully intending to go into spend the next three or four
years in school to pursue a whole new career. I was kind of looking
forward to something new. And I had a unique opportunity.
I had the finances and the opportunity, the time and all, to pursue a
whole new career and to get into practically whatever I felt led
to get into. But I feel confident that the
Lord led me here. And I sincerely say this is not
a job for me. I don't have to do this. I don't
have to do this. I don't have to go in the study.
Let me put it this way. It is my duty to go into study
and prepare messages for you people. It is my duty. But it's
not a job to me. It's a joy. I really rejoice
in doing it. I go in there looking not for
a sermon, not for just something to fill up 45 minutes or however
long, but I look for a message from God to my heart for you
people. Something that each one of you,
I think about each one of you. I try not to gear a message for
a particular person, because without failure, that person
won't show up. It's always been that way, every
time that that's happened. I've talked to other men, too,
that say the same thing. So I try not to do that, but
nevertheless, your problems and things you go through are on
my mind and my heart. seeking a message from God, and
I sincerely seek help and comfort for you in the areas that you
need. Well, I'm not here to talk about
myself. No, no. I'm not here to talk about myself,
but I do want you to know where I stand, how I feel about you,
where I stand. And I want us all to rejoice
over what I believe, and I I feel like you believe it, too, of
what God has done for this little flock, this little church family. This is a little flock, a little
flock of believers here in Rocky Mountain. Well, look at Philippians
1 with me. He says here in Philippians 1,
verse 1, It's coincidental that my name
is Paul, but I can take these words as being my own. Paul and
Timotheus, or Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints
in Cross Jesus, which are at Philippi with the bishops and
the deacons. Paul is writing to the church
at Philippi. And he includes Timothy in on
this letter because of Timothy's shared love and concern for these
people. Timothy knew these people that
preached to them. He'd been there with Paul and
preached there himself. And he had a definite concern
and love for these people, so Paul included Timothy in on this
letter. And I know for a fact that there
are other pastors besides myself that have you people on their
hearts. I know of several. Every time I talk to, and the
new ones that are coming in to preach to you, they go away really
loving and impressed with you people. You know what I'm saying.
They're impressed with what God has done here and in love with
you people, the way you treat them when they come here, the
way you receive the gospel, the way you listen, your attendance
and your attentiveness. And they go away with fond memories
of this place, and I'm sure that they remember you often. There's
other pastors that have true love and concern for you people.
I know of one man in particular that I could include in on this
letter. He lives down in Ball, Louisiana now, and I'm just certain
that he can say the same thing. I know he does. But he says here,
Paul and Timothy say here that they're writing to the saints. in Christ Jesus at Philippi. Now, I'm confident that there
are some saints here at Rocky Mount, Virginia. I'm just as
confident of that as I am that I'm standing here. How do I know?
Well, because he said here there are saints in Christ Jesus. How do I know some of you people
are God's saints? Because it's obvious to me. It's
obvious to me that God has done a work in many of your hearts. It's very obvious to me. It's
not obvious to us. We look for evidences in ourself
and can't find them very often. But each one of us, one another,
we look at somebody else and say, boy, I think highly of him. John may say that about Joe.
Well, I think Joe really loves Christ. And John said, boy, I
wish I didn't. But Joe looked at John and said,
boy, I believe John really knows Christ. And boy, I wish I loved
him more. I wish I knew him more. We don't
see much of these evidences in ourselves. But they show to one
another, don't they? They manifest themselves to one
another. And I see it in you. I see your
obvious hope in Christ. I hear the way you talk. I hear
your conversation. I believe that Christ is your
only hope, that he is your salvation. When I talk to you, when we worship
together, I believe that Christ is your Lord, that you are in
Christ. In Christ. That's a true test of a child
of God, that they're in Christ. And their conversation is in
Christ. Their hope is in Christ. Everything. Their desire is in
Christ. They worship in Christ. They worship Christ. And I see
that in you people. You know if anyone is called
a saint, Paul calls them saints in Christ Jesus. If anybody is
called a saint, a saint, it is because God has chosen them before
the foundation of the world and placed them in Christ. That's
the only way anybody is saved, is if God is, when God Almighty
chooses them, Christ said, you did not choose me, I chose you.
