Alright, turn with me to 2 Corinthians,
the 5th chapter. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Now, we've covered part of this verse. I spoke to you once before
from down here in verse 21 and went back and did some commentary
over chapter 4 and chapter 5. And I brought this message yesterday
to the folks over in Wichita Falls. I went a little different
direction with it than what I'm going to go this morning, but
I brought this message over there because I felt the need to do
it. And I believe this message will be a blessing to you if
you can enter into what it says. Now, look here in verse 18. And all things are of God. who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation,
to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed
unto us the word of reconciliation." Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's name be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. Now, I want to say this at the
outset of the message. And everything else that I have
to say is going to bear on this declaration. All things are of
God. Now, I read the old writers,
and when I read them, they say that the all things in this statement
just pertain to a few things that are contained in the subject
matter of the verse. But I'm going to show you by
the grace of God this morning and in the Word of God where
that's just not so. When he says all things, he means
all things. There's not a more encompassing
verse in the Bible than this verse that has to do with all
things. This reconciliation of God has
to do with everything that is. It's got to do with the mosquitoes
that fly over the yard. It has to do with the butterflies
and the ravens that fall to the ground. It has to do with the
lilies that are clothed in the field. It has to do with all
things. And all things are of God. Now, that's where a man has to
start, because he doesn't know this God. His God doesn't have
control over anything. Nature controls all the things
that go on around him. Accident and circumstance, that
takes care of the explanation for all the disasters and all
the other things. His own soul is in his power
to do this and to do that, to reform and to make good and all
those things. He doesn't know the living God.
Now what Paul is talking about here is a reconciliation of your
mind, a reconciliation of your way of thinking, the reconciliation
of your understanding. being taken from darkness and
ignorance and no understanding into the light of who the living
God is. And here is the first thing he
tells you. All things are of God. All things. The Lord hath made all things,
yea, even the wicked. Even the wicked. Well, surely
they are not of God. Sure they are. Even for this
same purpose, he said of Pharaoh, did I raise thee up. Judas, he
was a son of perdition from the beginning. That's what Scripture
said. It was said to these two, Jacob and Esau, Jacob hath I
loved, Esau hath I hated, and he said it before either one
of them was ever born or ever did any good or evil. All things
are of God. Now, that's where you have to
come before there's going to be any understanding about conversions
and being born again and the gospel and all these other things,
here is where the understanding has to come to. It has to face
up to who God is. God is God. And all things, everything,
your circumstance, my circumstance, providence, sickness, disease,
heart attack, whatever it is that is going on, all things
are of God. These things are according to
His hand, not mine. These things are according to
His design, not mine. I'm just a little speck of dust
that happened out here in time. God is eternal, and all these
things that come from Him have a bearing on eternal matters
and on eternal things and have eternal designs built into them. All things are of God. Listen
to this. All things. All things means
all things. And I believe to believe in God
is to believe in Him as God. And it says that He is before
all things, creating all things, controlling all things, and purposing
all things. This is God. This is God. He is God over all, or He is
no God at all. You know, when Paul stood on
Mars Hill and he talked to that bunch of of Gentile, heathen,
wisdom-seeking men who really thought they knew something.
Do you know where he started? He said, God, this God that you
don't know, this unknown God, he said, that's who I'm going
to declare to you, who of one blood made all nations of men
for to dwell on all the faces of the earth, and hath determined
the times before appointed, and set the bounds of their habitation. How come the African is over
there in the middle of the jungle running around half naked worshiping
who knows what, and you're over here in the land of America and
have freedoms and opportunities and things that that native over
in Africa don't have? How come? Because God has set
the bounds of his habitation. That's exactly right. That's
where you start. I don't know what kind of situation
you're in. I don't know what kind of pain you have. I don't
know what kind of trouble you've got. But I know this, all things
are of God. So let's just start there. That's
where this ministry of reconciliation starts. It starts where you are.
And you are where you are because all things are of God. That's
why you're here this morning instead of somewhere else. That's
exactly right. All things are of God. Listen to this over in John chapter
1. He said all things were made
by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
He didn't exclude anything in creation, because all things
means all things. It means all things. And then listen to this. Here's
the second part of that declaration. He says, "...are of God." They're
of God. Just go back in the Word of God
to the very beginning, and here's what you're going to find out.
