To make sure it would be clear
enough for us to meet this morning and much to my delight. I saw
that it was clear and I just saw it. And Jan said, well, you're
happy you get to worship tomorrow, aren't you? And I told her I
was and I pray that that's what the Lord will enable us to do
right now. I've titled the message this
morning, Six Blessings of Every Believer. I read Psalm 32 to
open the service, it started out blessed is the man. And I
ask you, would you consider yourself blessed? Would you consider yourself
blessed of God? And whatever your answer is to
that question, how is it that you determine that if you're
blessed of God? Is the blessing of God wealth
and health and happiness, a life of ease that I hear so many people
talk about? Is that what the blessing of
God is? You know, for God's people, sometimes that's the case, not
often. Probably when you have those
things, it doesn't last very long. That's not the way that
God says he's blessed his people. But every believer is blessed
of God. I mean, blessed of God, more
than the hairs of our head, more than we can count. And they're
spiritual blessings. They're spiritual blessings in
Christ our Savior. And there are too many, like
I say, of those blessings for us to count or me to try to cover
in a 40-minute message. But our text this morning gives
us six blessings that belong to every believer. And that's
what I want us to look at this morning. I believe that these
things will encourage and comfort your heart. Number one, every
believer has the blessing of prayer. Verse three, Paul says,
we give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
praying always for you. Paul says, praying always for
you. Now, everybody in the world prays. I say that in quotes,
praise when they get in trouble. That's when people pray. And
for most people, it's not true prayer. You see people on TV,
it just irritates me to no end. They get in trouble and they
go look like they're doing what people call prayer. And they
say, now God, if you're up there, I need help. Or God, I don't
call on you often. Do you remember who I am? That's
not real prayer. And that's not the way that believers
pray. Now a believer is like everybody else in this way. A
believer prays when we're helpless. That's the only time we truly
pray, when there's nothing we can do about it and we're helpless.
That's the only time anybody prays. But a believer, like Paul
says here, is praying always for you. A believer prays at
all times. A believer prays about everything. because we're in control of nothing.
We have to pray about every situation, because we're always helpless
in every situation. There's never anything we can
do about it. We always are dependent on God
to help us, to see us through, to provide for us what we need,
because we can't do it for ourselves. That's why scripture says, pray
without ceasing, without ceasing, because we always are in need. The apostle said, in one place,
I exhort, therefore, that prayers be made for all men, for everybody,
everybody that you know, leaders and all men. Pray about everything,
about every situation, about all men, because we're not in
control of any of it. We're helpless in all of it.
But our God's not. He's in control of everything.
So believer prays at all times, because we're helpless in every
situation. A believer also prays at all
times because a believer, a child of God, must talk to our Heavenly
Father. We must. You have a heart that
must praise Him, that must thank Him. It's not just asking Him
for things. You have a heart that must praise
Him, that must thank Him. Paul's prayer here is a prayer
of thanksgiving for these people. He gives thanks for the blessings
God's given these people. He cares so much about these
people he never met, but he's praying for them at all times.
He's giving thanks for God's mercy and grace to them. And
that's why a believer prays at all times. We must give thanks. We must praise God. I ask you,
who has more to be thankful for? Who has more reason to say thank
you than an object of God's mercy and grace? Who has more reason
to be thankful? And here's something else to
be thankful for. And here's this thing about the blessing of prayer.
A believer can pray and a believer has the promise of having our
prayers heard by God. A great believer is just not
talking to the air. A child of God has this blessing. Your prayer
will be heard by God. Look at Matthew chapter six. In Psalm 65, verse two, David
describes God as thou that hearest prayer. God hears prayer. He always hears the prayers of
his people. And this is what he tells his
disciples here. This is when the disciples, he was teaching
them to pray. And look what he says, verse
five, Matthew chapter six. And when thou prayest, thou shalt
not be as the hypocrites are. For they love to pray, standing
in the synagogues, in the corners of the streets, that they may
be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
See, they're not praying to God. They just want everybody to see
how religious they are. Horses, they have their reward. People
see that outward show of religion. He said, but thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet. And when thou have shut thy door,
pray to thy father, which is in secret. And thy father, which
seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. He'll hear thy prayers. Now you know good and well that
that doesn't mean that the Lord's saying the father will always
give his children everything that we ask for in prayer, because
we often ask amiss, don't we? But the Lord is teaching us this.
