John's Gospel, chapter 15. And I just have one passage of Scripture I want to read. But I do want you to keep your Bibles handy. If you don't have a Bible, you'll find one in the pew. I just want to read this one verse in verse 16, the 15th chapter in verse 16. Make a few comments on it this morning.

In verse 16, the Lord Jesus speaking to His apostles and said, You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you, set you apart, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He will give it to you. Beginning in the 13th chapter of the book of John, all the way through the 17th chapter of the book of John, has been called by some people the inner sanctuary. I even have a book by that name, the inner sanctuary. And they call it that, I imagine, because beginning there in the 13th chapter, The Lord takes his twelve apostles off to the side, and it's a day or two before the Passover, but they're there to share a meal. He gathers the twelve apostles together to share a meal. And he gets a towel and girds himself with it and takes a pan of water. gets down at the apostles' feet and begins to wash their feet and wipe them with a towel. And Peter is shocked.

He said, Lord, you're going to wash my feet? You'll never wash my feet. And the Lord said, Peter, if I don't wash you, you have no part with me. And Peter said, Lord, if that's the case, then wash my head, wash my hands. And then the Lord became very, very burdened. several times in the book of John and the other Gospels as well, he mentions Judas betraying him. The Bible says that my soul, he said, my spirit is grieved within me.

One of you shall betray me this night. And you can read it there in the 13th chapter. He mentions that three times. And then finally he looks at Judas and says, what you're going to do, you do quickly. And then he goes on after Judas leaves and he begins to tell his apostles, the eleven that's left, some very intimate instructions. Gives them some information that they need to know.

And he tells them, first of all, that he's going to leave them. He said, I'm going away and you can't follow me now. And Peter's heart was broken. He said, Lord, why can't I go with you? I would die for you. You know that I would die for you. And that's when the Lord told him, Peter, before the cock crows three times, you will deny me. You will deny me. You will deny me three times that you even know me. And Peter never spoke another word from the 13th chapter all the way through the rest of this inter-sanctuary discourse. We never have another time that he spoke another word. I imagine he trembled, don't you? How can I even think about doing such a thing? But he did.

And then the Lord goes on in the 14th chapter to tell them that he's going away and he's going to prepare a place for them. And He'd be coming again and receiving them unto Himself that where He is, there they would be with Him. There in the Father's house. And He said, there's all kinds of mansions here. There's plenty of room in my Father's house, and there's a room with your name on it. It's reserved there for you.

And then He tells them about the Holy Spirit, the coming of the Holy Spirit. He says, I'm going away, but when I get to Heaven, I'm going to the cross. I'm going to the tomb. But I'm going to raise and ascend to heaven. And my Father is going to send the Holy Spirit back to you. My Spirit.

He's going to send it to your heart. And He's going to be a comforter to you. And He's going to guide you. He's going to lead you into all these truths. And He's going to be with you forever. Never going to forsake you. And then He goes on to tell them that in this world, they're going to have a lot of tribulation. But he said, Be of good cheer. I've overcome this world.

And then he comes here to the 15th chapter and he gives them this parable about the vine and the branches. And he said to them here in the 15th chapter, he said, I am the vine. You're just the branches. And just as the branches can do nothing of themselves. The branch cannot bear any fruit except it abide in the vine. The branch brings forth fruit, he told them, by virtue of abiding in the vine. And he tells them, to abide in me, I am the vine, you're the branches. You abide in me, and when you do, you'll just automatically bring forth fruit. And he said, if you don't abide in me, you're just like a severed branch. You'll wither up and you'll be cast into the fire.

And then that brings us here to our text. He says in verse 16, you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. And this is what I want to look at this morning. And first of all, I just want to look at the text itself and see what it means. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. And what he's telling his disciples is, you've not chosen me as your master. You've not chosen me as your teacher and your guide, but I have chosen you. This is obviously speaking here about the Lord choosing them to be apostles. He's choosing them to serve Him. The rest of that verse tells us that I've chosen you that you should go and bring forth fruit.

Now we see this in other places in the scriptures about the Lord choosing these twelve men. Remember when He went into the Mount of Olives and He prayed all night. Our Lord was all night in prayer to His Father. And the next morning he gathered all his disciples around him, and of those disciples he chose twelve men to be apostles. Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? And it was the same way with the apostle Paul.

