Thank you so much. I've been
blessed today by the special music. I'm so thankful for these
who have been gifted and used their gifts in order to be a
blessing to each of us. Hebrews chapter 13. Once again
this evening, Let me bring you a message on a prayer to the
God of peace. Hebrews chapter 13. I speak honestly to you, knowing
I believe the desires of my heart. I want to know God. I know I'm
religious, every man's religious by nature, but I don't want to
just have an outward religion. I want to know God and worship
God from the heart. Our Lord Jesus said in His high
priestly prayer in John 17, this is life eternal, that they might
know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent. I want to know God as he's revealed
in the Bible. I want to know the God of the
scriptures. I want to know the God who is
sovereign. I spoke to that issue this morning
for a little bit. I want to know the God who is
holy. I want to know the God who's
righteous. I want to know the God who is
life. This God with whom all the issues
of life and death abide. I want to know God. And I want
you to know Him. I do want you to know Him. I don't want us to be like those
that our Lord spoke about in the book of Revelation. He said,
you've got a name. But that's all you've got is
just an outward reputation. You don't have any love for God
in the heart. You don't know God. Oh, you know
some religious words and you know some verses of scripture,
but that's not life eternal, that's not salvation. We've got
to know God. We've got to know God through
Christ Jesus because that's the only way you can know God. God's
not gonna draw near to you except through Christ Jesus, and you're
not gonna draw near to God except through Christ Jesus also. He
is the meeting point between our holy God and us ungodly,
ungodly sinners. We can only know God as the God
of peace through the Lord Jesus, who is said to be the prince
of peace. And we can only know that we
know him by the witness of the spirit of peace. As I look into the scriptures
and as I read about God, I read about his great character, As
I read about His attributes, I see that He is full of purity
and holiness. I see He is the God whose glory
fills the heavens and the earth. And as I look at God in the Word
of God, now not just looking at Him in creation, but looking
in the Scriptures, as I see His attributes as they're set forth,
as God has set Himself forth in the Word of God, as I see
something of His purity, that's the way I see my sinfulness in
light of who God is. Listen, we've got to start with
God. We've got to know something about
God, and as we come to an understanding of God, then the Spirit of God
gives us some understanding of ourselves. The message of the
Word of God doesn't begin with our sinfulness. It begins with
the holiness of God, the character of God, the righteousness of
God. And in the light and the brilliance
of the identity of God. God who fills us with all. God before whom we stand as insignificant
creatures. God who, the scripture says,
he charges his angels with folly. As we stand before this God,
as we identify Him in the Word of God, it's in the light of
His glory, His great Shekinah glory, that we see what we are. And we understand something of
our wretchedness. We're in an awful mess and we
can't get ourselves out of this mess because God is so high above
us. And that's when the gospel becomes
good news to us. Do you ever wonder why the gospel
of grace, the gospel of finished redemption by the Lord Jesus,
do you ever wonder why people don't find this to be an adoring
message? Do you ever wonder why is it
that people can listen to this, the glories of the Lord Jesus
and his successful death? and that he endured all of the
wrath of God for all of his people. Do you ever wonder how people
can listen to that message and not fall in love with the Lord
Jesus, not believe this glorious gospel? Well, it's because they've
never seen their need of the Lord Jesus, and they only see
the need of the Lord Jesus in the light of the character of
God. If we ever get a real understanding
of who God is and then what we are, that's when we'll appreciate
the Lord Jesus Christ and His work of redemption. We'll be
thankful He is the Prince of Peace. He is the Mediator. We'll be thankful there is a
way to come to God. You see, by nature, we don't
know the way of peace. Romans chapter 3 says that. The way of peace have they not
known? We don't know. We don't know how God can be
a holy God and a just God and yet save us. And we don't know
how we can be at peace with God. In fact, most people don't know
that there is any enmity within them toward God. They don't know
there is any hostility in their hearts toward the God of the
Bible. But the Scripture says we're
all hostile against God. We're all born His enemies. And
I'll tell you this, God is either, He's either our best friend or
our worst enemy. That's for sure. Isn't that right? He's either our best friend or
our worst enemy. And I don't want Him to be my
enemy and I don't want to be His enemy. Moses said, who is on the Lord's
side? I still say that today. Who's
on the Lord's side? By His grace we are. And we take
sides with God, listen, against ourselves. Against ourselves. I'm the enemy here. I'm the one all the woes ought
to be pronounced against. I'm the one who's in a mess and
I can't do anything about it. And the only one who can do anything
about it is God and He doesn't have to. He doesn't owe me any
mercy or grace or salvation. He doesn't owe me forgiveness.
