Lord saved a poor sinner like
me. Brother, there's hope for you. I can tell you that. All
right, open your Bibles again with me to Philippians chapter
four. I titled the message this morning,
Stand Fast. In verse one, Paul begins, therefore,
my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown. So stand fast in the Lord, my
dearly beloved. It's easy to see Paul's affection
for these people in this congregation. And I know exactly how he felt.
You know, I have you on my mind and on my heart every week as
I'm preparing messages. I seek God's message for the
hour. I seek a message that glorifies
him. But I seek a message for you. if that makes sense. I think
about preaching to you, to this congregation, as I'm preparing
messages each week. And there's no bones about it,
that is a great, great responsibility, to preach Christ to you over
and over and over again, to not quit. But also, don't be mistaken
about this, it's a great joy. I have great care for you all. because I love you, I care for
your bodies, I care for your souls. As Paul said here, I'll
borrow his words, you're my dearly beloved. And I delight, it's a responsibility,
but I delight to be enabled by our God to preach Christ the
Savior to you over and over and over again. You know, when you
love someone, it's not work, really, to care for them, is
it? You know, I think about a mother's
love. I watched Janet many times. Our little ones were sick and
fever and, you know, just up all night, whatever. And it just
wasn't work for her to stay up with them all night, to be there
to care for them. Just, you know, Savannah a couple
years ago had that awful car wreck. It was not work for Janet
to be there to help take care of her for those months. That's
a mother's love. Well, I guess you could say that's
a pastor's love. I don't count at work to serve
you, to preach Christ to you. And I rejoice greatly, greatly
to see those to whom I preach believe on Christ and trust Him
and love Him. I think I first ever heard this
from Brother Henry, to preach Christ to folks and leave them
alone with God. But just because I preach Christ to you and leave
you alone with God, that don't mean I don't care whether or
not you believe Christ. Oh, I care greatly. Tell you
why I leave you alone with God. Because I don't want you making
a decision because somehow I, you know, I'm not a very good
salesman anyway, but if somehow I talked you into doing something,
that wouldn't do your soul any good. But if I leave you alone with
God, God does something for you, then it's real and we give thanks. You're the great, great goal
of the ministry. is to glorify the Savior in our
day. It's so important that we preach
Christ in truth and glorify Him. But don't forget we're to glorify
our Savior so that sinners will see His glory and believe Him.
So His people will see His glory again and have their hearts comforted
in seeing Him. And I tell you the same thing
Paul's saying here. When I see you believe Christ and follow
Him, Follow him. You're not following some doctor.
You're not following a preacher. You're not following a preacher
of the past. You're following Christ. Why rejoice? Look at 2 John. 2 John verse
1. Every preacher worth his salt
will say this about the folks to whom he preaches, that God
has given him the responsibility to preach Christ to them. John
felt this way, the apostle John. In 2 John verse 1. He says the elder under the elect
lady and her children whom I love in the truth and not I only,
but also they all also all they that have known the truth. They
all love you. Now verse four, I rejoice greatly that I found
of my children walking in the truth as we have received a commandment
from the father and look at third John verse one, the elder under
the well beloved gay is whom I love in the truth. Beloved,
I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in
health, even as I soul prosper. I want your body to prosper like
your soul does. For I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came
and testified of the truth that's in thee, even as thou walkest
in the truth. I have no greater joy than to
hear that my children walk in the truth. And that's the prayer
and the rejoicing of every one of God's pastors. So my prayer
for you for each soul here this morning, is that you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that you trust Him, and that
you keep believing Him, and that you keep trusting Him all the
way to the end. You know, our subject is stand
fast. Well, believing Christ to the end, not getting pulled
off on a tangent, that's standing fast. And that's my desire for
you and me, that we stand fast together. And this morning I
want to look at five times in the scriptures that the scriptures
tell us to stand fast and get an idea of the scope of what
this means to stand fast in the Lord. And the first one is here
in our text Philippians four, stand fast in the Lord. That's
what Paul says. He said, you're my joy, my crown.