Our father hears the prayers of his children always. Every
one of them, he hears them. And one way or another, eventually,
he'll answer one way or another. But he hears. And you think of
the glory, the blessing of that. This is a promise from God. If
you believe him, he hears your prayer. He condescends to hear
our prayers. Isn't that amazing? That's a
blessing. And you might think, look at Romans chapter eight.
You might think, and I, you know, most honest people think this.
They think, well, I don't know how to pray. Which is why the
disciples ask the Lord, teach us to pray. I don't know how
to pray. You know, I think I'm afraid. I always ask selfishly
for everything that I ask for. And you know what? We will, if
God leaves us to ourselves, we will pray amiss. We will ask
for things selfishly. But this is the promise that
we have. The Holy Spirit will not leave God's children to themselves.
The Holy Spirit leads the believer in prayer. Look at verse 20,
26 of Romans chapter eight. Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth
our infirmities. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches
the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he
maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
We don't know what the will of God is, but the Spirit does.
So you pray. The Holy Spirit will lead you
in prayer to ask a right. Now that's a blessing. It's a
blessing to be heard. It's a blessing to be led by
the Spirit. Now here's another reason believers
should always pray and always give thanks. Our prayers should
always include thanks. God gives all these blessings,
the six that we're gonna look at this morning, but every blessing
God has for his people, he gives them to us freely. And maybe
the three principal blessings that we read about in scripture
are these, faith, hope, and love. And that's the three things that
are mentioned next in our text. This is the second blessing.
Every believer has the blessing of faith. Back in our text, Cautions
1 verse 4, Paul says, we're praying always for you since we heard
of your faith in Christ Jesus. That's a reason to give thanks
because salvation It's through faith. It's through faith in
Christ. It's through belief in Christ,
not our works. It's trusting Him to finish the
work and none of ours. And you know what? We can't even
make it work out of faith because we can't produce faith in ourselves.
I can tell you that from experience, buddy. I mean, you just cannot
make yourself believe Christ. You cannot make yourself trust
Him. You can't do it. We can't make ourselves believe
on Him and trust Him for everything that we need, even though we
might know the ABCs of the gospel. We can't make ourselves trust
Christ and rest in Him. So we're helpless in that way
too, aren't we? This is why we pray when we're helpless. I can't
produce faith in myself, but I sure could ask God to give
it to me. I could ask Him to give me faith in Christ. And
thankfully, that's what God does for all of his people. He gives
them faith. He gives it to them. Paul says
in Ephesians 2, it's a free gift. Free gift. We're saved by grace
through faith and that not of yourselves. It's what? The gift
of God. He gives it to his people freely.
What a blessing. This is something to be thankful
for. What a blessing to be able to trust Christ and to rest in
him. What a blessing, what a blessing
to go through your life. Everybody here has daily lives
that you've got to live, daily responsibilities. You've got
work, you've got school, you've got families, you've got so many
things that you've got to do every day. What a blessing to
be able to go through those things, doing what you do, doing what
God's given you to do today, trusting Christ, just living
a life, trusting him. You're not going out and working
to be good enough to hope God will accept you someday. You
go through your daily activity, trusting Christ, knowing he's
enough, that you'll be accepted. What a blessing. What a blessing
to come to the day you lay on your deathbed and you look back
over your life, how God's blessed you, how he's led you, what you've
gone through. You've gone through deep waters. You've gone through
deep valleys. Been on the mountaintop a time
or two too. You look back over your life and you can lay on
your bed. Your family may be gathered around
you. And you can tell them as well with my soul, I trust Christ,
full confidence in Him. That's a blessing. What a blessing
to be given this gift to trust Christ and rest in Him. And God,
the Holy Spirit gives God's people that gift of faith, that faith
in Christ. So they trust Christ and try
as they might. They can't not trust him. They
just can't not trust him. They cannot go back to trusting
in their own works of the law. Now, that doesn't mean that they're
done with self-righteousness forever, because buddy, they're
not. I mean, you trust Christ, and that moment that you trust
Christ, your battle with self-righteousness is just starting. I mean, it's
just starting. I mean, you'll never get rid
of it. It just keeps popping up its ugly head everywhere you
look, just when you least expect it, it's popping up its ugly
head again. But even though it's always there,
the believer is not going to give themselves back over to
trusting in their own works of the law. Because faith won't
let them. Faith that God gives won't let
them trust anything but Christ. God, the Holy Spirit, has given
them a new nature, a new man. And Christ reigns in the hearts
of His people. He reigns. Now where Christ is,
He reigns, doesn't He? The King reigns everywhere He
is, right? Well, if He's in your heart, He's not going to let
you quit trusting Him. He won't let you. That's a blessing. Faith is a blessing because it's
the only way to please God. Hebrews 11 verse six says, without
faith, it's impossible to please Him. It's impossible. It's impossible
to please God by what we do or what we don't do. It's impossible. We can't please God. See what
God does for His people? He gives them the gift of faith
so that they trust Christ. And that's what pleases Him.
