people in my church that say
they're Southern Baptists. Maybe. It's good to be here. It's always an honor to be here. It's an honor just to be able
to open the word. Are you happy yet? Brother, I just want to tell
you before I say anything, I thoroughly enjoyed that message. It was
excellent. I can't add to that. Well, that
just covers just about everything. Are you happy yet? We passed
a number of billboards on the way this morning, and probably
20 or 30 fantastic covers. Enjoy the fun. A fun ride, all
various fun. When does the fun start? I've never been through them.
I think you get in a jeep, if I remember right. Somebody told
me, you get in a jeep, you go through the cave. As soon as
you get in the jeep, you go through, the fun starts when you come
out and watch back to the same old thing. When Mike came in, he was talking
about titles and everything. I couldn't believe that he asked
me to preach on epigenetics and cognitive therapy. leave theory, some of those things. Maybe next time. Maybe not. Yeah, when does the fun start? I never preach the same way twice. Some of you may figure that out. Mainly two points. One is the facts. and the facts
have a following. If you have your Bible with you,
turn over this morning to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse
1. talking about the facts, we're
talking about are you having fun yet. By definition, and our brother
kind of touched on the verse without going there a little
bit, but we know the natural man doesn't receive the things
of the spirit. And so because of that, I always
pray that I'm primarily speaking to somebody who has ears to hear.
I don't know who that is. The Lord knows. And as we share
this time together, fellowship, and by the Holy Spirit allowing
and by His working, which has already taken place, I told Brother Tom, I believe
he got it. He's got it. The Lord is so good and so wonderful,
and by His blessing and by His Word, He touches us and He does
that heart surgery. And Paul said, and here in verse
1, chapter 2, he says, And I, brethren, when I came to you,
came not with excellency of speech or wisdom, declaring unto you
the testimony of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I'll stop there just a second,
we're gonna read a little bit more, but probably until the
Lord actually brought me to the doctrines of grace, I had no
idea what that verse meant. I'm not talking about the, Quantity
so much. I mean there was a lot of things
I understood about it You can run chain references and that
but as far as the Lord making it real to me. I Remember somebody
asking me about that verse and they they said but don't you
believe that Jesus was was crucified but yeah, but what Paul was saying
was for I determined not to know anything among you among you
except that save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." In that statement,
he's not saying that this is one among a number of things.
He's saying this is the exclusive focus. And as you focus, all
those other side issues, sidebars, they fall. And our focus and
our lives are to be upon the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified
with everything else falling by the side. I think I'm still learning that. Everything else The first time
I saw the emphasis on that was on the Metropolitan Tabernacle
volumes. And, you know, you see it so
many places, but especially Pilgrim publications back then when I
was going through them all. Is Christ and Him crucified?
I'd look at it and say yes. And then I'd go on and have all
these other considerations, and I'm still being returned to focus
upon the meaning of that. Paul says, verse three, and I
was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. I know what that means. There's
not anything that I can boast. In my speech and my preaching
were not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but a demonstration
of the spirit and of power. that your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. However, we
speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom
of this world or this age, nor the princes of this world, that
comes to what? They're vying with us on that. Oh, we have the wisdom, psychology. We have the answer, we have the
textbooks. Comes to naught, comes to nothing.
Verse 7, but we speak of the wisdom of God in a mystery, even
the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Which none of the princes of
this world this age knew, for they, had they known it, they
would have not crucified the Lord of glory." Aren't you glad they didn't know
it? My church always says, huh, is
that a trick question? Aren't you glad? We know what
the plan was. We know what God's purpose was.
We know that the fall didn't surprise the father. It was all
laid out. And I'm right with you on the
baby questions. It's according to what God has
done. One of the men, actually two
of the men in my church, they said, well, that's according
to what they would have done. And I thought, oh man, that's
trying to cut somebody a little slack, but I'm not even sure
if that's on any kind of scale. But it's what God already did,
which you brought up, and I need to restate that just for our
good. It's what God did. It's not what
man does. Speaking, verse 7, the wisdom
of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom. It's hidden, isn't
it? It's hidden. Yes. All right. You have ears to hear and eyes
to see, but it's hidden. And it amazes me that the longer
the Lord lets me live, the more I see His mercy at work. I see myself as a debtor. And
I said that to somebody the other day. And they said, well, you
can't ever pay it off. I didn't say I could pay it off.
But I see myself as a debtor that's increasing in debt as
far as my understanding is concerned, as the Lord and Holy Spirit shares
His work with me and what He's done to save the likes of me.
I owe Him everything. It's not some account sheet that
I'm trying to keep track of. I owe Him everything from start
to finish, and finish isn't even here yet, but what's done I owe
Him. And those sins that have already been forgiven me, that
I haven't even committed yet, they've already been forgiven,
so I owe Him for what I don't know. He's forgiven me of those
sins. Speaking of wisdom of God and
the mystery. You know, there's a mystery of
godliness and a mystery of iniquity. Even the hidden wisdom which
God ordained before the world. And I love this part right here
because it comes into the heading of facts, I suppose. I mean,
really, all of God's Word does. Ordained before the world unto
who? Unto our glory. That's my glory
and your glory if you know the Lord this morning. He's ordained
it towards us. It's directed towards His people
over there in Matthew 121. He shall save His people. There's
not, as you said, there's not any maybes or let's think about
it or anything else involved and I believe it's from eternity
past. So as he did that, maybe some of you, I need to talk to
preachers. How does God think? I had a guy tell me the other
day, God doesn't think. Does he have to think? How do
you think? What's the contrast between how
you think and God thinks? I need like five pages from each
of you here. It amazes me, because He created
time. When I try to have a concept,
you know, try to have some kind of approach, discernment on an
issue, and I'm looking in the Word, and I'm thinking, there
I go again, I'm thinking, how did the Lord, how did I, did
He think about this? In the terms that we use the
word think, I'm really interested in language and education, because
I think it's proven God. How does He think? The Bible
tells us it's how He thinks about us. But is time involved? Don't be too quick to answer. Is time involved? We were talking
about reminiscing. I love to reminisce and go back
and think about things. Brother McDulls, I don't know him real well. I've
met him a few times. Somebody told me he's from Scotland. No
Scotland? Wales? No Wales? Northern Ireland. Northern? OK. You ever been to
Glencoe, Scotland? I've been there. I've been told my family came
from Glencoe. And I love to read everything
about it. I look up the pictures, you know,
and it's kind of a beautiful place down the bottom of a valley.
And I love history, and I love Baptist
history. And I'm reading the Word here,
and before this New Testament that
we have was even written, This verse was true. I don't know if we all think
the same. I think we think in similar fashion. But does that
ever get overwhelming to you? I mean, I'm reading words on
a page in a Bible that was printed, you know, a few years back. And
I apologize for this one, because it's a scopio. I hardly ever pick it up. But
it was published and printed, it was translated, it was all
the things down through the years. But what this tells me was new
before it was ever before my eyes. It was absolutely true. I was just thinking about this
verse and thinking about some of the things it's telling us.
God ordained before the world unto our glory those that have
eyes to see and ears to hear. I can't just read that real fast.
It's just, can you imagine? You know, the Lord was talking
to Bill before Bill was even born. Oh man. That's, that's some kind
of God. I mean, it's absolute perfection
in deity. And if it wasn't for him being
absolute, we would have no absolutes. Isn't that what the world and our country is running
away from? It's a fearful thing. And it's fearful on both sides.
Really, I mean, you know what? Because you've got the good and
the bad sort of in our mind, those concepts. You've got the
positives and the negatives. But the blessing comes and the
happiness comes when you realize that as God put this together,
and in time, shares this truth with you, in time, as you're
sitting here this afternoon, or this morning, whatever it
is. As you're sitting here, an Almighty, I even hate to say that, THE Almighty,
has put His finger upon you and touched you, And what would we
say, quickened you? He's given you life, made you
alive, when you were absolutely, 100%, totally undeserving, according
to the good pleasure of His will. I don't understand that. Now
I can look up here and I can say, well, I know it's to His
glory. That being the case, it makes me all the much smaller. as he increases and I decrease. Somebody the other day or something
I read, I don't know where it was, said that where the Lord
is bringing you is to have a concept without any focus being upon
yourself. I agree with that, but the only
thing is none of us have arrived. He's still guiding us, teaching
us, instructing us. And we're learners in this school
of Christ, but I think we're totally underwhelmed with who
He is. And I can appreciate all that
He does through any of us, because it's in contrast to anything
that the world has ever done. It's foreign to the world. We're
being shared here the facts of who Christ is. It's Christ and
Him crucified. And we're being shared here in
the direction with the subject, such as we look at it in one
verse. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
Because I have an understanding of the previous verse that was
already true before it was ever written. Fantastic. He is absolute, he's doing the
work, and the positives and the negatives, and he is Lord over
both. I could say I know people that
still argue with that, but then I still argue with that sometimes.
A man in my church, has a lot of
insight, and we were talking about some of those things, and
I said, well, start talking about children
and babies, you always have to be careful. He's a new grandfather,
and I've got 10 grandkids, and I have one granddaughter that's
Down syndrome. And the Lord is just as much
Lord with her as with anybody else. And the rest of them have attitude
problems. Quick surmising by grandpa. But I have attitude problems.
Do you ever have a wrong attitude? He's giving us the facts here.
Verse 5, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men,
but in the power of God. Absolutely. When you're His,
I think you know that. I mean, I could be going out
on a limb, but I think you know that. Turn over to Matthew 5. And the Beatitudes. We were looking at the facts.
This is the following. It's described in many ways.
I don't know how many, I've preached a number of months, whatever
it was, on the Beatitudes here. I always tell everybody if they
ask me that I'm a, number one, I usually tell them I'm a free
grace Baptist and then they give me a strange look like, what
are you talking about? And then I always have to tell them it's
not free grays, but it's free grays. And sovereign grays. And they say, well, I don't know
what you mean. And I usually tell them I'm an
evidentialist, not a conditionalist. They kind of know what that means,
and then I can go from there and explain it. But the Beatitudes
are evidences. They're describing the Christian
in character, who he is. This first one, and seeing the
multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and when he was said, his disciples
came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,
not the multitude, but his disciples, blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that
mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they who do hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called the children, the sons of God. Blessed
are they who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall
revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely. For my sake, be joyous and be
exceedingly glad. For great is your reward in heaven,
or so persecuted they the prophets who were before you. You can
see there's, boy, I mean, just any number of things we could
pick out there. Does this describe you? If it does, raise your hand.
I'm just saying. You can put your hands down. Does this describe you? Man. Well, a couple of these. I kind
of see sometimes. And I think you understand the
fact that it's saying, blessed are. And so it's what he's doing
and what's following in those that are his. Evidences. I think I think. Brother Mike put something out
in a long article you put on a few, maybe a month or two ago,
talking about evidences. You remember that? Evidences don't save you. I mean,
we have to remind ourselves of that. We don't want to make it
like just a checklist, actually. Evidences don't save you. If
you're in a courtroom trial, you've got various evidence.
There's a judge and the evidence is weighed and those kinds of
things, but in this case, the judge is the Lord. And he's saying,
blessed are you. So these are pronouncements that
are evidential in his people. So when we read through there, and I have to say, it probably
depends on our perspective at that moment in time. When we
read through there, we might say, well, I can see that in
me. I can see that in me. But then
the next time we read it, we can say, oh, well, that looks
good. So. There's some kind of dependent
thing taking place there. And I think that this conversation
that I was having, when things are closest to us, our perception
changes. Just for an example, I visit
with a couple of preachers, Northern Iraq, Pakistan, Philippines,
various places. Thailand, oh, different places. And when you read about, particularly
here lately, the preacher over in northern Iraq talking about
Christians being killed and persecuted, and it was two or three months
ago, he was talking about ISIS was right behind them and they
were took out on foot trying to get ahead of them before they'd
get killed. And some of the families that were too big, they had so
many kids, the kids couldn't keep up. The kids were being
killed because they just couldn't keep up. Father couldn't carry
them all. Mother couldn't carry them. Terrible scene that was described
to me. Ongoing, right now in our time. But emotionally, it
didn't affect me as much as my granddaughter being sick. Does that make any sense? The
things that are closest to us bring out our emotional reaction
much quicker and stronger than us seeing something on the news
or reading an account of something that's off some distance. That's
maybe not the way it should be, but it's the way it is. So when
we see that and then we're thinking about the evidences here, and
I can't help but also think about The Word says that we are to
sanctify ourselves, but it also says Jesus is our sanctification,
and we cannot bless God unless we know that it's God within
us that He's recognizing, working to bless Him back. So there's
not anything that we can claim as far as our goodness and mercy
other than the Holy Spirit of Jesus living within us. So when
we begin to see that and we look at the subject of sanctification
and it's talking about being separated from God, being made
holy before you ever existed. Don't talk, preachers don't talk
about it quite as much now as the last couple of years, but
what about progressive sanctification? But I don't believe God reveals
Himself anymore than He already had. And when you belong to Him,
and Jesus finished that work on the cross and said, Father,
I've finished it, and you're His people, He totally finished
it for you, and you can't be made more of it. When you were
sanctified, do you realize you were, you've experienced absolute
sanctification? You have been absolutely sanctified. Not by one iota of anything you've
ever done. He paid the price. It says, blessed are. Mark's granddad, my father-in-law,
he went through there teaching the Beatitudes and he said, it's
truly happy. Well, it's truly happy. Somewhere
I was reading, I don't remember where, it said purely, purely
holy. And I thought, well, holiness, but it does have something
to do with that, because if God is blessing and it's directed
to you, isn't that holiness alone? It's not even a mixture of stuff. God has brought you through and
is bringing you through to see that you have been absolutely
sanctified, now the other side of it, practically. What about all those verses that
say, grow in grace and anointing? I know God has his hand on me
when he's bringing me through this mess of the world I live
in that he created. And he's also in control of it. That's kind of like, preacher,
how can you say that? It's all him. It's all him. About three years ago, my dad
passed away and he was laying there on his bed. We took care
of him the last three and a half, four years. And two or three
times in that period, and he's gone to church all his life,
but just they're all forgivens in life that we go through. He
said, he said, Tom, I want you to tell me. And he asked me a
number of times. He said, I want you to tell me
how to get to heaven. And he was in his 90s. And I
got to where I found it irritated. I shouldn't do that, shouldn't
I? I'm a preacher in the Christian family. And he's my dad, and
he said, tell me how to get to heaven. And I said, Dad, it's
not complex at all. Just trust in Jesus. Years ago,
I was kind of struggling with going into the ministry, and
I went to a bunch of preachers I knew to give me direction. I went to one guy and broke an
arrow and I thought maybe he'll tell me something different.
He said, I just trust in Jesus. You know you can't do it unless
you've been able to trust. That's right. Because faith is
a gift. Yes, it is. And you've been absolutely But it's sanctified. He's made
you as perfect as you can ever be. But in the school of Christ,
and that verse says, we're being conformed unto His image. So there's the finished work,
cannot ever be questioned. There is the ongoing experience,
the following, blessed are. So the more I read it, I'm beginning
to understand that This is, it's a school of Christ, but these
are all the classrooms. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
It's not anything in me, it's all Him. Blessed are they that
mourn, because I don't have anything that I can add to it. My dependence
is upon Christ alone, and Christ and Him crucified. He's done
the only thing that matters to me. Everything else really just
almost doesn't exist at all. I mean, I have blessings in life.
I have my wife and my family. I have a roof over my head. Blessed are the meek, blessed
are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Do you hunger
and thirst after righteousness? Or is that just a part of your
day? Maybe. It's not just eating one chip,
right? A hunger and thirst. You know, I don't know who would
know this, maybe one of you preachers. Sursum corda. Latin. Part of some of the early churches,
but I just saw it in a note one time, but it's lifting your heart
to the Lord. You wouldn't be who you were
if the Lord hadn't given you a new heart. And he reminds us that our hearts
are to be lifted to him. That's what our practical day
in and day out part of it. He has given you faith so that
you might look up, looking unto Jesus, right? The author and
finisher of our faith. Now I love being here. I like
being here and visiting with preachers better than anything
in my life. But I'll tell you what, you don't measure up when
it comes to Jesus. That's right. That's it. That's right. A long
time ago, there was a Mennonite preacher, and we were talking
about it. And he said, I can't wait to get to heaven, because
I'm going to travel at the speed of thought. And I thought, it's
going to be quicker than that. Absolutes. We must have them. We do have them. We're to live
by them. It's our only hope because he's absolute. Can't take away
anywhere. It's just him. Are you having fun yet? Joy is pure. It's deep seated.
It's a foundation for everything. I've had a few people down through
the years tell me, you know, well, preachers aren't to be,
you know, silly. Well, no, not silly. But there's
to be a purpose behind everything, every word we speak. We tell
my older son all the time, he's got seven kids. He preaches occasionally. We tell him, this is your church,
son. Who are you around the most in
your day? Might be your husband, your wife, your kids, co-workers,
whoever it is. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory, and that is pure joy. Cannot be taken away from you.
I hope and I pray that you know that this morning. I can trust in Him. Isn't that
wonderful? It's beyond words. Before it was ever even written. So I can call my uncle brother. Well, the Lord really is speaking
to us this morning and I'm appreciative of that. Both these men and the
word that they brought to us and I pray that it will continue
as we go through the rest of the day. Well, let's all stand
if you would. We're going to break for lunch.
The ladies, I'm sure, has got things about prepared back there. And you'll just go out the door
out here. And whenever you get down about
the middle of the way, you'll see the door going into the fellowship
hall. And if I remember right, it's
going to be the second door. You'll see the kitchen and the
next door. That's where you'll go in and get your plates. My
wife may redirect you whenever you get back there, I don't know.
But anyway, it's gonna be back there. All right, let's bow and
we'll have a word of prayer, and then we'll be dismissed for
lunch. I'm gonna ask if Brother Larry
Phillips, if he would dismiss us, and if you would ask a blessing
upon the food that we're about to eat, brother. Father, we thank
you for your eternal unchanging love. We thank you for what has
been said today under the power of your Holy Spirit. And you
would help us to apply this to our lives. And we know that we
can only do it through you. We pray that you would, in this
time after this, bless this food of our bodies for us.