In the beginning, God. Everything else that you read
about in this book, from creation, providence, all the way throughout
this book, everything had its beginning right here. In the
beginning, God. God. Nothing else around. No angels in heaven. No Satan
to be cast out. Just God. Just God. He's God. He's God. And to get a hold of
reconciliation, you have to get a hold of who God is. He'll manifest Himself in His
Son. He's going to manifest His character
and detail in His Son. But God is God. Moses said, I'm
going to go down to Egypt just like you told me, but Pharaoh
is going to ask me who sent me, because I'm nobody. And I'm going
down there and tell him, let my people go, and he's going
to say, Who sent you? Who sent you? And
he said, when he asked me, who am I going to tell him? He said,
tell him I am. Tell him I am sent you. I am. All things are of God. They are of God. And then that
little word, are, that's a curious little word, a-r-e, are. Everything that I am creates. Everything that comes
forth from his are. They are. I don't care what it
is. I don't care what you see, everything
that your eye can take in, everything that your life can experience,
visible or invisible, whether they be thrones or dimensions
or powers, I don't care what it is. Anything that this mind
can perceive, it is because of God. He is before all things, and
by Him all things consist. And this is where I'm going with
this. This ministry of reconciliation,
and I'll show you that here in just a little bit, it's a reconciliation. We're not just talking about
words of law. We're not just talking about
a fact. We're talking about a reconciliation of mind. and a reconciliation of heart
and a reconciliation of affections and all those things. And to
do that, that mind has to be reconciled because this mind
is enmity against God. It's opposed and contrary and
resists everything that God says. It's against it. It's against
it. It's got to be reconciled. Got to be reconciled. And all
through chapter 4 and chapter 5, he talks about that reconciliation
of mind, talks about how you think and how you look at things.
That's what he's talking about. And this I find, that if all
things are of God, then everything that a needy sinner could want
is declared in these few words. All things are of God. What do
you need? What do you need? If everything
is of God, then why do I look everywhere else? In these words is everything
a poor, needy sinner could ever want. Are you a sinner? Born of sin? Born in sin? Inherited sin from your father?
One who sees a little light, but rather stay in the darkness?
Prefer that darkness to that light? Are you a sinner? Are you a sinner by practice?
Boy, that's hard to own up to, ain't it? John, we practice sin. Yes, we do. Every day. You practice
sin, you practice. When we was kids, we had a little
hideout. It was about a half a mile from home back in this
woods. I lived up in northern Ohio, big farm country and these
big wide open wheat fields. But they'd always leave a little
patch of woods. And there was a patch of woods
down there, it was probably a quarter mile square, down right in the
middle of these four farms. Had a little creek run through
the middle of it. We went back there and built us a hideout.
Well, see, what the hideout was all about, this is what kids'
hideout's all about, that's where they can go back and practice
sin and not be seen. That's what it's all about. You
can go back there and look at your books that nobody lets you
look at. You can go back there and smoke if you wanted to. Nobody
can see you. We could go back there and cuss
and act bad, you know, and we could go back there and do anything
we wanted to do back there in that hideout, but we left everything
there and then we'd come back and we'd act different when we
got back home. That's the hideout. Well, the heart is the hideout.
That's where a man goes into his heart and practices sin. And you and I do it every day.
You may not own up to it, but you do it. That's where we...
Those lusts of the flesh, we practice those things in the
heart. Those Pharisees, they were good
at disguising. They had them a good hideout.
Nobody could see the hideout, but Christ could see it. He said,
you may clean the outside of the cup, but within you're full
of corruption and dead men's bones. He said, I know what's
inside. Out of the heart perceive evil
thoughts and adulteries and fornications and all these things. Right out
of the heart. That's where they come from. And that's where you
practice them. That's exactly where you practice
them. He said, you say that it's wrong to commit adultery, but
he said, I tell you, to look on a woman and lust after her
is to commit adultery already in your heart. To be angry at
your brother without a cause is to be guilty of murder. You
could go on and on and on. We practice sin in the heart.