God gives His people what pleases Him because they can't do it
themselves. So He gives them the gift that pleases Him. Now
that's a blessing. That's a blessing. I hope you
understood what I just said. It makes sense to me. I hope that makes sense to you.
God, we can't please God. So God gives his people what
pleases him. That's a blessing. All right,
here's the third blessing. Every believer has the blessing
of love. Verse four says, we heard of your faith in Christ
Jesus and the love which you have to all the saints. Paul
mentions faith and love in the same verse, same sentence, because
faith and love always goes together. Always. Where there's faith,
there'll always be love. And even though Paul never met
these people, he'd heard of their faith and love. Look down at
verse 7. As you also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow
servant, he was their pastor, Epaphras was their pastor, who
is for you a faithful minister of Christ who declared unto us
your love in the spirit. Epaphras came to visit Paul.
One of the things he told Paul about this congregation back
in Colossae is their love, the love that they have to Christ
Jesus, the love that they have for all the saints. Now, where
there's faith in Christ, that's the blessing God gives all of
his people, faith in Christ. Where there's faith in Christ,
there has to be love for Christ, has to be. You can't trust somebody
you don't love, can you? Where there's faith and trust,
there has to be love. And if you trust, you trust Christ,
you trust that he saved you from your sin. You trust that he left
the glories of heaven. He's the Prince of Glory. And
he left that and he clothed himself in human flesh. He became a man
so that he could be the representative of his people. So that in the
flesh, he could obey the law for his people and establish
a righteousness that he could give them. And then he was made
sin for you. The thought of that was so horrible
to him, his blood started flowing out the pores of his skin. That
was about to happen. Something so horrible, he was
willingly made sin for you and put your sin away by the sacrifice
of himself. He gave his body to be slaughtered. He gave his soul and offering
to God to put away the sin of his people. He did that for you.
He suffered and died in your place as your substitute. And
if you trust that he did that for you, you love him. You have to love him, don't you?
You love somebody that did something so marvelous for you. See, we
love him because he first loved us. So you have to love somebody
who showed that he has an immeasurable love for you, that he would suffer
and die for you. Even when you didn't love him,
even when you are yet wicked, enemies in your heart. Christ
gave himself to put your sin away. If he did that for you,
you love him. See, it's his love for his people.
It's his sacrifice for his people that makes us love him and draw
us to him. In the new birth, the Holy Spirit
gives his people a nature that believes Christ. And that nature
also loves Christ. It clings to him, it needs him.
But that nature love, not only does that nature love Christ,
not only does that nature love God, that nature also loves other
people. That nature loves all men, but
especially our brethren. Now you think about believers,
we're members of the same family, we all have the same father,
and we're all in love with the same person. Now that ought to
make us get along with one another, shouldn't it? That we're all
in love with the same person. If we all want Him to get all
the glory, we all want Him to get all the credit, we want everybody
looking at Him because we love Him so much. Everybody ought
to look to Him and nobody ought to be looking at me. We all love
Him that much and we ought to be able to get along with one
another because we're all in love with the same person. Look
back at John chapter 13. You know, this love for the brethren
is not some pie-in-the-sky thought, idea. Love for the brethren is
very important, so important that it's not optional. Love
for the brethren is a mark of discipleship. And loving Christ,
it's the mark, loving your brethren. John 13, verse 34. A new commandment
I give unto you. That you love one another as
I have loved you. That you also love one another. Now how is it that Christ loved
his people? With a self-sacrificing love. You love one another the
same way. Read on, verse 35. By this shall
all men know that you're my disciples, if you have love one to another. That's the mark of discipleship.
Now, You know, just like everything on this earth, I know it's not
going to be perfect. It's not going to be what it
ought to be. And I know some people are easier to love than
others. I know that. I recognize that. I'm not going
to be wearing rose-colored glasses and talking, let's be honest
with one another. Some people are just easier to love than others.
