Okay, well come back with me
to Colossians. I don't think there are many
more messages in Colossians now because the end of it becomes
very much a list of greetings from real people. We might find
something in it, but at the moment I don't think we'll be going
a great deal further than this, maybe another one or two. But
our text this morning is in chapter 3 and verses 12 to 17. Let's just read those verses
together to start with. Paul writes to the Colossians,
and let me remind you Colossi is a place which you could find
it in southwestern Turkey, in inland southwestern modern-day
Turkey is where it was. And he writes to these people,
best part of 2,000 years ago, Now, he writes in verse 12, put
on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels
of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering,
forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have
a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do
ye. And above all these things, put
on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. Let the peace
of God rule in your hearts, to the which ye are called in one
body, and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do, in word
or deed, to all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
to God and the Father by him. So this is a letter to God's
elect people, put on therefore as the elect of God. It's a letter
to God's elect people, which is his church, which is his church
of true believers. They're saints and faithful brethren.
That's how he addresses them in chapter one, to the saints
and faithful brethren that are at Colossae. And we're in the
world. It's to us today as it was to
them. People, Christians, believers,
living in this fallen world. People are people, a company
of people, chosen by God out of all humanity before the beginning
of time. And there in the eternal purposes
of God, united with God, a people put into union with God. How? In the person of his Son, in
the Lord Jesus Christ, a people who he says he has loved everlastingly,
loved everlastingly. And why? Because of anything
he foresaw in them? No, the Scriptures are clear,
entirely because of the grace of God. God, just out of his
own sovereign will, showed favor to a multitude that no man can
number, out of humanity, and others he left to themselves.
We are all enemies of God by nature in the flesh, but some
he chose to save in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this was all
determined in eternity, before time, without any contribution
from those who are the objects of that grace of God. Now, these
things that I'm saying, there are many so-called Christian
churches whereby now I would have been taken outside and lynched
for coming out with those things. But it's the message of the Bible.
It's the truth of the Bible. The world around, religion in
general, hates that idea. But God has clearly revealed
it. His word brims with it from start
to finish. You say, that's not fair. What
about all the non-elect? And my answer to that is, that's
God's business. That's God's business. But I
do know this, as Abraham said in Genesis 18 25 shall not the
judge of all the earth do right God will do right let let God
be true and every man a liar Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right? What do I say about the non-elect? I don't know but that's God's
business. Let's leave that to God I do
know this that the day is coming for the scripture promises it
and when every knee shall bow, every knee and every tongue shall
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. But as we are today, how does
anyone know who is among the elect of God? And the answer
to that is simple. It's belief. Paul writes to the
Thessalonians that it's by observing their belief of the truth. They
were sanctified by the Spirit and they believed the gospel.
Belief is that which signifies the election of God. God's spirit
regenerates. God's spirit puts new life within
the dead soul. The soul that is alive in the
flesh, but dead in the spirit. In the day that you eat thereof,
said God to Adam, in the day you eat thereof you shall surely
die. And man in general is dead in
trespasses and sins. We have no spiritual life naturally,
but God's Spirit comes and regenerates and puts new life into the objects
of His grace. And He grants repentance. It
isn't something that you work up for yourself. It's a gift
of God. God grants repentance. For He
said in the Acts of the Apostles, they observed that God had granted
repentance to the Gentiles. Repentance for sin. Repentance
for that which alienates from God. And he gives sight. He gives the sight of the soul.
We're naturally blind. We're naturally in darkness.
But by grace he gives sight to believe. And we call that sight
of the soul that he gives to his people, we call it faith.
He gives faith. By grace are you saved. Through
faith, that's the means. But that is not of yourselves.