So stand fast in the Lord. Now stand fast in your hope that's
in the Lord, in the Lord. Don't put it anywhere else. Keep
your hope in Christ alone. That's standing fast in the Lord.
Wednesday night after we got home, Janet told me, she said,
you said this in the message, salvation is of the Lord. She
said, I'd love to hear that over and over and over again. Salvation
is of the Lord. Because that reminds me, trust
Christ. He's begun it, and he'll finish
the work. That's standing fast in the Lord.
Trusting. He is our salvation. He'll complete
it. Standing fast in the Lord is
trusting Christ, trusting Him and Him alone, knowing that salvation
is of His will and it's of His doing, and I trust Him to do
it. We stand fast in who the Lord
is, in everything that He's done for His people. We stand fast
in the Lord's election of a people. Now, He chose you. You didn't
choose Him. So stand fast in Him. Keep trusting. He chose you. He won't let you
go. Stand fast in Christ our righteousness. Don't start thinking
that you can make yourself a little more righteous by keeping some
laws and observing some ceremonies. None of the believer's righteousness
ever, before conversion or after, none of it is ever obtained by
our obedience, which is an awful good thing, because all we ever
do is sin. So stand fast in Christ our righteousness. Trust Him
to make you righteous and don't try anything to Him. Just trust
Him to be your righteousness. And stand fast in Christ's redemption
of a people. Christ our Savior redeemed His
people by His precious blood. He shed His blood and He suffered
until the price was paid and then and only then did He cry,
it's finished. and give up the ghost. The price
is paid. Now don't start thinking that
you can do something to start helping pay the price. The price
is paid. Don't start thinking you can
do something to make yourself a little less sinful so you'll
be a little more saved. Now, hate your sin. Absolutely
hate it. Be determined not to sin. But
when you do sin, and you will, Trust that your sin has been
paid for by the blood of Christ. God is as horrible, as heinous
as our sin is. God will not cast off his people
because the price has been paid by the Lord Jesus Christ. And
stand fast in the keeping power of God's grace. Stand fast in
that. Now, if you're a truly a believer,
this is one of your great fears. One of your great fears is that
you'll become apostate, that you'll leave the gospel of Christ,
and you'll quit trusting him alone. That's one of your great
fears. And you know why you fear that? Because your new man knows
that's exactly what the old man will do in a heartbeat if God
let him. That's our fear. And when you
fear that you'll leave the Lord, you fear, my faith is so weak, My love
is so cold when you fear that you'll leave the Lord. Because
you know that's what you'll do by nature. I'll tell you what
you do. Stand fast in the Lord. Stand fast in His keeping power. In His power to keep you by His
grace. He never did tell us to keep
ourselves. He keeps us. In our Lord's great high priestly
prayer in John 17, He said, Father, those that thou gavest me, I've
kept. I kept them. Not one of them
is lost. Save the son of perdition that
the scriptures might be fulfilled. Yes, Judas is lost, but Father,
you never gave him to me to keep. That's the only reason he's lost.
Christ our Savior is gonna keep all those that the Father gave
him. He's not gonna lose one. Not one of those sheep will he
lose. If the Father gave you to his son to redeem, then you're
redeemed. And you can never be lost. Our
Savior said this in John 10. He said, I've given my sheep
eternal life. And no man is able to pluck them
from my hand. No man, no power, Satan, no one
can pluck us out of his hand. And on the subject of we think
we'll leave the Lord, just let me give you a little bit of comfort
with this too. No man means you and me too. I can't jump out. because He holds me. See, it's
not the strength of my faith and my determination. It's His
keeping power. But stand fast in the Lord and
His keeping power. Stand fast in the Lord. In the Lord. Not doctrine, not
preaching. Stand fast in the Lord. Trust
Him. I mean, do it doggedly. Be like
an old dog that's got a bone and will not let go. Well, none. For many years we had two little
Yorkies. Now we just have one, but one
time we had two. You know, I guess it's how all
dogs is. You know, one of them is the alpha and one of them
is, you know, none. We had these two dogs and one
of them was the alpha and Jan would give him a treat. And the
little dog, he was the alpha. He'd gobble his up real fast.
Now, the one that was not the alpha, he would kind of eat his
kind of slowly and just, you know, a lot of times he, Brutus.
Brutus was our one who was the alpha. He'd just come steal the
dog treats, you know. Well, our little fella, he learned
this. I'm going to take my treat, and
I'm going to go into my kennel. I'm going to get in that back
corner with my treat and just use my body to block him from
coming to steal my treat. And Bruce would try to come in
there and you'd see him growl at him. But he had it guarded. Trust in the Lord like that.
Don't let anybody take it from you. Don't let anybody take your
eyes off Him. Don't let them block your view
of Him. Keep where you can see Him. I think the best way to
sum this point up is this. Stand fast in Christ. Like Noah,
stay fast. in the ark. As long as all the
floodwaters were on earth, Noah stayed fast in the ark, didn't
he? As far as we read in scripture, Noah never one time was tempted
to jump out of that ark and tread water for a little bit to make
the ark easier to float, got less weight in it. He never jumped
out of the ark and tread water, maybe tried to hold the ark up
a little bit, help the ark float. He stayed fast in the ark and
his life was saved. Now you stay fast in Christ. and your soul will live. All
right, here's the second thing. 1 Corinthians chapter 16. Stand
fast. I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians
16. Stand fast in faith. 1 Corinthians 16 verse 13. stand fast in the faith, quit
you like men, be strong. Now when Paul says watch ye,
I'll tell you what he means. He does not mean watch everybody
else. He means be watchful over your own soul, over your own
heart, be watchful over your own attitude, your attitude toward
Christ, your attitude toward the gospel, your attitude toward
others. Now be watchful of yourself.
Be watchful that you don't suddenly start adding something to Christ. that you trust, oh, you trust
Christ, but then you trust these other, just little minor things,
you know, that can make you a better Christian, you know, that makes
you a little better than somebody else. Be watchful that you trust
Christ and Christ alone. And especially be watchful over
the sin of unbelief. That sin is in us, in that old
man. The sin of the old man, the damning
sin, is the sin of unbelief. It's not believing that Christ
is enough. That I have to do something good
to add to Him to finish the work. Now stand fast against that.
Stand fast in the faith. Stand fast in faith in Christ. And I tell you how you stand
fast. By leaning. Just like we just sung. You stand
fast by being dependent on Christ. You stand fast by leaning on
those everlasting arms. You stand fast in believing that
Christ is enough. He's all it takes. The salvation is received by
faith in Christ. It's not earned by our obedience.
It's received by faith in Christ. Salvation is not earned by our
works and it's not kept by our works. It's faith. So stand fast,
keep believing Christ. The only way a sinner can be
justified is by faith in Christ. By trusting, He is my justification. He is my righteousness. And Paul
stresses here, stand fast like men. Stand fast like strong men
in the battle. And I tell you why you have to
stand strong, because this is a battle. Stand strong. Because
Satan never tires. I mean his sole job, his sole
objective is to just get one of God's elect to quit trusting
Christ. And he never tires of it, never. Satan's always trying to get
us to look away from Christ alone. Now since he doesn't quit, since
our accuser doesn't quit, stand fast in faith. Stand fast in
faith in Christ. The only way his accusations
against us cannot be true is if we're trusting Christ. Christ
is our righteousness. His obedience to the law is my
obedience to the law. And our old man? Our old man
is the same way. He never tires. He never gives
up. He's constantly whispering in
our ear, isn't he? Do something to make yourself
a little better. Oh, you sinned. You sinned. Do
something good. Then go ask God to forgive you.
