Good evening. Turn with me this
evening to the book of Romans, chapter 15. Romans 15. I'd like to read the first 13
verses. We then that are strong ought
to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his
neighbor for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself,
but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee fell
on me. For whatsoever things were written
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience
and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God
of patience and consolation grants you to be like-minded, one toward
another, according to Christ Jesus, that ye may with one mind
and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Wherefore, receive ye one another,
as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that
Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth
of God, to confirm the promises made under the fathers, and that
the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. As it is written,
for this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles and
sing unto thy name. And again, he saith, rejoice,
ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all
ye Gentiles, and laud him, all ye people. And again, Isaiah
saith, there shall be a root of Jesse, And he that shall rise
to reign over the Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles trust.
Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing
that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Let's pray. Let's start over. Turn with me to Genesis chapter
1. Genesis chapter 1. Read the first five verses here,
Genesis 1. Preach through Genesis and see
what happens. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said,
Let there be light. And there was light. And God
saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from
the darkness. And God called the light day,
and the darkness He called night. And the evening and the morning
were the first day. Here in these five verses, We
see God's creation, God creating with His Word. And of course,
that was the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And
Hebrews 11.3 says this, that we by faith believe that the
world was framed by the Word of God, made by the Word of God. And the things that were not
made by the things that we're looking at, by things that appear.
And also it tells us that in this creation that God made,
it's also a beautiful portrait or picture or typical, you might
say, of how that God creates a sinner and regenerates a sinner
and creates a new creature in Christ. So we have the creation
and we have a new creation. You know, he says, as God commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, he has shined in our hearts.
to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And our Lord told Nicodemus,
a master of Israel that didn't know anything, named Nicodemus,
he told him, you must be born again. And here in these five
verses, we have a picture. We have a picture of a soul passing
from death to life. And it says, in the beginning,
God. In the beginning, God. Our salvation starts with God. Everything must start with God.
Our regeneration is a work of God. And just like the creation,
God has to create us new in Christ Jesus. Regeneration is the work
of God and has its beginning with God. And the gospel always
starts out with God. It always has. And it always
will. And that's why he said, Nicodemus,
you must be born again. Well, a man can't regenerate
himself. He can't give himself life. So where's he gonna get
this life? No more than this, we could create
a world like God did. Then as he created a world, he
has to create us. He has to regenerate us and create
a new person. And the new creation, like the
old, begins with the word of God. God said, Look what it says
down there in verse 3. And God said, just like the new
creation starts with the Word of God, and the old does, so
does begin the new creation by the Word of God. And just as
in the old creation the Spirit of God moved, that's what has
to happen in the new creation. The Spirit of God has to move.
And He moves upon the heart and order of men. And so let's look
at the order here of creation. And I believe we can see the
experience and the truth of a soul passing from death to light and
from going from darkness into the light. I believe we see all
of those things. But look, first of all here,
God said in the beginning, God, and that's what's got to happen
with us. God, it was God who chose us. It's God who called
us. It was God that sent His Son.
The Gospels called the Gospel of God concerning His Son. Brethren,
we're bound to thank God for you from the beginning because
He hath chosen you. So it's God. And look what it
says here. Look at the state of disorder
by nature. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and earth. And look what it says. This is
man by nature. And the earth was without form.
The earth was without form. There was no order. There was
no harmony, no structure, nothing perfect here at this time. And
that's the way man is. He's without form. He has no
form. He don't have no harmony. He doesn't have no perfect thing.
They that are in the flesh cannot please God. And the natural man,
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he know them. You know why? Because they're
spiritually deserved. You would not believe how many
people do not believe. Preachers that do not believe
that there's literal six days of creation. When I was looking,
going to start through Genesis again, I've done so much reading
and it astounds me. It astounds me how many people
do not believe the first 11 chapters of Genesis and they don't believe
in six days of literal creation. God could have done it in one
day if He chose to. But he done it the way he did
for a reason. And it's not my business to question
why he does anything. By God's grace, I'm to believe
it. And I know that I was without form. I had no harmony. I had
no peace. I had no order in my life. And
that's what it means to be without form. And then look what else
it says. And the earth was without form
and it was void. That word void means emptiness.
Any of y'all ever voided something? That means it's no good. You
void something, that means it's just, it's it, that's it, it's
just useless, it's empty, it's no worth nothing. And so this
emptiness is absolutely unable to produce any good. It's empty,
it's void, it has no power, no ability. And that's why, you
know, Paul says, you know, I know that in me, in me, in my flesh
dwells no good thing. And apart, apart from the work
of the Holy Spirit upon a man, he's utterly void. He is empty. He has nothing. He is void of
God. He's void of consciousness of
God. I was coming by a store here a little while ago, and
I seen all kinds of people going in. And I thought, boy, as I
said, people go on about their day and do not think about God
whatsoever. You know why? Because they're
void. They're void of a knowledge of God, void of a conscience.
Most, a lot of people now are void of a conscience. Empty.
Empty. And apart from the work of the
Holy Spirit, a man will stay utterly empty. Utterly void. And we're void of the Spirit
of God. Now, Job asked this, kind of, Can a man or can a clean
thing come out of something unclean? There's something here that's
unclean. Can you take out of that uncleanness and bring something
clean out of it? And that's what this means here.
That's what it means. Look what else it says now. And
darkness, darkness was upon the face of the deep. Darkness. So man is, he's without form,
he's empty, void. And then he's in darkness. Darkness
is upon the face of the deep. And when there's darkness, there's
nothing in the world that you can do in darkness. And the only
thing that'll dispel darkness is light. You all know this very
well. Look over with me in Ephesians
1.18. You know that God is light. God is light and in Him is no
darkness at all. In Him is no darkness. And wherever
there's darkness, there has to be light or it'll stay in darkness.
Men love darkness rather than light. The Lord Jesus says that
He came He came, and men, and the light shined in the darkness,
and the men said, I'd love my darkness, just take the light
away. But now, beloved man, to be empty, he's without form,
he's without void, and he's in darkness. And the only thing
in the world that can save that man is the moving of the Spirit
of God, and for God to turn on the light. And here in Ephesians
1.18, look what it says here. The eyes of your understanding
being enlightened Enlightened and I've been quoted that verse
of scripture to you as God commanded the light Just like in this and
God commanded the light and that's what he said then verse verse
3 and he said let there be light And there was light There's darkness
there and God said let there be light and there was and that's
what God has to do for us He has to say let there be light
He has to turn on the light. That's what he says. Oh, the
lies of your understanding being enlightened, the light turned
on in your understanding. For one reason that you may know,
what is the hope of his calling and the riches of his glory.
And our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh my. And that's back over here
in Genesis 1. Look what he says. Oh, and the
darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God said, let there
be light. And there was light. God has to command it. God has
to command it. That's one thing that's such
a blessing about preaching the gospel. Don't ever have to come
up with something new. Don't have to come up with something
new. I don't have to come up with anything novel. I don't
have to come up, you know, we look at the same things over
and over and over. And we say this all the time
that if there's any light, God's got to give it. And this light
means understanding. It means being able to comprehend.
It means being able to see. And so until God gives the light,
a man can't comprehend, he can't see, he can't understand, and
he can't hear. So with the light comes everything,
you know, comes the seeing, the hearing, the understanding, the
grasping. That's what it means to have
the light turned on. It gets in your mind, gets in
your heart, gets in your eyes, makes you hear to be able to
understand. And how many times do people say, I see that, I
see it now. I see it now. And look what it
says here again in verse two, in the last part of the verse.
It says, the work of the Spirit, you know, we're talking about
here the work of the Spirit, and the Spirit of God moves. And that word move means brooded.
It brooded. You know how someone, a hen broods
over her chickens and that? That's what he's talking about.
The Spirit of God brooded, moved over that darkness. And how the
earth brooded, the Spirit of God moved. And the earth could
not form itself. The earth could not fill its
own void. The earth could not give itself
life. The earth could not give itself
light. And neither can the natural man. He cannot do anything for
himself. It's not an evolutionary process. It's a creation. It is. It's a creation. We're born from
above. And that's what you know like
no more than the earth. could give itself form. God formed
it. Christ in us. Christ in you.
Formed in you. And oh, and then he says, you
know, it's void. It couldn't fill its own void.
God's the only one that can fill a man. God's the only one that
can fill his heart. God's the only one that can fill
his soul. God's the only one that can fill his understanding.
And it's not, you know, we begin to, it's just not an evolutionary
process. It's something that God commands
and it happens. He's the one that has to give
this life, and it's a creation. You know, and first, look in
John chapter 1 with me. Look in John chapter 1, St. John's
Gospel, the Gospel of John chapter 1. This is what we're talking
about. He said, that that's born of
the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit. He said, it's the Spirit that quickeneth. The words that
I speak are life, but it's the Spirit that quickens. The Spirit
has to quicken us. The Spirit has to come and do
a work in us. But look what it says here in
John 1, 12. As many as received Him, to them
gave He power. to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on His name." Now watch this. You know how
we became, received Him? How we became the sons of God?
How we became to believe on His name? We were born. We were born. We were born. Not of blood. not of blood, being
related to one another, don't do anything. And this is a blessing. So many of y'all here have got
your children. All your children are converted.
All your children are converted. What a blessing that is. If you
have one child and it's converted and saved by the grace of God,
what a blessing. And some of you, your whole family's
converted, your whole family's saved. And you know why? But it's not because of your
blood passed on to another one, because all we pass on is our
sin nature. But it says, not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh. The man talks about his free
will. As Augustus' top lady said, his
man's free will can't cure a toothache, much less do anything spiritually.
And then he goes on to say, nor of the will of man, but of God. That's what he's talking about
over here. He said, but the spirit of God has to do that work. It's
the spirit that quickens. And God has, if any man be in
Christ, he's a new creation. New creation. That now he's not,
he's not, he's got form. Christ formed in him. He's not
without void. He's not empty anymore. He has
the knowledge of God, the knowledge of Christ. His understanding
has been, the darkness has been taken away from it. And oh, and
just like Nicodemus said, boy, said, our Lord told him, said,
except a man be born again, he can't see. Where are you gonna
get this sight? Being born from above, by the
work of the Spirit of God. And then look at the power of
God's Word. In verse three, and God said,
And God said, and there was. God said, and there was. When
God speaks, something happens. It's impossible for him to speak
and something not happen. Ain't that what he said in Isaiah
55? He says that God said, when I send forth my word, it shall
not return unto me void. It won't do it. It'll accomplish
what I sent it to do. And I, you know, I don't know
what happens to anybody's thoughts, understanding, I don't know how
well they pay attention, I don't understand any of those things.
But I do know this, that if God says something, God says something,
it ain't gonna come back to him. And it ain't gonna come back
to him void. It's gonna do just exactly what he intended for
it to do. Look in Psalm 33. Psalm 33, verse eight. Oh, God said. God said. God commands. And God said. And God said. You know, the Word
of God is quick and powerful. It's got life. It has power. And look what He said in verse
8. Let all the earth fear the Lord, Let all the inhabitants
of the world stand in awe of Him, for He spake, it's done. He commanded, and it stood fast. You know the earth, when He said,
let there be, there still is. And that's what He says when
He speaks to us and saves us and regenerates us and gives
us the light. I mean, when He says that, when
He speaks to us, it's forever. When He created us new in Christ
Jesus, our creation is just like it was in the original creation.
It's going to last as long as God Himself sets on the throne. It is. And oh, the Word of God
is quick, it's living, it's powerful, sharp. Oh, how sharp it is. How
sharp it is. It enters into a man's mind and
it makes a fellow say, boy, the preacher's reading my mind. The
word here, he talks about the word. And God said, and the word
that he's talking about when God said, that's the gospel of
Christ. It's the gospel of Christ. That's the word of God. You know,
in the gospel is the righteousness of God revealed in God's head.
And you don't have to look at this with me, but I'm going to
read it to you because this This is it, this is exactly what he
means over here. When he says, and God said, and
God's got to speak. And if God don't speak, a man's
just going to sit like he does. He's not going to change. And
he said here in 1 Peter 1, talking about the Word that God said,
and there was. When God speaks, things happen.
But he says in verse 22, seeing you have purified your soul,
in obeying the truth. How did you obey the truth? Through
the spirit, unto an unfeigned, an uncritical, a true love of
the brethren. See that you love one another
with a pure heart, fervently, being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God. And listen to
it, it lives, and how long does it last? It abides forever, abides
forever. And you know it's got such power
in it that our Lord Jesus Christ would speak to the dead, and
the dead lived. He spoke to three dead people,
and three dead people lived. If He speaks to you and you're
dead, you're gonna have life. If He speaks to you and He says,
let there be light, the Spirit of God moves on you, you're gonna
have life. He that was dead, Lazarus, come
forth. He that was dead, he came forth.
And so God, he does this wonderful work in us. He creates this new
creation. And it's just like the original
creation. God must do it all. He must create
us in Christ. And oh, look now what he does
back over here in Genesis. And then he does this separating.
He does some separating here. And so God said, let there be
light. And there was light. And that's what happens. Light
shines in darkness. And the light dispels the darkness.
And listen to what he says. Now, God saw the light, that
it was good. Good. And look what else is said
here. And God divided the light from
the darkness. What he does when he saves a
man, he takes him out of darkness and moves him over here in the
light. We're now children of light.
He separates us from darkness. You know, you gotta see this
in Ephesians 5.8. Do you know, our Lord Jesus Christ
said, I'm the light of the world, and he that followeth me shall
not, shall not walk in darkness. And now we're the children of
light. And God said, I saw that light. He said, that light is
very good. It's good. In Ephesians 5.8,
Look what our Savior said here, or the Apostle said here in Galatians
5, Ephesians 5, 8. I'll get there myself in a minute.
Look what he says here now. For you were sometimes darkness.
You were sometimes darkness. But now listen to this. Now are
you light in the Lord. What? As what? Children of light. My Lord said, I'm the light.
You follow me and you're not going to walk in darkness. You
can't walk in darkness. And over here in Colossians,
right over to your right again, right past Philippians in Colossians
1.12, look what it says. You know, He separates. He don't
leave His children in darkness. He doesn't do that. He doesn't
leave His children in darkness. We become children of light.
We love the light. We delight in the light. And
oh my God, take away everything from me that's unlike you. And
Christ is the light. And look what he said here in
Colossians 1.12, giving thanks unto the Father, which has made
us meet, made us fit, made us able to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints. Listen to this, in light, who
has delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated
us into the kingdom of the Son of Islam." And what he does,
he separates the light from the darkness, and the light, he says,
is good. And he separates the spiritual
from the carnal. That's what he tells us. He said, what communion hath
light with darkness? He asked that question. What
communion, what fellowship hath light with darkness? So you know,
he says, here you're a spiritual person, what are you doing over
here in the dark? And how can light and darkness
have any fellowship? And that's what he meant being
unequally yoked together. And then look, let me show you
something here in verse 11. Look down here in verse 11. And
then we do some fruit bearing, you know. And God said, let the
earth Bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit
tree yielding fruit, after his kind, whose seed is in itself
upon the earth. And it was so. It was so. Now
these things didn't do anything to produce their own fruit. God
said, and the seed is in itself, yielding seed and the fruit tree
yielding fruit. Fruit bearing is the outcome
of the light and the moving of the spirit. And if we have any
fruit bearing and we bear any fruit, it's the result, it's
the condition, not an effort, not an effort that we put forth
or what we do or what we are. It's a result of God putting
his seed in us, God saving us, and he said, I'm the vine, you're
the branches. And he that abides in me, he
bears fruit, is what our Savior said. John 15, 16, Brad Priest
on that here one time. No, you're not. You've not chosen
me. What a statement. No, you're not. You've not chosen
me. You've not chosen me. You didn't
choose me. You would have never chose me.
You will not come to me that you might have life. You've not
chosen me, but I've chosen you. I've chosen you. And I've ordained,
I've ordained that you bear fruit. bear fruit. And what kind of
fruit is he talking about? Our Lord Jesus said, you shall
know a tree by its fruit. And he said, every tree after
its own kind. And if we're believers, we have
fruit after its own kind, after Christ. After Christ. If we're Christ, we're going
to bear fruit. We're going to bear the fruit of grace, the
fruit of generosity, the fruit of kindness, the fruit of understanding,
the fruit of loving one another, bearing one another's burdens,
the fruit of praying for one another, the fruit of encouraging
one another, and everyone after its kind. And we're gonna be
conformed finally to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
then look where the light's at. Look at the position of the light.
And he says, you know, God said, let there be light, down in verse
15. And He's talking about us being
lights now. I told you that you know we're lights in the Lord.
And He separated the light from the darkness. And let them be
for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth. You know what our Lord Jesus
said? You'll see this. Look in Matthew
5. This is what our Lord was teaching
us about this. And let them be for lights. We
are light in the Lord. In Matthew 5 and verse 14. Matthew 5, 14. And he says the
position of the light is to give light upon the earth. Look what
our Savior said here. Ye are the light of the world.
Matthew 5, 14. Ye are the light of the world.
You know, the only light is us. The world's in darkness. And
we're the light of this world. And when God turns out the light,
when He takes us out of here, and He said, it's a city that's
set on a hill, cannot be hid. And when a man has light, he
has a light, and he lights a candle, he don't go get something and
then cover the candle up so people can't see the light. He doesn't
do that. but he puts it on a candlestick.
And it giveth light unto all that are in the house. And let
your light so shine before men. Now what does he mean by us letting
our light shine? When we're out in the world,
nobody knows that we're Christians. We don't wear things on our lapel. We don't put things on our cars.
We don't wear crosses. So what does it mean? What does
it mean, let your light shine? It means that we don't go along
with the world and its ways. We don't enjoy the world, we
don't use the world's language, we don't use the world's language,
we don't use the world's ambition, when we're among the world we
don't talk about all that we're going to do and all we're going
to accomplish. If we say anything, people ask me all the time, how
in the world are you doing? I say I'm doing fine, I have
no complaints. And I don't know how many people
down through the years says you have to have some complaints,
nobody can not have complaints. I have absolutely no complaints.
And then when you're around people, you can be kind to them, you
can be gracious to them, you can be understanding to them.
You know how you treat a waitress that waits on you is one way
to let your light shine. How you treat the person when
you walk in to pay your gas bill, when you buy gas at a gas station,
how you treat that person that you're paying for your gas. tells
a lot about how you treat them and tell a lot more about you
than what I say about them. I mean life is just full of everything. We're confronted with situations
all the time and how we act in that situation. We don't have
to tell people we're Christian. We don't have to do that. All's
we got to do is treat people like we ourselves would like
to be treated. With some kindness, with some
encouragement, with some appreciation, with some thankfulness, with
an encouraging word. Most of us don't do it in the
house, much less out in the world. And that's why the Lord said,
let your light so shine before men that they may see your good
works and glorify your Father. And I'll tell you something. I've seen some folks treat some
people awful, awful bad in public. And I feel sorry for them. Just
like that last night, that woman, they come and got that woman
at that party yesterday afternoon. I felt so bad for her. That was
awful. Here we are as a bunch of Christians
gathering around there, having a wonderful time. Almost everybody
there was believers. We should have stood up and said,
listen, she ain't hurting nothing. She's enjoying herself. She's
having a meal. She's here because she likes
the music. And then the law comes and takes her away. That wasn't
glorifying God. There was no light shining there
last night. That's a perfect illustration of what I'm saying.
Would you all agree with that? That's so sad. And then look
what he says about the image of God. Look over here in verse
26 of chapter one. Look at the image of God. And so God created, and God said,
verse 26, and God said, let us make man in our image after our
likeness. Let them have dominion over the
fish, and over the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and upon every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth. If God hadn't let us have
dominion over that, these animals would just run us all over the
place. But look what else he says, so God created man in his
own image, and the image of God created in him, male and female. And I tell you, God created man
in his own image. Adam delighted in God, walked
with God, enjoyed God, had dominion over everything, and named everything,
until he sinned against God. And he was way up here, and he
fell all the way down to here, all the way down. And in regeneration,
in this new birth, that image is restored. And I can show you
that in Colossians 3. Let's look in Colossians 3. And
that image is restored. And now, you know, me and Brad
was talking about it this morning. Don't you enjoy God? Not only
do we now, you know, and Adam fell and he went and hid from
the presence of God. We don't want to hide from God.
We delight to be in God's presence. We enjoy God. We enjoy the Gospel. We enjoy Christ. We enjoy His
Word. And these are things because
you know why it is? Because God's image restored
in us. It was lost in Adam, but God in regeneration put His image
back in us. And that's what happens when
the Gospel and things being preached, we read the Scriptures, the image
of God answers to what it says here. But look in Colossians
3.10. and hath put on the new, the
new man which is renewed in the knowledge after the image of
him that created him." God put the knowledge of God back in
your mind and in your heart. The knowledge that Adam lost
and the image that Adam lost and what that image is. It means
that you recognize God as He is and you know now we believe
God. because we agree with God, we
delight in God, we agree with God, we walk with Him in Christ
by faith, and we actually delight in Him and enjoy Him and love
to think about Him. Now, why is that? Because we
have the image of God in us. He restored it. Just like Adam,
he enjoyed God, and God walked with him, and Christ walked with
him in the cool of the day. He'd come down and walk with
him in the cool of the day. And now, the scripture said,
how can two walk together except they be agreed? Well, I agree
with God. I agree with him. And we walk
together. We walk together. Our Father, in the holy and blessed
and glorious name of Christ our Lord, thank you for the word
of God. Thank you that you said, Thank
you that you spoke your word and you put it in a written form
for us. You put it in a book where we can read it. And we
thank you and bless you that you gave us some understanding
of it. You gave us some desire to read it and to live according
to it. We thank you for saving us by
your grace, putting your light in us, forming Christ in us,
giving us the blessed hope we have. Thank you for bringing
us out of the awful darkness that we were in, bringing us
into the glorious light of Christ. Oh Lord, you're so gracious.
You're so full of power and love and mercy and kindness, forgiveness. And oh Lord, we praise you for
all those blessed things. And oh Father, our Father, go
with us as we go back out to our lives, go to jobs, go to
our homes, Go with us, and be with us, and protect us, and
preserve us, and uphold us, and keep us. Oh, Father, keep us. As the old hymn writer said,
keep us cleaving and keep us believing. And we ask these things
in our Lord Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.