It's not something you've worked up for yourselves. It is the
gift of God. He gives faith to his people
to believe. Those that were ordained to eternal
life, we read in Acts chapter 13, when the gospel was preached
to the Gentiles, those that were ordained to eternal life, you
mean not all were? No, they weren't. That's the
message of Scripture. Those that were ordained to eternal life
believed. When they heard the gospel, they
believed. God's Spirit regenerated, and granted repentance, and gave
faith to believe, and he made his people, as it says in Psalm
110, verse 3. He makes his people, who by nature
are unwilling rebels, he makes his people willing in the day
of his power. And they, sinners, children of
wrath, even as everybody else, embrace gospel truth. There it
is, what a glorious thing. The gospel, the truth of the
gospel. Gospel means good news. What
good news? That sinners, who are the natural
enemies of God, are reconciled to God in Christ. are fitted
for eternal glory, who have a hope of eternal life, who have a certainty
of eternal life, who have eternal life even now, but that will
be confirmed. For as Paul said in other places,
I'm in a straight between two things, whether to stay because
it's needed for you now to minister to you, or to depart and be with
Christ, which is far better. We have a glorious hope as the
believing people of God. We embrace that gospel truth.
and we worship God. This is the mark of the true
people of God who worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in
Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We rejoice in Christ
for he is our all and in all, as we were thinking last week
in the previous verse 11. We forsake all fleshly confidence
concerning our fitness for eternity. We abandon the world's paradigm
recipe of life. You know, this world around us
has a philosophy of life. They're godless philosophies.
They're philosophies that, in general, have no place for the
true God. No place for God, who is the
source of all life. They have no place for that.
They have their Babel religion. And I say that because, fundamentally,
all religion that isn't the true religion of God, of this book,
is Babel religion. It's the religion of Babylon.
It's the religion that is false, of Nimrod, in Genesis 11, the
Tower of Babel. It's that religion. the elect
of God, learn that they're destined for the New Jerusalem. They know
that here we have no continuing city, but we look for one to
come. Abraham looked for a city which has foundations, whose
builder and maker is God. We look for that New Jerusalem
that John in his vision in Revelation saw coming down out of heaven
as a bride prepared for her husband, an eternal city, a blissful city,
a sinless city, a holy city, a city where love is perfect,
a city in which there is intimate communion with our God. This
is it. How many times in the scripture
do you read of God saying, they shall be my people and I will
be their God? Intimate communion with God.
This is what is held up to us as believers, as the end. Intimate communion for eternity,
without end. But for a while, in this flesh,
while we live here, we're kept here. Jesus prayed. to his father
in John 17 before he went to the cross. He said, I pray not
that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them
from the evil that is in the world. And so we're kept in the
flesh. We read in Revelation chapter
12 about the woman, which is a picture of the people of God,
the church of God. And she's given wings of faith
to fly away into a wilderness separation from this world around. And in that place of wilderness
separation from this world, We read that God feeds her there. God feeds his people. He feeds
his people with manna from heaven, with heavenly truth, with heavenly... that bread. I am the bread of
life, said Jesus. But here? we experience warfare,
we experience contention and conflict. What? Between what? Between the spirit, the new man
given by the spirit of God, and the workings of the flesh, which
is altogether corrupt, as Paul said. In me, that is, in my flesh,
there dwells no good thing. But the new man of the Spirit
of God grows as Peter, at the end of his second epistle, grow
in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The new man
grows in that grace and knowledge of the eternal inheritance. At
the same time, whilst the new man is growing in that grace
and knowledge, the old man of the flesh, this flesh and bones
with all of its sinful desires, is continually drawn to what
was called the pleasures of sin. You know, Moses in the palace
in Egypt. He shunned that. He could have stayed and had
the pleasures of sin for a season, but he preferred Christ, it tells
us in Hebrews. The flesh is continually drawn
to the pleasures of sin for a season, but the new man grows in grace
and knowledge. So gospel precepts, inspired
by the Holy Spirit, Call us to encourage the new man of the
Spirit of God and subdue the old flesh machinery to cease
to do evil and to learn to do well in Christ. Henry Mahan said
this, he said, there is an inseparable connection between being God's
people and behaving like God's people, an inseparable connection
between them. If you are one of God's people,
you will behave like God's people. Things, when you become a Christian,
things cannot continue as they were, as it says in 2 Corinthians
5 and verse 17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