And here's the only thing I can say about that. Don't worry about
somebody else. You be lovable. So you don't
worry if, well, this person's easier to love. Don't worry about
that. You be lovable. Be lovable. Don't worry if somebody's
loving you the way that they should. You worry that if you
love others the way you should. That make sense? Be lovable. Make it easy for your brethren
to love you. Make it easy for your brethren
to get along with you because of how much you love them. See
that? It's easy to love somebody if
they show they love you. Then be lovable. Be lovable. Be sure that you show that love
to our brethren. There's a pastor friend of mine
talking about two young ladies in his congregation. He said,
oh, I just love them so much. And he stopped and said, well,
I guess I do. They love me. So I love them because they love
me. That's the way I want to be. That's the way you should
want to be. So make it easy for somebody else to love us. And if you love your brethren
like you love Christ like that, and you love your brethren like
that, I'm telling you what, give thanks. Make this part of your
prayer of thanksgiving, because this kind of love does not come
to a human being naturally, not at all. Naturally, who do we
love? Numero uno, I love myself. There's a song that used to be
popular. You got to teach your children
to love themselves. No, you don't. No, you don't. No, we all love
ourselves just fine. But if you love God, you love
Christ and you love his people. You're blessed of God. You're
blessed of God. He's given that gift, that blessing
of love to you. That's the only place you can
come from, from God. Give thanks for it. All right, number four. Every believer has the blessing
of hope. Verse five, Paul says, for the
hope which is laid up for you in heaven. Now, hope is a very
good thing for human beings. You know, if we're in a difficult
situation and we just don't have any hope that things are going
to get better. We'll despair. I mean, you just
don't think anything is going to get better. You despair. You
won't be able to do anything. I heard about a man this week. He's 102 years old. His 102nd
birthday was last week. Before his birthday, I guess
he's in some sort of a home or something. And they ask him,
you're going to be 102 years old. What do you want for your
birthday? You know what he said? To die. It's not getting better. I just
don't have any hope that's gonna get any better. I mean, my body's
falling apart, my mind's gone. There's no hope. There's no hope. Well, believer has hope. Has
hope. But it's more than a hope like,
well, a hope things are gonna be okay, but I don't know if
they will or not. This word hope that Paul uses
here means an expectation. It means something else to get
ahold of this, something that you expect with pleasure, with
pleasure. A believer has an expectation
of eternal life. No matter the state of this body,
the believer has an expectation of eternal life because that's
what the savior accomplished for us. This is an expectation
of eternal life. It's an expectation of forgiveness. It's an expectation of righteousness,
because it's all based upon the doing and dying of Christ. It's
all based on his obedience, not mine, his, as he stood in my
place, his obedience. It's all based on his suffering,
the sacrifice that he offered as my substitute. He bore the
wrath that I deserve. That's why I expect not to deserve
it, because he already bore it for me. The believer expects
eternal life, because this is what we know. The father doesn't
look to me for what he requires. He looks to his son for what
he requires of me. And his son is perfect, and so
am I. And that's the only way that
I can expect anything but wrath from God, because I trust Christ. And a believer has an expectation
that things will be better in the future. They will. Now again,
I'm not telling you, I'm wearing rose colored glasses and telling
you everything, this life is always gonna feel good to us.
I wish that it would, but that's just my sinful flesh talking. Our father says that's not best
for us always, not best for us. This life definitely is gonna
have its moments of pleasure and joy. Luke and Michaela are
having a time of pleasure and joy right now. That brand new
baby come home, it's a time of pleasure and joy. I told Luke,
this is the absolute best time of life. You bring a new baby
home and it's a time, moments of pleasure and joy. Believers
have that, we do, we have that. But this is what we also know,
there's going to be days full of trouble. There's trouble coming. And I'll tell you how we know
that. Because that's what the scripture promises. It promises
us a life that is a few days. Not a few months, a few years,
a few days. How old was Jacob towards the
end of his life? And he said, the days of my pilgrimage. They're just a few days. And
those days are gonna be full of trouble. That's what scripture
promises us. But the believer knows, expects,
things are gonna improve. But you just wait, things are
gonna improve. Not in this life, in the next one. Oh, when this
life is over, it's going to be perfect. Perfect. And I tell you why the believer
can expect that. Because that's what the Lord
promised. That's what he prayed to father for his people, that
they may be with me where I am and behold my glory. That you're
going to have it. You can expect that. You can
expect to live in a body and a world without sin. That's perfection. And the believer can expect,
you're gonna have that if you believe Christ. Look at 1 Peter
1. Paul says here, this is a hope
which is laid up for you in heaven. It's kept safe in heaven. It
cannot be lost. And Peter says the same thing
here, 1 Peter 1. Verse three. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again into a lively, a living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance. It's incorruptible
and undefiled, and it fadeth not away, reserved in heaven
for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,
ready to be revealed at the last time. This is an inheritance
that's reserved in heaven. It can't fade away. It cannot
be lost. Moth and rust can't corrupt it. Thieves can't break through and
steal it because it's kept safe in heaven by God himself. See, that's a hope that cannot
change. That's why you can expect it.
Now, the believer's hope is an expectation because all depends
on the Godhead. It's an expectation. This thing
is as sure as the purpose of the Father, the promise of the
Father being fulfilled. It's as sure as the atonement
of Christ is successful. Is the atonement of Christ successful?
Did he save everybody he came to save? Did he put away the
sin of everybody that he died for? Yes, he did. Then this thing
is sure, because it's as sure as the success of Christ's atonement.
And it's as sure as the calling of the Holy Spirit is irresistible.
It's sure, it's all based on the Godhead. Now look at 1 Timothy
1. This hope, it is a feeling, it's
a feeling, but it's much more than a feeling. By God's grace,
the believer has the hope itself, the hope himself. Look here,
1 Timothy 1 verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the commandment of God, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ,
our hope. The believer's hope is a person. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
hope. All of salvation, I tell you
this all the time, all of salvation is a person. None of it is just
a legal standing before God. None of it is a thing that God
gives. Our salvation is a person. The Lord Jesus Christ, our hope. He's all to us. He's our wisdom,
our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption. He's our hope.
It's all in a person. And the believer has hope. Because
if you have Christ, you have everything. Everything. That's a blessing, isn't it?
What a hope, what an expectation that we have. All right, here's
the fifth thing. The believer is blessed to hear. Verse five, Paul says, for the
hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof you heard. You heard before in the word
of the truth of the gospel. Now, a lot of people hear the
gospel preached, but a believer hears. A believer hears with
the ear of faith. How do I know if I've heard the
gospel with ears of faith? And I want to know that. I want
you to know that. I asked that question to myself. I don't ever remember in my lifetime
ever hearing a false gospel. I don't ever remember it. So
how do I know that I've heard the gospel with the ears of faith
and this is not just the only thing that I've ever known? I
mean, that's a fair question, isn't it? Well, if you've heard
the gospel with the ears of faith, You hear and you believe that
Christ is all you need. If you heard the gospel with
the ears of faith, you're happy to hear that Christ is all you
need. You're happy. You're happy about
it. You love Christ. You need Christ. Your soul is
fed. You find that your soul is encouraged
when you hear the simple preaching of Christ one more time. If there's
nothing new that you've ever heard, but you just find that
you're encouraged, that you're strengthened, that you're blessed
when you hear of Christ one more time. Does that describe you? does you've heard the gospel
with ears of faith. Now remember one of the blessings
every believer has is faith in Christ. Well where does that
faith come from? Faith in Christ comes by hearing
and hearing by the word of God. Faith in Christ comes by hearing
the gospel and when the Lord gives his people ears to hear
They hear. Again, I can tell you by experience,
you can hear the gospel years and years and years and not hear,
and one day you hear, and you think, where have I been? Well,
you were dead. Now you hear. That's where you've
been. God moved and gave you ears to hear. He gave you life.
The Savior said, my sheep hear. What do they hear? My voice.
And when they hear my voice, what do they do? They come to
me. They follow me. You might not be able to explain
how or when that happened. All you know is, now I hear. Now I trust Christ to be everything
I need. Now I follow Him. Now I want
to come to Him. And here's a truly amazing thing.
God's elect hear the gospel. They hear of Christ through a
man who is just as needy and just as sinful as they are. God's
sheep hear Christ himself speak through the stumbling, stammering
tongue of a sinful man who also trusts Christ. Now, only God
could make somebody hear of Christ from one sinner to another sinner.
Only God could do that. And what a blessing to be enabled
by the spirit to hear, to hear the gospel and believe it. When
most don't, when most don't. Now that ought to humble us.
That ought to never make us proud. That ought to always humble us.
