You may have been seeing the
live stream beginning earlier. We were trying to get a new microphone
and we were trying to get it set and see if it would work
and couldn't get it figured out in a timely manner. So we'll
have to work on that sometime this week. We're getting started
just a little late. A lot of times we have personal
things that we talk about amongst ourselves as a church. They don't
need to be broadcast. And that's all right. That's
what we're here for. Galatians chapter one. Just want
to do a little bit of intro. I was just telling the church
before we came on live that we've been doing a lot of topical preaching
as of late. And I think that there's a proper
place for that. It's a good mixture of verse
by verse and topical preaching is needed. But I thought we'd
go back into our verse-by-verse expositions. Someday we will get back to John.
We never did finish John, and eventually, Lord willing, we'll
get back to there at some point. But I'd like to look, if you're
with us, at Galatians and begin looking at the book or the letter
to the Galatians. The letter to the Galatians is
a very needful letter. I think it deals with a consternation
that we all deal with in our lives, that we deal with in churches,
that we deal with among just preaching in general, among other
religions of the world, other denominations of the world, things
such as that. And it's this consternation that
Paul deals with in the fact that justification is by the faith
of Christ and not by works, and that the believer's rule of life
or walk of life is by faith and not the law. And those are some
of the things that Paul deals with in the book of Galatians,
and I've preached it several messages out of Galatians on
different topical things, but I'd really like to go verse by
verse through this because I really see, especially with this Hebrew
Roots movement that is really growing in our country today,
where, and I mean, I've even seen some Sovereign Greece guys
that I know on Facebook that have really kind of been pulled
in by this And it's this mingling of the law and of grace. And this is the very thing that
Paul deals with in Galatians. And a lot of times, and I'll
be honest with you, whenever it first was coming out and I
was reading through some of it, it can be very alluring. And
whenever I was looking at some of the stuff, it was like, you
know, I maybe need to rethink some of this stuff. But the more
I kept reading and looking at what Paul was saying in some
of this, I began to be corrected by the Lord on it. And he pulled
me back into this. But there's a lot of men among
us that are preaching the law and preaching that it's necessary
for our sanctification. So this is kind of why we need
to go through what Paul teaches about that. Matter of fact, our
church has been called an antinomian church by
other preachers in the area because of what we believe about law
and grace and that we don't believe that we are under law but under
grace. I know particularly of one, Sovereign
Grace preacher who was telling people that they shouldn't come
to our church because I was preaching that heresy of antinomianism
and other things as well. But anyhow, it doesn't matter
to me what other people say. It's what does the Bible say.
That's our main thing. It's what does God's word say.
And so I thought we would look this morning just at the introduction.
I'm not gonna be able to be here next week. Again, I'm helping
fill in the pulpit for the church in Delaware, Oklahoma, until
they find a pastor. And it's my turn to fill that
next week. So I'll be gone. And then after
that, then we'll kind of get into the crux of all this. But
let's just kind of look at the introduction this morning. You
know, the book of Galatians, written by Paul, letter to the
Galatians. And if you'll notice here, and
we'll just read the first five verses, he says, Paul, an apostle,
not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father,
who raised him from the dead, and all the brethren which are
with me unto the churches of Galatia. Grace be to you and
peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who
gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this
present evil world according to the will of God and our Father.
to whom be glory forever and ever, amen. Now, this introduction
here is a introduction or a letter that is written by Paul to, as
you see there in verse two, the churches in Galatia. Now, some
believe this letter was written whenever Paul was in Rome. I'll
be honest with you, I don't know when this was written. They say
it was written somewhere around 55 or 58 AD. Scholars better than me can probably
fill you in on that a lot better than I can, I'll be honest. I've
never kind of been one of a digging up a lot of those types of facts.
I'll just let me preach what I can see here and go. But it seems that the apostle
wrote this letter to the Galatians around the time that he was in
Rome. And we believe that it is a later date. And the reason
why I kind of tend to agree with the guys is because whenever
he was first at Galatia, of course, we know there wasn't any problems
because he was there establishing the faith and establishing the
church and everything there. And then it wasn't long after
that that you know, that whenever he was talking about going to
Rome but hadn't been to Rome, that's when some people think
he wrote it, but I think it was after he was actually in Rome
because I don't see that they would have departed from what
he had taught just so soon, so quickly and everything. There were other churches that
had began to have problems before the church at Galatia had and
Paul had to deal with them and they still needed to go to those
areas and stuff. But does that have any bearing
on what we're reading here? Not really. The time frame, not
really. The doctrines that are taught
here in this letter are still there no matter what time of
date that he wrote it or where he was at when he wrote it. or
anything, so I'm not saying that those things aren't important,
but it's not necessary for us to understand what this book
is all about. We know that this book is written
to the churches in Galatia, and the reason that he's writing
that is because, as we'll see in later passages, men have come
in, the Judaizers have come in, and have confused the people
at these churches about what Paul has preached, and has brought
doubt into their mind about what Paul has preached to the point
where these believers have turned from the gospel that Paul had
delivered unto them and was beginning to believe another gospel. And Paul is having to deal with
that. Of course, we'll get into those verses in the next few
weeks. There's this, as I mentioned
at the beginning here, there's this consternation that we see,
this battle or this war, this rub that we see that Paul is
gonna deal with between law and grace. And as I mentioned, this
is something that's not new. I mean, this is, the question
between law and grace and how to preach those has actually
been debates ever since the Lord was here. I mean, as we can see,
I mean, it was here with the apostles and them dealing with
the churches even at this point in time. But down through the
history, I mean, it has always been one or the other. There's
either some people that believe that you need to go all the way
to one extreme and that it's just all about the law And then
there's the other that goes to the far extreme over here and
it's just all about grace. And then we have, what does the
Bible teach? What is the Bible teaching? And
Paul mentioned something at one time that the law is good and
right whenever it is used lawfully. And so what is the purpose of
the law? Why is the law given to us and what is its purpose?
And what is grace? And what has grace done for us?
And how are we to live? Do we live by the law or do we
live by grace? And these are the questions that man asks.