He doesn't owe me righteousness, but I know this, He is plenteous
in mercy. And He said, I will be gracious. I will be gracious. He's gonna
be gracious too. Some of Adam's fallen race. Why
not me? Why not you? I want to know God and I want
to know him as the God of peace. As the God of peace. We read
in the writings of the great apostle Paul, five times he speaks
of God as the God of peace. And if he wrote the book of Hebrews,
six times. He's the God of peace. How can
God be the God of peace toward us? And how can we know that
he is peaceful to us? Now, God didn't have to be reconciled
to us. I think we need to understand
this matter of reconciliation. God didn't leave us, we left
God. Therefore, God didn't have to
be reconciled. The reconciliation is for us. We've got to be reconciled and
we were the elect of God. We're reconciled by the death
of the Lord Jesus. We were brought back to God.
We were brought into a state of everlasting righteousness
by His death. We find out about that through
the work of the Holy Spirit. but he reconciled the world of
his elect unto God by his death. Read again 2 Corinthians chapter
five. You see, God had ordained the
Savior. He did so in what's called the
covenant of peace or the council of peace. God says to his people
in the book of Jeremiah chapter 29, I know the thoughts that
I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace. Not
of evil, thoughts of peace. To give you an expected end,
to give you a good hope through grace. God is to his people the
God of peace. And I'll tell you, nothing can
ever hinder the fulfillment of his covenant of peace. The Lord said in Isaiah chapter
54 and verse 10, for the mountains shall depart and the hills be
removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither
shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that
hath mercy on thee. Understand this, God has always
been the God of peace to his people. This is from everlasting. He's never been upset with us.
He's never hated us. He's never been mad at us. God
has always been the God of peace to us. That's the reason the
good news of the death of the Lord Jesus is said to be the
gospel of peace. The gospel of peace. And so we
read in Romans chapter 10, and how shall they preach except
they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. You see, the gospel is the declaration
that our Lord Jesus has established peace with God for us by his
substitutionary death. Peace with God. I love the sound of that. Peace. He is our peace, who made peace
by the blood of his cross. And you know, the Lord sends
his preachers to preach the gospel of peace. There's a reference,
let me turn with you, Ephesians, the second chapter. Let me just
read this and I'll go back to the text. In Hebrews 13, we'll
read there. But look here in Ephesians chapter
two, I was looking at this this afternoon. God uses preachers
to preach the gospel of peace. But you know, my preaching, or
the preaching of any preacher, is not enough to convince you
that it's the truth. There's somebody else gotta preach
to you. I know he uses preachers, there's no question about that.
How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach except
they be sent? It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. But if my preaching
is the only preaching you ever hear, if the preaching of a hidden
man is the only preaching you ever hear, you're not gonna be
any better off for it. Let me show you this. Look in
Ephesians chapter two. Look at verse 15. Well, back
up to verse 14, for he is our peace, that is Christ Jesus,
who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of
partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity,
even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for
to make in himself of 21 new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both
unto God. There's the reconciliation. He
reconciled both Jews and Gentiles unto God in one body by the cross,
as he says, having slain the enmity thereby, and came and
preached peace to you who were afar off. Who preached peace
to you? Well, a preacher did. Well, I
know a preacher did. He preached it and you heard
it in the ears. But if you really believe the
gospel of peace, somebody else preached to you. It's the Lord
Jesus himself by his spirit, he preached to you. That's the
voice we've got to hear. Nobody else can speak with that
kind of power that saves a sinner and brings a sinner from death
to life except that one who is the way, the truth, and the life,
Christ Jesus the Lord. And he says here very clearly,
very plainly, he came and preached peace to you. He preached to us the God of
peace. That there's reconciliation,
there is atonement through the Lamb of God for folks like you
and me. And I'm telling you, it's the
only way we can know God is through this crucified, buried, risen,
exalted Savior. You can't know God any other
way. He reveals himself through the,
God reveals himself through Christ Jesus, who was wounded by transgressions,
who was bruised for our iniquities and the chastisement of what?
Our peace was on Him. Listen, our peace, our peace
with God was totally dependent on Him. the Lord Jesus and his
faithfulness to do the work of redemption that God assigned
to him, the work that he accepted to do in the covenant of peace
established before God ever made the world. Back here in our text, go back
to Hebrews 13. Here's a prayer. Here's a prayer
to the God of peace. It's interesting as you look
at this, and I'll just mention it briefly. Whoever the writer
is, perhaps it was the Apostle Paul, perhaps it was Timothy. We're not sure. In my Bible,
at the end of verse 25, it says, written to the Hebrews from Italy
by Timothy. Whoever it was, it is the Spirit
of God. And as he writes, he does say
this in verse 18. He says, Would you pray for us? Pray for us. And you should pray for all preachers
of the gospel. Pray for us, for we trust we'll
have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly. but I beseech you the rather
to do this that I may be restored to you the sooner." Whoever the
writer is, perhaps it is the Apostle Paul, he says, I want
you to pray for me. And this includes prayer for
a number of things, prayerful for his ministry. Before you
came to the worship service this morning and before you came this
evening, did you beseech God to speak to you through the preacher,
through the word of God? Did you pray? Every once in a while, the word
will get back to me. Well, I didn't get anything out
of the message. Well, did you ask to get anything
out of the message? And the Lord says you have not
because you asked not. Did you pray for the preacher?
Did you pray for yourself? And you know, our own conscience
often smites us, and well, it should. And we need the rebuke,
because we don't seek God's face as we ought. Listen, it is our
glorious, wonderful privilege to go to the Father in prayer
with this assurance. He hears us through Christ Jesus. He receives us, as we've already
noted here in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 15, by Him, by Christ
Jesus, we offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually,
and it's by Christ Jesus we offer any prayer that we have to God.
So when we, when you are getting yourself physically ready to
come, You should get yourself mentally and spiritually ready
to come and say, Lord, speak through Thy servant. Lord, bless
those who are in attendance. Lord, give me ears to hear. Give
me a heart to receive. Lord, you know by nature I'm
cold. I'm so cold and I know I believe
you and I trust your word and I trust the Lord Jesus Christ,
but my spirit is often cold. Lord, warm me up through the
preaching. Lord, do for me something I can't
do for myself. Have you ever tried to stir up
feelings within yourself? It's no good. The only one who can really stir
up true feelings of warmth and worship and adoration is the
Lord Himself. Lord, do that for us, and Lord,
bless that man who stands behind the pulpit. Bless the preacher. Lord, I pray for him. He's delivering
a message and people are listening and these are people who are
going out into eternity. God, help us to believe and help
everyone who hears the message to believe. Would you do that?
Lord, raise the dead. Lord, give sight to the blind.
Lord, give hearing to the deaf. Lord, give walking ability to
the lame that they may come to Christ Jesus for everlasting
life. Do you pray that? You should.
I want you to. It's like whoever wrote this
said, very simple, pray for us. Somebody said, what can I do
for my preacher? Oh, a lot of things you can do
for your preacher. But I tell you, put this up there
at the top. Pray for him. I know speaking
encouraging words, that's good. and be here to listen, that's
good, that's encouraging. But I tell you, seek God's face
on my behalf. So he starts off with this desire,
you pray for me. But then he has a prayer to the
God of peace for all who read these words. Now here's his prayer. Now the God of peace, that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you perfect, make you mature, make you complete, in every good
work, to do his will, working in you, that which is well pleasing in
his sight, And if he does this, it will always be through Jesus
Christ. And speaking of Jesus Christ,
he says, to whom be glory forever and ever, amen. Why has God called the God of
peace? Well, looking at this text of
scripture, it's because of the action that has been revealed? What is the action that has been
revealed by this God of peace that makes us to know He is the
God of peace? Here's the action. He brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus. How do we know that we have peace
with God through Christ Jesus? How can we be satisfied that
the sacrifice of the Son of God appeased divine wrath? How can we be sure that our sins
are put away? That all of our transgressions
have been removed? That they've been put away from
us as far as the East is from the West? How do we know that
everlasting righteousness has been brought in by the substitutionary
death of the Lord Jesus? How do we know that satisfaction
has been made to divine justice in the law that we had broken?
How can we be assured that peace with God has been made by the
blood of the cross of Christ? How do we know that God is a
God of peace? He raised our Savior from the
dead. That proofs it. That proofs it. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus. It is the Father, it's His stamp
of approval of everything the Son of God did. He arose because that work that
He volunteered to finish, that work God laid on Him before the
world began. It says in Psalm 89, God said,
I've laid help upon one who is mighty. And he did that work,
this stupendous work of salvation. The rescue of God's people. Think of that, the rescue, the
salvation, the redemption, the reconciliation of all of those
millions and millions of people that God gave to Christ Jesus
in the covenant of grace. He has put away our sins. He has satisfied God. And we know that so because he
raised him from the dead. The resurrection is God's emphatic
declaration. My justice has been appeased. I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. Our Lord Jesus died for our sins
according to the scriptures. He was buried and he rose again
the third day according to the scriptures. Read through the
book of Acts. And this is what you'll always
hear those preachers say. And they ain't just said it Easter.
They said it all the time. The resurrected son of God, he
arose. Peter said, you killed him, you
killed him, but God raised him. And there's a reason God raised
him. I know it was to acknowledge
that he's the son of God with power, but it was also to acknowledge
that the work that he set out to do had been done to God's
full satisfaction. God raised him. And then watch
this. Here's the great shepherd of
the sheep. This is the one who's raised. He identifies the one
who was raised. Now the God of peace that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of
the sheep. Who is he? He's the great shepherd
of the sheep. He is Jehovah's appointed shepherd. When was he appointed to be the
shepherd of the sheep? Before the world began. He's
the good shepherd in redemption. He said, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. He's the diligent shepherd because
he seeks and saves the lost sheep. And he's the very tender shepherd. He carries the lambs in his bosom. You who are the people of God
in this world, you can become discouraged. In this world, you
can get dejected. In this world, you get troubles
and tribulations and trials and they hurt you so bad. But remember
this, you're his little lamb and you're being carried in his
arms close to his bosom. You're near the heart of Christ
Jesus. And He's always bearing you up. He's always carrying you. He's
the tender shepherd who feeds us. He leads us into the pastures
of His Word. He leads us to the still waters,
refreshing waters, not waters that are troubled, not waters
that will wash away. These are peaceful waters. There's something so peaceful
about the gospel. And he's the great shepherd of
the sheep. And he's the chief shepherd who's
coming again for us. We have the shepherd. Surely
you who are the Lord's sheep, surely this encourages you. You're
not a sheep without a shepherd. That'd be a sad case to be in,
wouldn't it? Be a sheep without a shepherd.
A sheep without somebody to look out for you. A sheep to drive
the wolves off. A shepherd that drives the wolves
off. He's that shepherd. He's that shepherd. This is the
reason you're safe. You're safe not because, oh,
you're gonna hold out to the end. No, that's not why you're
safe. You're not gonna be destroyed because of the greatness of your
faith, because your faith is weak. You're gonna be preserved
because of who your shepherd is. He's the one who keeps you. The Lord is my shepherd is what
we sang a while ago, and it's what David wrote in Psalm 23.
The Lord is my shepherd, therefore I shall not want. I shall not
lack for any good thing because of who my shepherd is. And he
will never suffer his sheep. He will not allow his sheep to
suffer any unnecessary hurt. He just won't do it. And if a
sheep feels the sting of the rod every once in a while, it's
because it's necessary. He chastens His sheep, He chastens
His children, and He uses the crook of the shepherd's staff
to pull us back in line. Do you have to be pulled back
in line? Sure you do. So do I. And if He didn't pull us back,
we'd just wander away. but he has the means and he has
the way, he has the love to never let us wander afar and just stay
gone. He said, well, not so far. Come
back over here. That's the way the Lord does
because that's the kind of shepherd he is. This is the way it's expressed
here. He's the great shepherd of the
sheep who has the great salvation by his great grace. and he is the great God and Savior,
Jesus Christ. And then he says, this is through the blood of
the everlasting covenant. It's an everlasting covenant.
It's said to be that to identify its antiquity, how old it is. Remember this, God's first, His
first and oldest work is the covenant of grace. It's His greatest
work, the covenant of grace. I know the heavens declare the
glory of God and the firmament speaks of His handiwork, but
there's a work greater than creation and there's a work even greater
than providence. It's the work of salvation. Behold
the everlasting covenant of grace, wherein God himself determined
who would be the recipients of his favors. And he wrote our
names down in the Lamb's book of life, never to be erased,
and written with the finger of God. It's the oldest and the greatest
of God's works. It's from everlasting, The covenant
of works had a beginning, and thank God it'll have an end.
But not the covenant of grace, not this everlasting covenant.
It's as old as God himself, from everlasting to everlasting, thou
art God. Before the mountains or the stars
or the seas were brought forth, God thought of you. He put you
in Christ. I mean, before he first said,
lights, come on, the stars started twinkling and the sun started
shining. Even before then, you were his. He said, you're mine. I'm yours. I'll be your God. You'll be my
people. You wasn't even around. Nobody
was around but the triune God then. You see, before Adam even
fell in sin, God covenanted with God for you. Think of that. God covenanted with God for you. And he said, you'll be mine.
I'll have you. You didn't find out about it
until you was converted, but you is already his. There wasn't
any way you'd wind up any other way than to be God's. You was
already His property. Regeneration, you found out about
it. In fact, before you ever committed your first sin, He already appointed a Savior
for you. He already took care of that.
See, we need not worry. We need not be fearful about
the things of this life because our God has already taken care
of the greater issues, our spiritual issues and our eternal issues
through Jesus Christ the Lord. And he did it in the everlasting
covenant of grace. Before you ever went astray,
Before you ever wandered from your mother's womb speaking lies,
God had already ordained the way whereby you'd be brought
to Him in a manner that satisfied His justice and law. Before the angels were made to
minister to you, God's heart was already devoted to you. Think of that. God Almighty's
heart devoted to you. How can it be? Oh, such grace. Oh, to grace, how great a debtor! That's what the hymn writer said.
Daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter
bind my wandering heart to thee. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now
I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. God's devoted to his people.
Boy, that ought to float your boat. That ought to put some
wind in your sail. I don't know how bad things are
in your life. I don't know the troubles you're
going through with. I don't know the tribulations
you're going through with. But when you hear God Almighty
is devoted to you for your welfare, for your salvation, almost enough
to make a Baptist shout. It's just wonderful. It's more
wonderful than we can fully express. This God of peace, who brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of
the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant. The
blood, oh my, the blood of the everlasting covenant. The blood of the Lord Jesus.
Oh, let us never be ashamed of the blood. What can wash away
my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole? Could
I be made whole again? Oh yes, just one thing. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's his death. That's his
satisfaction that he rendered to God upon the cross of Calvary. His blood has a five-fold connection
to the covenant of grace. With regard to our Savior, his
blood is the fulfillment of every stipulation laid on him in that
covenant. He said, I finished the work
you gave me to do. He said, it is finished. Done. With regard to God the Father,
the precious blood of Christ Jesus puts God under inescapable
obligation to save everybody Christ died for. He'll save all the redeemed.
In fact, we are saved. He'll forgive all the ransomed. He'll bring us home to everlasting
glory. With regard to God the Holy Spirit,
the blood of Christ is that which He sprinkles. He sprinkles it
upon our conscience and makes us to know the blood's
enough. The blood's enough. Heard a preacher years ago say
the blood can only take us so far. Oh no. It takes us all the way. Takes us all the way to glory. And with regard to the blood,
with the blood with regard to the believer, it's our ground
of peace and assurance. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and his righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. And with regard to guilty
sinners, I tell you, it's your only way of access to God. It's
your only way of access to God. Now here's the request. I'll
go quickly. Look at verse 21. Here's his request. that this
God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus,
that great shepherd of the sheep, he did it through the blood of
the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work
to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in
his sight through Jesus Christ. Here's the prayer. May the God
of peace make you perfect. Now we know that there is no
such thing as absolute perfection among the people of God, except
we are perfect in the eyes of God. And that perfection we have
before God is not a gradual thing. We're perfect in Christ Jesus. That's our state, that's our
standing in him. We don't get better. We're righteous
through the Lord, our righteousness. We're already declared to be
holy. God says, be ye holy for I am
holy. How can I be holy? In the Holy
One, we're holy. In the Holy One, we're as holy
as He is. We don't grow in holiness. We
don't grow in sanctification. The Lord Jesus is our wisdom,
our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. That according
that is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. He's
my holiness and he's my sanctification. But I do grow in grace and in
the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here's a prayer that
we would grow, it's a prayer that we would mature, be spiritually
mature, that we'd grow up. Sometimes I want to say to the
people of God, and sometimes I want to say to myself, why
don't you just grow up? Why don't you grow up? Act, conduct yourself as a spiritual
adult. Do you ever say, sometimes it's
good to have a little talk with yourself? And fuss it, you ever
fuss it yourself? I fuss it myself, I'm on now. Doesn't do much good. But I do. Lord, make me more mature. Make me to be a person that relies
more fully upon you. Work in me. And I can think of
three things that I want God to work in me. Faith, hope, and
love. Three pretty good things I think
to seek God's face for, and I pray this for you." And whoever wrote
this letter, he said, I pray that the Lord will work this
in you. And I think he's thinking about
faith, hope, and love. I want my faith to be more diligent. I want my faith to be more concrete. more firm, more steadfast. He's already warned us here in
chapter 13. Don't be carried about with divers
and strange doctrines, foreign doctrines. Don't be that way. May your faith be steadfast. Like Martin Luther said, here
I stand. I can do no other. I'm not going
to budge. I'm not going to move. Faith
and hope. What is hope? We have a good
hope through grace. Hope is a confident expectation
of future joy and blessings based on the certainty of the word
of God, the promises of God, which are yea and which are amen
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grow in hope and confidence. I don't have any confidence in
myself, but I got confidence in God now. I do believe he can
do anything he wants to do. And he's gonna uphold his people.
We're not gonna fall. We're not gonna fail to receive
the inheritance he ordained for us. And love. Love for the Savior. Lord, help
me to love you more. Help me to love you with a whole
heart. I read about the Lord's love
for me. And then I think about how pitiful my love is for him.
Doesn't even hardly deserve to be called love. But I say like
Simon Peter when he said, the Lord Jesus said, Simon, son of
Jonas, do you love me? And I can just see him sitting
there by the fire saying, Lord, it don't seem like it. And I
ain't acted like it. But you know I love you. And
I do love, don't you love the Lord Jesus Christ? I believe
you do. I hope you do. We can only love
him if his love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.
And then to love each other. To love those even who don't
love us. Now that's the tall order. It's
easy to love people who love you. Man, everybody can do that. That's no great thing. But what
about those that speak ill of you? Can you love them? Well,
apart from the grace of God, you can't. Lord, work within
us that which is well-pleasing in your sight. And Lord, help me in every good
work to do your will. In the things that I do, in the
life that I live, I want to be pleasing to the Lord. We need to remember something,
and all of the people of God need to remember this. If we
profess to our family members and to those around us that we
love God, that we love Christ Jesus, we love the message of
grace, let's maintain an attitude and a behavior that is consistent
with our confession and our profession of faith. I know, I know we're gonna fail. We are failures to a certain
degree. But I want people to know, I
want people that I come in contact with and with whom I speak at
length, I want them to know how vital the things of God are to
me. And I do not want to negatively
affect a person's ideas of religion and God. I don't want to do that. By my speech, by the words that
I use, and I told the men, I'm going over time here a little,
but I was telling the men Tuesday, I get so aggravated at social
media. And it isn't social media just
itself, but the people who profess to know God, the kind of stuff
they put on social media is absolutely embarrassing to me. And if you're
on social media, if you're on Facebook and something like that,
you be careful what you put in there, what you write and what
you copy and what you share. Because people read that and
if they know what you profess to believe and you put something
in there that's off color, that isn't consistent with your
profession of faith, you've hurt yourself and you've hurt your
testimony. I'm telling you the truth. And
I get embarrassed. I told the man, I said, I'm gonna
write an article on it if I can ever get the right attitude,
because right now I'm mad. If I can ever get the right attitude,
I'll write something about it, but I read some stuff on there and
I just, I'm amazed. And I want to say to husbands
of wives who puts, be a husband. Take control. Husband's the head
of the house, so put your foot down and say, let's be careful
what we put on here. And if it's the husbands who
are doing it, it may be, because I pretty much stay off of it
unless my wife says, you need to read this. It's really her
fault. She said, you're not going to
believe what somebody's put on here. And I'll read it and say,
oh, no. We represent our Lord. We
do. I don't want to bring reproach
upon his name, do you? And I know you don't. And I think
sometimes people just forget. They're just not thinking. Put your thinking cap on. Think
about the things you write. Think about the things you say.
Think about your attitude that you project to people around
you. I want to project the attitude,
as much as possible, I want to project the attitude of somebody
who believes God And I'll tell you, if we go bellyaching about
everything that happens, all the negative, oh, you don't want
to hear how my day's gone. No, I don't. You might be right
about that. I don't want to hear how your
day's gone because I'll tell you this, it's gone exactly how
God would have it to go. Is that right? That is exactly
right. And if we fuss about it, We're murmuring against his good
providence and that's not right either. So he says, I pray for
you. I pray for you. I pray God will
make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working
in you. That's what's necessary right
there. Working in you. That which is
well pleasing in his sight and he does this through Jesus Christ. through Jesus Christ. See, it
always comes back to Him. God's dealings with us through
Him. Our dealings with God through
Him. And then He says this, to whom
be glory forever and ever. He's talking about to Christ
Jesus. To whom be glory forever and ever. And He says, Amen. So be it. And that's the way
we want it too, isn't it? To Him be the glory forever and
ever. Amen.