But As For Me

Let's read this seventh verse,
Psalm chapter five. But as for me, I don't know what
other people are gonna do, David would say, but as for me, I will
come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy, and in thy fear
will I worship toward thy holy temple. But as for me, I will come into
thy house. In the multitude of thy mercy
and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. I meditated
somewhat on this verse of scripture and on some others. And I'd like
to begin this morning by saying that it is my desire and I believe
the desire of everyone who worships here, everyone who is a member
of this assembly, And Larry, he was giving thanks this morning
to God for those that the Lord has brought in here and those
that are members of this body. And we are grateful to God for
the fellowship of his people and for the desire of those that
know the Lord, as I'm about to express here. Our desire is our
supreme and primary desire that fills our souls and hearts. is that every song which is sung,
that every prayer which is prayed, that every sermon which is preached
here, that it would bring honor and glory unto Christ the Lord. That's our desire. That's the
desire of all who banded together here in the fear of the Lord. It is that we might bring honor
and glory and praise unto the Lord. I strongly desire that
all who are present at any time in this service, any who would
come at any time to attend the meetings, the solemn assembly
of the New Covenant Baptist Church, that they'll all be brought by
the Spirit of God to worship and to believe and love the glorious
Lord Jesus Christ. They'll be brought to worship
Him and to love Him May the desire of our hearts be fulfilled this
day. May the Lord enable us by His
Spirit to worship the glorious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, in Psalm 122 and 1, David
said, I was glad when they said unto me let us
go into the house of the Lord. He said I was glad when they
said let's go into the house of the Lord. I believe that David
meant by that that he was glad that number one that he had a
desire to go. He was glad he had the desire.
Now you may think it's just, well, you know, it's just something
that happens. A person has a desire to go to
the house of God, to enter in to the fellowship of the saints
of God and to hear the preached word. But my friend, if you have
a desire to go, you ought to be glad because there's a lot
of people that don't have that desire. They just simply don't
desire to go. And this morning, you could go
out throughout the city of Great Falls, and you'd find people
congregated here and there, various places, not in the houses of
worship, but in various places this morning, just relaxing and
enjoying themselves. And many are home, just there,
some of them sleeping off drunks and various other things. But
I wanted you to know and understand this, that if you have a desire
to go, into the house of the Lord, you ought to be glad, because
that desire comes from God. It comes from the Lord. It comes
from above. And then I think, too, that he
meant by that, he was glad that he had the strength to go. You
know, there's a lot of people this morning that just simply
don't have the strength to go into the house of the Lord. They
have the desire to go. They'd like to go, but they don't
have the strength. Many are infirm, many are afflicted
bodily afflictions, many are just not able to go. Some are
aged people who have gone in the past when they were able
to go, when things and circumstances were different. They always attended
the house of God, but now they're not able to do so. So if you
have strength to go, I think David would say, I was glad that
I had strength to go. I had a desire to go and I had
strength to go into the house of the Lord. And then thirdly,
I think that he would say that I was glad that I understood
the words that were spoken there. I understood the meaning of the
hymns that were sung there in the service. And I understood
the words that the preacher spoke. I understood what he was saying.
I understood the message. I understood the truth. Now that
was being expounded there. I understood what was going on
in the worship service. Now aren't you glad? Now listen
to me now. There's a lot of people that
attend divine service in churches where they're faithful men of
God who never understand one single solitary thing hardly
that's being spoken. Very seldom ever hear anything
that's being said. They just simply don't register
in their mind. They just simply cannot receive
the message. They're not able to. And I've
heard those that had attended here. And they would go out and
they would make the same statement. And of course that always bothered
me because I somewhat accepted the responsibility. But my friend,
I realized And I'd do this if I could. If I could take a funnel
and put it in your ear and pour the message of the gospel of
free grace into your head so that you could understand. I'd
do it. I'd do that. I wouldn't hesitate to do that.