And he's constantly whispering that, constantly. And he never
tires. He never quits. If he shuts up,
buddy, not for long. He's just looking for an opening
and looking for a crack to get back in there. He'll never quit. Now, don't you ever quit standing
in faith. Don't you ever quit relying on Christ. See, he's
trying to get you not to rely on Christ. He's trying to get
you to rely on Christ plus something you do. You rely on Him. Just
be determined to keep relying on Christ. Every time that old
man whispers, you say, no, thank you. I'll trust Christ. I'm very content trusting Him. I can't trust myself because
I'm not trustworthy, but He is. And I'm just quite content trusting
Him. So that's what I'll do. Just be determined to keep relying
on Christ. And I'll tell you a good way
to do that, a good way to watch, a good way to watch, a good way
to stand is in prayer. I tell you, ask God continually,
keep me trusting Christ alone. Don't let me go off on my own
way. Keep me trusting Christ alone. See, we can't stand on
our own, can we? But we sure can pray and ask
the Lord to make us stand. And if we would stand fast in
the faith, I tell you a very good thing, be watchful. in hearing
the gospel preached. Now, if we're going to stand
fast, we need the strength to stand. We were with our daughter Holly
yesterday, and Janet will point out to her often how she's a
daddy's girl. Holly and Savannah don't say
daddy. They say daddy. And she was saying, oh, you're
such a daddy's girl. She was reminding her about this
time we went up to see Holly do this dance blue, if you know
what that is. These kids, they stay on their feet and they dance
for 24 hours without sitting down to raise money for children's
cancer things in the UK. And Holly was doing this, so
we went up to see her in it. And when it was over and we were
walking out with her, we were going to get something to eat,
she said, I can't walk another step. I just, I can't stand anymore. And I said, honey, you want daddy
to carry you. And I did, I carried her. I carried
her all the way to the car. We went to a restaurant and I
carried her into the restaurant. I did that. And I mean, and then
after she ate, she said, I, daddy, I think I walk out to the car
now. I just, she needs some strength. We need some, some rest and some
strength. If we're going to stand fast in the faith, we need some
strength. We need to be fed. We need something
to cause our heart to rest. We need some peace. You know
how you get that? Somebody preaching Christ saying,
look, there he is. Oh, he's the bread of life. Eat
all you want. He's the water of life. Drink up. Drink all
you want. You see him, he's, oh, I can rest. And that lets
me stand. How will I keep relying on Christ?
Somebody show me who he is. I'll trust him. Be watchful in
hearing the Gospel. And keep doing it. Keep doing
it. Keep doing it. You who believe, when you first
came to Christ, you remember that time when you first came
to Christ? And you were so happy? Now what
made you so happy? That you were able to trust Christ
alone. You were suddenly free from having
to keep the law. Free from all these worries about
judgment. You're free from all that. And
you could trust Christ to have such a relief? Even though you're
so weak and so sinful, you could rest in Christ, couldn't you?
Because you believed Him. Now continue the way you started. Relying on Christ. That's standing
fast in faith. Keep trusting Him to be everything
that you need. All right, here's the third thing. Look at Galatians chapter 5. Stand fast in your freedom. Galatians 5 verse 1. Stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you,
if you be circumcised, Christ, shall profit you nothing. Now
the Old Testament law was such a burden on people. They were
in such bondage to that law. I try to imagine what that would
have been like to live as a Jew before Christ came. That just
heavy chain around your neck is constantly oppressing you.