And that word that I used a while ago, antinomian, you know, people
will often throw that around if you don't believe that you
are continually to keep the, that you're still under the law
and that you still have to keep the things of the law, the feasts and festivals. That's
like what I was talking about, the Hebrew roots. These people believe that
the feast and the festivals, y'all still continue to celebrate
them, that the Sabbath is still on Saturday, and that's when
we should be worshiping. All these things, and that if
you don't believe that, you believe that the Sunday is the Sabbath,
and that everything that pertained to the Sabbath on Saturday has
been shifted to Sunday, and now, This is the Christian Sabbath.
Well, those are the things that we're gonna deal with in here
as Paul deals with them. And what does the Bible teach
about that? But as I mentioned, you know, you got the extreme
that goes over here, and they call these men that believe grace
antinomian. And what does that mean? Well,
antinomian is just a big, giant word that basically means without
the law, or that they believe that there is no law. And that's
really not true. I don't know anybody that doesn't
believe that there is no law or that we are without law. So
the word in and of itself is kind of a misnomer. But for those
who are called antinomians, that's usually for those who believe
that we are no longer under the law but under grace. And so,
like I said, I've been been called a antinomian many times in my
life and even by Sovereign Grace preachers that I have been around
who ceased fellowship with me, particularly, and our church
by extension because of what I preach about law and grace.
And it's unfortunate those things happen that we see them. There's also another teaching
in the churches, and I say churches, in quote-unquote Christendom. And this is this notion that
we are progressively sanctified, that whenever we are quickened,
that then we begin this lifelong sanctification process in where
we become more and more holy. Usually these two teachings go
together. Those who believe that we're
still under the law also believe in progressive sanctification.
And that's the purpose of the law for them, is that by the
law, they are staying right before God's eyes. That it's the law,
the obedience to the law, that is making them, or continuing
their fellowship with Christ. Yes, they are saved by grace,
but they're kept by the works of the law, by obedience to the
law. And this progressive holiness
is them taking appropriation of the means by the word of God
or by preaching, by praying, by the ordinances, whatever that
is, those means of grace, or even the feasts and the festivals
and the Sabbath and all that stuff, that by these things that
that is building you up and making you more holy and more righteous,
and keeping you before the Lord. That's your perseverance is by
keeping the law or doing the law. And so we'll see what Paul
has to say about that is, are we kept by the law? Is sanctification
a progressive thing? Does sanctification even mean
that? Does sanctification even mean
being made more holy? Is that what the Bible teaches?
So we'll deal with that as we go through Galatians, I'm sure. Paul here, he starts out the
very first chapter of this letter, and it deals with this very issue,
as we'll see here in a minute. The very issue is that this law
gospel question needs to be understood because At the very root of it,
the gospel is at stake. The gospel's at stake. Because
if you're preaching one way, as the Judaizers were preaching,
it is not the gospel. And if you're preaching the way
Paul had given it to them, that is the gospel. And we need to
know which is which. And we need to know so that we
will follow and preach what Paul preached. Because as we'll find
out, Paul got this from Jesus. So this is what Jesus preached.
And of course, you've heard it preached here many times that
Jesus preached the doctrines of grace. I know a lot of people
say, well, Jesus never did preach Calvinism. Well, no, Jesus never
did preach Calvinism. We don't preach Calvinism. We
despise Calvinism. But did Jesus preach the doctrines
of grace? Yeah, he did. Every point of
that tulip, that people want to call it, Jesus taught that. He taught the total depravity
of man. He taught unconditional election. He taught limited atonement. He taught irresistible grace.
He taught perseverance and preservation of God. And so Jesus taught those
things. And so we need to find out, because
Paul says that one or other, it's not a mixture of these even.
Paul said there can't be a mixture of these, because if you mix
these together, then you've made the original null and void, it's
of no use, okay? So any preaching of the law for
righteousness or for holiness or to stay in fellowship with
God or increase in sanctification, any of those terms, any of those
things and stuff, any of that, then it's not the gospel, it's
not the gospel. And so we need to see those distinctions
And so often, as I said, this is a conflict because we see
that there is this constant pull within the Adamic man to make
ourselves right before God by our own means. You know, Adam,
what was the first thing he did? He sowed some fig leaves together,
okay? Cain was mad because God wouldn't
accept his sacrifice. So what'd he do? He took matters
into his own hand. Well, I'll just get rid of the
guy that made me look bad, okay? But all through the Bible, we
see the default position of the Adamic nature is believing that
we have something to put forth as a righteousness before God.
whether it's for salvation or to stay saved or to make ourselves
more holy, that there is a righteousness in and of the flesh that can
be done and is acceptable to God. That's where the question
lies. The question doesn't lie on whether
or not the law is good. We're gonna deal with that. The
law is good. God gave us the law. The difference is is what
was the purpose that that law was given and how does it pertain
to the child of grace? The question isn't, You know,
should we obey what Christ has commanded us? We know the Bible
teaches that we should obey Christ's commands, although we find that
Christ's commands are different and can only be done by faith. It can only be done by faith. And so we'll work out all these
distinctions as we go through, hopefully as we go through. And
again, if anybody has questions or anything, because I know this
is a lengthy, Discussion, it's a lengthy, I mean, it'll take
us a while to go through relations because there's so many things
to deal with in here and everything. So, we'll find whether or not
the place of preaching is that the gospel of grace or the work
of the law. The question of, is the law our rule of life?
Is it merely faith, the rule of our life? We won't find that
out. So let's look here at this introduction. Now, Paul here, in writing to
these churches, I don't know whether or not these were strictly
Jews. If you look in Galatians chapter
three, flip over if you would to Galatians chapter three and
verse 23, Paul writes here in this letter
to these churches, he says, but before faith came, we, were kept
under the law, shut up unto the faith, which should afterwards
be revealed, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring
us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after
that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. So whenever we look at this here,
well, we know that the Gentiles never was under the law. So if
you read right here, you think, well, the Galatian churches were
Jewish churches. Well, it very possibly could
be. If you remember in Acts, the church at Jerusalem, which
at the very beginning was 3,120 people that we know of, it was
scattered. Now, there was more after that,
but we know on the day of Pentecost, there was 3,000 added to those
who were already the church, which was 120 that had met in
the upper room. So we know 3,120 was there in the Jerusalem church.