He is a new creature, a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. That's conversion. It's a complete
change, an absolute radical change. The pinnacle of it in the record
of Scripture is surely Saul of Tarsus being stopped dead in
his tracks on the road to Damascus to do great harm to the believers,
the people of God. And in that moment, he's brought
from that position of ardent rebellion against the purposes
of God, in a moment, to say, Lord, what would you have me
to do? He's submissive in a moment. So, all things are become new. So we're told to put off the
old ways and to put on the new ways. Now, we read these verses
just before, verses 12 and 13. Put on, therefore, or as I've
said before, that word there, therefore in verse 12 is the
same as in verse 5 and it can easily be translated thereby. Put on thereby, because you know
these things, these things will drive you to do, the truth of
God will drive you to the right behavior. Put on thereby, as
the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness,
humbleness of mind, meekness, and longsuffering. He says, put
these things on, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel, with
another. You've got to forgive, even as
Christ forgave you, do that. It's not to become holy and beloved,
put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, but
because the elect of God are holy and beloved. How are they
holy and beloved? Not by what they do, not by what
they do, but made holy in Christ. He is our all in all. I'm a poor
sinner and nothing at all, said Happy Jack. I'm a poor sinner
and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. Think on those words. mull them
over, meditate upon them. Do you believe those words? If
you do, it's because you are amongst the elect of God. You
are holy and beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ. When were you confirmed
in that position? Before the beginning of time.
Why me, you would say. This is the reaction of the child
of God who comes to a knowledge of the truth. It's not, oh, haven't
I been a good person and deserve this? Aren't I better than everybody
else? No, it's why me? We, in our hearts, we remember
the words of that hymn. I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how he could love me, a sinner,
condemned, unclean, because we did nothing to deserve it. We
did everything to get the very opposite, to deserve condemnation. But you see what accomplished
it. What was it that accomplished it? If you turn back a page or
two to one of my most frequently quoted passages of Scripture,
in Philippians chapter 2 and verse 6, about the Lord Jesus
Christ, what was it that accomplished the salvation of his people?
Who being in the form of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, our God
manifest, who was in the form of God. He was God. He thought
it not robbery to be equal with God. He's equal with God, but
made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of
a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. That's what accomplished
it, that our God in his majestic glory, the glory of his being,
the glory of his situation, took upon him the form of a servant.
What a great, I said it before, what a great staircase down from
glory to this world to accomplish the redemption of his people. He who deserves the highest praise
and honor, he who deserves the highest devotion of his people,
he humbled himself. and became obedient unto death. He was obedient to the law of
God, yes, absolutely. There is some debate about whether
that obedience of him obeying the law of God is that which
is credited to his people as their righteousness, but I don't
believe that's the case. This is the obedience. In Romans
5.19, It says, by one man's disobedience, Adams, many became sinners, and
by another man's obedience, many became righteous. This is the
obedience by which his people were made righteous. He became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He obeyed
the law of God to show that he was a fitting Passover lamb. Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed
for us. He became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross, wherefore God has also highly
exalted him. So, if our God set aside the
infinite self-worth of Godhead in Christ so as to redeem his
elect multitude, Think about it. Should his people not humble
themselves? Should we, if we're his believing
people, should we not abandon confidence in the flesh of our
goodness? Should his people not put on
an inward pity and tenderness towards the needs and trials
and infirmities of others? Look at it. Put on bowels of
mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, long-suffering. Should
we not put those things on, if we're His people? We should express
it in acts of kindness. What marks out an act of kindness? Something you do for the good
of another at personal cost. This is what Christ did. He left
glory and came to save his people from their sins. Should his people,
therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, not do those
same things, walk in his steps, cultivate an attitude of lowliness
at best? were what William Huntington
said of himself. William Huntington, S.S., sinner
saved. That's all he was. Should we
not, as Paul writes to the Philippians in chapter two, verse three,
should we not esteem others better than ourselves? It says here,
put on meekness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering.
Meekness is not weakness. Meekness, Jesus said in the Sermon
on the Mount, blessed are the meek. Blessed are the meek. It's
not weakness, but it is the opposite of pride and of arrogance. And
meekness powerfully extinguishes envy and jealousy and disputes. And he says, be patient with
one another, long-suffering, patience with one another, contentedly
tolerating the things others do which annoy us. And let's
be honest, there are all sorts of things that others do. The
nearest and dearest to us do things which annoy us. but patience
with one another, contentedly tolerating the things that others
do which annoy us. In the flesh, we're bound to
do things which offend one another because the flesh is sinful.
Flesh reacts with offense, with hurt. It demands retribution. I used to hear this a lot from
a certain party. You owe me an apology. You owe
me an apology. Well, yes, yeah. But forbearing
and forgiving surrenders our rights to an apology to the will
of God, to work his good pleasure. For the elect of God, you know,
forgiveness of the wrongs that others do us. Forgiveness of
it is not an optional extra. In chapter 2 and verse 13 of
Colossians, it says there that God in Christ has quickened us
together with him. having forgiven you all trespasses. He's forgotten our sins. The
scriptures say that he remembers our sins no more. That's Hebrews
10, 17. He remembers our sins no more. You say, how can God
forget? God said in his word, I will
not remember your sins. So must his people, one to another,
forgive. You know, this isn't an optional
extra. Matthew chapter six, it's the Sermon on the Mount. And
verse 14, he tells them they've got to forgive, we've got to
forgive. In verse 14 of chapter six, if ye forgive men their
trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if
ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive
your trespasses. Pretty stark, isn't it? It's
pretty unavoidable. The believing people of God,
if we're true, we will forgive others as we have been forgiven. And then he says, what's the
next thing he says? He says, in verse 14, above all
these things, put on charity or put on love. Charity there
means the agape love, the self-sacrificing love of God, which is the bond
of perfectness. Put that self-sacrificing love
for the good of those that you love, the object of that love. Love is of God and it was the
love of God that drove him to sacrifice his beloved son. It
was read to us, Stephen read to us before in 1 John chapter
4 and verse 8, God is love, God is love and it was that that
drove him to sacrifice his beloved son in order to accomplish salvation
justly, without violating his nature, without violating his
justice. The salvation of his people is
entirely according to the justice of God, but it involved the sacrifice
of the beloved son of God. Well, should we not then, the
objects of that love, and the objects of all that flows from
that love, that love which led to the salvation of his people,
should we not seek to put on love? In 1 Peter 1.22, Peter says this, seeing ye have
purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit
unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another
with a pure heart fervently. It's a gospel precept. It's a
gospel command. It's a gospel call. The whole
of the chapter that was read to us earlier, 1 John chapter
4, underlines this whole thing. And what is the fruit of love?
What is the outcome of it? What is the intention of it?
It's the good of its object. It's the good of the one that
is loved, at whatever the personal cost. It speaks powerfully, you
know. This love of the people of God,
one to another, speaks powerfully as a testimony to the world around.
In John 13, verse 34, Jesus says this to his disciples, and remember
that John 13, 14, 15, this time is just before Christ went to
the cross. And in verse 34, he says to them, a new commandment
I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that
ye are my disciples if ye have love. one to another. You see,
it's not an optional extra. It's a characteristic of the
people of God. We should love one another. It's
the bond of perfect union, it says there in verse 14 of Colossians
3. It's the glue of sweet fellowship. You say, somebody might say,
I haven't got it in me. If you have God's spirit, you
do. And if any man have not the spirit
of Christ, he is none of this. None of his, Romans 8 tells us.
Verse 15, let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which
ye are also called in one body, and be ye thankful. Let the peace
of God rule in your hearts. As believers, we have peace with
God. As believers on the grounds of
the gospel of redemption accomplished, of blood that was shed to pay
the debt of our sins, we have peace with God. Romans 5 verse
1, being justified by faith. Whose faith? The faith of Christ
is what justified these people. The faithful work of Christ to
save his people from their sins. Being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We who were
naturally enemies with God have peace with God. What is peace?