And I just have to think those people, they lived in constant
fear. of stepping out of line and doing something wrong and
God casting them out, you know. And Peter said, now, when they
were saying, well, now, should we put the disciples under the
law or not? And Peter said, now, brother, why would we want to
do that? Why would we want to do that to these people? Neither
we nor our fathers could bear it. What makes you think they
can bear it? Don't put them under that. Christ
has made his people free from that burden. Free from the burden
of the law. You don't have to obey the law
to make yourself righteous. Christ obeyed it for you. And
he made his people righteous. Now you're free. You are free. Now whatever you do, don't allow
somebody to put some rule, some regulation, something they think
a believer ought to do, to put that on you in order to keep
your salvation. You're free. Don't go back to
slavery. I just think about those slaves
in the old South and how some of them escaped to the North. Now, I know that sometimes maybe
they sent those slave catchers up there and they caught them
and they brought them back to South, brought them back to slavery.
But I've never one time read of a slave who escaped to the
north. They said, you know what? I wish
I was a slave again. I think I'll go back. Not one. Don't you reckon we ought to
have sense enough not to go back under the bondage to the law.
Christ set us free from it. Don't do that. Keep trusting
Christ. And here's the, the, the key
to this freedom where with Christ, has made us free. We didn't escape. Christ has set us free. We didn't
make ourselves free. Christ did that. I tell you several
things he set us free from. We know he set us free from having
to keep the law, but you know, Christ also set his people free
from sin because he died for us. Now I know we're not free
from sin that's in us, the effect of sin that's in us, but every
one of God's people is free from the dominion of sin. I tell you
what the dominion of sin is. It's that sin, that sin nature
that keeps you from trusting Christ. Have you ever thought,
I wish I could trust Christ? And you try to make yourself
and you can't. You know why you can't? You're
in bondage to sin. You can't see, you can't trust
him. But when Christ reveals himself
to you, now you see him and you can't not see him. He sets you
free from the dominion of sin. He sets you free from the condemnation
of sin. If Christ died for you, you have
absolutely no reason to fear dying and facing God in judgment.
None, because Christ was already condemned for you. He satisfied
justice for you. Christ has set us free from the
moral law. As a covenant of works, I hope
we're all moral people, but you don't have to keep, you're not
under the bondage to the moral law to make yourself righteous
and moral by obeying that law, because Christ obeyed it for
you. Christ has set us free from the ceremonial law, because he's
the fulfillment of all the ceremonies. All those ceremonies pointed
to Christ, and he came and fulfilled them, and when he died, all those
ceremonies ended. That's why the veil of the temple
was torn in two from top to bottom when he gave up the ghost. That
ceremony of the day of atonement is over because Christ is our
atonement. The Passover, we don't keep that
Passover anymore because Christ is our Passover. He sets you
free from the bondage of remembering all those days you gotta keep.
You just got one thing, trust Christ. I love the simplicity
of the gospel. It's one thing, just one. Trust
Christ and keep trusting him. Christ has set us free from the
curse of the law because he has made a curse for us. We cannot
be condemned. And Christ has removed the fear
of death for his people because he died for us. I know there's
some fear or trepidation of death. We've never done it, but there's
no reason to fear it. Anybody that belongs to Christ,
anybody that he redeemed can never die. They can't die spiritually
because he died for us. So you're free from those things.
Now Christ has set us free from doing some things and he's made
us free to do some things. Christ has made his people free
to come to God anytime we want. You don't have to get a priest
wearing a costume to go to God for you. you can go to the Father
anytime you want through Christ, our great high priest, through
Christ, our mediator. He's made us free to come before
His throne of grace crying, Abba, Father. He not just made us free
to come to His throne like some peasant begging for something
that we don't know if He'll give us or not. He's made us free
to come before His throne as His children. Oh, free. Christ has made us
free. to rest in Him. You don't have
to feel guilty resting in Christ. Just quit your works of righteousness
and rest in Christ. Now the liberty that Christ gives,
I know you know this, but probably ought to be said, this is not
a liberty to sin. God's people, we sin already
way more than we want to, don't we? So we sin that grace may
abound? God forbid. But Christ has given
us liberty from having to work hard to pay for our sin. It's not just go out and sin
all you want. No, He's given us liberty from worrying about
paying for it. He's given us liberty to rest in Him and come
to Him by faith, not works. Now stand fast in that. Don't go back under the law.