When the Lord had saved Saul of Tarsus, he went to the man Ananias, and he said, You go lay your hands on Saul, So he can receive his sight because he's a chosen vessel unto me. I've chosen him as a vessel for this reason, to this end, that he would bear my name among the Gentiles and before kings and the children of Israel. So what the Lord Jesus is saying here in our text is this, that I have chosen you, I have elected you to service, to serve me. He told Jeremiah the same thing, didn't he?

Before I formed thee in the belly, before you came out of your mother's womb, I chose you to be a prophet. I ordained you to be a prophet, to preach to the children of Israel. And our Lord is telling these 11 apostles, that's the ones that's left. Judas has already gone out into the night to betray the Lord Jesus. But he's telling these apostles something that they needed to know. They needed to hear this. It's something that every God-called preacher has to hear. He has to be assured of. And it's this. I have not called myself into the ministry. I have not put myself into the ministry. I have not chosen to preach the gospel. This choice has been made for me. First and foremost, the Lord has called me and put me into the ministry.

Now that's, I'm telling you what, brothers and sisters, that's absolutely necessary for a man to know. Because there's going to be times in the preacher's life When if he cannot have some assurance that the Lord has called him into the ministry, he is going to give up and quit.

Because it's a 24-hour-a-day job. It's sometimes that you want your mind to shut down. You want some rest. There's 24-7 and your mind is going. You wake up in the night and your mind is going. And you study. And you prepare a message and your heart is longing for the Lord to work in His saints and save sinners. And until a man has been there, he has no idea what that's like.

I was talking with a dear pastor friend of mine and he said, what a paradox the ministry is. He said, it's the best job I ever had in my life. Disconsider it as a job. He said, he said, who else can go to his study and sat down with the word of God and study it and meditate in it and prepare a message to go preach the word of life to other people? He said, it's the best job you could imagine. And it is. But he says, the toughest job I ever tackled in my life. And it's that too, isn't it? And there's one thing I've had to know, and I have sought diligently.

Lord, let me know, however you're able to let me know, that I have not called myself, I have not chosen this ministry for myself, but it's you that's chosen me. Say to me what you've said to these apostles. You have not put yourself into the ministry. It's Me that has chosen you for it.

Boy, He told these apostles several places here in the 14th, 15th, and even the 17th chapter when He was praying to His Heavenly Father. He told these apostles some of the things that they were going to suffer. He said, There's coming a time they're going to put you out of the synagogues. He tells them that in chapter 16.

They're going to put you out of the synagogues. And some of you they're going to kill. Remember James in Acts chapter 12? Cut his head off. And he said, you're going to be hated of the world for my namesake. If they've hated me, they're going to hate you. And in his high priestly prayer to the Father, he said, Father, I've given these men your word and the world has hated them.

Boy, I tell you what, I tell you what, I want to know when I get in a jam, when I get in a fix, and when I get under a burden about the ministry, I want to know, Bruce, it's not you that's chosen this. I chose you for it. Boy, what a blessing. What a joy that is.

But isn't it so, in a great sense, to every believer. It is not just the preacher that serves the Lord. Every child of God has been called unto the service of the Lord. The Apostle Paul was writing to the Thessalonican church and he told them that they had turned to God from idols to serve the true and living God.

There are so many different offices in the church. There is so much diversity of service in this little congregation right here. If you are here this morning, and the Lord has saved you and called you, and He has put you in this body, He has put you here to serve Him.

You have not put yourself here. He's did it. It's not just the pastor that he's chosen for this end. It's every child of God that he saves. Paul was lacking in the body, the physical body to the church of Jesus Christ. And he said the local congregation is just like the body, the human body. The human body has eyes. It has ears. It has hands. It has feet. And each member of the body has a function that it accomplishes.

And Paul said, because the ear is not the eye, the ear can't say, well, I'm just going to shut down. I'm not going to hear. And because the hand is not the foot, you say, well, I'm just not going to feel anymore. And because the foot's not the hand, you say, I'm not walking anymore.

Paul said there's a body. Every member works and functions as would help the body and strengthen and move the body. And then he makes this wonderful statement. He said it's the same way spiritually. It's the same way within the body of Christ. And here's what he's saying. God has set every member in the body. as it pleased Him. So you're in this body this morning, and you have your function in this body, whatever it is, it's because God ordained you, He chose you, and put you in that body for a specific reason. And you serve Him as well as I do, or anybody else.

That's amazing to me. Is it to you? You have not chosen me. It's not you that put yourself in this body. It's not you that determined what you were going to do in this body and your function in it. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. I don't know what your function may be this morning. Maybe sometimes you feel like myself. I feel like a little toe that you could just cut me off and the body would go on and on and never miss me. You ever feel that way? But members are important, and they're important for this reason. You did not set yourself in this body.

The service that you're doing is not what you chose yourself to, but what you were chosen by the Lord. Let's broaden our text out just a little bit. And our text says that they were chosen to service. There isn't an election. to service. Paul was a chosen vessel to preach the Lord Jesus Christ.

But there's another election. There's another election that's vital, just as vital as this one. No, it's more so. It's more vital. The election the Lord Jesus was telling them about here was election to service. But there's another election, and that's election to salvation. And first and foremost, that's what you and I want to be a partaker of.

I was listening to a pastor. He appeared to be in his middle 60s or so. I imagine he'd been a pastor a long time. He had a large congregation, thousands of people it looked like in his congregation. And he was preaching and he made this statement in his preaching several times. He kept stressing this.

He said, election is unto service, not salvation. Election is to serve us and not salvation. And as I sat there, I thought, man, do you ever read your Bible on the subject of election? Most of you in here, probably some of you, could quote 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 13. Let me quote it for you. Paul said, we are bound to give thanks to God for you. Brethren, beloved of the Lord, for the Lord hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation."

Now, isn't that important? I wish that pastor had laid as much stress upon being elected to salvation as he did election to service. Because it's absolutely necessary before you're elected to service to be elected to salvation. What would it look like if a man could be elected to service and not be elected to salvation? How would that pan out?

I wonder. We don't have to wonder. We know exactly how that would pan out. We have a perfect example of it. Have not I chosen you twelve and one of you is a devil? Have not I chosen you twelve to service? I have elected eleven of you to life eternal. I have not elected the other one. He's the one that's going to betray me.

And brothers and sisters, how did that pan out? I come here this morning and I preach Jesus Christ to you. But I tell you there's something more important than me preaching Christ to you. I know Him for myself. I come here this morning and I tell you there's a fountain open for sin and uncleanness, but it's necessary for me to be washed in that fountain myself. I tell you to come here, I come here and tell you to take up your cross and follow the Lord Jesus Christ, but if I'm not doing it myself, it will profit me nothing. I don't want to preach the gospel. I don't want to be called into a service and not be saved myself.

What a wake-up call Judas had. Peter said he obtained part in this ministry. He went out and in with us. He preached just as we preached. He cast out devils. He preached repentance. And He was without it Himself. He cast out devils and He had one Himself. And Peter said, He hanged Himself and went to His own place. And I am just saying, brothers and sisters, this morning, we stress to Every child of God that He's called to service. And the Lord put you in that service.

But I'm telling you, there's an election much more important than that. And that's the election to salvation. Election to life everlasting. Well, I don't want to be a professing Christian and not be one. That's important, isn't it? Let's dig just a little bit deeper in our text. What was our Lord's motive in saying this to His disciples? Why would He even bring this up? Why would He say this? You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. Let me give you four things quickly. Four motives our Lord would have had in telling these apostles this. One was to humble them. These apostles needed a taste of humiliation. Did they not? They really thought they were absolutely qualified to serve the Lord. And He comes to you and says, You have not chosen to serve Me. It is Me that has chosen you to serve Me. You have not chosen Me. What is involved in serving somebody else?

If you're going to apply for a job at some company and you filled out a resume, they often do that now. When I was in the workforce in the 60s and 70s, we just went and said, I need a job. They said, can you start tomorrow? Now you've got to get online, fill all these resumes out and everything else, and later they call you and all of that stuff. If you went to a company and you took your resume and you sat down there in the HR department or whoever, and you would say, well, here's my qualifications.

I've got them wrote down here on this resume. I think I can enhance your company. I think I can be profitable if you'll give me a job. And here's why I think I can serve you. And you hand in your resume. And he'll say, yeah. Well, we need your kind of people. You've got this training. You've got this skill. I think you're really going to fit in here. Yeah, we're going to hire you. Can you imagine these eleven apostles handing in a resume to the Lord Jesus Christ? Can you imagine that? Well, here's our resume. We've got four fellows here that they're the best fishermen in all the country of Galilee. They can outfish any five men together. You talk about casting a net. You talk about baiting a hook. You talk about catching some fish.

If you'll take these men into your service, they're really going to enhance your kingdom. And we've got another fellow over here. He's a businessman. And buddy, he can collect more taxes and he can keep some of the best receipts. You need a man like this. You need somebody that is going to be faithful to do and to keep all these receipts in your kingdom. And this Peter guy, he's not only a good fisherman, but he's good with a sword. In one quick stroke, he can slice a man's ear off.

You're going to need a man like this. Can you imagine their resume? Lord, here's why you should hire us in your kingdom. Here's why we would enhance the everlasting kingdom of the Lord of glory. You see why he told them, you've not chosen me. You don't have a thing to offer me. It's me that is calling you to do this job. It's me that will qualify you to do this job.

One of the most amazing things happened. here at this time, the Lord of Glory girded Himself with a sheet-like towel. And He took a pan of water. And the Lord of Glory got down on His knees and put these filthy feet of these apostles into a pan of water. and washed their feet, and He dried their feet with that towel. And then He looks at each one of them, and He said, You know what I just did to you? You call Me, Lord, and you call Me, Master, and you say, Well, because I am. And you see what I've done to you? You see how I've humbled myself to serve you? Then you do likewise.

That's the qualifications for serving in my kingdom. It's not seeking who's the mightiest among you. It's not wanting to sit on my right hand and on my left in my kingdom. It's a service of humility. It's choosing others above yourself. Boy, that's humbling to them, wasn't it? You're going to love me? You're going to serve me? Then you're going to wash your brother's feet. You're going to serve your brothers and you're going to serve your sisters. Are you the chief? Then you're going to become a servant to them.

You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. A lesson in humility, isn't it? A man or a woman is not worth their weight in mud to serve Jesus Christ unless he's taught them humility. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. Something else here, and that is a warning to them. He gives them a warning. He said, You've not chosen me, but I've chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit. But here's what they must remember. They ever must remember this, that their fruit is not of themselves. The fruit is of Him. It goes back to this parable here.

In verse 6, I want you to look in verse 6 of the 15th chapter. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered. And men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they're burned. He gives them this warning, and look in verse 4.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. But without me, you can do nothing.

Acceptable fruit. is produced by abiding in Jesus Christ. It comes by virtue of being in Him just as the branch brings forth fruit by virtue of being in the vine. You've got this root. Sap comes up from this root. It comes up through the branch. or through the vine, and it gets out into the branches. And Christ said that's the same way with you. That's the way you're going to bring forth fruit. But if you don't abide in Me, you're going to wither. You can't bring forth fruit in yourself. This was a warning to them and to us as well. Now listen to this.

What does this tell us? about all of these different congregations that have left the Holy Scriptures as their rule of faith and practice. They don't consult the written Word as to what they should believe and how they should worship God and how they should serve God. They don't abide anymore in the doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ. They have a different form of Christianity altogether. They think they have permission not only to widen the gate, but to eliminate the gate altogether. They think they have the right to pave their own road to the Father. They have eliminated Jesus Christ and His doctrine altogether.

You can believe what you want to believe. You can say and think and go and do as you pleased because you have no rules. You can still be accepted. I heard a man say the other day, even atheists are accepted because of the wideness of this mercy. See how the Lord is cutting such stuff off. There are branches of Christianity so called. And they are large and they're flourishing in the eyes of this modern world. They are full of fruit, but their fruit is bitter. And their fruit is deadly. And now we even begin to see that much of this fruit and these branches are drying up. They're withering. And they're going to be cast into the fire of hell.

The Lord Jesus said, if you don't abide in me, you don't abide in my doctrine, you don't abide in my word, then you are like a branch that will wither and be cast into the fire. Boy, these apostles were careful. Sometime read the book of Acts. As you begin to read the book of Acts, you realize how careful these apostles were. This message went home to their heart. The Lord Jesus Christ, just before He ascended back to the Father, He said, He said, You obey my commandments.

And my first one is you stay here at Jerusalem until you be filled with power from on high. And bud, they stayed there, didn't they? A hundred and twenty of them stayed in that upper room. Somebody might have said, Well, we got business back up in Galilee. That's where we live. And they said, We're not going anywhere. The Lord Jesus said, Abide. Abide, he said, that's what we're going to do.

And boy, when the Holy Spirit come, Peter began to preach. And he set forth the person of Christ and the work of Jesus Christ. And he said, Christ has died. He's been crucified. He's been buried and he's been resurrected and he's seated at the right hand of God. And God has made him both Lord and Christ.

And here's what he said, repent, every one of you. You've got to repent. You must repent. And then he said this to them, there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is not all-inclusive, brothers and sisters.

You come to Him through repentance. You come to Him through faith in Him. You come to Him denying all other ways. You come to the Father through the bloodstained cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. If not, you don't come. There's not a hundred different ways to God. There's one name by which we can approach Him. And the disciples, those apostles in the early church, boy, they narrowed this way down. And they said, if you come the way He tells you to come, you'll be accepted. You'll be saved.

But don't talk about all-inclusive if you're talking about not abiding in the doctrine of Jesus Christ. Well, John, in his second epistle, he wrote this, didn't he? He said, if somebody comes into your house to teach you and they don't bring the doctrine of Christ with them, don't receive them into your house. Because if a man does abide in the doctrine of Christ, he has not God.

This is serious, isn't it? Oh, there's a hundred ways to God. You eliminate Jesus Christ and God frowns upon you and God's wrath is upon you. That's how serious this is. You have not God. Come through Islam religion. You have not God. Come to the Mormon religion, you have not God. Come to the Jehovah Witness religion, you have not God.

He that hath the Son has the Father, and he that hath not the Son hath not the Father. And they're going to be cast as a withered limb into the fires of hell. Now, that's the truth, brothers and sisters. That's the truth. And the Lord says, You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit. But here is what you must remember. You will bring forth fruit only as you abide in Me.

I was talking with a man the other day, and both of us agreed together that the professing church in America needs evangelized, doesn't it? Said he was talking to some members of their family and quoted 2 Corinthians 5, 21. They'd been religious for quite a few years. God hath made Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God through him. And he said the whole family got up in the air. This is crazy. This can't be the sense. We need to be evangelized here in this country. I guess we ought to quit supporting missionaries in Africa and start supporting some here in the States. Two more things quickly and we'll close.

Our Lord's motive in telling these apostles this, you have not chosen me, but I've chosen you, was for their great joy. He said there, without me, you can do nothing. But he said, when you abide in me, just abide in me, you bring forth much fruit by just abiding in me. It's spontaneous, isn't it? The branch doesn't upset itself and fill itself with anxiety to get sap from the vine. It naturally happens.

I tell you sometimes, I struggle a lot. As a preacher, I struggle a lot. As a believer, I struggle. But as a preacher, I struggle a lot. And most of my struggling is nothing but vain. Because what I'm struggling to do is to try to affect something. Try to produce something. And I can't do it. And God never expected me to do it. And this is what the joy is about preaching and the joy of serving our Lord.

You just abide in Christ and the fruit comes spontaneously. Because Jesus Christ Himself is the source of all fruit. And as you simply abide in Him, He produces the fruit. Isn't that wonderful? Paul told the Philippian church, he said, Be filled with the fruits of righteousness. Whatever that is and all that that entails. Be filled with the fruits of righteousness. Now, what? The very next word he said. which are by Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father. Where did you produce fruit? You don't. It's produced in you by the fruit producer. The fruit is from me, the Lord Jesus.

I tell you, brothers and sisters, it's just a wonderful joy to me and a comfort to me When I could just come here and simply preach the gospel. Sometimes I get up here and I start emphasizing this stuff. I don't have to emphasize anything. I don't have to raise my voice. It's just my nature to sling my hands and raise my voice. Preachers do that, you know. You don't have to do that.

If you want to hear a good preacher, a good young preacher, sometimes pull up a young man by the name of Eric Van Bett. He preaches in Rock Valley, Iowa. And I'm telling you, he preaches just like he's sitting and talking to you at the kitchen table. You don't have to emphasize anything. You don't have to scream. Just set forth the truth as it is in Jesus. And He produces the fruit. Without your anxiety, without your tears, without you raising your voice, just preach the truth. And when he's pleased, he'll produce the fruit and it'll be for God's glory. I wish I could. I wish I could do that. Well, I've just told you to do. But Wednesday night, I'll come here and I'll be half sick trying to affect something that I cannot affect. Don't worry about brothers and sisters. When you bear witness to somebody, you talk to your neighbor and you get so nervous about it and shy about it. Because it's what you're thinking inside.

Boy, if I can just do this the right way. If I can just make him to understand this. And you get tangled up in, I, if I, if I. And the Lord Jesus says, you have not. You have not. It's me that does it. If we remember that, it wouldn't be near as hard to bear witness to people. Lastly is this. The Lord Jesus had this motive in making this statement to them. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. And he does this to emphasize himself.

I went around the last two weeks, and this is the way I kept reading this verse. You have not, but I have. You have not, but I have. You've not done anything. I've done everything. I've done it all. You have not kept God's law, but I have. You have not lived a perfect life, but I have. You have not glorified God, but I have. Ain't that wonderful? Don't you love it when he takes the emphasis off of you and places it on himself? That's our whole problem, isn't it? How do you know you're saved? Well, I. Ain't that where we start? And that's our trouble, isn't it? Well, I. Well, I. No, you haven't. But he has.

If you've come, it's because He drove you. If you believe, it's because He gave you faith. You've done nothing, but He's done it all. Emphasis on the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you imagine the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven? And He says this to the Father. Here you are, weak. walling around, just trying to get by, stumbling along. And he looks at his father and he says, Father, they've not. They've not done anything worthy to talk about. But Father, I have. I have. I never will forget the dream. Roland Hill had a dream. I never did put any stock much in dreams, but I like the one Roland Hill had. He said he had a dream one night that the judgment day had come. Have I told you this before?

And he said he was, the whole world was gathered there. And he said, I realized it would probably be a while, so I just sat down to rest myself. And he said, I heard all of these names being called and people getting up and standing before the judge of all the earth. And he said, finally I heard my name called, Roland Hill. And he said, I started to rise, but I realized I didn't have strength to rise. And it called again, Roland Hill. And he said it called one more time. Roland Hill, are you here? And he said, I tried one more time to muster the strength to stand before that voice. And he said, I saw someone stand just in front of me. And he said, Roland Hill is here. And the voice came again, Roland Hill, are you holy? And he said, the voice said, Roland Hill is holy. Roland Hill, have you lived a perfect life upon the earth? Roland Hill has lived a perfect life. And he said, the one that spoke on my behalf turned to me, and I saw a hole in his side. And I saw the prints of the nails in his hands. And he said to me, Roland Hill, come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom. What have we done? We've done nothing worth talking about. What has he done? Everything. Everything. And the Father sees that in Him and gives us this everlasting Kingdom.

You have not, but I have. Martin Luther said, when I look at myself, there's no way I can be saved. But he said, when I take the emphasis off of myself and look to the Lord Jesus Christ, there's no way that I can be lost. Brothers and sisters, take the emphasis off of yourself and put it where it belongs, on the Savior, the Son of God.

Oh, Father, thank you for the Lord Jesus. Thank you for your blessed Son. What a man He is. What a Savior! What a God! What a King! Our Father, we come before You, right into Your presence, the Holy, Sovereign, Eternal God, and we bring nothing with us. We have no plea but Jesus, Your child, Your holy child, our substitute, His precious blood, His righteousness, His obedience. And oh, Father, we come in confidence, not in ourselves, but in Him.

We thank you for your word that you've given us this morning. Oh, give us grace to understand and take it to heart and rejoice in our Savior. Thank you for this, dear people. Oh, Lord, work in their hearts. Don't let a soul leave you this morning, a precious, eternity-bound soul, without a saving interest in the Son of God. You're able, Lord. We're not able to affect a thing, but you are. Father, glorify your dear Son again this day, thus saving poor, needy sinners. We pray for Christ's sake. Amen. He's all I need. He's all I need. Christ is all I need. He's all I need. He's all I need. Christ is all Lord bless you. See some of you Wednesday night. We got a birthday.

Oliver James Baker. How are you, Oliver? Oliver, I'm so sorry. This is Nolan. It's Oliver's birthday. It's Oliver's birthday. Not Nolan. Well, you get 75 years old when you do things like this. Nolan, when's your birthday? August 27th. Oh, it's a while then. It's a while. Nolan's been coming and we thank God for that. When you see your brother, tell him we said happy birthday. And tell him we almost sung happy birthday to him. I love you guys. The Lord bless you and keep you.

Good to have Greg's family with us today. And if they don't come back, we may go get them. And we got a lady here this morning. Her name is Harley. And I told her, I love that name. I have a great niece, I think. She's my great niece by that name. And she's grown now. She's got kids of her own. But her name is Harley. They named her after a motorcycle. Harley, did they name you after the motorcycle? Well, if I was going to buy a new one, I'd get a Harley. Lord bless you.