Most can't hear. Nobody hears by nature. Why do
I hear? God gave me that blessing. The
blessing to be able to hear and believe Christ. And if you hear
the gospel, you believe Christ that way, I want to tell you
what, Almighty God has blessed you. He has. The believer hears
because God sends the gospel to them and gives them ears to
hear it and a heart to believe it. He sends it to them. He says
in verse six, which is coming to you as it is in all the world. God sends his gospel out into
all the world and his people from all over the world all hear
the same thing. They all hear the same savior,
all believe the same savior. And that brings me to the last
thing. Every believer is blessed to bear fruit. Verse six says,
which has come unto you as it is in all the world and bring
forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day you heard of
it and knew the grace of God in truth. Now, when a person
hears and believes the gospel, they will bear fruit. They will. They will bear the fruit of the
spirit. They can't help it. They'll find that they have love,
joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, temperance.
They'll find that they have all those things. And this fruit,
this attitude doesn't come to us naturally. Love, joy, peace doesn't come
to any human being naturally. Our flesh is always the opposite
of that, isn't it? So if we have any of that, it
can't be our fruit. No, our fruit is fruit of death,
isn't it? That's the only thing we can produce. It has to be
the fruit of the spirit that God put in you. And every believer,
I don't care who they are, bears this fruit. Paul said, you began
bearing it from the day that you heard, from the very day
that you heard. Every believer bears it. Now,
our Lord says some 30, some 60, some 100 fold, but every believer
bears it because there's a new seed. See, the fruit comes from
the seed. There's a new seed that's been
planted. It's the seed of the word of God. And this seed always
produces the fruit of the spirit. Always. It can't produce anything
else. Just like an apple seed can't produce anything but an
apple tree. The fruit of the spirit in your heart can't produce
anything but the fruit of the spirit. Now, any seed, any religion,
that does not produce this fruit, this fruit of the spirit, love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance,
any religion that doesn't produce that fruit is not the word of
God. It's not the preaching of the
word of God. Now, it could be the seed of religion. That'll
produce a self-righteous person. It could be the seed of orthodoxy. That'll produce a religious scholar.
It could be the seed of doctrine. It could be the seed of morality,
but it's not the seed of the word of God. The seed of the
word of God always produces the fruit of the spirit. Always. Now, this seed is the seed of
the truth of the gospel. See, it has to come from the
truth, the truth of the gospel. It's not just religion. It's
not just morality. It's the truth of the gospel, the truth of the
word of God. Now let me close with this warning.
I believe it could be helpful about the fruit of the spirit.
The believer is blessed to bear fruit. Every believer bears fruit,
everyone. But don't look for evidence of
salvation in the fruit that you bear. Don't look to the fruit
that you bear to see if you're saved. That's not where you look
for salvation. The only one and only evidence
of salvation is this, faith in Christ. Do you believe Christ? Do you trust him to be everything
that you need? Can you just rest in him and you just don't worry,
I gotta add something to Christ in order for the father to accept
me. Do you trust Christ like that?
That's the evidence of salvation. Our behavior is gonna come and
go, up and down. You just, you look at the man
of scripture to find that that's true. That makes us feel better,
you know, by ourselves. You don't look for evidence of
salvation in our conduct. The only evidence of salvation
we have is faith in Christ. But believers will bear this
fruit. And I'll tell you the best, sweetest fruit of the spirit
that a believer bears. It's not fruit that we see. It's
not fruit that we try to produce. It's fruit that others see. It's
fruit that others enjoy. It's fruit that others, they
enjoy love and kindness and gentleness and faithfulness. They enjoy
that. They're seeing it in others. They get blessed by it. That's
the blessing. If you can bear fruit. See, God
doesn't give us this fruit for ourselves. He gives us the fruit
of the spirit to help our brethren, to bless those that we love.
And wherever you see that fruit in others, You see, don't look
for it in yourself. You see it in others. And when
you see it, give thanks. That's a blessing of God. That's
a blessing every believer has. I hope that will help you and
encourage you to continue looking to and trusting in Christ. All
right, let's bow together. Our Father, we're thankful for
your word, how we thank you, how richly and abundantly you've
blessed your people in Christ our Savior. Father, I pray that
you take your word as it's been preached through the stammering
tongue of this servant. Bless it to your glory. Bless
it to the hearts of your people that we might see Christ and
run to him, find in him all that we need and rest in him. Father, I pray you'd bless us
as we go back to our homes and our weekly activities, that you'd
bless us to be able to come back one more time on Wednesday. One
more time, hear the gospel of Christ our Savior and rejoice
in him. In his blessed name, for his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean.