Christ is always food for the
child of graces. We can't get enough of that. You know, you go to modern day
churches. I use that word church very lightly. Modern day churches
and most of what you hear is things just make us feel good,
pat ourselves on the back, how good we're doing for Jesus. You
know, a lot of application, brow beating on how you got to live
and all that kind of stuff. And it's just superficial surface
teaching. But it's good to be able to get
into the word of God and listen to doctrine. The Bible says that
doctrine is very important to us. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable. Doctrine is profitable. Paul
continued to reiterate that throughout his epistles and especially through
the pastoral letters that he wrote, reminding them to watch
their doctrine closely, to continue in the doctrine or in the faith
that was once delivered to the saints. And that doctrine is
important. You don't hear very much doctrinal
preaching anymore. It's a lot of just making you
feel good or getting up there, telling stories and pulling at
people's heartstrings so that they might make a decision for
Jesus or to make them feel good that whenever they left, that
their spirit just moved into place and all that kind of stuff. But the Bible says that we have
to worship him in spirit and in truth. So if we don't get
down to the truth, then there wasn't no spirit leading in our
worship because the spirit of God is always gonna lead us into
the truth of God, right? That what the Bible said, that
what Jesus said, I'm gonna send my spirit to you and that he's
gonna reveal to you all truth. He's gonna teach you the things
of Christ But a lot of people wanna get up and they wanna preach
all kinds of things besides preaching Christ. But to the child of grace,
you go to churches like that, you get starved. I've been to
churches where they don't really preach the work of Christ and
the doctrines of the Bible, and they just tell stories and feel
good things, and you get hungry. You get starved, spiritually
starved for those things. This is what feeds us here is
the work of Jesus Christ. So I pray that the Lord will
continue to keep us faithful in the preaching and the teaching
of those things. Well, bow with me if you would
this morning before we begin our reading and preaching this
morning, and we'll go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we are so gracious
that we are blessed this morning by you. We are given all things
in Christ Jesus and we don't deserve them, we know. But Father,
we're thankful for this day that you've given to us together once
again, and the word of God that we have before us. Father, a
true blessing that you've given in the revelation of who you
are in Christ Jesus. And Father, we just pray that
as we take this word today and we preach it, we ask Lord that
you would help us in our worship. Help us to hear and help us to
understand and help us to preach it. Father, Lord, I just pray
that you just might be honored and glorified in what is being
said. And Father, we just thank you
for this day that you've given to us, for the rain that you've
sent after all the heat that we've had over several days.
Lord, we're just so grateful for that. We're thankful for
the brothers and sisters in Christ that you brought here today and
that all that's here and attended to your worship. And Lord, we're
just so blessed by you. We're thankful for Christ Jesus
who died for us and give his life a ransom for the many, or
we're just overwhelmed by the forgiveness that we have of our
sin, our sin that is so great and so many. But yet you forgive
us of that because of Christ and his blood that was shed on
our behalf. And so, Father, we lift up our voices to sing to
you the praises that is due your name. We now lift up you in preaching
for what you have done for us and where our hope lies. So I
pray Lord that today that you might edify your brethren as
they hear and as they are given understanding by the spirit.
We pray that the spirit will be here with us in the presence
of God among us. Not to hype us up into some ecstatic
speech or into some wild emotional excitement, but father, that
you might truly in our heart feed us with the word of God
and that you might truly teach us of Christ. that you might
grow us in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ for
what he has done for us. And Lord, I pray that you would
give us a heart that desires your word, a heart that desires
your preaching, a heart that desires the fellowship with the
people of God. And Lord, we just thank you for
all these things and the spiritual blessings that you've given us.
And yes, Father, we truly do look forward to your coming.
We pray that you would come quickly, Lord Jesus, and that you might
take us from this body of death and the sin that we are so accustomed
to and acquainted with, Lord, and that we might be with you
and that you might be able to give us the perseverance, the
persevering, the preservation that you have promised in the
scripture. Lord, we pray that you'd give us that faith that
would stay to the end as you have promised. Lord, we know
that it can only be accomplished as your spirit gives us that
ability. Lord, we know that we cannot
persevere on our own, that we need your help. So, Lord, everything
that we have need of today, we ask for your help. In Jesus name
we pray. Amen. Well, brother, we left
off last week with verse two of Galatians chapter three that
said, This only what I learn of you receiving the spirit by
the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. And so we spent
most of the message last week talking about the hearing of
faith. What is it that faith hears?
What is it that faith sees? What is it that faith receives?
It receives or it hears the message of righteousness by Christ Jesus.
That's the gospel. The gospel is the finished work
of Jesus Christ. It's the finished work of what
he has done for his people. That's the gospel. We hear so
much today and we see in booklets and tracks. I don't know about
you, I see a lot of times with work I travel a lot and I'm in
truck stops a lot, gassing up and everything. And you go into
those bathrooms and there'll be those little chick tracks
laying all over the place. People come in, lay them tracks
all over the place. And a lot of times if nobody's
in there, I'll pick those tracks up and I'm gonna throw them in
the trash. All of them are false gospels. It's either tracts that's
been left there by Mormons that have left their tracts there,
or Armenians that's been out there and left tracts about all
this Armenian gospel and everything. And so I usually will scoop them
up and throw them in the trash. And I used to carry a bunch of
tracts that we had with me and I would replace them with some
of our own tracts. But anyway, We see bombarded
out there, the gospel is something that you do. The gospel is come
to Jesus. The gospel is repent and believe. The gospel is, you know, make
a decision for Jesus Christ, you know. Remember the song we
used to always sing as we were little, you know, I have decided
to follow Jesus. That's so unbiblical. No one
has decided to follow Jesus ever. Jesus has drawn his people to
himself. He has called them to himself. He has brought them. Matter of
fact, that word called, whenever it talks about calling and drawing,
you know, that unless the father draws them, they won't come.
That word draw in the Greek actually means to drag. It means drag. He drags us to himself, you know. In the day of his power, we're
made willing. We're made willing. Not a forceful
thing against our will, because he's changed our understanding,
right? He's changed our want-tos. He's
changed it to where we hear him and has given us faith, and that
faith does go to Christ alone for salvation. But we hear so
many gospels that's out there, so to speak gospels that are
out there, that is so opposite of what the Bible teaches. And
it just bombards us over and over and over again. And I don't
know if you're like me, but sometimes you feel like you're just all
alone out here. And doesn't anybody even read the Bible anymore?
I mean, they don't even read the Bible. Can't you see the
Bible was speaking about Jesus on every page and that salvation
is of the Lord. It's not anything that we do. The gospel is not about me performing
some feat or some work or some sort of a action, but it is Christ
Jesus. And so the hearing of faith,
whenever we talk about that, we're talking about what does
faith hear or what has, what is faith that has been given
to us by God that is outside of what, it's not talking about
natural faith, it's talking about spiritual faith. What does that
faith look to, cling to, grab onto? What is it fixed upon? Well, it's not upon something
that we have to do conditionally, it's upon the Lord Jesus Christ
as our righteousness. He is our righteousness. And
so, as we looked last week, we've seen, leading up to what we're
gonna be talking about today, we've seen, he therefore that
ministereth to you the spirit and worketh miracles among you,
doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith. And then we see now in verse
six, it says, even as Abraham believed God and it was accounted
unto him for righteousness, that's the quote, know ye therefore
that they which are of faith, the same are the children of
Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all nations be
blessed. So then they which be of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham. Okay, and we'll just stop right
there. I'm gonna try to get to verse
nine today if I can, Lord willing. We'll see how it goes. Verse
six starts out, even as. So that tells me that something
that was said right before is an example or that what we're
looking at right now is an example of what Paul is talking about.
Okay. Paul is saying, given an example,
and if you want to go ahead and start putting your finger in
Genesis 15, we're fixing to go there. Paul is saying, remember
in Genesis 15, the conversation between Christ and Abraham was
this. That's what I'm talking about.
You know, that's what I'm talking about. So he's using Genesis
15 verse 1, and we'll read down a few verses. He's using that
as an example to reiterate the point or to press forth the point
that he is making. He therefore that ministered
to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you. Who was that?
Who does that? Is it your preacher? Does the
preacher minister the Spirit to you? No, I don't have the
control to minister the Spirit Now, I've heard that preached,
though. I've heard a lot of people say that that's talking about
the preacher. Now, there's a preacher out there preaching the gospel,
and he's ministering the Spirit unto you, and then he's working
miracles among you. I haven't worked ever a miracle
once. Well, unless you say, get up
out of bed. That's a miracle every morning, that I can get
up out of bed. It's talking about the Lord Jesus, right? The Lord
Jesus is the one who ministers the Spirit. It's His Spirit,
and He ministers it. He sends the Spirit, and the
Spirit applies whatever it is that He's applying. If it's the
spiritual gifts of God, He's applying that to you. But Jesus
is the one who sent Him. Jesus is the one who said that,
I will send my Spirit. I will send my Spirit. And what's
He gonna do? He's gonna reprove the world's sin. What else is
He gonna do? He's gonna convict the heart,
right? He's gonna teach us He's going
to be our teacher of spiritual things. The Holy Spirit, who
is the Spirit of Christ, is sent by Christ. He's the one who is
ministering the Spirit among us. He is the one who's working miracles
among us. If there's ever a miracle that's
ever been worked, it's because of Christ Jesus. He is the one
who does miracles. You look throughout all of Scripture
and you'll see that miracles was done by God. Only God can
do miracles. And any miracle that one of the
apostles did in the early days of the church, those miracles
was done because Christ ministered the spirit through them and they
was able to do those miracles. And it wasn't them who actually
did it. It was Christ who did it in their name. They did it
in Christ's name. Christ was the one who was doing
it. And so any person that has ever done anything like that
in the early days of the church did it because of Christ. is
the center of verse five. And listen, Christ is the center
of verse six, but everybody wants to make Abraham the center of
verse six. Paul is not using Abraham as
an example to show how strong our faith is and that Christ
justifies us when we exercise our faith. Paul's not using that
example here. He uses even as and uses this
example of Abraham to show us that the hearing of faith, whenever
faith has been given to somebody, it latches on to one message
and one message alone, Christ only for my righteousness. And that's what he says. Abraham
believed God and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. But
what do we hear? Whether it be in Reformed Baptist
circles or Reformed Protestant circles, or sovereign grace circles,
probably I would say half, if not more than half, of the teaching
we hear is that God counted Abraham's faith to him as righteousness. But that's not what the Bible
is saying here. Whenever we talk about justification
by faith alone, we are not talking about Abraham believed God And
God accredited that belief as righteousness to Abraham. And
here's the reason why. Number one, our faith can't be
considered righteousness. So it isn't Abraham's faith that
God counted as righteousness. Because our faith is not righteous. And it isn't about exercising
your faith. And God said, because you're
exercising your faith, I will accredit Christ's righteousness
to you. that would be doing some work to get what Christ did for
you. But what is it talking about?
Well, for us to understand why Paul is using this example, and
for us to understand what he's actually meaning by that, let's
go back to the original quote itself. Thank the Lord we have
the Word of God before us to go back to. So turn to Genesis
15. Turn to Genesis 15 if you would. You know, the greatest commentary
on the Bible is the Bible itself. That's the greatest commentary.
Now you see, I got some commentaries down here. I got more commentaries
in other places in the house. Coffee table there, got a bunch
of books on it. Downstairs got a bunch of books. I got a storage
building now full of books. And I have found out that the
best commentary for the Bible is the Bible. Now, in preparation
for this yesterday, I was going through the scripture and I thought,
well, let me go look and see what all these smart men have
to say about this thing. Maybe the Lord will give me a
little bit of light through some other brother that has seen something. That's not, you never, but by
the way, let me say this though. You don't ever believe something's
true because some other guy said it. You believe it's true because
you find it in the Bible. I don't care if Matthew Henry,
or John Gill, or John Bryan, or whoever says it, that doesn't
make it to be true, okay? What makes it true is the fact
that God wrote it, God said it, that's what's true. And if what
they say goes against what this says, then sorry, Brother John
Gill, I just don't agree with you there. But I was reading
through all these and almost every commentary I read says
that God accredited Abraham's faith to him as righteousness.
Just about almost every one of them. There's only a couple that
went in a different direction. But all of them still came back
to the fact that the word it there is referring to Abraham's
faith. But let's see what this is talking
about. Okay, Genesis chapter 15, it's starting in verse one,
let's read down. It says, after these things,
the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision. Now let's
just stop right there. What does the word vision mean? It's seeing something, right?