And every one of you can say that very thing. If you feel
God's work in your heart, you know that God did it, that you
had nothing to do with it, don't you? And if anybody is a saint,
it's because God Almighty has to choose them, because we're
on our merry road to hell unless God stops our wild career and
reveals himself to us. creates, gives us the gift of
repentance, the goodness of God leads you to repentance. It gives
us the gift of faith, to see Christ as our only hope, and
to run to Him, to plead with Him for our salvation, and to
trust Him. Faith is the gift of God. So
if anybody is rightly called a saint, he's been chosen in
Christ from the foundation of the world. Those are the only
saints. Those people are in Christ, not
in religion. not in what people call the church,
that is, attendance at church, but in Christ, in him, on that
rock, Christ Jesus. And he's writing here, he says,
and I'm writing to the saints in Christ Jesus which are at
Philippi with the bishops and the deacons, and the deacons. Now, I thank God deacons are
a a battle and a necessary office in the church. If they were not,
God would not have instituted them. God would not have—Acts
chapter six is when the institution of deacons came about. The apostles
said it's not right for us to leave the reading and the study
of God's Word to wait on tables and so forth. They said, look
out among you seven men—what?—seven men full of the Holy Spirit and
of good report. and let them attend to the business
of the church and the maintenance and all these things that we
may give ourselves to prayer and to study of God's Word. It's
the office of a deacon, and the Apostle Paul gives definite qualifications
for a deacon two times in Titus and Timothy, both. He gives definite
qualifications for a deacon, so it's a serious office. God
doesn't take it lightly. He's the one that instituted
it, and I don't take it lightly. It's a serious office, and I
thank God for the deacons of this church, for the Joe Parks,
Henry Sword, Stan Anderson. I thank God for you men. I'm
thankful for you. I appreciate you very much. I
thank God that he's done a work of grace in your heart, and I
thank you for what you do around here. I appreciate you. Saints aren't all men. You know
this church, you know where the church at Philippi started? Down
on the creek bank with a few women who wanted to pray. Lydia, seller of purple. So I'm
just certain that the Apostle Paul had Lydia, at least Lydia
and a few of these women in mind when he was writing this. And
I had some of you ladies in mind. I have just as much close fellowship
and communion with some of you ladies as I I do these men, I
appreciate you very much, so very much. I thank God for you
ladies. Verse two, he says, grace be
unto you, grace be unto you. You know, I wish the Lord would,
one day, I wish he would really show us what that word means. that God would open heaven up
and expound to us what the word grace really means. I'm just
not sure. You know, we hear it so very
often. Preachers, so-called preachers,
movie stars, rock singers, country western singers, they all sing
the song Amazing Grace. Grace. grace, the unmerited favor of
God Almighty. God given us something that we
do not deserve. Far from it. We deserve the very
opposite of what He gives us. We deserve hell and damnation
and condemnation and death. But God gives us the riches of
heaven, the eternal riches of His grace and of His glory. And
this should be the most glorious thought The most glorious thought
of all things is that God, the grace of God Almighty, is toward
me, that God thinks of me graciously, that he's not angry with me,
that he is gracious to me. The free, unmerited love and
favor of God that has been shown unto his people in the Lord Jesus
Christ. If God, by His grace, shows you
something of yourself, if you keep in mind what you are, and
it is by His grace that He shows a man what he really is, his
sinfulness, and brings him down in the dust. That's not a hard
tyrant that does that. That's the grace of God that
brings a man to repentance, brings him down in the dust to see what
he is. That's the grace of God that leads a man to that. And
if you see what you are, if you see what you really are, when
you think of yourselves, you can call it grace, can't you?
You can call it amazing grace. That God would even think about
you, much less save you, much less do anything in a saving
way toward you. He would even think about you.
But that's not all. He says, grace be unto you and
peace. Verse two, look at it. Grace
be unto you and peace. from God, our Father. Peace. We have peace with God. We don't
fully understand the import of this, neither do we, Terry, if
God's not angry with us. He has every right to be, doesn't
He? Since we were little children,
we didn't give God a thought, hardly. We grow up in this world
with hardly giving God a thought. He lavishes us with everything
we need for life. And we hardly give him a thought,
do we? Oh, we bow our heads every now and then and say our little
two-bit prayers to God. My, my, he ought to open the
floor out for my understanding. What shouldn't he? Somebody said,
the worst thing you can call a man is ungrateful. Well, that's
us. That's the way we've been all
our lives, is ungrateful to our God. We should have been praising
Him and thanking Him and giving all glory to Him for all that
we have and all that we are from the very beginning. But no, many
of us went many, many years without even thinking about God, without
even acknowledging God. It was there. The Scripture says,
Romans 1, they didn't like to retain God in their knowledge.
Our conscience that God sent to prick us, when it would prick
us, we'd try to silence it. Didn't want to think about God.
Too busy having fun in sin and rebelling against God. But Christ
has made peace for us by the blood of His cross. God's not
angry with us. He's not angry with us. As a
matter of fact, the reason Christ did that is because God loves
us. Christ has reconciled us to our God, and now we're at
peace. He says, Grace be unto you and
peace from God our Father. From God our Father. We studied
that one night in here about Our Heavenly Father, the pity
of the Father, there in Psalm 113. And as the Father pitieth
his children, so the Lord pities him that fear him. It's a blessed
thought, the love of the Heavenly Father toward us. And it all
started with God's purpose. It all started in God's predestinating
the people to be conformed like his Son. It all started with
God in love, looking down and just up and deciding he was going
to have some more people. that he's going to have a family.
We never will understand that. We never will understand why
God chose us. Never will. Why did he choose
us? The only explanation you come
up with is, even so, it seemed good in his sight. He didn't
have to. He just happened. This is the
love of God. This is grace. Not based on anything
we do, not based on any merit. Any foreseen faith in us? God doesn't look down and see
that Henry Story one day is going to be a good old boy. And so
he decided to shed his love on him. That Henry up in one day
is going to decide for Jesus and accept him as his personal
savior. Oh no. Henry was in his mad rebellion
against God. And God had to change it. God
had to, he must be born again. He had to be born again from
above by God. And here's the love and grace
of God. God just up in that one day, Henry, just said, I'm determined
to get glory in that old boy. I'm determined to get glory out
of that fellow. I'm going to love him. Oh, he
doesn't deserve it. He's a scoundrel. But I'm just
going to up and love him. And I'm going to send my son
down there to die for him. Why'd he do that? He didn't have
to, did he? He just up and decided to. That's great. That's the love of God. It's
free. It's unmerited. It's unearned.
It's undeserved. That's the love of God. The love
of mankind for one another is based upon what we receive from
one another. It's conditional most of the
time. The closest we can get to this
is love for our children. Unconditional love. You just
love them. But this has got a condition on it. They're ours. That we
don't love other people's children like we love our own. But God
loved us in that what? While we were yet sinners, shaking
our fist in His face. Think about that. That's the
love of God. He just up and one day said,
I'm going to love old Louis for you. I'm going to do it. And
ain't nobody going to stop me. Not even Louis. He's going to
try to stop me. He's going to do everything against
me to fight me, but I'm going to up and love him, and someday
I'm going to bring him to myself, bring him to my son. That's the
love and grace of God, and it's from God our Father. It started
with Him. It started with God. Just because
people abuse and cheapen the love of God in this day and age
doesn't mean we don't preach about it and think about it.
John 3, 16 is a blessed verse. We love that verse. the work. We love that verse. We praise
God for his electing love, but that's what it is, and it's electing
love. It's not indiscriminate love.
Oh, no. God's angry with the wicked every
day. Scripture plainly said in Psalm 5-5 and Psalm 7-11, God's
angry with the wicked every day, and he hates all workers of iniquity.
He doesn't love everyone. He loves those that he placed
in his son. Who are they? We don't know. We don't know. But he said there's
a lot of them. As the sands of the seashore.
As the stars of the sky. If he just chose one, he'd be
right, wouldn't he? As a matter of fact, one's too many. He didn't
have to choose one. God would have been fair. God
would have been just in sending the whole race to hell, wouldn't
he? But it's by his mercy and grace
that he chose one. And 100 billion. One hundred
trillion, however many it is, we don't know. So it started
with him. Herein is love, not that we loved
him, but that he loved us. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the
sons of God. Well, it's from God, and look
at verse two. And it's from the Lord Jesus
Christ. The love of God wouldn't have done us a bit of good if
Christ hadn't come to die for us. Christ had to come to die,
didn't he? He had to come to do a job. What
was that job? Well, the gospel in plain, simple,
easy-to-understand terms is this. We are the enemies of God by
nature. We hate God. We're going about
our merry way to rebel against God by nature. A carnal mind,
it says in Romans, is enmity against God. Doesn't like to
think about God. We're his enemy. We rebelled
against him and our father Adam by one man's sin entered into
the world and death by sin. For all have sinned. All have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. How are we going
to dwell with this holy God? God is holy. We're sinful. We're
rebels against him. How are we going to dwell with
this holy God? How is he going to accept us? He can't have anything
sinful in his presence. So how are we going to get in
his presence? How is he going to love us? How is he going to
accept us? How is he going to let us into
his perfect holy kingdom? How is he going to do it? How
is this holy God going to love us who are altogether unholy
and unrighteous? How? Christ had to come down
here and become a man, and he had to live according to God's
holy law perfectly. He had to live it perfectly in
thought, Because God's word demands perfection in thought, doesn't
it? In word, every idle word, a man shall be held accountable. Christ never uttered an idle
word. And indeed, he had to always do the things which pleased his
heavenly Father. Why was he doing all this? Why
did Christ come down here to earth just to set an example,
to live a perfect life, to set an example, to show us how to
do it? Oh, no. He was being a substitute, wasn't
he? A substitute. That's the gospel
in one word. He had to come down here and
do for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. He had to live
as a man and establish this righteousness, this perfection that God requires
of every single man and woman if they're going to be with him.
And Christ had to live it for us. Well then, after he did that,
thirty-three and a third years, after he lived it perfectly,
and the Father said about this man, he'd never said it before,
this man I approve of, I approve of this man, I'm well pleased
with him, I love this man on the merits of what he has done.
And then Christ took that, we don't know how he did this, but
because he was God, because of his infinite power, he took that
life that he lived, That righteousness, the scripture calls it, that
perfect life, took it off like a coat, like a robe and wrapped
it around all God's people, wrapped it around. And then he took their
sin, their judgment, their rebellion, the soul that sinneth, it must
surely die. The wages of sin is death. That's what we've earned.
That's what we did. We sin, we deserve death. That's
the wages we earn. He took that, that sin. And put
it on himself. Put it on himself. And then God
saw him. Saw Christ. And when he saw Christ,
he saw you. He saw me. And he put Christ
on the cross. And he threw hell and Satan and
everything at him. And killed him. Punished him. He made him sin for us. He who knew no sin was made sin
for us. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Now God looks at us, accepts
us as if we did the things that Christ did. And God punished
Christ as if he did the things that we did. Now we have peace
with God. We're accepted. God says, come
on in, son. You've done a good job. I haven't
done anything, God. Yes, you have. In Christ you
have. You're holy. You're just. You're
righteous. under the blood. You see, God can't see our sin
under the blood. That's as simple as I can make
the gospel. But that's it. So Christ, the
love of God, had to be manifested in this. And that was greater
love hath no man than this. And he lay down his life for
his friend. And this was the greatest display of the love
of God, the greatest display of the glory of God. You see,
he didn't have to do this, but because he's merciful and gracious
and love and goodness He sent his son down here to do this.
He didn't have to. God's not gaining anything by
taking people into his heaven. Oh, no, God doesn't need anybody.
He doesn't need anything. God is all-glorious. What's he
need with men? He doesn't need anything. God
the Son, the Holy Spirit, God the Father, dwelled together
in all eternity past, by themselves, perfectly happy. What do they
need with men and women? They didn't need anything. But they just up and decided
to do it, didn't they? Just up and decided to do it. And now
what are we to do? Praise Him, Lord. Thank Him.
Thank Him. That's what we owe. We owe our
existence to our God. In Him we live and move and have
our very being. But especially as a church, this
is why we're here tonight. This is all the reason. I'm not
here to brag on you people. I'm not here to brag on myself. I'm not here to have a good time.
