Let me begin by reminding us
that those of you who have been with us, well, most of all of
you have been with us for some time. You know that there are
several things that I beat, several things that I labor over, several
things that I continually bring before us as a congregation.
And one of those is, somebody say it, what I always say that
we should be doing. We should be praying. We should be in the Word. And
we should be together doing those things. Now there's a lot of
other things to talk about and learn and grow into as a local
church, but friends, without those three things together,
there is absolute worthlessness. There's absolute powerlessness. And so as I'm preaching through
2 Thessalonians, Paul is about to deal with some, as we saw
last week, some doctrinal problems that the church had been introduced
to. Now in our day, it seems to be more than not that there
is constantly a polemic, there's constantly a negative aspect
of someone promoting that which is false in an attempt to shine
light upon it than there is in disproportionate way than there
is actually truth being taught. You don't believe me? Just go
online. Look up the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find a
bajillion places that teach you what is not the gospel, but few
places that teach you what is the gospel. People spend their
entire lives as a ministry, quote, quote, quote, as a ministry,
and they think that their whole job in defending the Christian
faith is to continually be the whistleblower for heresies, and
they go around like witch hunters, and they find everything that
they could possibly find that's wrong, and their lives are consumed
with exposing the error. Now, let me caveat and just let
you understand, let me give you a caveat, that I am very much
for exposing error. The Bible commands that we expose
error. I'm very much for calling out that which is wicked. I'm
very much for saying, okay, that's incorrect. But friends, why do
we go looking for it? Therein lies the problem. And
because this is such a common place in our culture, because
we live in a day and age where information is able to be disseminated
in a second, what I just said, if you were live tweeting, blogging,
streaming, could be in China this very moment, live, with
like a less than a half a second delay. And so there's no possible
way to avoid from seeing error. But friends, it seems to be that
most of the error that is being disseminated in the world today
as it relates to the local church is being done so in the name
of defending against such things. I've never, ever met anyone.
Who by definition in their own mouth said they were a Pelagian.
Never met one. What's a Pelagian? It's not a
fruit. Well, it could be. Pelagius was
a heretic in ancient history, if you will, church history,
not ancient. And he believed that man was inherently good
at all, the core of all things. That's a very, very easy, but
yet I can find brothers and sisters in within reach of me. Not in
this room, but I mean within reach of me like, yeah, who is
it? Who hold to that? But yet, they don't know anything about
the history of the doctrine. I had a brother from Oakland
ask me online just this week, you know, where did people come
up with the caricature of the white Jesus or the white man's
Jesus? And of course, everybody in Oakland
was chiming in and I'm the only guy out in the East Coast that
chimed in on it, and I said, well, he asked me directly, I
said, well, here's the deal, brother, it happened in the garden. When Satan deceived Eve and Adam
and Eve fell, he created a caricature of God that was not authentic.
Did God really say? And so when we think about all
the untruth, all of the falsehoods, all of the heresies that exist
in the world today, we see that all of them have one common root.
What are they? Satan, who teaches through the
word of God. Satan uses the word of God. He
uses people who profess to be Christians. He uses people who
assemble in likeness of the church. And he continues to purvey heretical
teaching continually through the mouths of men. And yet, nothing has changed
from the garden to date, and all the way through the first
century, the apostles dealt with this very same stuff. They dealt
with the same issues that we deal with today, the same doctrines,
the same New Age ideals, the same philosophies, the same psychologists,
the same atheists, the same agnostics. They dealt with them every second
of every day of their lives, but they did not make their ministry
a life of going and sending refutation continually in the eyes of the
public about what was not right. What their ministry was is to
teach the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and to proclaim
and herald the purpose of God sending the Son, who is the God
of heaven, who created the world, and that through Jesus Christ
alone He would save Himself a people. And when they deal with false
teaching, they dealt so when it invaded the local assembly.
When the false teaching struck its ugly head amongst the midst
of God's people, then the apostles dealt with it. So in like manner,
we should also deal with it. And so this morning I'm going
to deal with some false teaching that I believe has pervaded or
invaded Grace Truth Church. You say, oh no, what is it? I
think it's an improper understanding of the point of the church to
begin with. It's not like Satanism. It's
not like Mormonism. It's not Pelagianism. It's not
Arminianism. The poor Armenians, not Armenians,
there's a difference. The E and the I make a big difference.
What are those? Don't worry about it. The question
is, who is Jesus Christ? And who is the church of Jesus
Christ, and why does it matter? See, I believe that one of the
greatest heresies that have happened in our day is the unspoken heresy
of false ecclesiology. That means who the church is,
the study of the church, and how the church should operate.
And I think that all of us in the room today have bought it.
We bought it to some degree, even though I preach it every
week, even though we show, why are we here to assemble together
to go through the letter to the Thessalonians? Because the letter to the Thessalonians
was written by Paul with absolute divine authority, given to those
people who are Christians, who are in Christ in the local church
of Thessalonica, so that their joy would be full, so that they
would stand in truth, so that they would persevere in persecution,
and so that they would give glory to Jesus Christ in everything
that they do, and so that they would be, in the end, worthy
of the kingdom of God, by the grace of God, by the power of
God, period, alone. So we gather together each Lord's
Day, not so that I can teach you all that cool history, not
so that I can continue to fill our brains with great academic
doctrinal theologies. We learn this stuff, church,
so that we can live it. We learn these things so that
we can respond to them. We learn what Scripture teaches
so that we can actually reveal the glory and the manifold wisdom
of God from our lives individually and then collectively as a whole.
That's what we do. But there's an error in thinking.
I went through, was it a Tuesday night? It might have been a Tuesday
night. I don't remember if it was a Sunday morning. Teaching just runs together.
Sometimes you're like, when did I teach that? Oh, 16 years ago,
wow. I didn't know I could read then. But the point is, I went
through somewhere and talked about the church. I think it
was a four or five, it was a Tuesday night. A four or five week series
on what the church is, what it should be, what it should be
doing. I remember that, for those of you who come in midweek. Was
that a Tuesday? That was a Tuesday. And it was early in the year.
It was right after our Doctrine of God study. before we got into
the Holy Spirit, and then before we got into Revelation. And then
we did like umpteen weeks of Q&A. And so some of this stuff, some
of you have already heard. All of this stuff, all of you
have already heard, but by way of reminder, beloved, I want
you not to fall prey to the idea that being a Christian and going
to church exists in the way our culture thinks it exists. Now,
This afternoon at four o'clock, the Martin Luther King Observance
Committee, because the Martin Luther King holiday is in January, and
a year ago I was asked to bring a message of unity that I shared
in a small group of people in Mrs. Rogers Restaurant a year
ago, to bring that to a public place. So this Sunday, today,
so this afternoon at four o'clock, right down here at Healing Clinic
Temple Ministries, is that the right name? I'm going to be down
there, and the service is two hours long, and I'm going to
preach for an hour. And I'm going to preach through the second
chapter of Ephesians in that hour, as it emphasizes that there
are only two peoples in the world, and there are only two groups
in the world, and there is a unity with each of them. There's a
unity of the people who are wicked and lost and objects of destruction,
and by nature are objects of wrath, and then there are those
who are in Jesus Christ in this period. But yet we see denominationalism
division, we see all sorts, and you're gonna have those things.
We see in Acts chapter 20, I believe it is, that sometimes there's
reasons for stark disobedience in mission and sometimes in efforts
and sometimes in things like that, but never in truth. And
so for those of us who are in Christ, we hold to a standard
of truth that we believe are essential. And if we don't hold
to those things, friends, we aren't in unity. We're not unified. I mean, we may be able to say,
okay, we don't use real wine and we don't use unleavened bread
in the Lord's table. And some people argue, well,
then you're not doing it right. Well, that's fine. I get Mountain
Dew and French fries if you don't like it. Not that I would do
that, but what does it matter? It doesn't matter. But if you're
part of a fellowship that the conscious bears witness that
it must be the fruit of the vine with, I guess, I don't know what
kind of, I don't know, I guess they got that grape juice from
carrots. I don't know where they got that from. It must not be fruit
of the vine. But either way, that's fine, but it's not a point
of division. We can practice those things
in our local assembly. Baptism, we dunk them, do we sprinkle
them, do we spray them, do we spit on them, do we hose them
down, do we dunk them forwards or backwards, or do we roll them
in a ditch? What do we do? Well, we have our convictions
on how, the means, and mode of baptism. But the purpose of it,
we know what it stands for. We know that the person in whom
we're baptized is Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, not water.
not circumcision with hands, but circumcision with the heart.
So we can disagree on those things while still being in unity, even
though we may strongly go, well, I don't really, we can even disagree
on the idea of how long a pastor should preach or how many prayers
there should be in the service or how much music there should
be. Or, or should we sing that song six times really? Or should
we sing all six verses of amazing grace or just the first and what
last? Or if you're really succinct,
1st and 2nd, and then 1st and 3rd, except on the 5th Sunday,
you sing all of them. I mean, you know. And people
were like, go to their graves on these things. We do it right
because we do it. Listen, that's not what I'm talking
about here. What I'm talking about here is why do you come every Sunday?
And do you realize, you hear me say this a thousand times
over, the church is not a place, never has been, never will be.
It is the gathered people of God. Never in the scripture do you
see there's the church walking by itself down the street. Never
happened. The word doesn't mean by itself. It's all the word
means assembled. The word church means the assembled.
So the church doesn't exist until we're together. The church may
exist in, in, in, I mean, in reality, but it's not the church
until we are what together. How many does it take two or
more? Two or more gather together, there we are in his name. However,
we can't say me and myself and I and my friend next door having
church or doing church or being obedient to the New Testament. Because you can't live out your
life with someone else by yourself and say that you're fulfilling
all that which Paul and the apostles teach us. So I want to go through
that. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
12. This is primarily focused, if you look at the headers and
all that kind of stuff, the spiritual gifts of the church because the
Corinthian people were abusing the gifts and they were confining
the gifts to to a mandate, if you will. They were saying everybody
had to have certain gifts or they weren't believers. Paul
says that's apostasy. I mean, that's heresy. You can't
say that. God gives gifts as he wishes. You can't desire them.
You can't pray for them. You have to be given the gifts
that God gives you, and it is only for the mutual benefit of
the church and for the up-building and the edification of the church.
unto the glory of Jesus Christ. That's the context in which Paul
is saying there. And this is the precursor argument
to chapter 13, which is, here's the greatest gift and the one
that everybody must have, and if you don't have this one, you're
going to hell because you're not filled with the Spirit of
God, and that is love. So, that's a whole other sermon.
But I want you to look there at verse 12. 1 Corinthians 12,
12. For, because we are all of one
spirit, we're all given gifts, we've all been put together to
the workings that the Lord has given us for the sense as He
wills, verse 11, verse 12, for just as the body is one and has
many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are
one body. So it is with Now let's just
stop. That's all I'm going to preach
today. So it is with Christ. Now what is here that is not
very obvious? I would say none of it. Nobody
in the sound of my voice, even in some of the craziest ideas
of what I would call liturgy and certain church practices
that I can think of, some good brothers in the Lord that would
do some crazy stuff that I wouldn't sit comfortably under. I'm talking
about just in practice. None of them that I can think
of would say that they disagree with this. I've never met a professing
Christian who didn't believe that the body of Christ is the
church. And I've never met a professing Christian that did not believe
that the body of Christ as the church comprised of all living
believers that hold to the right faith of many denominations.
I'm not talking about many faiths, but friends, We're not saved
because we're Baptists. And we're not saved if we're
Methodists, if we're not saved if we're Presbyterian or whatever. We're saved because we believe
in Jesus Christ alone, in Him alone. And I will tell you that
I've even found some, what I would call apostate so-called groups
of people, that I've found great kinship in the true gospel of
Jesus. and wonder, how do you sit in
this kind of stuff and practice these types of things? And you
know, what I've learned is that sometimes, as you'll see here,
sometimes people just take a long time to grow up and see it. This one body begs a question in my mind. Are
you part of the body of Christ? Now, I don't buy this idea that
is very popular with a lot of young people today. And you know
what's funny? I remember hearing that sometimes when I was younger,
hearing old guys say, young people today, you know what's the problem
with young people today? And no, I just said it. What does that
make me? I don't know. Halfway in between,
I guess. But there is a grand position
that a lot of people are taking today where the local church
is not necessary. We don't need to be fellowshipping
with people. I am the church by myself. I'm
part of the united, universal, absolute Catholic church. And
that means universal, by the way. I'm not talking about Roman.
And therefore, I don't need the local assembly. I can listen
to this guy on TV, well not TV, but on YouTube. I don't know
of any good truth speakers on television. But I mean, I can
listen to this guy on TV, or I can listen to this guy on the
radio, or I can listen to this guy on YouTube, and I can get just
enough. I can do fine in my living room. But how are you calling
yourself the church if you're not gathered with anybody else? And so I ask the question, are
you in unity with the body of Christ or are you a cause of
division? Are we? Are we a cause of division?
We know that Paul has cleared that those who are divisive,
we ought to have nothing more to do with them after we've warned
them. We see that's in Titus, I believe. Warn him once, warn him twice,
have nothing else to do with it. What is division? Division
is caused by people who stir stuff in the church, who gossip,
who sin, who cause problems, who are unrepentant, and who
practice an unbiblical reality of the gospel. What does it look like? I mean,
are we living as the church, beloved? Or do we do our church
thing Sunday and then we do our own thing Monday through Saturday
and then we do our church thing again on Sunday? You see, that's
the whole of our world. That's the whole of our world.
Why are so many congregations canceling church next week service? Because it's a day for family.
What family do you want to be with? Your eternal family? Or your pagan family? to keep my pagan family in my
pocket. I mean, think about it for a
second. Since when did a tradition of man usurp the authority and
the desire of the Holy Spirit in our lives? Since when did gathering as the
saints become relegated to some entertainment on stage? I mean, this season wears me
out anyway because I've got to go here and go there and go here
and go there and there's constantly stuff. And for heaven's sake,
if people would stop being born in December so we didn't have
any more birthdays, it would make it a lot easier. But I remember the days when
I was in mega churches. Large, thousands and thousands
of people. We'd have to add services during
the Christmas season because so many people would come that
the state police would tell us if we didn't stop blocking the
freeways, we would get tickets. I mean, you know, that kind of
stuff. Okay, we're going to add seven services this week. And
you think, wow, people are that hungry to come hear the preaching
of God's Word and to hear the Gospel and to stand and pray
together and to worship God in song. No, they want to see their
children sing. and dance. I love seeing my children
sing and dance. But don't put it in place of
worship. I could watch them sing and dance
anywhere. It's like buying tickets to a
movie that you've been waiting on for a year. It's not even
like it, but here's an example. And you show up and they give
you a picture of the box. Enjoy. It's even worse than that. You buy a ticket to... Y'all
went and heard the symphony last night, didn't you? One of my
favorite things to do. Opera, I love opera. I love to watch
ballet. Live, not on TV. I like it live. I like to feel
it. I like to listen to it with my eyes closed. Feel it. You can feel cellos when you're
there. It's good stuff. It's like going
and getting your ticket, putting your tux on, and walking in,
and getting in all that. You know, you get your seat passed,
you get your usher with his little light on, and you hear the orchestra
tuning, and chills run up your spine, like, oh my gosh, I'm
in the sweet seats. You're sitting there, and you just can't wait,
and they open the thing, and there's an iPod with a boom box, and
they're playing it on a speaker. Why would I do that? or going
to an athletic event or a conference, like a conference I went to one
time, and I paid like 500 bucks with travel and food and everything
to go, and the seats were so bad, I was looking at a guy that
I could step on. I mean, he was like this. And
he would talk, and then you'd hear it. And so they put up these big
screens the size of the stage so we could see. I'm like, well,
I'm gonna watch this at home. It was live streamed for free.
It's a disappointment. Why do we come to church? As
the church, why do we gather? Why do we come to gather the
church? Why do we come to church together?
And replace that which is glorious with that which is stupid. And it's not just holidays. It's
not just traditions. Oh, you're indicted. You're sounding
polemic. No, I'm not. I'm not trying to be. I'm trying
to help us see that this is what we do because it is the foundation
of our love. The affection of our hearts is
bound up with the gathering of the saints each week. Are we engaged as the church? Are we worthy as the church?
Here's a question. Are we useful? for the church. In this text,
it's very simple. For as the body is one and has
many members and all the members of that body being many are one
body, so also is Christ. You might say, well, what's the
big deal? Why is it so important we understand proper churchmanship? Because that which we do is a
display of who Christ is and what Christ has done. You see, Everything that the
gathered of God do in the name of the gathering is a reflection
of who God is at the core of His being, at the essence of
His glory, at the height of His majesty, at the pinnacle of His
absolute ineffable majesty. This is what reflects the nature
of God to the world and to each other. And we wonder why so many
people are so powerless when it comes to their faith and living
their lives because we don't do what's necessary and we're
not accountable to one another. collectively to be that which
we've been called and decreed to be. And remember, church. These commands that are found
in this text and all of scripture, these are not things that we
are able to muster outside the power of the spirit of God, but
because God has decreed it, it will take place in us. Do you hear that? Because God
has decreed His church to be a certain image. Ergo, the church
is that image. We will be that type of people. I'll be honest with you, if everyone
who professed Christ, y'all listen to this, if everyone who professed
Christ assembled together and prayed together and protected
each other in life, The world would be upside down on its head
in awe at the majesty and the manifold wisdom of God. Ephesians 3.10. The purpose of the church is
to display the manifold wisdom of God to the powers and the
principalities of the heavenly places. You remember when I preached
that? It was a long time ago for us. 2013 probably. One of the great points of that
is that the devil and his demons, the demonic angels, know that
Christ is God because the church exists. Because the powers of darkness
that continually pass around this world and look and see what
they can do, they do so by the will and the command and the
authority and the privilege and the permission of God. And the
reason that Satan never even contemplated Job is because Job's
life displayed the goodness and the righteousness of Jesus Christ
and the devil knew that he was not movable. Church, why are
we so movable? Well, I ain't got there yet.
Has God got there yet? Because I believe that the church
as a whole, not Grace Truth Church. Why are you preaching this? Because
I want to warn us before we get there. I want to warn us before we get
there. And beloved, we know it. And by all means, I believe we
live it by the grace of God. But the minute we think we've
got it, we don't. And there are millions of people
in our lives collectively who don't have it, and we need to
start making corrections in them. We need to start saying, this
is why you are not able. This is why you are desperate.
This is why you are hopeless. This is why you are lost. We are to be one in Christ because
the body is one. So therefore the Christians who
comprise the body are to be one. Not just one in theory, not just
one in theology, not just one in understanding of doctrine,
but one as a people. We are to be unified. We ought
to be. won in Christ Jesus. Not because
of our resolve, not because of our efforts, not because of our
discipline, though those things are good and necessary. Friends,
it is not because of that that we are won. We are won because
the same Spirit abideth in all of us. I can't say abides, can
I? Abideth. I'll just preach and
speak in King James language there. We are to be one in Christ,
not only because the Spirit of God abides in us, but also because
God has decreed that we are one. Jesus even says that in his prayers.
Father, they are in me, and I am in you, and you are in me, and
you see the tangle. We are one in Christ Jesus. Paul
even dealt with that in this early part of the second letter
to the Thessalonians. We are one in Christ. We are
in Him, and He is in us. Church, this is not an effort
that we have to continually deal with alone in a cave somewhere
until we get mature. We live out our unity together. How does that work? Because Christ
has secured it. You hear that? For the body is
one. Why is it that Paul doesn't just
get these Corinthians, this big treatise on the unity of the
faith? Because they are filled with the Spirit of God. They
have no need for the treatise. They have no need for that. Friends,
we don't need grand understanding of all this doctrinal argumentation. in order to understand that we're
unified in the Lord Jesus, do we? Now is it, can we study it
that way? Absolutely. Is it wrong? No,
but we don't need it in order to understand the basics of it.
Children understand the basics of the gospel and the unity that
comes in the faith. Do we? God has decreed it, the
Spirit is within us, and Christ has secured it. Christ has secured
it because of our faith, the gift of God that's given to us
through Jesus Christ, the sealing of the Holy Spirit. Christ has
secured it in our lives that we live not by sight, but by
what? Faith? Christ has secured it
in our unity that we have a love for one another, which proves
what? That we are in Christ. The world
will know that you are my disciples because you have love for one
another. And we know that love is not a feeling, but love is
a covenant. Love is a commitment. Love is
an empowering that goes against feeling. Love is an action that
goes against emotion. Love is that which is done purposefully
and fully and always consistently In spite of how we feel, or how
tired we are, or how sick we may be, or how sick of someone
we might be, we love them anyway because God has secured it through
Jesus Christ. His heart is our heart, His mind
is our mind, and we are unified in love for each other. God has
secured it through Jesus Christ in our obedience. If you love
me, Christ says, you will what? Bake me a cake? Put me up a tree?
Sing happy birthday? Tap dance? You will what? Obey my commandments. Reminded
my children of that this morning. Then I exaggerated the reality
of my feelings toward it a little bit. The only way you can show
me that you love me is to obey what I ask you to do. That's
true. And then I said, and every time
you disobey me, I go in my office and I cry. After my knuckles are not
white. But it does hurt for someone
to say, I love you, and then not obey. But the children, and
just as we are patient, we know that they will grow into maturity
and obedience, so shall we grow into maturity and obedience with
God the Father. but not caring, and not growing, and not moving,
but being stagnant in a stationary position of continued unbelief
and continued disobedience, what does that say about us? I hate to make it cliche, but
I've said this years ago, and it works. It's not that we...
Well, it's the difference between snuggling with our sin and struggling
against our sin. We don't just embrace it, oh,
my little sin, it's mine. No, we push it away, we fight
it, we choke it, we punch it, we kick it, we throw it away.
We put to death our flesh by trusting in Jesus Christ, by
keeping our eyes on Him and His Word and praying sometimes, Oh
God, God help me! There's no other prayer to be
prayed. Christ is secured in our obedience.
Christ is secured in our investment of our lives. Where are we putting
our time? Where are we putting our thoughts?
Where are we putting our treasure? Where are we putting our hope? Friends,
are we investing in the lives of the local church? Are we investing
in each other? Are we investing who we are? Or do we live to
get out of church so that we can go do that which we'd rather
invest in? You see that? That does not work for a believer. If our eyes are constantly on
the future of our livelihood, something's wrong. Two masters
have we, said Yoda. What is wrong with me? I've been
very, I don't know. I've just had a little humor
streak in me the last eight days. How about our fruitfulness? Christ
has secured our fruitfulness, has he not? The fruit of the
Spirit, Galatians chapter 5, verse 22. These are the fruits
of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, rather. Love, patience,
kindness, endurance, all these things. What is the fruit of
our lives? As a church, as individuals within
the church, what is the fruit of Christ in us? Do we see it?
Friends, Christ has secured it. And when we look at our lives
and our flesh is raging and moving and going against everything
that we know is right and holy and pure, what's happened is.
I believe there could be other things, but I don't want to give
every scenario, I just want to possibly focus on this one with
an assumption that all of us are truly in Christ. but seem
to continually be trapped in some of these things. I believe
it's because we are self-reliant, which I believe is unbelief in
that moment. It's not a rejection of the gospel,
but friends, faith is exercising belief. Exercising, applying,
working, pushing, pressing, striving, running, pleading. Faith is active,
it's not passive. It's not possible to be passive.
Yeah, I know these sodas are going to give me cancer. You
do not, sir. I know smoking is going to kill
me. No, you do not, sir. You do not believe that. I know if I eat the way I do
or if I don't get some exercise, if I don't take care of this,
if I don't do that. No, we don't. When we say those things in the
midst of continuation, that is not belief. That is not faith.
When we say we are in Christ Jesus and we know to do right,
what does James say about that? To him who knows to do right
and does not, this is a huge mistake that needs to be corrected.
To him this is, you know, just an opportunity for the grace
of God to abound. Stay in it. No, to him this is sin. For anything that does not proceed
from faith is sin. Friends, when we work in our
own lives to try to become fruitful, patient, loving, enduring, We're
sinning, even in the efforts. Have you ever thought about that?
It's not by faith. Christ alone is my righteousness. Christ alone is the transforming.
Paul said it clearly, and we just don't get it because we
don't practice it enough. I, it is not I who live, but
Christ who lives where? Next door? No, within me. Therefore, I live this life by
faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. For the body is one and has many
members. I am part of the unity of the
body of Christ. I am a picture of the reflection
of the work and the satisfaction and the fullness of what God
has done in the good news of Jesus Christ. There go, I must
be in Christ alone and fully that Christ works in me, that
Christ helps me love my church, that Christ helps me pray for
my church, that Christ helps me live with my church, that
Christ helps me give to my church, that Christ helps me sacrifice
for my church, that Christ helps me minister to my church, to
teach my church, to rebuke my church and then also to receive
all of those things as we give and do and live. Then we also
receive those very things, don't we not? Do we not? Friends, one of the greatest indictments against the Church
of Jesus Christ in this country is that we have dispersed koinonia,
all things together. We translate that word in the
English fellowship. And it says all things common. That's what
it means. We have translated that in the context of ministry to
the saints as let's develop something that we could plug someone into
so that they might get what they need. Assimilation into programming
and projects have crippled the body of Christ. Don't believe
me? Well, you know, I'm having trouble. Well, let me give you this book
on trouble. I'm having headaches. Let me give you this book on
headaches. My children just don't obey. Let me give you this book
on how to teach your children. Now, I read a lot. A lot. And when my time is managed well
and I don't have everything else to do, I like to read a book
or two a week. But you know what would be crazy?
What if I came here and taught you out of Mark Devers, what
is a healthy church member? All right, turn to chapter 6.
And look, a healthy church member is glad to be in church. Mark
says, Mark says, Mark says, Jonathan Lehman says, Jonathan Lehman,
not Jonathan Lehman. How about what Spurgeon says?
I am going to give you some, I am going to give you a quote today
by a dead man. But why do we do that when we've
got the Word of God and we've got each other? You know what's better
than reading a book or putting a class on how to manage anger?
Do like one young brother did earlier this week and sent me
an email and said, hey, I've got some anger issues. And I
remember a testimony you told some while back about how your
anger used to rule you. You think you could talk with
me? 30 minutes on the phone. Done. Now it's up to his local
church to continue to hold him accountable in that. But you
know what? Sometimes local churches don't
know each other enough to even know each other's last names,
much less what we're struggling with. And do you know that when
we withhold that information from the assembly, from the local
church, from our brothers and sisters, we're actually depriving
them and robbing them of the gift that God has given them
to minister us in that way. Robbing. But we've bought into
the lie that the devil says, oh, no, no, no, keep your business
to yourself. I'm not saying we should have a mourner's bench
up here and say, yeah, my name's John and I've sinned like this
this week. Take out a fad. But I am saying, hey, if your
name's John and you got sin that's choking the life out of you and
your joy is nowhere to be found, you better call a brother fast.
And he'll put a holy foot upside your head and a holy shoulder
for you to cry on at the same time, and we will love each other
into glory. And I may hold your head this
day, and you may hold mine tomorrow. We're to be one in Christ, why?
Because that's just the way God's decreed it. We are part of the body of Christ
and all living members consist of the part of the body of Christ
as a whole, but yet we're still segmented into the local assembly. Who are those who are truly in
the church? You ever ask yourself that question? Is it those that
are actual covenant members? No. Because believe it or not,
for those of you who have yet to really covenant on paper,
you're still a member of the church because you're here. It just makes sense that you
understand what we believe and go forward together and we're
a family. The worst thing that could ever happen to a local
church is people pop in for a couple of weeks and pop out, pop in
for a couple of weeks and pop out, pop in for... because that's
sin. And when we see people come in and pop out and we don't see
them again, we need to have a concern for them. Maybe we don't know
them. Where are they? Are they being fulfilled? Are
they being obedient to the command of Christ? Have they found a
local body of believers to be a part of? Who is the church? Well, from the scripture we see
anyone was a part of the church visible if they publicly professed
Jesus Christ as Lord. And we saw that through profession,
we saw that through baptism, we saw that as we saw in Acts
where people inquired, how can I be a part of your group? What
must we do to be a part of the church? So we see this membership
activity. We see the people are part of
the church in practice. They come to church. They do
church things. We see religion. Oh, religion's a bad word. No,
it's not. We all have religion. Oh, do you like to play golf?
Religiously. I've heard people say that. I
don't. I don't play. Never have played
golf. Unless it's on a pool table. There is a game of golf on the
pool table. Love that game. Don't play it though. It would
consume me. Do you like to hunt? Religiously,
people would say. Do you like to sing? Man, I listen to music religiously.
You see, we use religiously because it's the standard practice that
we are adhered to that we follow without fail. That's what a religion
is. So do we follow Christ without fail? There are people who follow
Christ in the same and seemingly in a religion. There are people
who have zeal. We know that the people are part of the local
church. They have zeal for Christ. They have fellowship, service,
teaching, etc. And there are those who are part
of local church. We know who they are. But yet there are some
who are not the church, though they say they are. Who are they? There are some who are not the
church, though they say they are. And let me give you three
things. There's a lot of things to think about. I mean, for us,
I want you to be very keen on what I'm saying, not what I'm
not saying. There are people who say that they're part of
the local church by profession, but they are not because of isolation. And I'm not talking about isolation.
As in someone who's homebound or someone who can't be here
or someone who's not invested. I know my isolation because there
are a lot of times people in our culture will come, they come
to church and they just, that's it, that's the end of it. There's
not anything else that they care to see happen. And I'm not talking
about everybody has the same attitude, the same temperament,
the same, you know, I mean, Brother Jack will sit in the back. He's
not here today. And he's not going to talk to
everybody. He will talk to somebody. Brother Mike, this Mike, will
talk to everybody. I mean, really. Pointing you
out, man. That's it. Let's go down the road. We're
different in our temperament, our personalities. That's not
what I'm talking about. But there are some people who
isolate themselves from the local church. They don't ever want
the church to get involved in their lives and pray for them.
And some of you guys, I know immediately. I mean, before the
break stops and you put your car in park, you've texted me. Some of you, I have to wait a
couple of days. And some of you, I have to just find out what's going
on. But you tell me. Our church is good about letting
us know what's going on. It's fine. But beloved, in the
two decades that I've been in the ministry, there have been
a lot of people who have just flat disappeared and we don't
know where they are. They are not part of the local church.
It's a lie, in some sense, to be a remote church member. And
I'm not even talking about people who covenant with the church
and then disappear. Most importantly, I'm talking about so many people
that many of us know who will sit at home and say they're okay
with the Lord. No connection. I'm not talking
about sickness. I'm not talking about trials.
I'm not talking about the things that are going on that you got
a season there that we have to work with. I'm talking about
just blatant, just apathy toward being the body of Christ. To say otherwise, I believe,
is to deny the apostolic teaching concerning the body. There are
some people who say they're the church. They're not because of
isolation, and others by heresy. It's a heresy. Heresy is a lie. That's what
it means. If I tell you that Jesus does
not come in the flesh, John says I'm the Antichrist. If I tell
you that salvation is faith plus works, that I have preached another
gospel, Paul uses in Galatia the word anathemas and I'm cut
off forever from Christ. That means I have condemnation, I'm
damned. That's what it means. If I tell you that you've got
to believe it's all of Christ alone, but hey, you haven't been
baptized, you're probably going to hell, then I'm teaching baptismal regeneration
like Christian church. Savannah Christian and the church
plants that they do, they teach that. That's part of their core
doctrines. People don't even know. Why? Because, dude, the
Starbucks services are rocking! Feels right! My kids are so plugged
into that praise band, they'll never leave Jesus. I know they
won't leave Jesus because they've never found Him. Jesus isn't
a guitar string. You know how many people will
be in hell who used to sing in praise teams? You know how many
preachers who stand in pulpits and hold the same version of
the Bible that I have right here who are going to bust hell wide
open when God throws them in the lake of fire? A bunch, I
would say most. Sunday school teachers? Full
of them. Church members? Man, I bet hell
has got an entire continent of Baptists in it. God's just going
ahead and preparing that lake of fire. It's going to be like
Lake Michigan, just for Baptists. And the wrath, I don't mean to
make light of the wrath of God, I'm just saying, narrows the gate. And we see a lot of heresy in
our day. Friends, there's a difference in heresy and ignorance. And
your ignorance may put you into believing in heresy, but there's
a difference. When our church, when our beloved sisters and
brothers think differently and think oddly, we are to hear,
something's wrong with that, oops. Hey, let me change your
mind on that. Let me help correct that. Where
did you come up with that? I got a sister in the Lord asked
me just a few months ago when I was teaching, did we exist before we were born?
And I went, hmm, go on. Well, you know, we're saved before
the foundations of the world, she asked. So did we exist in
another realm like spirit babies? And when she said that, I thought
I was going to pass out. Why? Because that's a Mormonistic
teaching. It's a heresy. It's false. But
she's not believing that. She's just inquiring. Listen,
where do you think this stuff comes from? The devil? Where does he
get it out? When we think. We're not autonomous
in our thoughts, folks. Don't ever think that you're
a free thinker. You're not. Your thinking is going to be and always
has been influenced. It always will. It'll either
be influenced by your flesh, which is influenced by the devil,
which is influenced by the culture in the world, which is his, or
it'll be influenced by the spirit of God through the word of God. I love philosophers because they're
so stupid, they don't even know it. And Christian philosophers
are like sophomores. They're stupid, but they're also
wise. That's where my mantra, when I first started blogging
in 2006, that was the title of my blog. It was Becoming Wise
and More Stupid. And then people had a problem
with it because it seemed bad and they didn't understand it.
So I changed it. Heresy is leaving out essential
truths or twisting maliciously the truth. Friends, if we don't
have things that we have to deal with in a heretical way in our
own lives and the lives of each other, we're not growing as Christians. If we're not coming to the terms
sometimes where there are some people amongst us who will come
up and say, you know what I believe? I believe X, Y, Z. We don't scream
at them and catch them on fire. We don't go home and say, you
know what, we're never going back to Grace Truth Church because Sister
so-and-so came out of the bathroom and was saying all kinds of stuff.
Or I saw so-and-so at the water fountain, or I saw so-and-so,
or a pastor said something really wacky. How about doing what the
Bible says? Hey, can you help me understand what was meant
by that? Well, let me show you what the Bible says. If you're
waiting for the church that's got it all right, just sit at
home until Jesus comes back. And see how many crowns you have
to throw at His feet. I believe heresy is also equal
to one saying they believe in the truth, but they deny the
power by the way they live their life. I think it's a heresy to say,
I believe in Christ, but I live in darkness. It's a lie. So people are not part of the
church, though they say they are, because they're here heretical,
they're isolated and also by discipline. Church discipline,
as we've already had to begin the process of in our own fellowship,
friends, is a reason why someone could say they're in Christ or
in the church and not be in the church. Those who fail to assemble. Those who fail to live, to teach,
admonish, those who don't rebuke or accept rebuke, those who are
not training, serving, praying, etc. for each other, they're
not fulfilling their obligation of the decree of God. So something's
wrong. So we're all under discipline?
We should be. And if we're living together, we always are. Are
we not? I'm not talking about, hey church, I've got to announce
something. Dude, it's way too late for that. But if you don't
think that we have an obligation to rebuke each other, I mean, I'll just use Brother
Paul's example at the members' meeting. And I was just sort
of dogmatically, somewhat jesting, talking about baptism. And he
came up to me afterwards, he said, you shouldn't be that dogmatic
about that. And he's right, and we've had long conversations
about it. That's good. It doesn't bother me. I hope
I didn't put you on the spot. It doesn't bother me. What if
it was a real error? What if it was a real issue?
What if it's somebody who's not a part of our church enough that
we don't even get to know them? What if it's somebody that God
has put in our lives that they are not even born of God, but
they're here, but they say they are? What happens? Are we not
supposed to be willing to be disciplined by each other? And
you know what? Church discipline, if we look
at Matthew 18, that has nothing to do with public sin. That has
everything to do with if you and I get into a little spat,
or have a little conflict, or have a little thing, we should
always exercise it. And nobody knows the difference
when I say, I'm sorry, forgive me. We've won a brother. Those who teach contrary to the
scripture, they have to be disciplined out of the church. Those who
do not sacrificially submit to the Lord and to one another,
they, like, I'm not going to obey what the church tells me
to do. I see what the Bible says and the church is, I'm not going
to be accountable to the church. Those who hold, here's another one.
Those who hold to a perfectionist mindset. That's a heresy. That's an issue
of being disciplined out of the church, of standing in the church
and saying, all right, y'all ought to look like me, act like
me, sound like me, smell like me, and eat like me. Really? And we don't see that
here, but friends, I've seen it. And as God grows our numbers,
as more people become inquisitive, as you do the work of evangelist
and go out and share your faith and more people come into the
fold of our local fellowship. Friends, the opportunity, listen,
the opportunity of error and heresy and discipline gets bigger
and bigger and bigger. And it's not about sealing the
back door and locking the front door and let nobody in or out,
but it's about living out as the church that which God has
called us and equipped us to do. And we learn and we grow,
we're gracious and sometimes firm, but we're always kind,
we're always patient. Sometimes people have this perfectionist
mindset, well I can't be a part of that fellowship, though they
hold to a right doctrine, there are some in that church who do
not act or live accordingly. Yeah, right, just like you, who
are denying the power of God to be in the local assembly.
That's what I told someone just about a month ago. So you're
denying the power of God to be in the local assembly because
you're waiting until someone is as good as you are, but you
can't even obey the basics. It's like teaching your children
how to speak. And it's real cute when they're, you know, two,
and they say words that don't make any sense. It's cute. And
then when they're six and they're still talking like a baby, what
do you do? Don't talk like a baby. Or they get their grammar. I done
did that, Daddy. Man, Harvard, here we come. I done did that. We don't slap
them. I mean, some of us. Some of us
are like grammar gurus, but we don't slap them. We don't pick
them up and shake them. You dumb as a rock, sorry for
nothing, child. Sit in that room until you learn
to speak rightly. No, I take that all off. Learn to speak
right. I mean, you know. We don't do that in the same
way we don't burn our fellow brothers and sisters when they
have an error. Because God, if He's given us the wisdom to know
the truth and to rightly divide the Word, He has commanded us
to teach each other. Holy cow! You mean the Great
Commission wasn't just to the apostles? No, it wasn't. What
is the Great Commission? It ain't sharing your faith.
It ain't sharing tracts. It ain't preaching the Gospel.
It has nothing to do with the Great Commission. It's not there
at all. It says what? All authority in
heaven and earth has been given unto me. Therefore, go make disciples
by teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. We have to teach. We're one body, but many members. Are we really a part of this
assembly? Brothers and sisters, I'm going to tell you. Let us
continually think of these things. Learn that there is a great task
ahead of us. Are we growing in grace? Are
we growing in love? Are we growing in forgiveness
in Christ? Are we growing as a people who
are able to say without a shadow of a doubt, not only is Christ
my savior, but he's the savior of my brothers and sisters here.
Because we're walking together in unity, in purpose. Are we
teaching each other? Are we being taught by each other?
Are we praying together, forbearing with one another, forgiving each
other, loving each other? Are we serving, praising, hearing
the word, having communion with the saints? Are we submitting
to the God of heaven? By submitting to each other, do we assemble together as often
as we can? Friends, we could, by the very
nature of the word, say that when we're not together, we're
not the church. But we know that as the church,
we long for intimacy. Why is it important? Well, let's
look to the narrative of time. Let's ask ourselves this question.
When is the first assembly that God have with man? The Garden
of Eden. And God created the heavens and
the earth and all that in between. And on the sixth day he created
man and he breathed into him the breath of life and then he
put him in the garden and he had fellowship with the man,
intimacy with the man. He walked with the man in the
cool of the day. And out of the man he made woman he walked with
them, had intimacy with them and they fell from obedience,
they fell from God's grace, they fell from God's righteousness.
from God's glory, that's the better way of putting it, and
forever severed themselves, but the purpose of God was eternal
and He purposed it, to bring His people, what? Back together
with whom? Him. And we saw that picture on Sinai,
that's why I started reading out of Hebrews 12. We saw that
picture on Sinai, didn't we? A tempest where God and the secondary
of God met with Moses to give the law. He assembled his people
there out of slavery, out of bondage, out of sin. He assembled
them and there they were. And guess what? It was not their
place of worship. He gave them the tabernacle for
that. So no matter where they went, they could set up a time
and an opportunity to gather together with God because that's
the point. We gather together and as we are one in Christ,
we are one before the Lord and we honor him and worship him
together. This is the reality of the local
church this day because the tabernacle became the temple and then God
destroyed the shadow of those things. when He put His Spirit
in us, and He crucified His Son, and He raised Him from the dead,
and He ascended on high. And this very day, because Christ
is our propitiation, He is the way, the truth, and the life,
because He is the Father, and the Founder, and the Perfecter
of our faith. We are the assembled of God this
day to prepare and practice and take pleasure in being together
for the sake of the glory of God. We are the church. And just as we look forward to
that day where angels look into the things of salvation and say,
glory, holy, holy, holy is the Lord. So we also together as
God's people sing such praises as we live out our lives for
the purpose and the intent that God has created us for, which
is to the praise of his glorious grace. which is to grow up, which
is to grow inward, which is to love each other, which is to
minister and give and take care of each other, which is to teach
each other, rebuke, to endure, to forbear, to forgive and all
of these things in between. Because one day this temporary
assembly will become an eternal assembly and it won't be fragmented
like it is this very hour where many parts of our body are scattered
all over the world in different places. But God the Father looks
down from heaven and he sees the pleasure of his people as
they worship him. And he is honored and he is glorified
and he is pleased because Jesus Christ has ransomed a people
for his own namesake. That is who we are, beloved. It's well time we not forget
that and that we push into that As we learn about the person
of lawlessness, as we learn about end times, as we learn about
propitiation, as we learn about how we're justified before the
Lord, it's not just for us to go home and soak in the bask
of our own fullness, but it is for each other that the giftedness
that God has given us and the wisdom that we have has now been
equipped a little bit more for us to share with each other what
God has shared with us. And in saying all that, I believe
then the gathering should be the pinnacle of our week. It should be. In Hebrews chapter 10, I'll close
with this. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter
in the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living
way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through
his flesh. You see what the writer is saying. And since we have a great priest
over the house of God, what's the house of God? We're the house
of God. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance
with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our
bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession
of our hope without wavering. You see the plurality of the
pronouns here. Let us, let us, let us. Paul's
not saying you. And he sure as heck isn't saying
James. He said James and y'all. Us, let us consider how to stir
up one another to love. Let us consider how to stir up
one another to good works, not neglecting to church. to gathering,
to meeting together as is the habit of some, but always encouraging
one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Beloved, we might be fragmented this day and we might have to
leave this place this morning and go about our separate ways
and live our mundane lives that seem like they have no purpose.
But every day, every moment of our day, The Spirit of God should
draw us closer and closer to each other in prayer and in spirit,
and then in proximity as we assemble together once a week, at least
once a week. This body is mixed. We've got
babies and we've got old folks. And I'm not talking about age.
I'm talking about maturity. We've got some people who might
be 50 who are infants, and we've got some people who may be 12
who are wives. We don't know. But we're all mixed. Everyone
is not mature, but maturing. We're of mixed power. We're of
mixed strength. We're of mixed knowledge and mixed wisdom. We're
of mixed purity. Though we're all justified and
stand holy before Christ, we're of mixed purity. Some of us have
sins that seem to never get away, and some of us are continually
walking in somewhat of a righteousness or holiness and personal living.
But we're growing still. Some of us are full of life and
full of desire and full of the Spirit, while others fail. We have weak people who are offended,
who are hurt, who are suspicious, scared, some haughty, some apathetic. And we have some among us who
are strong and able to bear with the weaknesses of others. We
have people in this church who have great faith and great peace
and nothing shakes them. But if the wind blows, we have
others who will shudder in their shoes. The body is a mix of temperance,
a mix of emotion, a mix of needs, but we're still one body. We
wash our hands often more than we wash our knees, but they're
still part of our body. The body is full of people with
mixed degrees of spiritual diet. If I were to stand up here and
say, I'll teach every day at five, someone would show up,
but not all of us. Some of us are in a sense of
mixed degrees of application, mixed degrees of understanding.
Maybe we have not all fully grown in our faith to the degree that
we grasp the purpose of our place in this church. But those around
you possibly have. And by the Lord's grace, if you
are here, they will hold us each accountable to it. The body is
mixed and diverse. Why? Because it's the way God
has established it. He grows people when He desires
to grow them. And he places us together in
all of our diversity for our own good so that we all need
someone else at all times. Nobody, no Christian is self-sufficient
and self-abled in their faith. And I think that when we are
not together, we render the body moot. And when we do that, we
render the gospel powerless. For it is unto this purpose that
God has told us to gather. But because of our diversity,
keep in mind, beloved, that not all of us have the same usefulness.
Because sometimes when the body's sick, it gives purpose for the
medicine. Friends, some of us are the sickness and some of
us are the medicine. And beloved, we who are the medicine
today will be the sickness tomorrow. Grace Church's foundation, the
first four things that I ever wrote down about this church
is as follows. A church is not a place, but
a people. A people who are not grown, but growing. Who are growing
worshippers for the glory of God, who with all things are
possible in Christ, we will display God's wisdom together. And out of that came our covenant,
and out of the covenant came the vision, and out of the vision
it's all from Scripture. Here you sit today. And I wanted to remind us of
these things. And it may not be exactly the type of sermon
that you're used to hearing. It's not exposition of a bunch
of verses, but it's clear and plain for just as the body is
one in as many parts, all the members of the body though many
are one. as it is with Christ. You know we are the body of Christ. And so I implore you, brothers
and sisters, to always have that mind, always have that thought,
always have that purpose in your life, that no matter what you're
going through, there is someone in this fellowship who can walk
through with you. No matter what you're feeling,
there's someone in this church who will understand you. No matter
what gift you may have or may not have, it has a usefulness
in this body. Do you hear me? God has not put
you here so that you can just exist by yourself. You are beloved
of God. You are those for whom Christ
has died. And we assemble this day Because God has put us together
for the purpose of giving Him glory and learning and growing
in Him. And friends, if you don't feel as a part of the body of
Christ, it's either one of two things. You have isolated yourself
or you have never come to the realization of what the good
news of Jesus is. So I'll remind you of what that
is this day. That in all the wickedness of
man, that in all the sinfulness of man, that in all the hearts
of every human being, there is There is judgment that waits,
and it is right. Condemnation that belongs to
the wicked. But God, in His mercy, sent Jesus
Christ, the Son, born of a virgin, to live in this life as a human
being, to fulfill all the requirements of righteousness, so that as
God is holy, so man is holy. As Jesus Christ is holy, the
God-man. And He willfully obeyed, and
He willfully went on the cross to set the punishment on Himself
of our sin. And God cursed Him and satisfied
His judgment against us by crushing the Son. And then He put Him
in the ground, for the wages of sin is death. But, oh, the
plan of God did not just satisfy the judgment of God in wrath,
but it also gave life. And God proved His life and His
promise, and He proved the divine nature of Jesus by raising Him
from the dead, and He ascended to the Father, and He sits there
this day. And beloved, if you are trusting
in Jesus Christ alone, nothing else, this day, you have eternal
life. And if you have eternal life,
the decrees of God for you are obvious. Though they ebb and
flow, you will grow. And God has purpose for you to
grow with others. Jesus Christ alone satisfies
God's judgment. Jesus Christ alone is the power
of God unto salvation. Jesus Christ alone is the resurrection
and the life. He is our righteousness. He is
our wisdom. He is our hope. And friends,
it's not even the church that's our hope. It's just Jesus. That hurt. It's just Jesus who took sin
and whose body was crushed and whose blood was spilled so that
we could have eternal life. And that's what this table is
about. Why do we not do communion at home on the couch by ourselves? Because it doesn't make sense,
does it? It's for the body, the church,
to remember together whose they are and why they are. Why we exist. So I pray that
at this moment we come to a place where we would begin to reflect
on that. It's nothing formal, nothing fancy. How many times
we've done this? At the same time, it is not a mundane ritual. It is a real opportunity to think
about Christ. and think about what He's done,
and to think about what He's doing, beloved, and how He will
continue to grow us as a people. Would you pray with me? And after
I pray, I'm going to play, and as I play, you come and get the
elements, and then come back to your seats, and we'll take
the supper together. We worship you, O Father, a holy,
great God. And I know that as we pray together
and as we pray in public and as we pray in our hearts, that
it's never correct, it's never right. It's never in the right
manner, it's never in the right heart, it's never the right words,
but Lord, your scripture teaches us the spirit will intercede
on our behalf, even when we do not know what to pray. And so,
as we teach things like this, Father, as we expound on such
a small portion of text, it's really not an argument, but a
statement. It can leave us a little numb
and wondering, now what? But Lord, I pray that the now
what would be a supernatural awakening of our senses, of our
spiritual senses. That we could have joy knowing
that we have a purpose in your body. That we have a people who
are Concerned with us and burdened with us who love us and that
we are not alone in our effort. To struggle against sin. But
that our brothers and sisters are also looking to Christ. Who has defeated it? As we think
about the body and the blood of Jesus this day, let us just
rejoice. Knowing that he's given us all
of himself. all of his glory, all of his
righteousness, so that we are now your righteousness. And it's
in his name we pray. Amen.