Peace is an absence of strife. It's an absence of warfare. You
see it all around in the world. People protesting and getting
together, pleading for peace. People want peace and yet all
around there seems to be no end of desire for war. Peace is an
absence of strife. It's an absence of warfare. Our
God, The God who is over all is the God of peace. The God
of peace. And the God of peace displays
the peace of God. He exhibits that peace in the
gospel of his grace. Well, let. Let. What does that
mean? Don't hinder it. Don't hinder
it from governing your affections, you believers. Don't hinder.
that peace from governing your affections and actions one to
another. And not just Christian brethren
either, but all men around. Romans 12 verse 18, as much as
lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. You hear that?
As we go about our business in this world, as much as lieth
in you, as much as it's up to you, as much as you have anything
to do with it, do your best to live at peace with all men. Ask
in a situation where conflict looks, you know, the fuse of
conflict is sizzling away. What would stop this situation
from escalating into conflict? Don't let pride or self hinder
it. That's what he means. Don't let
pride or self hinder it. Let the peace of God rule in
your heart and be thankful. Be thankful to God for all of
his goodness to us. Again, Henry Mahan said, where
love, peace, thanksgiving are absent, faith is absent. They're marks of the true believer,
they're marks of true faith. And then verse 16, let the word,
again let, don't hinder, let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in
Psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in
your hearts to the Lord. Don't hinder it. The Scriptures
are the Word of God. The Scriptures are the Word of
Christ. Christ is the vocalization of the Word of God. Christ is
the vocalization of the thoughts of God, if I can put it that
way. He is God manifest, and God manifest is the Word of God. In the beginning, I know I quote
it so often, but it's there. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was
with God in the beginning. All things were made by him,
and so on. You know John chapter 1 and verse
1. He is the manifestation of God. We know God by His Word. We know God by His Son, who is
the Word of God. That's His name. It's written
on His thigh in Revelation, towards the end of Revelation. The Word
of God is His name. We know him by his word. His
word conveys his thoughts to our mind and puts them as, you
know, when Paul says, we have the mind of Christ, it's because
the word of God has come and given him those right thoughts
about God. And in his word, in Christ, who
is the word of God, in his word are hid All the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge. You don't even have to turn the
page. Chapter 2, verse 3. In him are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. And the world around is scurrying
around as if all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that
they ever desire in this life are to be found in this world,
but they're not. They're hid in the Lord Jesus Christ. He
must reveal them to you. He, Christ, is preeminent above
all things. It says back there in chapter
1, he has given him the preeminence, if I can find the exact, there
it is, at the end of verse 18, that Christ might have the preeminence,
that he might be above everything else, that there is nothing higher
than him. And in Psalm 138 and verse 2
it tells us that God has magnified his word above all his name. How has he magnified his word
above all his name? Because Christ has all the preeminence
and Christ is the word of God. That word of God to us as his
people who believe, walking through this world, walking through this
dark world where The wisdom of this world is against the things
of God. The wisdom of this world is the
wisdom of the kingdom of Satan. But this word to the people of
God in this world, it's a lamp to our feet. It's a light to
our path. It shows us the way. It's the
delight of his people. This word is the delight. Oh,
do you say, oh, I find it hard reading the word of God. Why
do we have to have a King James Version? It's such old language.
Why do we need to make it so complicated? Because it's the
nearest thing to the original truth. But it's a delight to
the people of God. Blessed, Psalm 1, verse 1, blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, the
philosophy of this world, of the kingdom of Satan, nor standeth
in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful,
but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth
he meditate day and night. He meditates in it, he thinks
about it, it informs his actions, it determines the things that
he's going to do and not do. He meditates in it day and night. Of course, that man, that blessed
man of Psalm 1, of course that blessed man can only be the Lord
Jesus Christ. It cannot be me. How am I ever
going to rise to that? I'll tell you how. In him, and
in him alone. In him, his people in him. The
Psalms always read them, that it's the words of David, the
experience of David, or whoever the Psalmist was at the time.
It's Christ, so prophetical of Christ. It's Christ living in
this world. Christ, the God-man, is Christ
in relation to this world and his Father in heaven, but it's
also his people in him. And that's why we get so much
comfort from the Psalms, because they speak to us, to people who
are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter encourages us, as I've
already said to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ.
How do you do that except by his word? You can't. You don't
go away to a retreat. You don't go away to some philosophical
gathering. It's by his word that he speaks
to his people. Now does that word dwell richly
in you? Does it dwell richly in me, believer? Don't think that I'm standing
here as the preacher this morning on some high mound above you
all that dwells in me much more richly than you. No, it's constantly
flesh versus the spirit. But does it dwell in us richly?
Where does it rank in terms of our priorities of life? The things
that entertain us, the things that amuse us, the things that
take our time. Have we had that experience of
the Word of God, the Word of Christ, as those Emmaus Road
disciples? You know, in Luke 24, where they
were sad walking back to Emmaus from Jerusalem, Christ had been
crucified, and they were despairing, they thought he was going to
come and be the one that would be the king of Israel and save
Israel, the risen Christ walks with them. And beginning at Moses
and the prophets, he expounds to them in all the scriptures
the things concerning himself. And when he's gone from them,
those disciples said, didn't our hearts burn within us while
he talked with us in the way? Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly. Do our hearts burn within us
as Jesus talks to us through the scriptures? the saints of
a couple of hundred years ago. I'm talking about before the
time when modern technology distracted us so much. The technology of
the last hundred years, let's put it about that, but it gets
more and more intense as time goes on, is an enormous great
distraction. And I read the accounts of the
faith of men of God and women of God of a couple of hundred
years ago, when they didn't have any of that Satan's beast of
modern technology to distract. and how the Word of God fed their
souls, how it was their constant delight, how they woke with it
and they went to bed with it, and they delighted in the Word
of God. They let the Word of Christ dwell
in them richly, in all wisdom, and encourage one another in
it. Teaching and admonishing one another, encourage one another
in the Word of God. Talk about it, talk about it.
Ask questions of fellow believers. You know, there's been debate
in various circles about whether we should only sing psalms or
whether we should sing hymns as well. Well, it says clearly
here in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord. Why do we sing hymns, the hymns
of these men of old, John Kent, William Gadsby, John Newton,
and so on? Because although they departed
from us, although they've gone to glory, these are our brethren,
and they teach through the words of the hymns that they've written
and that we sing, They teach and admonish us through them.
We don't know who wrote our last hymn. It's in Gadsby's as K1787,
but we sing it often. And the first verse is, how firm
a foundation. ye saints of the Lord, is laid
for your faith in his excellent word. Think of this, what more
can he say than to you he has said? You who unto Jesus for
refuge have fled. What a solid, solid basis for
dispensing with all sorts of modern day religious error. Our
firmer foundation, ye saints of the Lord. And then finally,
briefly, verse 17. Whatsoever ye do in word or deed,
Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and
the Father by Him. This should be our aim as God's
elect in the world, that whatever we say or do, we can lift the
banner of the Lord Jesus over it. We can, as it says in Paul's
epistle to Titus, chapter 2 and verse 10, adorn the doctrine
of our God and Savior in all things. In whatever you do, make
that doctrine of gospel grace look beautiful, adorn it, that
immediately rules out any works of darkness that the flesh might
seek to do. We need to ask always, would
this thing that I'm about to do, would this bring contempt
on the claims of the gospel, on the claims of Christ? We don't
do any of this Let me underline this. Let me be perfectly clear.
We don't do any of this to change our standing with God as believers
because that is sealed in Christ for eternity. That is sealed
in him. If we're his elect, that is sealed
in him. But if we're true, we'll strive to put off the works of
the flesh and put on the fruit of the spirit. Whatsoever ye
do, in word or deed, Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God and the Father by him. Amen.