And this term Paul uses, stand fast, is a military term. It's telling soldiers, be brave. Be strong and don't ever retreat. Be determined you're not going
to retreat from this freedom and go back into bondage to the
law. And Paul tells us here, boy, here's how diligent now
we need to be in this matter. Here's how insistent we have
to be to stand fast in this liberty, wherewith Christ has made us
free. If you do just one work, if you try to obey just one law,
to make yourself more righteous or more savable, Christ will
profit you nothing. If you try to add just, I can
just do one thing of the billions and billions of things that are
required for my salvation, I'm just gonna do one of them. If
you do just one, the obedience of Christ will profit you nothing. None of his righteousness is
yours. If you try to add just one grain of salt to that thing,
just one mustard seed, Paul said if you circumcise, and you know,
nothing wrong with that, but if you do it in order to make
God pleased with you, Christ will profit you nothing. The
father's pleased with his son, pleased with you in him. But
if you do just one thing to make God pleased with you, because
what you've done, Christ will profit you nothing. And if you
do that, you're gonna entangle yourselves in the whole law. Don't think you can just keep
one law and make yourself a little better. Because if you try to
just keep one, you're a debtor to do it all. And you just become
entangled with the law like a fish becomes entangled in a net. And
it'll kill you. It disassures that net, it'll
kill that fish. So stand fast in that liberty
that Christ has given us. Stand fast against anything that
draws us away from Christ alone. All right, fourth, Philippians
chapter one. Stand fast in one mind and one
purpose. Verse 27, Philippians 1, only
let your conversation be as it become with the gospel of Christ,
that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear
of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit, with one
mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. Now we love coming here on Sundays
and Wednesdays and seeing each other. I just always look forward
to seeing you. And we should do that. Scripture
says, let brotherly love continue. We ought to enjoy being with
each other. We ought to enjoy talking to one another, greeting
one another. But this is not a social club. Brother Henry
used to say, this is not a poor man's country club. This is the
church of God. And our goal, and we saw this
in our lesson this morning, our goal, the job that God has given
us is to preach Christ to our generation. That is the goal
of this assembly. Our goal is not fellowship. I
hope we can have it. But our goal, our responsibility
is to preach Christ so that people will believe him, so that God's
sheep will be fed, so God's sheep will be encouraged. This is a
tough world. I mean, it's tough. It's tough
to go out there. All the things that go on in
this world, the things you've got to deal with and work and
out there, it's tough. God's sheep need some encouragement. They need to be fed and strengthened.
So we're to strive together for one goal. We're each not to have
a bunch of different goals. I try not to, but it's... much
as I do see, I see like our folks in Congress and so forth. They don't have one goal. I mean,
they got 500 and how many ever of them are there, different
goals. 562 whatever different goals.
I mean, every one of them is different. And really, they're
all related to me. How many ever people are, that's
how many goals there are. Because they're all there trying
to promote themselves. I just cannot be deluded into thinking
They're thinking about the good of me and the welfare of this
country. That's not here. We're not here
to promote me. We're here to promote Christ.
Now let's do that together. I'll tell you what, if we have
that one goal of promoting Christ, our fellowship will be sweet.
It really will. And this word strive, stand fast,
he talks about striving together, that's referring to a wrestler. Strive with all your might. Strive
with all your strength. And don't be afraid to go meet
the enemy. Don't be afraid. Don't quit and don't compromise
on account of them. You strive like a wrestler with
everything you've got. Now, you know, we do that by
prayer because everything I got is nothing. We do that by prayer. We do that in the power of the
Lord, but strive with everything you've got to have one goal and
one mind in this congregation. If Lord enable us to do that,
our preaching of Christ will be powerful. It really will. If we all with one mind before
every service, as we're getting dressed to come here, if we just
pray, oh Lord, bless the service. But with one mind, we're all
praying that way. We come in here with one desire,
one heart's desire. I'm happy to see y'all, but oh,
I need somebody to tell me about Christ. I need somebody to feed
me. I need somebody to give me that
sincere milk of the word. If we come here with one mind
like that, I'm telling you, the Lord bless it, the gospel will
be blessed. It'll save his people, and it'll
comfort his sheep. All right, here's the last thing. Stand fast in the gospel. 2 Thessalonians
2. Stand fast in the gospel. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 15. Therefore, brethren, Stand fast
and hold the traditions which you've been taught, whether by
word or by our epistle. Stand fast in the gospel. How
do we do that? Well, it's no matter what happens.
Keep preaching the gospel. Don't change the message. Don't
change your methods. Just keep preaching the pure,
unvarnished, plain gospel. You know, if you varnish the
gospel, you're trying to put a shine on it to make it more attractive
to people. Don't do that. Don't varnish
it. Just give them the plain, unadulterated gospel of Christ. And I tell you, just preach Christ
and you'll do that if you truly believe he's all sinners need. If you truly believe all God's
people need is to hear Christ preach, you'll keep preaching.
Don't get off on a tangent. Don't start doing something else.
Stand fast in the power of God to call out his people by the
preaching of the gospel. And I mentioned this earlier,
here's how you do that. Don't try to get somebody to make a
decision for Jesus. Just keep preaching the gospel to them
and let them alone. Let them alone with God. We'll
do that if we truly believe this. The gospel of Christ is the power
of God unto salvation. If I really believe that, I'm
not gonna try to talk anybody into a decision. I'm gonna keep
preaching the gospel, because that's the power God uses to
reveal himself to his people. You know, salvation and religion,
true salvation, true religion, is a whole lot more than emotional
feeling. Now, it's feeling, but it's more
than that. It's the truth. Salvation is
found in Christ alone. And it's revealed in the gospel
of Christ alone. The gospel is good news. It's
good news about who Christ is and what he has accomplished
for his people. Now you know this is true as we go through
our lives. Sometimes we feel good. Sometimes we feel bad. Sometimes we feel happy. Sometimes
we feel sad. But no matter how we feel, the
gospel is still good news. The gospel is still true and
the gospel will touch the emotions of God's people because it touches
their heart. That's clear to me. I don't know
if I can say it like it's in my mind. If I tried to touch
your emotions, it'll be something syrupy and you know, maybe it
will, maybe it won't. I don't know if it affects your
emotions or not. But if I'm trying to affect your
emotions, that's all it's gonna do. But if I preach Christ and
the Spirit applies it to your heart, that'll touch your emotions. Does that make sense? Did I say
that clear? I know you, John is shaking his
head, but he and me are brothers, we're on the same wavelength.
So I hope that's clear to everybody. The emotion has to be the result
of the good news of who Christ is. Now stand fast. Stand fast in that. And if we
do, if we do, we'll have unity. If we do, we'll have that unity
of heart, unity of goal. It's through the preaching of
Christ. I hope God will bless that to
you. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, how we thank You
for Your Word. The clear, simple instruction
of Your Word. You haven't told us anything
hard or difficult or hidden so we can't understand it. Father,
how we thank you. How we thank you that you've
given eyes that can see. We know we can't see these things,
except you give us eyes to see, faith to believe, a heart that
loves and pants after Christ our Savior. Father, I pray you
bless this congregation, that you'd cause us to stand fast
together in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we might
serve one another, serve our generation, serve our community
by always preaching Christ. Cause us to constantly look to
Christ, to continually find our peace, our comfort, our hope,
our righteousness, our salvation, to find everything that we need
that's in him and him alone. Father, in this difficult day
in which we live, it's a dark, Father, I pray you'd show us
the glory, your glory, the redemptive glory of Christ our Savior. For
his blessed name, for his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean.