I join Brother Walter in thanking
you for your hospitality, thanking you for all that you've done,
the food, all the provisions. Jay, that barbecue was fantastic. And I lived in Tennessee a while.
I've had some good barbecue, and that was good barbecue. Thank you is one of the kindest
words in the English language. I don't ever sit down at my wife's
table and get up and not say thank you. It's a kind thing to do. Let's
begin reading in Ephesians 4 in verse 1. Ephesians 4 in verse
1. Paul says, I therefore, I therefore, And when he says
therefore, he's speaking about the fact that God blessed us
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places according
as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Seeing as how he predestinated us into the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself. Seeing as how we have the forgiveness
of sins through the blood of God's own Son. Seeing as how
He came to where we are and preached the gospel to us, and by His
Spirit now we both, Jew and Gentile, have been made one by one Spirit. And we're no more foreigners
and strangers, but we're fellow citizens with the saints and
of the household of God. were founded upon that foundation
of the apostles and of whom Jesus Christ is the chief coroner.
And he says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, and Paul
was not only a prisoner of the Lord spiritually in that he was
a willing bond servant of the Lord, he was literally in prison. I therefore, the prisoner of
the Lord, beseech you, I don't command you because we're not
under law, we're under grace. I beseech you that ye walk worthy
of the vocation wherewith ye are called. And that's our subject,
walk worthy of your vocation. This word vocation means calling. And it means that it's your life's
work, it's your life's mission, it's your life's purpose. A vocation
is a lifelong work requiring great dedication. That's what
a vocation is. A lifelong work that requires
great dedication. And our vocation is complete
dedication to Christ and his church. To the furtherance of
his gospel. We're called into oneness with
Christ and oneness with his people, our brethren, to give our lives
for the furtherance of the gospel. And we do that by giving ourselves
and all that God has given to us to support the preaching of
Christ and to send forth that gospel into all the world. We're
entirely dedicated to Christ and his people and this gospel. And I want you to notice here,
it does not say walk worthy of the vocation to which you are
called. Although that's what he's encouraging
us to do, is to walk worthy of the vocation into which we have
been called. But he says there, and he's saying
this to press upon us the importance of this vocation. so that you'll
see the importance of it, be reminded of how important this
vocation is. He says, walk worthy of the vocation
wherewith you are called. You see, God called you and I
into this vocation with this vocation. He called other sinners
before us and made them one in Christ and one with one another
in a local body And through them, giving of themselves unselfishly,
giving and using all the gifts that God had given to them, God
sent the gospel to us. And so he used, it was that vocation
wherewith you and I were called. This is how we came to hear Christ
and be called into Christ and rest in Christ. I remember when
I was about 14 years old, back in about 1984, and I was in a congregation about
the size of this congregation. My grandfather was a sovereign
grace preacher. And there was no young people in the congregation.
I was the youngest one in the congregation. We didn't live
close together. We were scattered way apart,
but we'd gather and we'd hear the gospel preached. And those
handful of God's saints sacrificed. They worked hard. Those were
hard-working men and women, farmers, and worked in the logging woods,
and worked in factories, and they gave their hard-earned money
to have the gospel preached there, and to bring in preachers from
other places. It was about that time I met
Brother Henry Mahan. He came down and preached for
us, and Scott Richardson came down and preached for us. That
took effort, that took money, that took time to schedule it,
and to pay for it, and to have somebody come in and do that.
And when I began to be introduced to Brother Henry, then my grandfather
would, he would get Brother Henry's tapes, and he would listen to
them, and then he would pass this shoebox to me, and it'd
be full of Brother Henry Mahan's tapes. And I'd listen to them,
and when I got through listening to them, I'd send them, send
the shoebox empty back to my grandfather, and he'd fill it
back up, give me the shoebox again. And I can remember being
down in North Louisiana when I was trying to go to college
and I can remember going up with a buddy of mine and we'd set
up on this old bridge and set out crawfish traps and build
a big fire and I'd put speakers on the back of my truck and we'd
sit out there by that fire and listen to Henry preach the gospel
while we run crawfish net. And all of that, God used to
save me. And that was men and women who
worked hard and who God had called into this vocation, who walked
worthy of their vocation. God used them to send a little
fellow the gospel down in South Arkansas. And he saved me through their
word. And so by that, he shows us the
importance of this vocation. It's the vocation wherewith you
and I were saved. And so he's showing us here that
nothing else is important but this vocation. How worthy, how
worthy, what's it worth to you that God sent the gospel to you
and called you by his grace? What's that worth to you? When
he says walk worthy of it, he's saying you walk according to
how valuable this is to you. So it's the lifelong vocation
of every believer to give ourselves to hearing the gospel, supporting
the gospel, and furthering the gospel of Christ. Now he tells
us some things here we're gonna have to do if we're gonna do
this and walk worthy of this vocation. I'd encourage you sometime
to go and read the rest of the book of Ephesians because I'm
just gonna cover some highlights here in chapter four. But all
of this is involved, and when you read the epistles and you
see these things that the Lord's saying do, and he's telling believers
to do, the sum and substance of these things is this, that
you don't draw any attention to you in a negative or any way
because you want all the focus to be on Christ. And number two,
it's so that we're all together and this gospel continues among
us. Now first of all, if we'd walk worthy of this vocation,
then we must give ourselves to keep unity between the brethren. He says there, I beseech you
that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called, with
all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering for bearing one
another in love. Endeavoring to keep the unity
of the spirit in the bond of peace. This is just the fact
of the matter, you and I are still sinners. We're sinners. There's an old man with you,
there's an old man with me, and he is a horrible, wicked sinner. And so because of this, brethren,
we're just gonna have to put up with one another. We're just
gonna have to put up with one another. Now, to do that, we
can't walk around like we're so important that if we get offended,
then it's just the end of the It's just the end of everything
if I'm offended. Lowliness and meekness is to
understand you're just as offensive to everybody else. Just as offensive. I'm just as
offensive. I can't get upset with somebody
offending me because I'm offending somebody. I know that all the
time. And that's just how it is. So
we walk with lowliness and meekness knowing I'm the chief of sinners.
And that's not just something we say. That's not just something
where we copy Paul and try to sound like we're really dedicated. That's a fact, brethren. And
so we're gonna have to forbear one another. We have to suffer
along with one another and forbear one another in love. And the
way to do this is to always remember how long God suffered with you. How long he suffered with me.
all the days of my rebellion, whatever any believer's doing
to me, it's nothing compared to what I did to my God, and
yet he suffered long for me. He forbear with me. So this word
endeavoring means there's gonna be some effort to this. We have
to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit. I tell our brethren
back home, the Lord's given us something very special in the
unity we have, and I tell them, guard that. Don't let anything
disrupt that. And what I'm saying is endeavor
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And here's
why. It's because there's just one
body. We've been made one. The gospel
is the Sin separated us. Scripture says, your sin has
separated you from your God. And our sin separated us. When
we sinned in Adam, we were just separated. We all went our own
way. And the gospel is this, that
God chose one. He chose His Son, His only begotten
Son, and He sent Him forth to reconcile to Him through the
satisfaction of God's justice to reconcile to him all God's
elect that were separated because of our sin. And so Christ came
forth and laid down his life and he reconciled us to God. He brought us back into peace
with God. And then he came to us and gave us a new heart and
brought us personally into peace with God. And into peace with
our brethren. And so by this work, we're brought
to behold that there's one body. That means Christ is the head,
that means you're a member of the body, you're a member of
the body, you're a member of the body, you're a member of
the body, there's just one body. If I do anything to harm a brother
or sister in Christ, would you harm your own body? Would you
just chop off a hand and not think twice about it? That brother's
sister is a hand. That other brother, that other
sister is another couple of members. And you, we're all members of
one body. We're members of one body. And
if we love the body, we're going to want to keep the body together.
There's one body, there's one spirit, even as you're called
in one hope, one body, one spirit, one hope. There's one Lord. There's one faith, there's one
baptism, there's one God and Father of all who's above all
and through all and in you all. Here's what Paul's telling us. Go to Philippians 1 and look
at verse 27. He's saying, only let your conversation, your conduct,
be as it becometh the gospel of Christ, that whether I come
and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs. See that word affairs? Now mark
that word, I'm gonna show you something here in a minute. That
I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit,
with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. Just like today, your one body
came here and all your members was in harmony together to work
together to strive against the sinful part of you that was saying,
I don't wanna go. The rest of your body strove
together against that and brought your body here as one collective
member and you came here today. He said, now let's all strive
together just that way for this gospel. Look over to chapter
two. I'm gonna come back here in a
minute, but I want you to see something here. He says in verse
12, as you've always obeyed, now not as in my presence only,
but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling. See the word salvation? It's
the same word as affairs in that other verse. He's not talking
about anything that has to do with us being brought to glory
and saved. He's talking about Right now,
work out all your affairs amongst one another in the church with
fear and trembling, knowing this, it is God which worketh in you,
both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Now, if you saw
Christ personally sitting right here in this chair today, and
he was sitting here in your midst, how would we treat our brothers
and sisters right here in front of you? That's what he said, he is. And
he's also in that brother and that sister. He's God and father
of all and he's in you all. And Christ said, whatever you
do to this, my brother or my sister, you have done it to me. You have done it to me. So that's
what he's telling us. And when I think about the body
and I see this great sacrifice that Christ gave, and I think
about God the Father, you think about He gave His only begotten
Son. We won't let our children go
when it's something honoring to God. We want to hold on to
them and keep them. No, you can't go nowhere. You can't leave me. He gave His
only begotten Son. And His only begotten Son gave
His life for us. We get so numb to that. He gave His life. Can you imagine? I don't know how to bring this
home to us, but you just think the Son of God came down and
gave His life for sinners like us. And He says to us now, Give yourself. That's what he's saying. Give
yourself in lowliness. Like he came down in lowliness.
Give yourself in lowliness to serve one another. Look back
at Philippians 2. Look at verse 2. Fulfill ye my joy. He's talking
to believers here. Fulfill ye my joy that you be
like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and
of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife
or vain glory. But in lowliness of mind, let
each esteem the other better than themselves. Next time I'm
offended, and I don't think somebody treat me like they ought to,
I need to stop and say, you know what? I'm esteeming myself better
than them. What I need to do is esteem them
better than me. And I won't be offended. Look
at this. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. It may
be that brother and that sister. This is something that they need
that's going to help them. And I don't wanna forbid them
having whatever it is that's gonna help them just because
it don't suit me. Look at this. Let this mind be
in you. And this is what he's, in all
of that, this is what he's saying. Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus. Who being in the form of God,
being in heaven's glory, with God, thinking it not robbery
to be equal with God. This one who is God himself made himself of no reputation. Everything that I've ever done,
I think, since the day I left home and went to college, I've
been doing it for my own reputation. I think so. I think everything
I've ever done. What do we not do for our own
reputation? He made himself absolutely unknown. And took upon him the form of
a servant. That's what a minister is. A
minister is not somebody who walks around in a long robe and
everybody looks at him and ogles him because he's so somebody
high above everybody. A minister is a servant. And he was made in the likeness
of men. And being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself. and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. You know why He did that? He
loved the body. He loved His body. He loved His
elect, His own body. And He laid down His life for
that body. You remember that, those two
women? The one woman, she rolled over during the night and she
killed her baby. And the other lady had a newborn
baby. And she went and she stole that newborn baby and brought
it to her and put it down in her bed. And the next morning,
they woke up and the true mother said, she stole my baby. And
they brought the two women before Solomon. And Solomon said, here's
what we'll do. We'll just take a sword and we'll
cut that baby in half so y'all can each have a piece of the
baby. And the mother, to whom the child did not belong, said,
that's fine with me. And the woman to whom it belongs
said, no, she can have the baby. Why? She loved the body. That's what you'll do if it comes
to splitting the body. You'll say, no, I love the body. You can have your way. Brother Don came down and preached
for us one time when I was in a church and we was having some
trouble. And you know, we was all standing for the glory of
God, all of us, you know. And this is just not right, you
know. He come down there and he said, is this so important
that any one of you would leave your wives for it? Well, no. Why you want to split God's church
over it? So endeavor to keep unity of
the spirit. That's what we're gonna have
to do if we're gonna walk worthy of our vocation. If we don't
have one another, we're not gonna have this gospel. All right,
secondly, every one of us is given grace for this vocation
by Christ our captain. We need to remember this, this
grace that we're given is coming from Christ. It says in verse
seven, unto every one of us is given grace according to the
measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, when he ascended
up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men.
Now this one that ascended, what is it but that he also descended
first into the lowest parts of the earth, and he that descended
is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that
he might feel all things. Now Christ, God the Son, came
down from heaven. He descended from the height
of glory into the lowest parts of the earth for chosen sinners
like us. he came down to the lowest part. First of all, the
lowest part was he was made of a woman. He was formed in the
womb of a virgin. And he came forth as a man in
a lowly, in a manger in a lowly, poor cow stable. And he made
himself the least in that he was despised and rejected of
men as a man. And then this one made himself
to be under the law. This one who is the law giver
made himself to be under the law that he might redeem his
people who are under the law. And then he went down further
in that this one who knew no sin was made sin for us. I don't know what it is to be
made sin, but I do know that when Adam transgressed in the
garden, and Christ didn't ever transgress, he's not a sinner.
But when Adam transgressed in the garden, the way he himself
was made sin was God took his spirit from him. And you know in the Garden of
Gethsemane, our Lord, when he went to the Garden of Gethsemane,
God didn't come and strengthen him. He sent an angel. But he didn't come and help him.
And the Scripture says he sweat great drops of blood. And the
Hebrew writer tells you and me, when you become faint and weary
in your mind, you think about Christ because you have not yet
resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And I'm saying all that because
it has something to do with the fact that God, starting in the
Garden of Gethsemane, had already removed His presence from him
to where he's now suffering the weakness of our flesh in every
regard like we do, and yet he's striving against that, remaining
faithful to God, never being corrupted in his heart, being
holy in his heart, which none of us could have ever done. This
is the amazing thing to me. He was made sin and yet he remained
holy. You read the Psalms and there's
the Psalms with him suffering, bearing the sin of his people
on the cross and yet crying out to God and never looking anywhere
but to the Father. And then, having been made sin
for us, he was made a curse for us. My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? Thou art holy. And I am a worm
and no man. And by this work, he led captivity
captive. You and I, who were the captives
of sin and Satan and death and hell, he led us to be his captives,
his lawful captives, because he satisfied justice. This one,
he did it by finishing the transgression. He did it because he made an
end of sins. He made reconciliation for iniquity. He brought in everlasting
righteousness. He sealed up all the law and
the prophets, and he anointed the holiest of holy. So Satan's
got no ammunition. Satan, all he is is accuser of
the brethren. All the way he kept us in bondage
was through fear of death by making us in our conscience feel
like you're such a sinner. You're nothing but a sinner.
And so you start working and working and working and trying
to do something about your sin. And next thing he says, you're
just so righteous. You're good. And you felt good
about yourself for a little while. And then he comes back and say,
you're just a sinner. And you went right back through
it all. And it's just a constant bondage over and over and over.
But now Christ has taken all the sin away and He makes you
know in the court of your conscience you're without sin. And I say
you're holy and righteous and what He says is all that matters.
And so now Satan's got no ammunition anymore. And he surely can't
accuse us to the Father. There's nothing to accuse us
with. And then Christ arose and He sat down at the right hand
of the Father And now he had all power as God, but when he
arose and sat down at the right hand of the Father, God gave
him all power as the God-man. Put all things under his feet,
all things that are in heaven and all things that are in earth,
all things that are and all things that are to come. So that he's
the head over his body and that body is the fullness of him.
Every one of those members for whom he died, scattered about,
lost, some of them not even born yet, some of them yet to be born,
all those members, they all make up the completion of his body.
And so God handed the reins to him and given him the glory to
say, now you've bought this right. You go fill them all. You fill
all in all your people. And so he's the one It says here,
who feels all in all. And to every one of us is given
grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. He feels the church pew. He feels
the pulpit. He feels the notebook with the
notes that need to be preached. He feels the hearts of his people
with the spirit that gives life. He feels us when we need to be
turned one way or the other. He fills us with the gifts of
His grace in measure, just according as He will. He doesn't give you
all fullness of a gift, because then you wouldn't need your brothers
and sisters. But He's given this one over here a measure, and
this one over here a measure, and this one over here a measure,
and this one over here a measure, so that you can't say, I don't
need that one. He's got a measure I don't have,
and I need that measure. So we can't boast about anything
in this thing of walking worthy of our vocation because what
do you have that you didn't receive? Everything is his guilt, so we
can't boast. Now thirdly, we're not merely
called to faith in Christ and gifted to live to ourselves. That's not why we're called.
We're called to serve Christ and his people in the furtherance
of the gospel. Now I agree with preachers, our
brethren who preach against these the world is preaching about
service, service, service, service, service. I'm against that kind
of service too, but I'm not against this kind of service. This is
God's servant right here, what he makes. Now look at verse 11.
He gave some apostles and he gave some prophets and some evangelists
and some pastors and some teachers. He gave this to serve Christ
and his people in the furtherance of the gospel. But now listen,
just cause you're not a preacher don't mean he hadn't called you
to serve in the furtherance of this gospel just like he's called
his preacher. We're all called into this body
to serve him in the furtherance of this gospel. Our purpose in
life, our lifelong vocation wherewith we ourselves were called is this,
verse 12. We called for the perfecting
of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying
of the body of Christ, verse 14. that we henceforth be no
more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every
wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness
whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love,
speaking the gospel in love, that we may grow up into him
in all things, which is his head, even Christ. Somebody will say,
well, I'm not a preacher. Did Christ really call me and
gift me to help preach the gospel? All right, let's just think about
it. What if nobody but the preacher showed up here today? Who we
gonna preach to? And not only that, suppose everybody
said, well, I won't be missed today, I won't show up. So you
didn't show up and some young people showed up, a few brothers
showed up, but they were just like me and Mike and Walter and
Joe and maybe two or three others. I would be cast down in my heart
that nobody else showed up. The scripture says that you actually
exhort one another by not forsaking the assembling of yourselves
together, just by your presence there. You're exhorting brethren
and ministering to brethren just by being there, by your presence. Like Brother Mike said, if you
can't do anything else, just stay with the stuff. I mean, it's something that everybody
in his body can do. We bought a building and we remodeled
this building from the, only thing we didn't change was the
shingles. And we washed them, but we did from the parking lot,
everything in this building, we remodeled it. The Lord had
provided somebody to do every work that needed to be done.
The only thing we hired out was laying the asphalt, that was
it. But we had somebody in the church to do everything we needed
to do. Even the last week, when we got
ready to have our first conference in that building, the air conditioner
went out and Lord had provided a man that was an HVAC man, he
replaced the air conditioner that day the conference was supposed
to start. Everything we needed was provided. And I'm telling
you, the Lord will provide in this service of promoting the
gospel and furthering this gospel in this world. He will provide.
I tell young believers, you find you a church where there's a
pastor that you can hear, you and your wife can hear, and you
and your wife will be blessed by the message, and you get there
and you sit under that pastor and you give yourself wholeheartedly
to the work. Give yourself to it. That's our
vocation. That's our life work in this
earth. Everything else, our jobs, our gifts, our talents, whatever
the Lord has given us is to be used to that end. And Christ won't allow anything
or anybody to vie for our heart's affection in this thing. He said,
any man come to me and hate not his father, mother, wife, children,
brethren, sister, yea, his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whosoever does not bear his cross,
who is not willing to suffer for my name's sake and come after
me, he can't be my disciple. There's a young girl down in
North Carolina. It's about to come up and move. She just accepted
a job in Philly, and she's fixing to move and join us at our congregation
in New Jersey. Moving from North Carolina to
New Jersey. And her father is as happy as
I've ever seen a man be. I mean, he is just tickled as
he can be that she's moving. You think she's moving eight
or nine hours away. She's probably gonna end up getting
married and raise her family there. And gonna raise grandkids
that far away. He's as happy as he can be. You
know why? She's going to sit under the
gospel of Christ. He said, I don't care about anything
else. That's all that matters to me. It's a younger congregation,
she'll fit right in there and she can put down some roots and
be there the rest of her days if that's what the Lord's will
is. You see what I'm saying? I'm saying that the Lord will
provide and don't make any mistake now, though he's gonna use his
preachers to preach and his people to further this gospel, it's
Christ who's gonna fitly frame his people together and bless
the word and minister to the hearts of his people. He says
there in verse 16, it's from Christ, from whom the whole body
is fitly joined together. And it's compacted by that which
every joint supplies. That every joint is all the different
members. But watch, but it's according
to Christ effectually working in the measure of every one of
those members. And he's making increase of the
body unto the edifying of itself in love. All the glory goes to
Christ for it. He's effectually working. He's
the one that's fitly framing it together. He's the one that's
using each member to increase the body. He's doing that. Over
10 years ago, Melinda and I moved, the Lord moved Melinda and I
and our children from Franklin, Tennessee to New Jersey. And our bills increased threefold. and my income decreased threefold. Now you just don't do that and
think that's good business sense. You gonna go someplace where
your bills increase threefold and your income decreases threefold?
But because Christ, and there wasn't but three families there.
Well, there was some more, but in my mind, there wasn't but
three there, and those three stayed there. But the Lord added
to that work and the Lord used every member to provide for every
other member, me included, and we hadn't missed a beat. We have
not missed a beat. Everything's been provided that
we've needed. That don't happen in any other
kind of position. You go someplace and your bill's
increased three times and your income decreases three times
and you're not gonna be successful usually. But the Lord is not,
this thing's not a business. And the Lord's not working things
the way men work things in the church. He's doing the work.
And he makes you constantly aware that he's doing the work. We
had somebody leave one time who was a very wealthy person. And
I think our congregation was very young at the time. And I
think our congregation thought, oh boy, we're fixing to be in
trouble. And the Lord worked it so that he had added some
and at that time and everything to where when this person left,
The financial statement never changed when I owed it. Not when
I owed it. It's his work. It's his work. It's not our work. And so now,
if he's gonna have us and he's gonna have his whole church in
this vocation, he's gonna do this until the last elect redeemed
child is called. He says there in verse 13, till
we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure, the stature,
the fullness of Christ. That basically means until every
single member that God chose and Christ redeemed is called
into the body and the body's complete. All right, now, fourthly,
knowing this is our calling, We're not to live the rest of
our days to the lust of our flesh like the rest of this world is.
He says there, and I won't read all this, but in verse 17, I
therefore testify in the Lord that you henceforth walk not
as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, with a
darkened understanding. And he's saying here, don't go
on now living just to consume it upon our lust. Our life no
more is about just pleasure and about building up our estate
and about seeing how much we can can and all that. It's about
Christ. It's about His people. And so
He tells us here, put off that old man and put on the new man.
And look down at the very last here. He says, be kind one to
another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Everything God's done and everything
He's doing and shall do is for Christ's sake. Everything. Everything was created for Him
that in all things He might have the preeminence. Whether we live,
whether we die, we are the Lord's. And we're going to glorify Him
one way or the other. Everything is for Him. And so where He's
created this new man in righteousness and true holiness, He's gonna
make His child put off that old man. He's gonna make us do it
for Christ's sake. We're not gonna walk as other
Gentiles walk because of Christ's sake. We're gonna hear Christ,
to be taught of Christ, and we're gonna put away lying, and we're
gonna start preaching the truth of the gospel to everybody that'll
listen for Christ's sake. We're gonna be angry when we
hear, he says, be ye angry. We're gonna be angry when we
hear lies told on our Redeemer. But we're not gonna be sinful
about it. We're gonna go to Christ and
cast it all into his hand. That's what that text says, from
where he quotes that from. Go to him and cast it all into
his hand. We're not gonna steal anymore.
We're gonna work and provide so we'll have money to be able
to support the gospel and send the gospel forth for Christ's
sake. And all of these things, brethren, let me just, I'm gonna
get down here and I'm gonna end with this. We put away anger
and evil speaking, and we're kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven
you. The one great reason we have
forgiveness of our sin, that God forgives us, is for Christ's
sake. And he says to us, now, for Christ's sake, forgive one
another. Think how awful it would be everything
God's forgiven me, like that parable our Lord told, and so
much more. And then here comes somebody
and they do something that's so much less, and I won't forgive
him? After God's forgiven me so much,
he's forgiven me, and I'm not gonna forgive a brother for something
that didn't amount to anything comparable to that. Christ is the, he's fulfilled
the law for us, he's fulfilled all righteousness for us, and
he did this all in love for us. And you look to Christ, you see
the righteous fulfillment of the law. The fulfillment of the
law is love. And there he is loving God and
his people as himself so much, he's willing to be forsaken by
both to bring us together. That's the love of the law. That's
the righteousness of the law. And he says, if he so loved us,
we ought to love one another. Aren't we? That's how. just like
he loved us. Let me end with this. I want
to end with this. I want to give you the three
doors. You've heard this probably. This brother Henry wrote this
or preached this in 1982. I just want to give you these
three doors. He said, let every word that
we speak pass through these three doors. First of all, the first
door is this. Is it true? Yes. We certainly
ought not tell things that are not true. That's the first question
to ask. Is it true? Secondly, is it necessary that
I tell it? Just because it's true don't
mean it's necessary that I tell it. And thirdly, is it kind? And he said, if we pass our words
through those three doors, it's very, very possible we'll not
offend, hurt, wound, and be unkind in our conversation to anybody.
That's true. You think about it. Is it true? Is it necessary and is it kind? That would eliminate a lot of
our conversation. Thank you all for everything.
I really do. I appreciate it so much. I'm thankful for you,
pray for you, and I pray God be with you. Thank you.