We get mad and turn our back. We won't talk to somebody. You
just killed them. That's what you did. You're a
murderer. You just killed them. We practice sin. That's what
Paul said. The things that I would, he said,
I don't do. The things I wouldn't do, it's
the very thing I do. He wasn't talking about outwardly.
He'd been a Pharisee for years. He wasn't talking about his outward
actions. He's talking about in here. That's what he's talking
about. and doubts and fears even of the believer. Lord, we believe,
help thou our unbelief. They practice unbelief in their
heart every day, and so do you and so do I. We are sinners. That is what I am getting at.
Are you a sinner? Are you a sinner? Sin permeates our whole being. Anger, jealousy, envy, pride,
self-centered, self-righteous, self-willed, the lust of the
flesh. Are you a sinner? Has God ever
taken that robe of religion off your person and stripped you
bare naked before His eyes, showed you what you really are? Are
you a sinner? Are you a sinner? A needy sinner? For He said if we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. Do you see that? of God. All things are of God. Are you
empty? Empty of joy? I can't find joy. I ought to
be rejoicing. Why ain't I rejoicing? A child of God, an heir with
Christ. Joy and error. Everything that
God has determined, He's determined to give it to me. Paul said all
things are yours. An heir of God. John, why ain't
I bouncing up and down and rejoicing? Because I'm empty. That's why.
I'm empty. Empty of joy and empty of love
and empty of sincerity, empty of faith, empty of hope. I'm
empty. Empty. Oh, but in Him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Are you empty? Look to
His fullness. Look to His fullness. All things
are of God. Do you find yourself unable to
produce an obedience with which God would approve? Are you upset
at your everyday obedience? I don't prepare myself to worship
like I ought to. I don't read the Bible like I
ought to. I don't pray like I ought to.
I'm not concerned with my neighbor the way I ought to be. I'm not
sensitive to his needs the way I ought to be. Do you have an
obedience with which God cannot be satisfied? Do you have an
unrighteousness about you that you're not even satisfied with,
let alone God? Are you there? Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness. Everyone that believeth, all
things are of God. We are all together as an unclean
thing. All our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. Do you find yourself before His
holy justice? No price to pay? What can I do? What will God accept from my
past behavior? What will God do? How am I going
to pay God? Where is the redemption money?
Where is the price with which God will be satisfied? The only
way to satisfy a guilty conscience is to satisfy God, because He
gave the conscience. You are going to have to satisfy
God, not me. I am well satisfied with your
attendance, is He? Is He? You see what I'm saying? You find yourself before his
holy justice, nothing with which to pay, a justice that will by
no means clear the guilty, a justice that will not compromise for
any reason, a justice that demands full retribution. You find yourself
before that holy justice of God. Is that where you're at here
this morning? Then listen to the promise of God being justified
freely. by his grace, through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth, all things
are of God, to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to
declare his righteousness. To declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness that he might be just and justifier of him
which believeth in Jesus. Where is the need that cannot
find its fulfillment in God? Huh? Oh, we're so pitiful. We can't
supply a single need, can we? Not one. I see the country, and
I see it going downhill, and I can't do anything about it.
Can't do nothing about it. I see my children going this
way and that way, and I can't do nothing about it. I see my
own heart lapse into these These periods of dullness, and no joy,
and no faith, and no sincerity, and everything just kind of gets
all mixed up into one. See, all things are of God. He allows you to go there, because
He's going to call your attention back to where the source is.
Back to where the source is. That's why He lets you get hungry,
so you'll come to the table. But this text goes beyond these
things. This text encompasses the whole
of creation and providence and salvation. This text encompasses
the whole of the believer's experience of grace and everything that
comes his way from the beginning of time to the end of it and
carried right on over into eternity. All things are of God. Let me
show you something here that maybe you've never even thought
about. Look up here at verse 17. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17. Therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are
passed away, behold, all things. That's what we've been talking
about. All things. These all things that are of
God are become new. Now, I want you to just think
about that for a minute. The all things declared to be
of God in verse 18 are the same as the all things in verse 17,
which Paul declares to be new. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. In what sense? In what sense can old things
which have to do with the old things, become new things. How
can that be? How can a sinner who is a sinner
all of a sudden be a new creature? How can that be? How can this enemy and alien
from God be a son? How can all things pass away
and become new in an instant? How can that happen? There's
only one way that verse can fulfill itself, and that is in the reconciliation
of your mind. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. He's a new creature in Christ.
Well, how did he get to be in Christ? God put him in Christ
because all things are of God. That's how he got there. God
put him there. When did He put him there? Before the world was. When did he become a new creature?
When God created him in Christ before the foundation of the
world. He was a new creature. He's not going to stand on that
footing that Adam stood on. He's standing in Christ. Oh yeah,
he's going to be a son of Adam, and he's going to have a fallen
nature, and he's going to be all those things. But he was
newly created in Christ, and that's his representative right
there. Put there before the world was.
Made a new creature. Quickened. Read Ephesians chapter
2. Quickened. Quickened. And that
quickening happened long before you were born. Quickened together with Christ.
Raised up with Christ. Made to sit with Him in heavenly
places. When did all that take place?
In the mind and purpose of God before the world began. Before
the world began. So now, If in Christ, now just
follow, if I'm in Christ, and God has purposed all things in
Christ, and these all things are considered by my being in
Him, then everything that happens in time, everything, takes on
new life. It takes on new life. Creation
takes on a new life. Creation wasn't just born out
And the Lord just made a sea and made dry land, and then the
old Paramecium in the salt water, he crawled up on the land and
became a little one-cell animal, and then he evolved into a man
and a monkey and all this other kind of nonsense that man comes
up with. No, he was created in the image
of God, because God had a purpose before the world was. And that
purpose is all together in that man, Christ Jesus. Now, there is no other sense.
There is no other sense of being reconciled until you get reconciled
to the fact of who God is and that all things, God is going
to reconcile all things. I am going to read it for you
here in a minute over in Colossians chapter 1. But these all things
that He reconciles, all these things that He does through this
man. He is going to reconcile creation through this man. You
can't reconcile, you can't find a reason for, a purpose for creation
apart from what took place in Christ and what God purposed
to do in Christ. There is no other reason. There
is no other reason. He said creation was made subject
to vanity, not willingly, but according to the purpose of him
who subjected the same in hope. Isn't that what he said? That's
creation. That's creation. This thing encompasses
the whole. Listen to this over in Ephesians
chapter 1. It has to do with the mind of
the believer. That's what I want you to see.
Listen to this in Ephesians 1.16. Paul said, I cease not to give
thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of Him. That's what Paul prayed for.
Wisdom and knowledge in the revelation of Christ. My soul, if God ever
opened your heart to see Christ, then you begin to, because in
Him is all the fullness of the Godhead. If He gives you a revelation
of Christ, you get a revelation of God. You get a revelation
of creation. You get a revelation of providence.
You get a revelation of reason and purpose and design for everything
that comes down the road. I don't care what it is. I don't
care if it's a plague or a hurricane or a tornado or what it is. God's
purpose is behind this thing, moving this thing, arranging
things, controlling things. Paul said, I pray that He gives
you some wisdom and a revelation in the knowledge of Christ. The
eyes, look here in verse 18. the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his
calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power
to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power,
which he brought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and
sat him at his own right hand in heavenly places. far above
all principalities and powers and might and dominion, in every
name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that
which is to come. And it put all things under his
feet and gave..." Do you notice how many times here I've read
the word, all things? All things under his feet. "...and
gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which
is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all."
Chapter 2. And you, happy quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked.