And more was added after that, but they were scattered. The
Bible says that they were scattered. And so there was a lot of Jews
that was scattered all over the place because of this persecution
that was gonna eventually come upon Jerusalem. But as they scattered,
they very possibly settled here in Galatia, the lower part of
Asia. And We can see here by this passage,
obviously, Jews were a part of these churches. However, as I
was reading, well, and look at verse four as well, chapter four,
verse one through three. Now I say that the heir, as long
as he is a child, did for nothing from a servant, though he be
Lord of all, but as under tutors and governors until the time
appointed of the father, even so we, when we were children,
were in bondage under the elements of the world, so that, again,
is referring to the Jews being under the law. So we think, well,
man, this is a Jewish church. But look if you would down to
verse eight. It says, how be it then when ye knew not God,
ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods? But now,
after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how
turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, unto ye desire
again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and
times and years. And so we see here that they
may have been Gentiles that had become proselytes into Judaism. So there may be, this may be
Jews, it could be Gentiles who by, of course, the Jews were
going out and making proselytes of the Gentiles, you know, and
they may have been Jewish proselyte or Gentile proselytes that had
become Jews. that were in these churches.
So we really don't know for sure. I mean, obviously they have some
sort of Jewish connection because again, he's referring to even
these that had, who were doing service to gods who were no gods. They still were observing or
turning back to the weak and beggarly elements and desiring
to be again in bondage, speaking of under the law, and observing
days and months and times and years, okay? And so obviously
there was some Jewish connection to these churches. It wasn't
strictly Gentile. There was a Jewish connection
in these churches. So that is why the Judaizers
had an easy enroute to these believers, that while they had
either fully been in Judaism and had believed in that way
all their lives until as of recent, whenever Christ came and then
the gospel began to be preached by the first church and the apostles,
or whether it was that or those Jews who were living in Galatia
who had been, or Gentiles in Galatia that had been made proselytes
to Judaism. And although they were Gentiles,
they were observing and following after the laws in the Old Testament
of Judaism for their righteousness. Either way, either one of them
fits the bill for who Paul is talking to. If you come and you
have trusted in Christ Jesus and you fall back into this system
that was in place before Christ, then you're going back under
bondage. So whether it's a Jew or whether it's a Gentile who
became a Jew, either way, you're going back into bondage. Now,
what does that say to us and why do I bring this up? Well,
the Bible speaks in Romans about that how everything where Christ
is the root and that in this olive tree that the Jews are
the branches and some branches were pulled off so that we Gentiles
could be grafted in, okay? Well, here we see these Gentiles
being grafted into this Jewish, Judaism system, you know, and
they, even though they were never under the law, being brought
under the law by those Jewish proselytizers, and now subjecting
themselves to something that never was intended to be their
salvation. never was intended for them to
be under. And we'll see that also whenever
we go through this because we find that Peter and the apostles
in Acts preach this very thing, that the Gentiles never was under
the law and they shouldn't be taken under the law even now.
So these proselytes or straight Jews, whoever they are, they
show us that in the gospel system, we too, there are elect Jews
who come out of Israel. The Bible says that not all that
are Israel are of Israel, but there is a remnant of people
within Israel who are the elect of God. And that we as the Gentiles
are being brought in to that same faith as those original
Israelites was from the very beginning. And so we see that
these proselytes being brought in is a picture of, us being
brought in now today. The church began as a Jewish
church, right? It began in Jerusalem with Jews. The New Testament church started
as a Jewish church, but it wasn't until Paul began to go out to
the Gentiles or the scattering and they began to preach out
among the Gentiles that we began to see grafting in of the Gentiles
into the New Testament church. And so we see this picture here
that whether or not you are a strict Jew who was under the law or
a Gentile who never was under the law, neither one of you now
that you have been brought in to the New Testament church,
neither one of you now that Christ has come and died and was buried
and was resurrected, Now, under this new covenant, neither one
of you are under the law, the Gentile nor the Jew. There is
neither Jew nor Gentile in the New Testament church, in fact.
And so all things that are Jew are done away with. All things
that are Gentile and their paganism are done away with. That's why
we spoke last week when we spoke on the resurrection. and about
Easter, that we don't incorporate into the resurrection the things
of the pagans. Why? Because the Gentiles, we
do away with everything that you believed in and preached
and taught under your gods, who are not really gods. Jews, same
thing. When you come into the New Testament
church, you put away all the things of that Jewish culture.
That's why Paul taught that all the things, that he was a Jew
of the Jews. that he kept every feast, every festival, that he
kept every, that he was keeping the law, doing everything. Now,
he wasn't keeping the law because in his heart, he wasn't keeping
the law, but even outwardly, he probably didn't. But he says,
if anybody kept the law, he did. He was the Pharisee of Pharisees.
I mean, he was strict in his Judaism. But yet, Paul said,
everything that I counted is gain. All that religion, all
that ritual, all that law keeping that I did, I count it as lost. I count it as dumb, he says.
Why? Because when we come into the
New Covenant, when we come into the New Testament church and
under that New Covenant, we come in with a different set of laws. We come in with a different way
of serving. And we don't serve in this way.