Yeah, seeing something. So that means you're actually
looking at something. Now this is talking about a vision. So it's something that is, you
know, he's been put in this state where he sees beyond reality
into something else. I don't know. Remember Paul said
that he had a vision and went to the third heaven and saw all
these things. John on the Isle of Patmos, you
know, was taken and was shown all these things. So whether
it's like me looking at you or this out of whatever experience
It's still we're seeing something, right? A vision is something
that you actually see with your eyes. That's tangible there in
front of you. You see it, right? So a vision is not hearing. Separate. I can not see something and hear
something, right? Vice versa. I can see something
but not hear it. I can hear it but not see it,
okay? Separate things. It says the
word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision. Was Abraham just
hearing talking out of heaven? That wouldn't be a vision, would
it? Somebody came to Abraham. Who came to Abraham? Who does it say there? I want
you guys to look at it for yourselves, I don't want you taking my word
for it, but who does it say came to Abraham? The word of the Lord. Okay, who is the word of the
Lord? Jesus. I hear people say all
the time that Jesus wasn't in the Old Testament. There he is. It says the word of the Lord
came to Abraham. I have a whole study on all this,
but for you guys that have news that you probably hurt or anything,
but for those who've been coming here, uh, they know about my,
about our teaching on Christ in the Old Testament. But anyway,
that's a, that's for another day. Or you can go back on sermon.
I'll be able to listen to some of them. Uh, the word of the
Lord came unto Abraham in a vision saying, fear not Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. Now, We were told that the word of
the Lord came to Abraham, and the word of the Lord said, I
am your shield, and I am your great reward. What does a shield
do? It protects you. It protects
you from whatever's attacking you. There you go. It protects
you from whatever's attacking you, right? It keeps you, it
guards you from from, let's say, maybe fiery darts? Isn't that
what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter six? The Bible says,
keep replacing Genesis if you want to turn, but in Ephesians
chapter six, and in verse 16 it says, above all, taking the
shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the
fiery darts of the wicked. This is putting on the full armor
of God. Remember he's telling them to put on the full armor
of God? Now, what have we done in times past and we've learned
like in Sunday school or vacation Bible school or something like
that in other churches, what have we learned? Well, this is
us. We're picking up the, you know,
we may even dress the kids out in all this armor and all this
stuff, teaching them to put on the armor of God. And I think,
what is putting on the armor of God? Is it literal? Are we literally putting on the
armor of God? Who is the armor of God? Jesus, right? This is
speaking about us looking unto Christ. It is talking about us
looking to Christ. Look at everything that's in
that. Stand therefore, wherefore, taken to you the whole armor
of God, that you may be able to stand in the day of evil,
or in the evil day, and having done all to stand, stand therefore,
having your loins girt about with truth. Didn't Jesus say
that I am the way, the truth, and the life? He's the truth. And having on the breastplate
of righteousness, isn't Jesus our righteousness? That's His
name. In the old Jehovah's-Sidcanu,
the Lord our righteousness, He is our righteousness. It says,
and have your feet shoved with the preparation of the gospel
of peace. Isn't He the prince of peace? above all, taking the
shield of faith. Isn't our justification by his
faith? Wherewith ye shall be able to
quench all the fire in the earth and take the helmet of salvation. The Bible says salvation is of
the Lord. He is our salvation. He is our great salvation. And
the sword of the spirit, which is who? The word of God. There he is again. The sword
of the Spirit is the Word of God. And so if the Spirit is
gonna teach, it's gonna teach with the Word of God as the center
point. He's using the Word of God, not
necessarily words on black, black words on white paper. He's talking
about, he's gonna use Christ. Christ is gonna be the center
point of all that he is teaching. And he's gonna use that to break
down our misunderstanding of things. Because our misunderstanding
is always a misunderstanding of thinking that we can do righteousness
before God. That's our misunderstanding.
That's our default misunderstanding. Our nature thinks that we can
be as God, the lie in the garden that the serpent told Adam and
Eve. You can be as God. You can make
your own choice. You can make that decision. You
can choose your own destiny. You can be as God. Carve out
your own path. Be your own man, be your own
woman, be whatever, you know, you can do whatever you want
to do. The sky's the limit. But the Bible says that the spirit,
the sword of the spirit is always going to be the word of God. And here, the word of God, the
word of the Lord has come to Abraham. And he says that I am
thy shield. I am your protection. Protection
from what? Protection from judgment. Protection
from the wrath of God. Protection from Satan. Protection
from the world. Protection from your own self,
actually. The shield. He is our shield. He is our buckler, our shield.
He says, and by exceeding great reward. See, we think that whenever
we get to heaven, we're gonna get this big old pile of gold
and jewels for all these good works that we've done on earth,
you know, that we're going to have these rewards, all these
crowns, we're going to have all these crowns laying around that
we've amassed for ourselves, you know. But the reward actually
is Christ. That's our reward. Our inheritance
is Christ. We are going to receive Christ.
And whenever the Bible talks about crowns, brethren, it's
talking about Christ. We have on our head a crown of
righteousness, that's Christ. It's not a physical crown. The crown of righteousness is
Jesus Christ. We have him on our head. He is
the one who is signified as our head. The Bible says that he's
the head of the church, right? The Bible says that as the man
is the head of the household, Christ is the head of man. Christ
is the head. Christ is over us. His authority
is over us. That's what the crown speaks
of, that we put upon ourselves the sign or the name of authority,
and that's the Lord our righteousness. The only way that we can come
before God and be accepted of God is because Christ is our
righteousness. His righteousness in our place. His righteousness on our account.
And so all that we say, all that we do, all that we ever want
to do is never going to muster up. It's not ever going to be
worth anything except for what Christ does. That's the only
thing that's going to matter. Christ is our righteousness. And so Abraham is hearing the
word of the Lord tell him. So this is a conversation between
Abram and the word of the Lord. They're speaking. At this point,
it's only the word of Lord speaking. But he says, Abram, I am your
shield and I am your great reward. And then Abraham said, Lord God,
who's he talking to? Remember, he's talking to somebody.
It's not this isn't some just something he's hearing a voice
out of heaven. This is a vision. He's there. He's seeing this
person that is talking to him. And he's having a conversation
back and forth to this person. And he calls this person Lord
God, he says, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go
childless, and the steward of my house is this Eleazar of Damascus? And Abram said, behold, to me
thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born in my house is mine
heir. And behold, the word of the Lord
came unto him, saying, So here he is again, the word of the
Lord, talking to Abram. He comes to him and he says,
this shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth
out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. Now here he's
saying, it's not going to be by this servant. It's going to
be by you. You and Sarah are going to have
a seed. Okay. Actually, he's gonna have
the seed. Sir, women don't have seed. Only men have seed. But anyway,
the seed's gonna come from Abraham. And he said, and he brought him
forth abroad and said, now who brought him forth? The word of
the Lord. So the word of the Lord is sitting
here talking to Abraham and said, listen, you're not gonna have
a seed by this person, you and your wife, That's where the seed's
gonna come from. It's gonna come from your bowels.
It's gonna come from your loins. It's gonna come from you, Abram.
Okay? But, he says, look at this. And he brings him forth and he
says, look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be
able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall
thy seed be. So now he's told Abraham, You don't think you've got a
seed, but I'm going to give you a seed. And you're going to have
a seed. And that seed is going to be
as numerable as the stars, if you could count them. Now remember, there's a conversation
between the word of the Lord and Abram. They're both there
together. Now look at what it says in verse
six. Here is the quote from Paul. Paul quoted this verse and let's
see the context of who is talked about. Remember. Look now toward
heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them and
he said unto him. So shall thy seed be. And he. Believed in the Lord
and he counted it to him for righteousness. Now let's pick
out who's being talked about here. Who is the first he? And
he believed in the Lord. That's talking about Abraham,
right? The Lord didn't believe in the Lord. Abraham believed
in the Lord. And he believed in the Lord. It was the Lord who was talking
to him. Remember that conversation is between the word of the Lord
and he called him the Lord God. And we know that the word of
the Lord and the Lord God are the same person, right? Same
person, Jesus. The word of the Lord, and he
says, and he believed in the Lord. He believed in the Lord. He believed in what the Lord
was saying. He believed on what the Lord
told him. He believed on the promise of what the Lord had
said. And he, Abraham, not God, Abraham. And he counted it to him for
righteousness. Now let me go through this slowly
so we don't get confused here. And he, Abraham, counted it. There's where the question is.
There's where the difference between what we believe and what
most Reformed people believe. We all believe in sovereign grace,
but we believe justification a little bit different. Okay,
we believe justification by Christ alone and his faithfulness. That
faith alone is speaking of Christ, not us. Okay, God didn't declare us righteous
whenever we first believed. God didn't declare us justified
whenever we exercised that God-given faith in the new birth. God declared
us just before the foundation of the world because Christ stood
in our place. The promise was to Christ. The
promise was to Him. We know that because Galatians
will tell us that the seed that is talked about in verse 5 is
not seeds plural, but seed of one, which is Christ. Right? The seed of promise is Jesus. And He Counted it so the word
it we need to find out. What is the word it talking about?
Well for most people the word it and this is Armenian and reform
they both agree on this That's why you got to watch out Because
even though we owe bad Armenians, you know, hey The reform people
say the same thing They say the word it is talking
about believe. And he counted his believing. In the Lord for righteousness. Believe me is an it is not an
it. It's not a verb. What is the
word or believed? He believed on the Lord and he
counted it believed he counted it. What is it referring to? Back to verse five, the seed,
he counted it, the seed. Remember the word of the Lord
was telling Abraham that his seed is going to be the seed
of promise. The promise to Abraham was of
the seed. And he told him about that seed
that was to come. Now we know that, that Abraham
was preached the gospel. The New Testament tells us that
Abraham was preached the gospel. The New Testament tells us that.
The New Testament also tells us that Abraham looked forward
to a city whose builder and maker was God. He looked forward to
Christ's day, the Bible tells us. He said he looked forward,
Jesus said, that Abraham believed on me." That's what he told the
Pharisees, right? He said, if you would have been
Abraham, you would believe on me because Abraham believed on
me. He even said, before Abraham was,
I am. Even telling them, hey, I was
there before Abraham, and I even talked to Abraham. I preached
Abraham the gospel. Abraham believed in me. for righteousness. But you're not. You're believing
on the law for your righteousness. You're believing on your own
self-righteousness for your ticket into heaven. You're believing
on your ancestry for your ticket into heaven. But Abraham didn't
look at any of those things. And even before circumcision,
Abraham believed on me. And Jesus said he looked forward
to my day. What was Jesus's day? Remember
all the time that Jesus walked here on earth? And every now
and then someone would try to come and the religious leaders
were trying to take him or catch him in a trap or was going to
kill him or something like that. And the Bible said that they
weren't able to kill him because it was not yet his time. And Jesus said
that many times, my time is not yet here. My time has not yet
come. But there was a time that came, right? There was this appointed
day. There was an appointed time and
appointed specific period And brethren, I would even say the
minute and the hour was chosen of God for Jesus Christ to die
on that cross because it fulfilled all righteousness. It fulfilled
all the law. Jesus, as that sacrifice, died
at a specific time because of the ceremonial laws that were
the types and foreshadows. And to fulfill all those types
and foreshadows, he died as that sacrificial lamb at the exact
time. He died on the day of atonement.
And on the day of atonement, what happened whenever the lamb
was slain for the people? Those priests would go out and
they'd blow a big horn called shofar, and they'd blow that
horn, and all of Israel that was camped around, they heard
that shofar blow, and whenever they heard that shofar blow,
they knew that the sacrifice had been made and atonement had
been made for them for that year. If Christ died at the exact time
that he died, what happened? He cried in his finish and then
earthquakes and lightning, thunder, all that stuff took place. And
the earth opened up and the Bible says the dead came up out of
the ground and walking the streets that the veil of the temple was
written to. There was a specific time that
Jesus died. And by the account of the scriptures,
it was at that exact time. So nothing happens by chance.
It doesn't just the appointed hour, the appointed day. And
Jesus said that Abraham looked forward to my day. He, Abraham,
believed in the Lord and he, Abraham, counted it, the seed,
to him, Abraham, for righteousness. Abraham looked to Christ for
righteousness. Abraham looked forward to the
day that Christ would come as Messiah, the anointed of God,
and bear his life for many. And Abraham said, that many is
that seed, that spiritual seed, that seed from not from Adam,
not the natural seed, but that spiritual seed. Those who are
of faith. of Abraham. Those who have been
given the faith of Christ. Abraham was given the faith of
Christ. And the faith of Christ looked to the seed for his righteousness. Yes, Abraham had faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, but the Lord didn't count Abraham's faith
as righteousness. It was Abraham who counted Christ
as his righteousness. And that was because he'd already
been given faith. And that was before he was even circumcised.
This is before any of the law part came in. He was circumcised.
And so he said, and he believed in the Lord and he counted to
him as righteousness. Now that's what Paul is quoting
back here in our passage. He says, even as Abraham believed
God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, So what does
the hearing of faith hear? It hears about the seed. It hears
about Christ. It hears about the righteous
one. And the hearing of faith reaches and receives what the
righteous one has done on your behalf. And it looks to the righteous
one as your righteousness. It looks to the righteous one
for all your works. It looks to the righteous one
for everything that you have need of before God to satisfy
His justice, to satisfy His wrath, to satisfy His love. Everything
is found in Christ. Look at verse 7, it says, Know
ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the
children of Abraham. So how do we know who are the
children of faith? Well, they have the same faith,
the same kind of faith that Abraham had. Abraham didn't look into
his own works for righteousness. He looked to Christ for righteousness.
Why do we say we can't call Arminians brothers in Christ? Because they
believe in another gospel. They believe in another Jesus.
They have a faith that is reaching out to their own faith. They
have faith in their faith. That's what they have. Their
faith is in their faith, saying Jesus has done everything, but
I don't receive it unless I ask him in, unless I believe on him,
unless I repent or unless I do this or that. Then I get it and
God declares me righteous now. And that's saying that your righteousness
is the point that God declares you righteous. Your faith is
what declares you righteous. And that's not what this is saying.
We are not declared righteous by our faith. We are declared
righteousness because of his faithfulness, Christ's faith,
the work that he did on our behalf. And so those who are the children
of Abraham, that spiritual seed, those are the ones who have the
faith of Abraham that looked to Christ alone for everything. for their justification and their
sanctification. For all their works, they look
to Christ alone for that. They don't look to their flesh
for anything. Matter of fact, Paul reiterated that in many
places, but one specific place, he says that we do not put any
trust in the arm of the flesh. We do not rely on the arm of
the flesh. And the scripture foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before
the gospel unto Abraham. See, I wasn't lying. I wasn't
making that up. The Bible says that. He said that God preached the
gospel unto Abraham. And whenever he preached the
gospel to Abraham, he said, in thee shall all nations be blessed. Now, is it because that Abraham
had all these ethnic children that came from his loins? Is
that what he's talking about? Remember, brethren, even though
there may be a physical teaching here, we always need to examine
and look at spiritual things with spiritual eyes, look at
the spiritual aspect of this thing. Because we know in Romans,
Chapter 9, the Bible is very clear that says that it is not
the children of the flesh who are the children of Abraham,
but the children who are of faith are the children that are the
spiritual children of Abraham. It's those who are of the promise. The children of the promise is
regarded as the people of Abraham or the children of Abraham. It's
not because of their flesh, not because they were born from this
line of people, okay? that we are a spiritual people
of God, we are called the elect of God because we are of Christ
who is the seed. And out of him, all seeds come.
Remember, if you think back, it's been a while since we've
taught on this, on the two seeds that we find in scripture. We
see the seed of Satan. We see the seed of Christ. Those
two seeds that exist throughout scripture and Christ. And in
Genesis, it talks about how that God made everything with its
seed in itself, and that in that seed was the life of all the
others. And it is. I mean, if you look out here,
this tree that's in my front yard, that tree came from a seed
from another tree, and that tree came from a seed from another
tree. And if you go all the way back, it all comes from a seed
somewhere that began it all. But in that one seed is the life
of all those trees out there. That's how it is with us, brother.
In Jesus Christ, all of our lives were. I'm talking about our spiritual
life. I'm talking about that new creation
that came from above. That came from Christ. It's his life. In him is life. He's been given power over all
flesh to give eternal life to as many as the Lord has given
him, right? So our life that comes to us
through the new birth is not the life that is earthy, but
of heavenly. And it came from the seed, which
is of Christ. The Bible says that our life
is hid with, uh, hid with God in Christ. See inside that first seed, Christ,
all seeds came from. And he says here. And the verse that I was quoting
of all goes is verse 16. Now to Abraham and his seed,
where the promise is made, he sayeth not unto seeds as many,
but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. So the promise
was made in talking about there in verse Genesis 15. It was talking
about Christ, okay? Not all the peoples of Israel,
but it was talking about Christ. It says, so then when they, which
be, of faith are blessed, so that they which be of faith are
blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are under the
works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, curse
is everyone that continues not into the things which are written
in the book of the law to do. Now, I don't want to get too
far into verse 10 because I'm planning on starting there next
week, but I want you to see that there are two lines of people.
There are those who are under the law, and they are cursed.
There are those who are of faithful Abraham, okay? There are those who are of faithful
Abraham, and that seed is under grace. That seed is not under
law. It's under grace, and that it
is of faith, not of works. That seed will always look to
grace through faith, for salvation. Not works. And that's how we are blessed
now. Again, Ephesians chapter one tells us that all these blessings
come to us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And according as he has chosen
us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. See, all these blessings
was given to us before the foundation of the world, brother. All the
seeds of God were accounted for before the foundation of the
world in Christ Jesus. You remember in Revelation, the
Bible says that there is a book that has names written down in
it, and there were some that didn't have it. It says that
their names were not written in the Lamb's book of life, the
Lamb that was slain. But there were names that were
written. That Bible, or that book, the names were written
before the foundation of the world. God has accounted for
every child of grace who is in Christ Jesus before anything
was ever created. He knew you by name. He knows
you. He knows you. That word know
is a relational term. It's an intimate term. For those
whom He foreknew, He predestinated. See, that word foreknow isn't
looking down the corridor of time, seeing who was going to
choose me. That word foreknow means He foreloved us. You were
loved with an everlasting love. That was all before the foundation
of the world. You say, well, I don't remember
that. I wasn't there. How do you know that? No one
existed at that time. How could God do all that when
we weren't actually existing at that time? Well, that don't
mean nothing. What God does in the eternals
is above our head. The Bible says that it's above
our understanding of things. I don't have any idea. The old
phrase, I may not comprehend it, but I can apprehend it. I
may not know how it happens or why or anything like that. All
I can say is that the Bible says it, The Bible says that each
individual child of grace was known of God before the foundation
of the world was written down, whether that's literal or figuratively,
either way, it doesn't matter. God doesn't need to write things
down to remember them. But to know that each individual
child of grace was known of God. And I think back, especially
over my life, and I think, you know, there was a lot of things
that I did. I almost don't want to say this
with my granny here. and everything, but there was a lot of things
that I did as a teenager that was not very good, that I'm ashamed
of. And I would not want to, there's
some things that I would not tell any soul that I've done
and everything. And there's a lot of things that
I did that a lot of people knew about, but you know, there's
a lot of things that I know that, and I think back to know that
even during then, before I ever come to know grace, that the
Lord loved me then. and that I was justified before
God and that even though I am actually committing all those
sins, every one of those sins that I ever committed, the Lord
never did see those sins in me because Christ Jesus stood as
my surety. He stood as my mediator. He stood as my righteousness.
We have been made the righteousness of God in Christ. Brethren, listen,
that's a blessed thing for us to look at. and to grasp and
to know if the Spirit would give us understanding of that, to
know and to rest upon. Because if you're like me, and
I'm sure you are because all of you are of your father, Adam,
you sin every day. You fail in many ways. You have
doubts. You have times whenever you're
angered. You disagree with God and what
God's doing providentially in your life. You may be upset about
this, that, or the other. You may want to just run away
and get away from God altogether. I'm done. The Lord just has not
done anything good for me. But for some reason, the Spirit
keeps drawing you back. The Spirit keeps drawing you
back. Is the first thing that whenever
you're convicted of those sins is the first thing that you want
to hear whenever you're pulled back by that conviction. You
want to hear the spirit say, ah, the law says you better do
this. You know, whenever I've messed
up as a husband or as a father or as a worker for my employer,
the first thing that I want to hear is not how bad I am and
how I didn't keep the law or keep the command or keep whatever.
I don't need to be reiterated the fact of what I cannot do. I don't need to be reiterated
about my inability. I need to be encouraged. Well, brethren, the Bible is
given to us. The Spirit is given to us to
remind us that although we fail over and over and over again,
we have been forgiven of our sin. That He is the just and
the justifier. The Bible says that if we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us. That doesn't
mean He forgives us as we do them, he's already forgiven us
in Christ Jesus. Our mind, that's said there for
our mind, so that we might know, hey, if you sin, just confess
that before the Lord. Lord, I messed up. I did it.
I messed up again. I sinned again. Confess that
you are at fault. Don't blame somebody else. Confess,
it's my fault. I did it. And I hate that I did
it. And the Bible says that he's
faithful just to forgive you. Why? because of Christ, because
his righteousness is standing in your place. His blood has
atoned for your sins. Your sins have been covered by
the blood of it. And so what do we want to hear
whenever we have a life filled with sinfulness? As a child of
grace, we want to hear not guilty. It's all right. Not guilty. There's
somebody sitting there in your account for you who is righteous. And again, I have to say this
disclaimer because I get people on Facebook and Sermon Audio
that write in, are you saying that we can just go and sin all
we want to? No, that's not what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is, is that what Paul said, even though I know
that I am a wretch, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from this body of death? Praise be Jesus. He is going to deliver me from
this body of death. But I have found that within
myself, I'm going to serve the law of sin with my flesh, but
I want to serve the law of God with my mind. Therefore, there
is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. What's our mindset should
be whenever that sin happens in our life? And we have sinned.
If we say we have no sin, we've made God out to be a liar because
we have sinned. But what happens when we do that? What happens
whenever we sin? We confess that. He's faithful
and just. He's forgiven that because Christ
has died for us. And we look to Christ. We look
to His righteousness. We don't try to make ourselves
better by our law keeping. We just confess that and we say,
thank you. And He's forgiven us of those
sins. But it doesn't make us want to go out and sin more.
Shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid. God forbid. And so here we see again, that
whenever we are of the faith of Abraham, we are gonna be looking
to Christ alone for our justification. Now, we're gonna stop there,
brethren, and we'll start looking at verse 10 and further, Lord
willing, next week. Does anybody have any questions
or comments or anything to add? Corrections or reviews? Approvals? There is a verse in John 3, 9. First John. First John 3, 9. 3, 9, that talks about Jesus
as being. If you want to read it. And maybe
verse 10. On John 3, 9 or 10. Everybody
there? It says, whosoever is born of
God does not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and
he cannot sin because he is born of God. In this, the children
of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever
doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth
not his brother. Now, in this passage, we see
that it says, whosoever is born of God does not commit sin. So, we got to understand what
is that talking about because we all know that the Bible says,
as a matter of fact, John just said it in this epistle, that
if we say that we have no sin, we make God to be a liar. But
here it's saying, whoever is born of God does not commit sin. So, who is it that does not commit
sin? Him who's born of God. So what's that talking about?
Well, if you remember, the Bible teaches that we are a vessel
of clay, and that's our flesh. And in that flesh dwelleth no
good thing. It can't do any good. It doesn't
please God. But whenever we're born from
above, we are a new creation created in Christ Jesus. And
the Bible says that we have been born from above. And so that
life comes and dwells in this fleshly body. It's not our spirit,
it's the Holy Spirit that dwells in us. It's Christ that is in
you, the hope of glory. And so what's inside of us, and
the Bible uses the image of a clay vessel and a treasure. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels, is what that's saying. The Bible says we have this treasure,
what treasure? This spirit that is from God,
this spirit that's from the heavenlies, this spirit that's not ours,
it's a new spirit, it's a new creation that we are in Christ
Jesus. That's what's inside of us. That's
what cannot sin. The spirit of God that's in us,
it cannot sin. Christ cannot sin. The Holy Spirit
cannot sin. That's what's in us. The flesh,
all it does is sin. And so we have, that's where
Paul was saying in Romans 7, that we have that war. The flesh,
who we are in our father Adam, all it can do is sin. And it
lusts against the spirit. But the spirit that is in us,
it cannot sin. It loves righteousness and holiness
and all those things. And it wars against the flesh.
Because it cannot sin, and all it can do is sin. Boom! What
happens when it comes together? Friction. There's friction there.
The Bible says that there's a war inside of us. You know, the flesh
lusts against the spirit and the spirit lusts against the
flesh. And so here we see that that which is inside of us, it
cannot sin. And the reason to say is, for
his seed remaineth in him. See, the seed of Christ, the
seed is Christ, right? He is in us and he cannot sin.
That's why I say, even though we are children of grace and
sin, actually, The Bible doesn't account that sin to us. Blessed
is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not sin. He doesn't
look on our sin. And that is because of Christ's
seed. And he cannot sin because he
is born of God. There's no way that that which
is inside can't sin. And listen, brethren, even though
we commit sins of the flesh, we cannot sin before God in the
fact that he doesn't see those sins. Not that we don't do them,
we actually do them. But he doesn't see them. Whenever
Peter denied Christ three times, that was sin, wasn't it? You
see, God didn't see that because Christ stood in his place. He
says, in this the children of God are manifest and the children
of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness
is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. Now, who does righteousness?
Again, we gotta let the Bible interpret the Bible. We take
the plain things of scripture that is told on the outside,
that is told very vividly, and we have to use those to interpret
some of these things that may be kind of not so revealed, right? We know the Bible says there
is none righteous, no not one. Okay, there's one witness that
says that everything that we do is not righteous. There's
not one of us who is righteous. No, not one. The Bible says that
all of our righteousnesses, plural, are as filthy rags. Okay? All of our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. There's two witnesses telling us that who we are, apart
from Christ, who we are is unrighteous. All unrighteousness. In fact,
the Bible said that God looked down upon the hearts of men and
saw that the intent of their heart was only evil continually. The heart is deceitfully wicked
above all things, and who can know it? Paul, like I said a
while ago, he said, oh, wretched man, I'm a wretched man, okay? So the Bible is very clear that
there is no righteousness that comes from us. Their only righteousness
is Christ. He is our righteous. So whoever
doeth not righteousness, is not of God. That would be all those
who haven't been given faith. See, righteousness that Abraham
exhibited, if you want to say that, that when Abraham believed
in Christ, that proved or that showed that the righteousness
of Christ had been accounted to him. And that's what we say
in justification. Justification isn't on our faith,
but whenever we have faith in Christ and receive that gospel,
that is proof that we have already been justified. Because the only
people that believe on Christ are the ones who have been given
the faith of Christ to trust in Christ's faith that he exhibited
as the Son of God for us. He fulfilled the law. He died
in our place. As that substitute, He substituted
for our life, He substituted for our death. Okay? That's what faith, true faith,
God-given faith, looks to. And that is what our righteousness
is, what He did. And that righteousness, it in
us, That faith that is given to us, it will cling to that
alone. It will not, it will not cling
to something else. And so this isn't saying that
we can do anything righteous because we'll be in the same
category as all those who do is not righteous. Every one of
us do not righteous. There's no way that we can do
righteous. So this is the message that you've heard from again,
that we should love one another. Now as Cain, who was of that
wicked one and slew his brother, and wherefore slew him because
of his own works were evil and his brothers righteous. Now,
here you go. What was, was Cain's righteous
or works evil? There's no record in the Bible
that says that Cain couldn't have brought what he brought
as an altar before God. Why did Cain, why was Cain's
not accepted? Because Cain brought his not
entrusting God. Okay. Abel trusted in God and
brought what God required, but Cain didn't. And so Cain came
thinking that his gift was gonna be good enough for God. And Abel
knew that, hey, I'm just gonna bring, I'm gonna do what God,
I'm gonna bring what God tells me to bring. So he trusted the
promise of God. And so Abel, His gift was accepted in God
and Cain's wasn't. Abel's was accepted not on the
work of Abel. And Cain's was because of his
own works. Because of his own works were
evil. Marvel not, my brethren, if the
world hates you. We know that we have passed from death unto
life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brethren
abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brethren
is a murderer, and ye know that no murder hath eternal life abiding
in him. Hereby perceive we the love of
God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to
lay down our lives for the brethren. But whosoever hath this world's
good, and seeth his brother hath need, and shutteth up his bowels
of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him. Again,
still this is all talking about our relationship within the church,
but my little children, let us not love in word, neither in
tongue, but in deed and in truth, And hereby we know that we are
of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him. For if
our heart condemn us, okay, if our heart condemn us, and this
is where it's kind of getting into the crux of this, God is greater
than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart
condemneth us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive
of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are
pleasing in his sight. Again, the question goes back,
or what are the commandments that he's talking about? Well,
the commandment of Christ for us is believe on him. That's
the command that we have, is believe on him. So it isn't out here doing all
the righteous, you know, am I feeding the poor? Am I going and checking
in on the, homeless, am I the widows and all that kind of stuff,
am I giving to the church, am I reading my Bible enough, am
I memorizing scripture, whatever you want to put in there. Because
any of that stuff that we do is never going to be enough,
and all that stuff that we do is going to be of the flesh anyway,
and it's not going to be profitable. The only thing that is profitable,
or the only thing that is of anything, is that which is of
faith. And that is that God given faith in us, always looking to
Christ, knowing that nothing that we do is gonna be enough.
And so we look to his righteousness and trust his righteousness alone.
And that is what, remember, now this right here, keeping his
commandments, this is the same thing as what we were talking
about a couple of weeks ago, whenever we was asking the question
of what does it mean to walk by faith or what does it mean
to obey the gospel. You know, whenever
we say to obey the gospel, what is obeying the gospel? Well,
what does the gospel say? Repent and believe. Well, that's
what a lot of people say. Now, the gospel says, the gospel
says to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and I shall be saved.
What should we do to do the works of God? This is the work of God
that you believe. See, it's God working in you
that believes upon the Son for everything that you have need
of. Satisfy Him. Say, I can't do nothing to satisfy
Him. So anywhere where the Bible tells us about keeping these
commands, it's either talking about that in an eternal perspective
as far as Christ doing what He does for us, or if it's talking
about anything practical, even that we can't do correctly. And
so we trust in Christ to be that for us. But there's admonitions
that we have as brothers and sisters in Christ. In the church,
we're supposed to look out for each other, take care of one
another. If anybody has need, we're supposed to help them if
they have need. The Bible, whenever it talks
about widows and orphans, it's talking about those that's among
the church. A lot of these applications that we see of what people call
the social gospel, they've turned that thinking that this is talking
about everybody out there. We have a responsibility. Whenever
I first came to Joplin, and after I'd been here just a little while,
a lot of the preachers, they have a place here in town, it's
called the Ministerial Alliance or something, they may call it
something different. But anyways, where all the preachers from
all these different churches all get together and they do all
these things in town, social things and help people and do
all that. Well anyway, they contacted me to join with them to do all
this stuff. And one of the guys from there
who was one of the spokesmen for the group. He came and he
told me, he said, well, we need to get you on the schedule to
start preaching down at the homeless shelters. We have two homeless
shelters, or three homeless shelters here in Joplin, two homeless
shelters, I don't know for a fact. He said, well, we got to get
you on the schedule to start coming down here and preaching
at the homeless shelters. And then we have this going on
and this going on. We'll get you on the schedule
to do that and all this other stuff. And I said, well, hang
on just a minute. I said, don't sign me up for
anything. Right now, I'm not gonna do any of that. And he
said, well, why not? You're a preacher, aren't you?
And I said, yeah, I'm a preacher. He said, well, then that's your
job. You preach to the homeless and to the sick and the widows
and get you on the, going down to the nursing homes and the
old age people's living. And I was like, well, the Lord's
called me to pastor this church here. That's what I've been called
to do. I said, I also have a family.
I also have a job. And I said, Whenever I get all
that taken care of, if I still have time, yeah, I might come
down and do all that. And he said, well, you've been
commissioned to go preach to all these people. I said, no, I haven't,
I haven't done that. I said, and second of all, I'm
not gonna join this ministerial alliance. And he said, well,
why wouldn't you wanna do that? I said, and he's a Baptist, he
was a Baptist too. Matter of fact, this guy believes
in the doctrines of grace, at least he says he does. And I
told him, I said, well, does the other men on that council,
do they believe in sovereign grace? And he said, well, no.
I said, okay. I said, do them other people,
I mean, who else on this, are there people in there that baptize
babies? Yeah. Do they sprinkle? Yeah. I said, okay, well, how
can you come together with them and say, we're all preaching
the same gospel together? And he said, well, I just take
my turn and they preach whatever they want to preach. And then
I preach whatever I want to preach. and everything like that, I said,
but yeah, but you're holding hands with them saying that we're
all in this together for this good. I said, how can you do
that? How can two walk together unless you agree? I said, that's, according
to the scriptures, that is spiritual adultery. That is, you're holding
hands with someone else's wife. You're holding hands with a church
that is preaching a false gospel and a false Jesus. And I said,
I'm not gonna be a part of that. I said, if the homeless need
to be preached to and I have the time to do it outside of
what God's called me to do here, then I'll be glad to go do it.
I don't have any problem. I'll preach to anybody that wants
to hear it. But I said, I'm not going to
go down there and preach out of an obligation because you
think the Bible says that we're obligated to everybody to go
preach. If that's the case, then I need
to be out everywhere all day long preaching. And anyway, he
disagreed with me. We don't have coffee anymore,
so. But, and it isn't that we don't care about that. But we
do care for the people who are true believers. And especially
of the household of faith. The Bible says that whenever
you have done this unto the least of these my brethren. It didn't say when you've done
it unto the least of these of all these people out there. It said
when you've done it unto the least of these my brethren. Who's
the brethren? those who are of the household of faith, and specifically
your local church. So once we take care of the local
church and the people that believe the word of God, that believes
the gospel of Christ, then we can, if we have need of in our
personal lives or whatever we want to do, if we want to help
those other people, that's all right to do, because we should
be good and kind to all those that are around us even. But
the obligation is not to everybody outside, it's of everybody inside. That's where the obligation is.
Anything else is just benevolence that we might give to other people. But that's a whole other teaching
sometime and everything. But we should be kind and gracious
to those, no matter who it is. But most of the admonitions in
scripture of taking care of people, what they would call the social
gospel, It's to those who are within the church, not outside. But we preach the gospel. We don't know who the elect are.
We go where the Lord sends us. And sometimes it's wherever we're
at. I've talked to people in an x-ray
room, putting in x-ray equipment, talked to them there, preached
to people on elevators and plane rides and whatever. And that's
good. I think we ought to do that.
Anyway, did that even answer your question? Okay. Did you have a follow-up question? Maybe we'll get to this. I've
been wanting to go through 1 John, because 1 John is a very, what
we would call, practical letter. There's a lot of admonitions
and things like that. But yeah, we have to, again,
interpret all of scripture in light of the other scriptures.
especially things like this where it seems, you know, it tells
us this, but it doesn't tell us specifics. But if we go through
the rest of scripture, we know, I mean, we can't perform righteousness.
And so we know that that's not talking about us, it has to be
talking about Christ in us. But maybe we'll teach on that
before too long. We're clicking through Galatians
a lot faster than we've done in the past in other books. Maybe
after we do that, we'll look at some of these other things.
I do do topical preaching once in a while. We'll take a break
from the verse by verse, and I'll do topics. And so if you
ever have a topic of something that you would like to hear about,
just let me know, and I'll try to do that. We did a... They
don't even come to our church anymore, but there was some folks
that asked me to do a series on the church. That ended up being like a 45 sermon teaching. We spent like 45 weeks just on
that topic. It's all on Sermon Audio. You
can go listen to them. And I didn't even finish the
rest of it. We still got a few more things to talk about. But
they're not even here now. Anyway, if you have any topics,
I always want to I always want to deal with things that everybody's
dealing with, you know? That's part of being a pastor
as well. But everybody has their own thing.
You want to know why we believe what we believe, the things that
we believe that might be different, things I might have said, you're
like, that's kooky, what is that? Any of those things, just always
open up. And feel free to ever ask a question
or anything like that. If you've heard me say something
that you're not quite sure about, hey, I'll spend as much time
as I can with you, and we'll be glad to talk about that. I'm
very open to any of that, because I know that I'm not, I know that
I am prone to error. I can be wrong, just like anybody
else. I need to be corrected once in
a while as well. And I have, the church knows
that there's been times that I've preached things in the past,
even since I've been a pastor here, that I've had to go back
and I've had to say, you know, I think I was wrong on that.
And I repented of that wrong thinking and confessed that before the brethren
and said I was wrong. But Lord, thank God the Lord's
teaching me still, you know. If we ever get to the place where
we don't, aren't learning, then we're in a wrong place because
the Bible is always gonna be teaching us things as we grow
in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. My
good friend, Brother Roy Smith, he's a preacher down in Oklahoma,
he said, the biggest problem to our learning is what we already
know. And those things that's ingrained
in our mind, we think, well, I know that, I don't need to
study that. Then we find out if we study it a little more,
we may not quite have that right. But anyway, so I'm always open
for correction and rebuke, and always open for questions. So
don't ever feel like any question is dumb or any question is trivial
or anything like that, that I'll be glad to speak on anything
that you'd like me to talk to you about and everything. And
then again, if there's any topics that you'd like to hear, you
know, I'll look at those and see where the Lord leads on those
and try to hit those. Cause we definitely, I mean,
that's one of the things about preaching is to equip the saints
of God for those things. So we'll be glad to do that. Anybody else have a question
or another question or request or anything? Father, once again, we come to
you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for all
that you've done for us. We thank you for this day that
you've given to us. We thank you for the word of God that
you've given to us. Father, we pray that you might
help us in discerning these things. We know that the Bible teaches
us that it's not by worldly wisdom that we come to understand the
Word of God, but it's by the Holy Spirit that teaches us.
And so we ask that we might be taught of God, as you have promised. Lord, we ask that you might open
up to understanding the discernment of these things, how to interpret
these scriptures. Lord, we pray for that. Lord,
we pray that you might just remind us daily of our need for you
and that we might continue to be trusting in you for all things. Lord, we pray that you would
enable our faith. We know that even our faith itself
has to be measured out by you and that you determine those
things. And so, Father, we ask that you
might increase that faith to trust in you through all things. Lord, we just pray that you'd
be with us as we leave today, that you might be with us whenever
we go home to our families and to our jobs or wherever it is,
Lord, that you're sending us home to, Lord, we just pray that
you'd be with us, that you might enable us to be a testimony of Christ Jesus
before others, Lord, that we might testify of him, that we
might tell of all of his works and not be centered around our
own works, but be telling us what he has done, the great things
that he has done for us. Father, I thank you for all these
brethren that are here today. I pray, Lord, that you would
edify them by your I pray, Lord, that you might bless this time
of fellowship together. I ask that you bless the food
that we're about to eat. May it nourish our bodies. Again,
we thank you for Christ Jesus and the salvation that we have
through his blood. Lord, we just pray it all in
his precious name. Amen.