And you all are familiar with all those verses. But God, verse
4, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ, by grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up
together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. And all of that for this. Now
listen. That in the ages to come, He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith. It's a reconciling of the mind
of the whole man, of his heart, of his affections, but especially
of his mind. It captures his mind. Boom! Just like that. God translates
that man. And He's translated in his mind. His mind no longer observes works
and foolish things. His mind no longer observes worldly
reasoning. His mind observes the Word of
God. He creates faith in his heart,
and he reconciles that man in his mind, and his whole view
of everything changes. Why does it change? Because God
let him look through the eyes of God who looks at Christ. He
looks through God's eyes. He quits looking through his
eyes. Any man being Christ, he is a new creature. Old things
are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. And the way they pass away is I view myself as God views
me. To view myself through the flesh
is to see myself and weigh myself according to my fallen, deceived
mind. Ain't that what folks do? Well,
I'm not so bad compared to him. Compared to him, I... And we
always pick out somebody who's way worse off than what we are
by our own reasoning. And we look at him, and boy,
I look pretty good compared to him. Compare yourself to Christ. See how you come out. See how you come out. But I view
myself with natural reasoning and with a natural mind and a
fallen heart, and I compare myself to others. or I compare myself
to a standard. The church has a standard of
righteousness and a standard of holiness, and I'll try to
compare myself to that, or some system or some idea. And to view
myself through the law is to see myself guilty before God
without excuse. I view myself through the law,
all I can find is my guilt. I can't find anything else there.
I can't find reason. All it says is guilty, guilty,
guilty. But to view myself in Christ
is to see God putting me in Christ to preserve me before the world
began. And that's what this ministry
is all about. He said, to wit that God was
in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them. Why didn't he impute their trespasses
unto them? Because he put them in a substitute.
That's why. He put them in a substitute. All my sins were charged to his
account. All my sins were laid on him. And in due time, he came and
paid for those sins. It is to view myself in Christ. And in Christ, by faith, I have
a righteousness. And that righteousness is the
end of the law. Let me read you something a little
bit more here in Ephesians chapter 2 You can go home and think about
this. He says here in verse 8, I read to you, Ephesians chapter
2, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man
should boast. For we are his workmanship, now
watch this, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. The good works that's created
in the believer, and I'm talking about to be a good work before
God, it has to be perfect. Why callest thou me good? There's
none good but God. That's what our Lord told the
rich young rogues. It's got to be God good. And if that be so,
then I don't have any good works. But He created me in Christ Jesus
unto good works. It is His good works that are
my works. It is His righteousness that
is my righteousness. And Paul said, The life that
I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith. That word is faithfulness
of Christ. It is His faithfulness. It is
His obedience. It is His good works. It is His
glory to the Father. It is His obedience. Do you see
that? That's how I walk. That's how I walk. Oh, I want
that righteousness. I want it to be my own. But I'm
satisfied by faith to walk in His for now, because I can't
produce that. I can't produce that. I see myself in Christ,
accepted of God, righteous before God, holy before God, unblameable
before God in Christ. And seeing myself in Christ,
I see all my sins being charged to Him, laid to His account. Oh, I tell you this, how that
newness of life will fill up your empty soul if God ever shows
you that He put your sins on Him. God takes the weight of those
sins off your back. How does He do that? Right here. That's how he does
it. That's how he does it. He takes them all for you by
faith. And that faith sees those sins
charged to his account. And there I see my sins paid
for. Paid in full. I see full satisfaction
in me. There's where I find the hideousness
of my sins. There's where I find what I call
righteousness to be filthy rags. I see it in Him, exposed in Him,
hanging on that cross. And my sins are gone. How do
I know they're gone? God raised them from the dead.
Raised them from the dead. Now, listen to me for just a
minute. Because God has purposed all things in Christ, All things
viewed in him by faith become new. They become new. You see that? It is all in how
you view something. If you view this thing out of
this flesh, then you are going to be filled full of fear and
doubt and all these things. But if I view these things from
God's standpoint, here is the man ordained of God as a substitute
and a representative, and he is pleased with it. Pleased with,
this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Trust Him. Rest in Him. This is God's provision. All things are of God. Here it
is. All in Christ. All of it. But not just these
things. He takes all things. All things. Because all these
other things have to do with these things. All these lesser
things. These things of providence. All
have to do with that. And if you go back, I'm not going
to read it to you. I don't want to wear you with
a bunch of scriptures. But if you'll go back here in 2 Corinthians,
let me just read you a few of them back here in chapter 4 of
2 Corinthians. Paul said here in verse 8, We
are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not
destroyed. always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body." You see that? He views all things. He views those persecutions and
sufferings and the life that he lived and the thorn in the
flesh that God gave him, whatever it was with his eyes. He viewed
all these things differently because he viewed them through
Christ. And what was want of? would have been a terror to him.
That was a joy. He talked about that. He said,
our light affliction. My soul, this man's skin was
beat off his back how many times? Shipwrecked out at sea. I couldn't
begin to tell you how many times they took him out and beat him
up and left him for dead. Hired these ruffians to come
down and beat him up and leave him for dead outside the city.
I couldn't begin to tell you the sufferings of this man. He
calls it his light affliction. How can he do that? Because he's
got a different view. And then one more thing, and
I'll close. You see, we view these things
through the eyes of God. That's what he's talking about.
All things are of God. So let's look through his eyes,
not mine. He said in Romans 8, I don't
even know what to pray for, let alone know what I'm looking at.
I don't even know what to pray for. He's got to send the Holy
Spirit of God. to find those things of Christ
and make intercession for me before God, because I don't know
what to pray for. But let's look at these things through the eyes
of God. How do I see through the eyes of God? Through this
book. Through this book. Just try to quit saying, you
know, it seems to me, no, just take him at his word. That's
what faith is. Look through the eyes of God.
And then I know this, to be reconciled in my thought is to be raised
up. That old tree house we had, our
little hideout, was about 20 feet in air up in a tree. Boy,
you get up there and you can see for a mile. You can look
out. When God raises you up with Christ
and you see Him seated in glory, then you can begin to see these
things way out here that you fear. That's what we fear, ain't
it? The unknown. Death and all those
things. See, we begin to see those things
through those eyes because we're elevated. We've got a little
higher view. A little higher view. And the last thing I know
about this reconciliation of mine is that we see things through
the eyes of an heir. Boy, I tell you, you listen to
the gospel a lot different when you know that this is your inheritance
from God. Huh? You go down here at the
courthouse, and they read the will, and you ain't even interested.
I'll drive right by. There'll be a big crowd out there,
and that lawyer's out there reading. I'll drive right by. It doesn't
have anything to do with me. But boy, when my name comes in
the paper, and I had a rich uncle, I'm going down there and listen.
I'm going to see what he left me. What he left me. That's what
God does in the gospel. He said, because you are a son,
God, all things are of God. God sends forth His Spirit into
your heart, crying, Abba, Father. Therefore, He said, you are no
longer a servant, but a son. But a son. And we sat around,
those Corinthians sat around and gloried in this. They gloried
in Apollos, evidently. He was some kind of an orator. And some of them gloried in Paul,
and some of them in there was old enough to go back, they said,
well, you know, we was converted under the ministry of the Savior
Himself. And they'd see all this. Listen
to what Paul tells them. He said, Therefore let no man
glow in men, for all things are yours. You're an heir. Why are
you fussing and fighting about this one and that one and taking
preference over this one and that one? He said, you totally
missed the whole message of the whole thing. You're in error.
Now listen to what he says. It's 1 Corinthians 2, verse 22. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present or
things to come, all are yours. They belong to you. They belong
to you, and you are Christ, and Christ is God. Now that's what
Paul's talking about here in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. All
things are of God who has reconciled you to Himself. Reconciled you
in your mind by faith to lay hold of these things as an heir
of God and as a child of God. That's what faith's all about.
Faith ain't making decisions. Faith sees. It perceives. God reconciles. In that reconciliation
is the reconciliation of the mind. And he's no more an enemy
of God now. He's a child. He's a child. Our Father, we ask You this morning
to use these words. And we humbly submit them to
You. And those Scriptures which we've read, Thy precious Word
and these precious promises, And use these things to strengthen
our faith and to cause us to look at these things in this
world and give you the glory. And find comfort in the fact
that our God cannot do wrong. Everything He does because He
does it is right and just. And it has to do with this reconciliation. It has to do with the glory of
His name. And we give you praise for Him,
whatever it is. These things we ask for Christ's
sake. Amen.