And the Gentiles, you don't serve in this way. And so we put away
all those things. Now, He says here, Paul, an apostle,
now we all know what an apostle is, right? An apostle is, first
and foremost, we think of the 12 apostles. Now remember, Judas
isn't an apostle, okay? He was a false brethren. He wasn't really a brother in
Christ. He wasn't really, Christ had,
chosen him for the part that God had designed for him to play
as the betrayer, okay? Matter of fact, whenever in Acts
chapter one, we see that Judas was there to fulfill what the
scriptures had said, that there would be one that would, one
of his close friends would betray him for 30 pieces of silver. And Judas was only playing the
part that he was and that was the condemnation that he was
ordained to. So when we look at the 12 apostles,
we look at those apostles that were minus Judas plus Matthias,
we see those 12 apostles. Those were the apostles to the
Jews. And then we see Paul came as
one abnormally born, an apostle to the Gentiles. But this word
apostle here, when we think of that, the word actually means
messenger. So Paul here is saying that I
am a messenger. When he means apostle, he said,
I'm a messenger. Now, there was two types of apostles
at that time. There were what we would call
the apostles of Christ, which were the 12 apostles, and then
there were the apostles of the church, or the messengers of
the church, These were guys like Timothy and Barnabas and guys
like that, Luke. These were men who had went alongside
of the apostles of Christ and helped them in their work in
ministry, or guys who were sent by the churches to preach and
to teach from the church that weren't the pastors that was
there, but was being sent out and being helpful to the apostles
in their work. Those were the apostles of the
church. Now, the apostles of the church are still apostles
of Christ because it's Christ's church, right? But what we mean
by that is the 12 apostles that the Bible says are the foundation
of the New Testament church. Upon that foundation that Christ
built that church was the first apostles, right? Well, that's
talking about those 12 apostles. How was it built upon them? Well,
they were the ones that Christ intimately taught and instructed
in all of his doctrine. Even though he preached to all
the rest of the church, he often took those 12 apostles away and
instructed them more in those doctrines to the point where
they knew them better than anybody else because whenever he left,
He left it to those apostles to be the ones who was, so to
speak, the authority of the preaching and teaching and to bear witness
of the truth of what Christ actually taught. That's why they were
with him everywhere he went. That's why they talked with him
all the time. That's why he divulged to them.
That's why he spoke in parables, so that the people listening
would not know, but that they would know. So he spoke in parables. And so Jesus had these 12 apostles
and he taught them rigorously because whenever he left, they
were the ones who was going to have to convey what the Bible
said as the Holy Spirit give them remembrance of everything
that Jesus said. As the Bible was being preached
out of the Old Testament, by the way, they were preaching
Jesus and they were taking them to the Old Testament to preach
New Testament principles, to teach them New Testament doctrine. And it wasn't until later that
they actually pinned down what we have as the New Testament,
but all these apostles, they preached from the New Testament
and took Jesus' teaching and the revealing from the Holy Spirit
of what those types and foreshadows were talking about and what it
meant under New Covenant terms. See, so the Old Covenant was
there and the Old Covenant had a purpose, the law had its purpose,
and in doing so, they realized that purpose and that under the
New Covenant and in the New Testament church, it was different, it
was not the same, that the Old Covenant was gone. Hebrews tells
us that the Old Covenant is dead, that we have died to that, okay? So if we have died to that, and
are no longer bound to that, because he uses the illustration
of a marriage. You're no longer bound to that,
but you are free and you have married another, is what the
scripture says, that we've been married to another or joined
to another. So if we've been divorced and
are separated or that old covenant has died and no longer being
bound to it, Then the new covenant has its own terms. It has its
own commandments. It has its own way of service.
And the apostle, they were grounded in that by Jesus himself. And that's why he laid them first
within the church. He called those men first. Those
12 disciples that he brought in first, those were the ones
he made the apostles. And he taught them. And that's
why when Judas betrayed and Matthias was chosen and they were choosing
Matthias. That's why the stipulation was
that it had to be someone who was of the baptism of John. So
it had to be somebody who had been, who had repented, confessed
Christ, was baptized of John. So they had to have been quickened,
had been baptized, repented of their Judaism and followed and
trusted in the lamb who was to take away the sin of man. And
it said then they were to have accompanied with them all while
Jesus was there. So it had to be someone that
came from the very beginning. Someone who had not only been
born again and baptized scripturally, but had also followed after Jesus
to have heard Jesus' teaching in the flesh, eye to eye, face
to face, to know what Jesus had been talking about. And there
was only a few men that fit that bill, And so whenever they chose,
they chose Matthias to be that man. He fit the bill. And the
reason that he became an apostle in the sense of Peter, James,
John, is because he, like them, had experienced everything that
they had. And so he was able to bear witness of the fact that
Jesus did teach him. This is from Jesus. This is what
Jesus said. Now, Paul, He came after the fact. But Paul came
under the same guidelines. He was quickened of God. He was
taught of Jesus, or well, he was baptized of Ananias. And then he went into Arabia
and Jesus taught him for three years, just like he taught the
other disciples for three years. He taught him for three years
his doctrine, face-to-face. And Paul was no lesser of an
apostle than those other men. Matter of fact, you could almost
say that he would just maybe a tinge on a higher level. He would say he wasn't, so to
speak, but he was taught by the glorified
Christ. The other apostles was taught
by Christ in his humiliation. For Paul, he was taught by Christ
in his glorified state. But anyway, Paul was an apostle. Now, why is Paul opening up this
letter? He opens up a lot of his letters this way, right?
An apostle of Jesus Christ. Why, though? Well, there's a
little bit more importance here in Galatia than it is in some
of the other letters. Particularly in Galatia, Paul
is establishing the fact, and that's why he adds this little
parenthesis, not of men, neither by men, but by Jesus Christ and
God the Father. See, in all of these other letters,
he says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. But why here does
he add this little parenthesis? Well, the reason he adds this
little parenthesis here is because In Galatia, the churches of Galatia,
Paul has been undermined by the Judaizers. They are coming in
and saying, hey, you shouldn't be listening to Paul. He's not
really one of the original apostles. He's a self-made apostle, self-proclaimed
apostle. He wasn't here when Jesus was
here. See, the Judaizers was trying to undercut everything
that Paul was doing and saying by attacking his apostleship. You can't really listen to this
guy because he wasn't one of the originals. He wasn't there
from the beginning. Okay, so Paul here, even though
he is an apostle, is defending his apostleship before the Galatian
church and saying, listen now, I'm not a self-proclaimed apostle.
He says, not of men, that means I'm not an apostle who was made
an apostle of men, nor did men call me to be an apostle. I wasn't
called of men. I wasn't made one by a man, nor
was I called one by a man, but by Jesus Christ. That means
I was called and gifted to be this apostle. and I was sent
by Jesus Christ. I received my gift, my calling,
and my sending by Jesus Christ. So he's letting them know it
wasn't by men that he was there, it was by Jesus Christ. And he
makes that even clearer by saying, but by Jesus Christ and God the
Father who raised him from the dead. Not just some phony Jesus
Christ, but the Jesus Christ that was raised from the dead
by God. God raised him from the dead. Now, some will look at that and
say, well, that's kind of weird. Why did he say, God the Father
who raised him from the dead? Who raised Jesus from the dead?
We kind of talked about this last week. in our resurrection
message. Who raised Jesus from the dead? Look with me, if you would, in
Acts chapter two. There's a reason why it says
Jesus Christ and God the Father. Acts chapter two. I think some of you may know
where I'm going with this, because you know that I believe that
Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh, and that all the
fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Ghost are all one in Christ Jesus. But
look, if you would, in Acts chapter two, verse 32, it says, this
Jesus hath God raised up whereof we are all witnesses.
So they say, well, there you go. Galatians 1.1 agrees with
that. God is the one who raised Jesus
from the grave and everything. And they'll say, and that means,
when it speaks of that, it's speaking of God the Father. And
then they'll go to, if you will, to Romans chapter six. So let's go to Romans chapter
six, because that's where the detractors will go. Romans chapter
six. Romans chapter six, look at verse
three. It says, know ye not that so
many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into
his death. Therefore, we are buried with
him by baptism unto death, that like his Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. I'll say, so there we go. God
is God the Father. That's who raised Jesus from
the dead. And a lot of men would probably
just stay there and say, well, there you go. It was God the Father who raised
Jesus from the dead because they are separate and individual and
distinct, different persons and everything. But turn with me,
if you would, to Romans chapter eight. Starting in verse 10. Or actually, let's look at verse
nine. It says, but ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.
If so be that the spirit of God, someone say, well, there you
go. That's the father spirit or the spirit of God, or maybe
an individual. Maybe they're saying that's the
distinct third person of the Godhead. That the spirit of God
dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Oh, wait a minute. So
the spirit of God is the spirit of Christ. And if Christ be in
you, oh, wait a minute, now you're saying that Christ is in me.
Colossians tells us that, right? Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And if Christ be in you, well, wait a minute, I thought you
said the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God was in me. Then you said
the Spirit of Christ was in me. Now you're saying Christ is actually
in me. Well, right, Christ is in you. How is he in you? Because
he's there by his Spirit. And his Spirit is the Spirit
of God, why? Because Jesus Christ is God, right? But if Christ
being you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life
because of righteousness. And here it is, look at verse
11. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwell in you. Now, at that point, someone will
say, well, that's talking about the spirit of God or the spirit
of the father that we read in the first two verses, the one
in Acts and the one in The first one in Romans, right? If the
spirit of the father, but what does it say here? But if the
spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in
you, who dwells in us? Christ dwells in
us. The spirit of Christ dwells in
us. He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. Wait a
minute, who's the one that quickened us? It's the spirit that quickened
him, right? He that raised up Christ from
the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that
dwelleth in you. So it's Christ there, right? Who's the one that raised up
Christ? He that raised up Christ from the dead. Who was the one
that raised up Christ from the dead? The Spirit, it's saying
here that the Spirit of God raised him up. Or the Spirit of Christ
raised him up. But we also see that the Spirit
of Christ is Christ. Because it's His Spirit. Christ
dwells in you. Well, Christ doesn't dwell in
me in a physical body. But He dwells in me by His Spirit
that He sent from Him. But the Bible also says that
the Spirit came from God. It proceeded from the Father.
It proceeded from the Father and from the Son. Well, how did
it proceed from the Father and the Son? Well, Jesus is God. Manifested in the flesh. And
those three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word,
the Spirit, that's the invisible God that manifests and bears
witness of God in Christ Jesus. The Bible says those three are
one. And the Bible says that those
God, that Godhead, The Father, Word, and Holy Spirit dwelleth
in Christ Jesus. See, I think we, I think, and
not to get too far off, but we make too far of a distinction
within the Godhead. We make too much of a division
among the Godhead, where there's more unity among the Godhead,
and as it pertains to being in Christ Jesus, And I think that what we see
in the traditions of religion is that men have separated God
more than the Bible separates him. And that also they go beyond
the scripture in their terminology and how they portray him. And
I believe that the most important thing is that it comes down to
who is Christ. That the Father and the Word
and the Holy Spirit all dwell within Christ Jesus and He makes
them manifest. He manifests God. He manifests
that Godhead. And so when we're looking here,
who raised Jesus from the dead? Jesus raised Himself from the
dead. Some will say, well, that says the Spirit. The other one
says the Father. How can you get away that those
are two distinct persons? Well, right here, and we'll see
here in a minute, how, oh, plays out but right here we see that
both the Spirit of God that the Spirit of Christ is the same
Spirit that the Spirit of God and the
Spirit of Christ is the same as being Christ because it says
it's Christ that's in you so we don't want to divide them
too far because right here the Bible is smashing them together
and saying the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ aren't
two different people. And if Christ sent His Spirit to you,
that's the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the same Spirit
that is the Spirit of Christ, that is the Spirit of God, that
is the Spirit of the Father. They're all the same Spirit.
There's only one that's the Spirit there. And it comes from Christ. To kind of maybe clear this up,
look at John chapter two. John chapter two. There's a reason
that I'm bringing this out in the Galatian introduction. And
we'll get to that here shortly. Galatians chapter two, hey son,
can you go shut that heater off? Man, it is light. here. It was a little nippy when we
first got here. Turned it on. Cut the chill down. Boy, it's
hot in here now. John chapter two. Look if you
would at verse nineteen. It says, Jesus answered and said
unto them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise
it up. Then said the Jews, forty and
six years was this temple in building. Wilt thou rear it up
in three days? But he spake of the temple of
his body. When therefore he was risen from
the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them,
and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus said."
So here we see that Jesus tells them ahead of time that he would
raise himself up from the dead. He said, if you tear down this
body, that he would rear it up in three days. You say, well,
that's not really clear. Well, how about John 10? in John
chapter 10 and verse 17. It says, therefore, doth my father
love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again. Clearly, Jesus here teaches,
not only did they not kill Jesus, they didn't kill Jesus, they
crucified Jesus. but they didn't kill him. Jesus
gave up his life willingly. He laid it down. No man takes
my life. He says, therefore does my father
love me because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but
I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my Father." So Christ was given authority
over all flesh to give life. He was given commandment of God. God had ordained and decreed
and had given commandment that Christ would not only lay down
his life, but take it up again. So here we see that Christ had
the authority to lay down his life, but he also had the authority
as God to raise it up. Now, why is that important to
Paul in his letter to the Galatian churches? whenever he says that he is an
apostle, not of men, neither by man, he is, in case anybody that's listening
to this, whether it be Jew that rejected Jesus as Messiah, or
Gentile who does not know about Messiah, my apostleship came
from the one who raised himself from the dead. And the only one
that can raise themselves from the dead is God. Many apostles
raised people from the dead, right? In the Old Testament,
we had prophets that raised people from the dead. But all of them could only raise
anyone from the dead by the power of Jesus Christ. And they even
said it was by the power of Jesus Christ that they raised him from
the dead. None of them took upon themselves that power and said
that it is within their power to do so. Matter of fact, they
could, even though they were gifted as those apostles, the
original apostles were, they were gifted with those special
gifts there at the beginning Those eventually began to die
off as the need for them and the establishment of the New
Testament churches grew, and the need for that was not there
anymore, to the place where even Paul, even though Paul could
raise somebody from the dead by the power of Christ, left
some of his co-workers sick, didn't heal them. So it wasn't
that they could just do it willy-nilly anytime they wanted to do it,
okay? What's Paul saying? He says,
listen, this isn't by some man. And it isn't by some fake Jesus that
everybody thought died and that disciples stole his body from
the grave. That was a comment that as we
read last week in our in our passages, that that was one of
the things that the religious leaders paid the guards to say
that his body was stolen. And even to this day, there are
still people that believe that Jesus didn't rise from the dead,
that he was stolen. It was because of the religious
leaders who paid those guards off. That's where it all started.
Paul is saying, listen, contrary to popular belief, this Jesus
is the one who raised himself from the dead. He's God. I'm an apostle sent by God. God is my authority. Christ is
the one who give me my doctrine that I gave to you. And that
authority is God's authority because Jesus is God. He's not a secondary person.
He's not the second person of the Trinity. He is God. The Bible
says that God has exalted him above all things. That's not
the second. He's not second in command. He's
not secondary to somebody else. He's not secondary to the Father.
The Father dwelleth in Him with all fullness. He has all the Father in Him. He has all the Word in Him. He has all the Spirit in Him. Why? Because He is that one and
true God. He is the God that we are gonna
see whenever we are raised again. He is the God that we're gonna
see on the throne for all eternity, who all glory and honor is gonna
be worshiping. There's not gonna be three little
thrones up there with three people on there. There's gonna be one
throne, one God, and that God is Christ Jesus. He is the one
who is the Lamb that was slain. That's who the Bible says we're
gonna be worshiping. They worshiped forever the Lamb that was slain,
saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord, host. The whole earth is
full of his glory. And who's the one on the throne
that they're talking to? Jesus. Paul is bringing Jesus. That Jesus. The one who is the
father, the word, the Holy Ghost in all the fullness bodily. The one who is gonna be in worship
for all time. The one who has power over life
and death. He's bringing him into account
as the one who give him this gospel. This gospel is from him. So if you're gonna take somebody's
word, you better take the word of the one who God himself condescended
in flesh and spoke to me and told me. That's the importance of why
we just talked about Christ and the three people. that people
claim to be people. It's not three people. There's
not three people. There's not three persons. There's
one person. And there is three witnesses
of who that person is. The father bears witness of that
person, that he is the son that God sends to save the people
that God has elected before all time. The invisible God The deity
that is there that has been for all of eternity, that this Christ
is the Messiah. Why does he need to do that?
Why does he need to bear witness of him like that? Because God
is a spirit. And people are seeing a person
in the flesh. See, the only personage that has to do with God is in
the face of Christ Jesus. He's the only person of God. God is a spirit. Invisible and
Jesus had made that God known. There's a lot more that I can
do and eventually one day I'm going to preach on the Trinity. But for now, I just wanted you
to see that the reason Paul is bringing Jesus Christ and God
the Father into this is because whether you're a Jew who only
sees God as the father. Jehovah the invisible God, or whether
you're a Gentile who's been hearing all this gospel about Jesus Christ,
they're one and the same. This God that the Jews, who again,
these churches were made up of Jews or Gentile Jewish proselytes,
this God that you've been hearing about, whether it be the Father,
Jehovah, Yahweh of the Old Testament, who's an invisible God, but even
the Old Testament says, here is where the Lord our God is
one, or whether it's from these men who have been preaching to
you Gentiles about this Jesus Christ, it's the same God. He's the one who raised himself
from the dead. He has power over life and death. He is God, because
only God can give life, only God can bring death, or raise
somebody from the dead. So he is appealing to God. He's
appealing to Christ and his position as God, his place as God, his
character of God. That's who give me this. And
so he says, Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by men, but
by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
And all the brethren which are with me unto the churches of
Galatia. All these brethren are possibly
those who were with Paul in his missionary journeys or whoever,
wherever he was at at the time, I don't know, but it said unto
the churches. So here we see another important
thing. You notice he said to the churches
of Galatia, not to the church of Galatia. The reason that he
said that is because there were more than one local assembly
within the region of Galatia. There were multiple ones, okay?
Now, this notion of a universal church, if it was truly a universal
church, and he was speaking to the elect in Galatia. You see,
some people believe that the church is the elect, and we've
learned through our study of the church that the church is
a local visible assembly made up of believers who have been
baptized, right? That's what a church is. It's
a local assembly. It's a gathered assembly. It's
never anywhere in the Bible ever does the word ekklesia ever refer
to a universal group of people unless it's speaking in the aggregate
all of the elect at one time, like whenever we get to heaven
and all the elect are there, and that's called the church
there. But of course, even there, it's
a gathered assembly in one place, okay? So Paul here makes that
distinction because he's not writing to a universal body of
elect in Galatia, he's writing to local churches in Galatia. So he uses the plural there,
they are churches. And the reason he uses that is
because churches are individual localized bodies, gathered assemblies. And there were multiple gathered
assemblies there, thus he used the plural. If it was the notion
of a universal church, he would have said just church, to the
Church of Galatian, if he was just speaking to the elect. But
he was speaking to the elect gathered into assemblies. That's
why he used the term churches. But look if you will at verse
four. He said, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver
us from the present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. Let's look here
at what does he mean by who gave himself for our sins that he
might deliver us from this present evil world. What's Paul getting
at here? What's Paul referring to? Well,
in Matthew chapter 20, for the sake of time, I'm gonna turn,
and if you wanna turn, you can, or write them down either way.
But Matthew 20 and verse 28, Matthew 20, verse 28. Even as
the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister
and to give his life a ransom for many. So Jesus came to give
himself a ransom for many. In Romans chapter four, in verse
25, we see the Bible says, who was delivered for our offenses
and was raised again for our justification. So Jesus gave
himself a ransom for many. He gave himself and was delivered
for our offenses or our sin and was raised again for our justification. In Titus chapter two, verse 14. Titus 2.14. We see the scripture says, who
gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and
purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. So Paul here is not saying anything
different than has been preached throughout the rest of the New
Testament in that Jesus, who is the one who raised himself
from the dead, the one who commissioned Paul as an apostle, is the very
one who died and gave himself for our sins. He is the one who
gave himself for us. And the reason for that is so
that he might deliver us from this present evil world. In John 14 and verse 12, we read
this. He says, verily, verily, I say
unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, he shall
also do in greater works. Am I reading that right? 142,
yeah. In greater works than these shall he do because I go unto
my father and whatsoever he shall ask in my name, that will I do
that the father may be glorified. And the son, if he asks anything
in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments
and I will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter
that he may abide with you forever. Even the spirit of truth, whom
the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth
him, but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you and in you. I will not leave you comfortless.
I will come to you, yet a little while, and the world seeth me
no more. But ye see me because I live, ye shall also live also. At that day ye shall know that
I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that keepeth
my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me, and
he that loveth me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love
him and will manifest myself to him. Now, I will say this,
just in passing, in these passages here, you'll see that Jesus says
that I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter. So Jesus here has been their
comforter while he has been there, but he's gonna give them another
comforter. Now, I was asked this question
by a guy who disagrees with what I've been saying about Jesus
and God and the Godhead. And he said, there is the distinction
there that Jesus is gonna go away and when he goes away, another
comforter is gonna be sent in his place. So that makes the
Holy Spirit a separate, distinct, individual person than Jesus
Christ. But notice, if you will, what
the Bible says. That's not what men say, it's what the Bible
says. It says, and he shall give you another comforter that he
may abide with you forever. Even the spirit of truth, Okay,
so here we see that the comforter is the spirit of truth, right? And he says, but ye know him
for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. So here we see
that the spirit that is being sent as the comforter is that
spirit that we just read about, that we found out was the spirit
of who? Was Christ, but it also says
that it was Christ. It was Christ in you. But he
says it right here too. Notice what he says. He says,
I will not leave you comfortless. Why? Because he's gonna send
you another comforter, right? I will come to you. Jesus says that he's gonna come
to us. Well, wait a minute. I thought that the father was
gonna send another comforter, someone separate and distinct
from the son, who is the third person of the Trinity, who is
the spirit of truth, The Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit
of the Father. Yep, they're all the same. They're
all the same. They're just different words,
different phrases uses for the same thing. And all of them is
Christ. Jesus said here that I'm going
to send you another comforter. I will not leave you comfortless.
But he just said that the father was going to send a comforter.
Is it the father or is it the son that's gonna send the comforter?
Well, it's the same thing. Why? Because God's sending the
comforter and Jesus is God. Well, I thought it was a different
person. That if Jesus goes, the Holy
Spirit can't come because Jesus is not gone. And when Jesus goes,
then the Holy Spirit can come. That makes them two separate
people. Well, here, not only does he say that he is the same
person, but he's the one also the one sending this Holy Spirit
or this Spirit of Truth or this Holy Ghost or the Spirit of the
Father or the Spirit of Christ, whatever you wanna call it. I will come to you. Well, wait
a minute. Is the Spirit gonna come to me
or are you gonna come to me? Well, it's the same. If the Spirit
comes to you, I'm coming to you because the Spirit is me. So brethren, let's not, move
things too far away. Verse 26 of Chapter 15. Jesus says, but when the Comforter
has come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which
proceeded from the Father, he shall testify of me. And he also
shall bear witness because he hath been with me from the beginning.
So here we see Jesus is saying that he's the one sending the
Spirit, but he said over here that the Father was sending the
Spirit. And he said that the Spirit is
gonna come and proceed from the Father, but yet in other passages
we see that it was the Spirit of Christ, so the Spirit proceeded
from Christ. It came from Him, it was His
Spirit. So is it the Spirit of the Father, or the Spirit of
the Christ? Does the Father have a spirit, and the Word have a spirit, and
the Holy Ghost a spirit in and of itself? And does the Spirit
have a spirit? I mean, if you get into this
kind of stuff, you start breaking the Godhead down into these distinctions
and individualities and personages, and everything, you're gonna
end up being Benny Hinn, who all of a sudden, now we have a 12-headed
God. whenever the Bible makes this very simple, if you just
follow the words of the scripture and quit trying to press in creeds
and confessions of men, it's very simple that the Lord our
God is one God and that God is manifested in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And Jesus Christ is witnessed,
it is bore record of by three, the Father, the Word and the
Holy Ghost. These three bear record in heaven. of who Jesus
is. Jesus bears record of God on
Earth in flesh. But in in heaven we learn of
Jesus by the Father, by the Word, and by the Holy Ghost. They all
testify of Jesus because God is in heaven. The Father, the
Word, the Holy Ghost, this invisible God is in heaven, but Christ
was manifest on Earth. As God, He is God. I know that's not gonna be popular,
and there's gonna be a lot of comments, I'm sure, on this, but, you know,
the Scriptures say what they say. But notice, if you would,
he says that he was gonna prepare this place, and we were gonna
be there. In 1 John 5, 19, that's gonna be the last one we read. 1 John 5, 19. It says, and we know that we
are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And so Paul
here in Galatians is saying, listen, Jesus, the one who came
and died for our sins and has given himself for us, the people
of God, for our sins, so that he might deliver us from this
present evil world, this evil world, is gonna continue to be
evil. It's always gonna be evil. It's
gonna continue in its wickedness until the end. But he said, but
Christ, the reason that he died for us is so that we could be
delivered from this evil world. And it's according to the will
of God. Everything is by the determinant counsel and will
of God. Those who are wicked, the Bible says that he hath made
all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of
evil, destruction. He says that he's created all
things, he's created darkness, he's created evil. That the elect of God, the reprobates,
the wicked, the unrighteous, all these false preachers and
false teachers, All these were ordained of God, and their condemnation
was ordained. They were ordained for that condemnation. In Peter, it says that those
false preachers and teachers that were among them, that Peter
was warning about, he said they were ordained unto that condemnation,
meaning they were gonna be condemned as false teachers, and that was
how God ordained them from the very beginning. Judas, he was
ordained for that very purpose, as is all the wicked. That's
why Romans 9 says that there are vessels of honor, vessels
of dishonor, that God has created some to be vessels of dishonor
so that he might show his wrath and show his justice and show
his glory in them being who they are, doing what they do. But
in the vessels of honor, he is saving them for his glory and
his grace and his mercy and his justice. He is showing these
things and he is showing the vessels of wrath to the vessels
of glory so that they might know God's glory. Paul is bringing
all that to bear record upon these Galatian churches to remember,
listen, there is something at stake here. The gospel is of
utmost importance. I was sent by God himself, the
one who spoke the gospel, the one who is the gospel. The gospel
is about Christ, and he is God. And he is the one who is the
deliverer, the Messiah. That's why he tied that in, Jesus
with the one who was gonna take away the sins, because that's
what the Messiah was gonna do. So for you Jews, he is the one
who takes away the sin of the world. He is the Messiah that
was to come, the anointed one of God. To you Gentiles, he's
Jesus Christ. He's God, he's the one that raises
people from the dead that you've been hearing about by all these
people. So whether you're Jew, whether you're Gentile, it doesn't
matter who you are, this gospel is of the utmost importance because
it tells the truth about Jesus Christ, it's about him. And if
you get the gospel wrong, You're telling a lie about Jesus Christ.
You're lying on Jesus Christ. And you're also giving false
hope to those who may be thinking otherwise. And so we don't want
to do that. That's why this introduction
is so important. It just seems like a few words
thrown together to say, hello, it's me, Paul. But if these words
have great impact because of what Paul is about to teach these
brethren or remind them in what was taught to them in the gospel
at the very beginning. And so we'll look, Lord willing,
we'll start with verse six, well, verse five, to whom be glory
forever, reminding them that Jesus Christ is the one who's
gonna be given glory forever. Notice there he didn't say, the
Father, or the Word, or the Holy Ghost. He didn't break it down
to who's gonna be saved. He said, Jesus. It's the Lord
Jesus Christ who's gonna be given glory forever. All right, we'll start, Lord
willing, verse six. Does anybody have any questions before we
finish? Or any comments, or anything? Well, Lord willing, verse six,
not next Sunday, but the Sunday after that, we'll start up with
verse six. and start into the kind of the meat of the matter
here. Paul doesn't kind of, kind of doesn't pussyfoot around.
He just jumps right in at the very beginning. I marvel that
you are soon removed from him. He gets right into the, in Corinth,
at least he kind of buttered them up a little bit before he
started. But here he just jumps right in. And so we'll jump in
right in at verse six, Lord willing, next week. All right, let's bow
and we'll have a little prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we come
to you now and we thank you so much for what you have done and
what you have given for us to know by your word. And we thank
you today that we can come together freely to study it. And Lord,
we pray that you would help us in the days to come as we begin
to look at these passages in Galatia. Lord, we just pray that
you would help us to understand them that you would display your
son vividly for us in these passages, that we might search him out,
as we know that all scriptures are about him from the first
until the last, and Lord, that we might not be preaching on
doctrines, although we need to preach doctrine, that we might
not be preaching some sort of systematic theology, although
sometimes those are helpful. We're not preaching a denominational
creed of confession. All those can be helpful in some
instances. But Father, we are preaching
God's word and the truth about who Jesus Christ is, and so we
pray, Lord, that we might see him in everything as we go through
this, and Lord, that you might help us to see him, help us to
preach him. Father, we just pray that you might guide us in this
study. We thank you for today. We pray
that you'd be with our members that are not here today, Even
our guests that are regular here for Daniel, who's gone. For Brother
Ed, who's gone. Lord, we just pray that you might
be with them. And for Kaylin and my grandmother
who are at home. And Lord, we pray for our extended
members. Sister Louetta out in Tennessee.
Lord, we pray for her and for Mindy. And Lord, we just keep
all these brethren that have been through our church at some
point. We continue to pray for them as well, Lord, and we just
ask that you just might minister as you see fit with your people
and for this church as you see fit here. Lord, we pray that
you might bring others to our church. We pray, Lord, that you
might help us to be ministers of the gospel and to remain faithful,
and we need the Holy Spirit to do that in us. We cannot do it
on our own, and so we need you. We pray, Lord, that this message
that goes out by sermon audio or by Facebook live stream Lord
we pray that those that are listening that you might minister to them
and that you might teach them Lord as well by your spirit as
these things are being listened to we are thankful for the opportunity
to share on those platforms and We're thankful for the many responses that we get from them,
Lord, declaring their glory to you because of what they hear. And Lord, that's nothing on us. It's all of you because you've
given us to teach it. You've given us to be able to
broadcast it. and you've given them ears to
hear it, Lord, and so we're so thankful in all that. We just
pray, Lord, that you'll be with us now as we leave this place,
that you might give us grace and mercy this week, help us
to be witnesses for you, and until we meet again, Father,
may you keep us safe, and we wanna say thank you and we love
you for the work of redemption that you did on the cross for
us on our behalf, and that we have life and that we have it
abundantly. And Lord, we pray that you might come quickly to
receive us of yourself and deliver us from this wicked world that
we live in. Father, we so desire to see you
again. And we ask that you might keep
each one's heart until that day. And it's in Jesus' name that
we pray, amen.