We're not really here to fellowship together with one another. Our
fellowship is with the Father, with the Son. Our fellowship
is in the gospel. And he goes on. I better hurry
and get through this. Our fellowship's in the gospel.
Our fellowship, what we delight in, is what I was just talking
about, this gospel. This is why we're here. We came
back to hear that again, didn't we? To praise God for what he's
done for us. We wouldn't be here. I'd rather
be down at the pool hall. by nature. I'd rather be down
at the—I'd rather be off the golf course by nature, but by
God's grace and mercy, this is exactly where I want to be tonight. And it all came from God the
Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. He
says in verse 3, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.
I thank God upon every remembrance of you, and I say the same thing.
Day and night. That's my wife. Day and night. What's wrong, honey? Oh, I just,
folks have problems, you know. They have problems. True love
always has its object in remembrance. Always. Always. You ladies, when
you gave birth to those children, was there a waking moment that
you didn't have those children on your mind? Oh, no. Oh, no,
even now, the older they get, even when they rebel against
you, even when they're out of sorts, which is quite often,
quite often, you got them on your mind. Those are the ones
that need it most, don't they? The ones that are out of sorts.
They need your help the most. They need your concern, need
your prayers. And that's what he says. That's what it led him
to. I thank my God upon every remembrance
of you, in verse four, always in every prayer of mine for you. You know, God's people, they
love one another and care for one another. More importantly,
they pray for one another. And I've said this before, and
I can't emphasize it enough, that the greatest thing you can
do for somebody is to pray for them. I know that sounds easy,
but you try it. Especially somebody you might
be out of sorts with. You know, you just can't be mad
at somebody you're praying for. You just can't do it, can you?
Try it. You can't be mad at somebody
you're praying for. Oh, no. You'll love them and
you'll forgive them. No matter what they do. Seven
times seven. Seventy times seven. They trespass
against you. Always, in every prayer of mine,
for you all, making requests, look at verse four, making requests
with joy. Making requests with joy, if
you love somebody, really love somebody, you'll pray for them
as much as you will for yourself. Nancy, in all honesty, would you rather
that God, if you had the choice, would you rather God save your
children or you? Now you could say, a parent could
say, in all honesty, out of true love heartfelt love for a child. That you just assume God save
your children as you would if you had a choice in the matter
God save them. Save them. If one of us has to
be saved let it be him. Let it be him. And this thing
of praying for one another true love that's the spirit it begets.
a joy, making requests with joy, not out of a duty, not because
you're supposed to pray for one another, because you want to.
That's true love, isn't it? Doesn't that make sense? You
don't have to force yourself to pray for somebody you love.
So that'd give us good reason to examine our love for one another,
wouldn't it? But you'll do it out of joy and
true desire for their good and their happiness. But Paul is
saying here, He has a comma here at the end of verse four. He
says, excuse me. He says, always in every prayer
of mine, for you all, make it, and I have to stop there for
a second. I'm just certain that the Apostle Paul had everybody,
everybody he could remember in that church, he had them in mind,
that he wouldn't, he wasn't willing to do without one of them. In
all sincerity, I say the same thing about you people. I can't
think of one of you that I'm willing to do without. So don't
leave. Please. By the grace of God,
I pray you won't leave. Any of you. In every prayer of
mine for you all, making requests with joy. It's a joy to pray
for you. Think about you. For your fellowship,
verse 5. For your fellowship in the gospel. I thank my God. and make requests
for your fellowship in the gospel. Let me ask you, in all honesty,
this is a searching question. I won't ask you this time, Nancy,
somebody or everybody. What is your greatest delight
on this earth? What is your greatest delight? What is it that gives you more
joy than anything else? I want you to really ask yourself
that question. What is it? Well, I don't know about you,
but I can truthfully say that this right here is it. The fellowship
with the saints. The fellowship around the gospel.
I don't know if you can say that or not. I hope you can, by God's
grace. But this, I, Terry, can you think of any place you'd
rather be? Can you think of anybody you'd rather be with? Huh? I can really say with David,
I was glad when they said to me. I used to say, oh, I've got
to go to church tonight. Now I say, oh, I get to go to
church tonight. Don't always say that. Don't
always say that. But for the most part, God's
people say that. You know, the true child of God
enjoys more than anything the fellowship around the gospel.
This is our life. It's a children's bread. I love
bread. I could take it whatever meal,
and this is the children's bread. You know, the scripture says
that in the last days, in these perilous times, that there'll
be, that men will be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of
God and so forth. Are you? Is that one of you? Or do you
love God and his people and his gospel more than pleasure? Come
on. It's a good question, and it's
a Bible question. It's a life-and-death question
as well, isn't it? You can't say that all the time, because
your feelings come, your feelings go, you know. But for the most
part, if God's done a work of grace in your heart, you can
say that in all sincerity. Lovers of God, how can there's
no... God's people Paul, he asked this
question, how can light have, there's no communion with darkness.
I don't, I have a, I have a relative that, who doesn't know Christ.
And I love him, but I'm around him for five, 10 minutes. And
I mean, once the pleasantries are over with, we've got nothing
to talk about. We got nothing in common, got no common ground.
He doesn't love my Lord. He's not a pilgrim, a sojourner,
a stranger in this earth. No, he has an abiding place here.
He's all wrapped up in this place. I'm not. I'm ready to be done
with it. I'm seeking to know Christ, to
win Christ, be found in Him. He's not. So what we got to talk
about? Won't it be just idle talk? Unprofitable talk? It won't edify me a bit. As a matter of fact, we have
nothing to offer, really. If we don't get around to witnessing
the gospel of these people, we have nothing for them. We have
nothing at all to interest them. But our old man still dwells
in us, and they have a lot to appeal to our old man, don't
they? And if we stay around them long enough, it's going to be
prying at us. It's going to end up with evil
communications, corrupted manners, as Scripture says. They're unavoidable
circumstances that God puts us in. We're not to seek to be let
out of them, but we don't seek out their fellowship. There is
no fellowship. There is no fellowship. You know,
people go to family reunions, and that's all right. That's
good. But I have a family reunion every Wednesday night. I have
one every Sunday. Family reunion. Where are you
going? Going to a family reunion. We
just had one last week, didn't we? Yeah, we had one every week.
Twice a week. Three times a week. This is my family. This is my
family. Well, we have no common ground. A true pilgrim, a true believer
has no common ground with these people, but with the lovers of
darkness rather than light. But they have compassion on them.
I don't mean that you should seek to be done with them, to
ignore them. be put out. Christ prayed that
we didn't, that we not be taken out of the world, but we kept
from it, from the influence of it. But we're to have compassion
on them. And the scripture is clear that
maybe, maybe they'll be won by our conversation. Maybe God will
be pleased to use us for their salvation. Well, look at it,
verse five again. He says, I thank God for your
fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. You
know, for a believer, Joe, For a believer to meet another believer,
it's love at first sight, isn't it? It's like, I've been here
six months, I feel like I've known you all sixty-six years.
I'm serious. It's love at first sight, isn't
it? You can meet somebody, Todd Nyberg, when he came down here,
he said, I know what he means. All God's people. Bob Coffey,
my, that's some lovely people. It's love at first sight, and
it never fails, too. True love never fails, never
fails. It'll never end it just gets
better you know some have said that some of these wise preachers
said this to me. They say it's all young preachers
when they go to a pastorate. They say well the honeymoon will
end. You know you call them up and say oh how things going.
Great. Great. Oh attendance is great. People
are coming out they're just responding to the message everything's just
great. Great. They say well the honeymoon will
end. Well, it does. Tenderness goes down. Enthusiasm
wanes. They find out the preacher is
just a man and a poor one at that, and a much poorer preacher
than they thought he was at first. But, you know, our honeymoon
ended ten years ago, but I loved that woman ten times more than
I loved her when I first met her. Oh, the honeymoon ended,
yes, but that deep abiding love and relationship in marriage,
it's only grown, grown deeper, grown deeper. And that's the
way it is with God's people, God's church, a pastor and a
people. I'm just convinced of it. I've
witnessed it firsthand, 30-some years. From the first day until
now, even though the honeymoon's over. Verse 6, being confident,
verse 6, confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun
a good work in you will perform it, will finish it, will perfect
it, until the day of Christ Jesus, confident that whatever God does,
he does forever, that if this is God's church, it's here to
stay. It's here to stay. I'm confident that God has truly
done a work of grace in many of your hearts, and I'm confident
that he'll never leave thee, nor forsake thee. I don't care
how down you get, buddy. Christ has promised to never
leave you. He promised it now. There's going to be times when
you think, oh, he's left me. But he hasn't. He hasn't. He's
not going to. He'll never, the sheep, God's
sheep, his church will never perish. Never perish. Believe
it. Let's just believe it. Let's
quit talking it and believe it. He'd give us such peace. Comfort
and joy if we just believe. Just take God at His word like
Abraham. How are you going to do this, Lord, when I'm so sinful,
I'm so wretched when I forgive? Just believe it. Just believe
it. That what God does is forever.
Confidence that He's begun a good work in you and He'll perform
it until the day Christ comes and He'll take you right up there
with the rest of us. Even though you think you're
going to be left behind. Verse 7. And it's made, he says, it's
proper, it's right. It's made for me to think this
of you all. It's, you know, if a pastor, a pastor ought to think
this way about it, about the people. He ought to. If he has
any confidence in God at all, in God's power, in God's grace,
in God's Christ, in God's gospel, if he thinks there's any saving
power in God's gospel that he preaches at all, he ought to
believe somebody's going to believe it, shouldn't he? Or he ought
to quit preaching. I, you know, I surely would. It's too much of a task for me.
I mean, it comes too difficult for me. Some men it's not. But
it's too difficult for me. I quit. I go back to railroad,
and that's a whole lot easier than preaching. But Paul says,
I think it's right for me to think this of you all because
I have you in my heart, first of all. Now, first of all, God
has you in his heart. It's evident. And you are in
the heart of God's pastor. And he thinks of you, and it
says in my margin that you have me in your heart. And I see that. I see that you have me in your
heart, too. It's right for me to think this
of you all, because it's evident that God has shed his love abroad
in the hearts of many of you people. So it's just right. I ought to think this about you. I have you in my heart, and you
have me in your heart, inasmuch as both in my bonds and in defense
and confirmation of the gospel, defense of the gospel and confirmation
of the gospel. You people here support the gospel,
and I appreciate it. You defend the gospel here, and
I appreciate it. I'm thankful. Your lives confirm
the power of the gospel also. You all, because he said you
all, look at it, verse 7, are partakers of my grace, partakers
of grace. We're fellow helpers, fellow
laborers, fellow workers. In the service of Christ's kingdom,
in the service of his gospel, fellow ship, fellows in the same
ship, a ship called Grace. There's a big flag running up
on the pole, and it's got a name on it, Christ. We're in the ark
together, fellows in the same ship. We're in the ark, aren't
we? We're galley slaves, but we're
in the same ship together, rowing the same direction, aren't we?
For the glory of God, for the good of one another, galley slaves
of God. fellows in the same ship. Well,
verse 8, he says, God is my record, how greatly I long after you
all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And these people had to take
Paul's word for it there, and then you just had to take mine.
God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels
of Jesus Christ. Truly, if I had my way, I'd have
you folks, somebody over every night. Mindy might. She's got to do all the cooking
and the cleaning up and all that. She might have something to say
about it. No, she really would, wouldn't you? She's got a dishwasher
and all that. But I'd have you in my house
every night, somebody, if I could. I really, I really would. God
is my record, how long after you're off. I love this. I love
the fellowship of God's people. It's what I'm here for. It's
what I'm here for. It's what we're here for. It's
the reason we are a church. God's glowing for one another.
It's the reason. The very reason. So we're not
to live for ourselves. You're not your own anymore.
You're bought with a price. There's nothing I like better
than going down to Henry Station and talking to him and Roberta
about the gospel, or going out to the flower shop and talking
to Oh, what's her name, Nancy? About the gospel? There's nothing
I enjoy more. Nothing. How about you all? Huh?
Can you say that in all honesty? Learning together, and we're
just learning together, we're growing together in the scriptures, verse
by verse, here a little, there a little, one little happy family. Not too big, but one little happy
family in the bowels of Christ. And you know what? If y'all don't
start having me over at your house, I'm just going to come
anyway. That's a little rebuke.