But I recognize that that's not the way that people get an understanding
of the truth of the gospel. You just cannot receive the truth
in that manner. Nobody can force it on you, that's
what I'm saying. And if you have a desire, and
if you can come into the house of God, and if you understand
the words that are spoken there, my friend, that's a gift of grace. and you ought to be glad in your
heart. Well, I can understand. I have the ability to comprehend
the message of this book. I can understand what the preacher's
talking about when he's talking about Jesus Christ being our
substitute. I can understand what he's talking
about when he's talking about Jesus bearing in his own body
on the tree our guilt and our sin. I can understand what he
means when he talks about the righteousness of Christ being
imputed to our account. I understand that message. Well,
my friend, that ought to make your heart glad because that's
a gift of grace. It's a gift of God. We just take
it for granted. but it's a gift of grace. And then I think also that David
would say I was glad because I love the people that were assembled
there. It just made me glad that I had
a love in my heart for the people that was assembled there in the
Lord's house. And you know, it's a wonderful
thing to be loved and it's a wonderful thing to be able to love other
people. It's a wonderful thing. Now it's
a gift of the grace of God, it really is. Because we recognize
that, as John said, we know we've passed from death into life because
we love the brethren. And if we love the people of
God, if we desire to be with them, if it makes us glad to
be in their presence and to come into their assembly and to sit
down with those who love the Lord, My friend, if that makes
us glad, then we can rejoice because we recognize that we're
taught of God to love one another. And this is something that God
has taught us. And we recognize that it's not
natural to the heart to love the Lord's people. It's not natural
to the fallen heart and to the depraved heart of man to love
the Lord's people, but those that are begotten of God, they
love others who are begotten of God, and they cannot help
but do it, and they want to be in the fellowship and the assembly
of those that love Christ, because they love those people. That's
the kind of people that they love. And you know, it's a marvelous,
wonderful thing whenever you begin to reflect upon, you know,
such scriptures as where Jesus said that those that have forsaken
father and mother, those that have forsaken brothers and sisters
and houses and lands, for my sake and for the gospel's sake,
they shall receive in this world a hundredfold. And you know,
there are many that have, I recognize that there's many that have been
faithful to God so as to have had to forsake their homeland. They've had to forsake the state
in which they were born and raised and forsake their families and
leave their families and go somewhere else. to minister the word of
God and to serve the Lord. But you know it's marvelous how
that God raises up mothers, and how that God raises up fathers,
and how that God raises up brothers and sisters to those. How that
God does this and gives them those that love them. And many
times our own relatives, they wouldn't care whether we came
at all or not. And there's people scattered
out this morning across America that I could pull in their driveway
and they would come out on their porch and welcome me with open
arms because they're brothers and sisters in Christ and there's
mothers and there's fathers. They are that to me. because
of my relationship with Christ, and because of the fact that
we're in the Lord together, and because we love one another in
the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, there's just many, many
places where we could go and we would find that very thing
that Jesus talked about. And I think David was glad because
he loved the people that assembled there in the Lord's house. And
then I think also that He was glad that he, the chief of sinners,
and I'm sure that he believed that he was the chief of sinners.
that he should be permitted to come into the presence of God,
that he was permitted to come. Here he was, a sinner, one who
had offended God, broken God's law. God had had mercy upon him
and pardoned him and saved him and hadn't killed him when he
rebelled and committed adultery and murder. God had mercy on
him and restored his soul and he could come into the house
of God And so he blessed the Lord and said, I was glad when
they said unto me, let us go into the house of God. He was
glad for all of these reasons that I've given you this morning
and probably many others. But now let's get back here,
if we can, to the text. But as for me, David said, I
will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy. Now David
here, the sweet singer of Israel, and the man after God's own heart,
he gave here this matter of public worship, I believe, a place of
highest priority in his life. He said, as for me, this business
of coming into the house of God, he said, this is a matter of
high priority with me. One of the most important things
that I'm about. Probably the most important thing
that we're about. is the coming into the house
of God. As for me, I'll come into thy
house in the multitude, thy mercy, and in thy fear will I worship
toward thy holy temple. He would not force others to
worship God, and he would not if he could have, he would not,
but he says, as for me, He says, I will come into thy house. That is to say, I will come into
the place of public worship at the appointed time in the assembly
of God's saints to worship the Lord my God. I'm willing to do
so and determined to do so. Now when he came into the house
of God, David was determined to worship the Lord because he
knew that when he came into God's house that that was the very
purpose of his coming was to worship the living God and he
prepared his heart. He was determined to do it and
he prepared his heart for the solemn and blessed service of
worshiping the Lord. Now I know that we don't give
as much thought as we ought to when we, you know, we get up
and we've been maybe in a habit of coming to the house of God.
But do we prepare our hearts to come? Do we come determined
to worship the Lord? I mean, do we somehow or other
try to get our hearts to the place where they can reflect
upon the mercy of God and upon the love of God and the kindness
and compassion and grace of God and the free mercy of God in
Christ so that we can worship when we come into the Lord's
house? Well, David, I believe he did.
And I want us to take a moment this morning and look at this
text a little bit and ask the Spirit of God to apply it to
our own hearts. I would that God would apply
this to our hearts this morning and that we would learn something
from it. I will come into thy house. The house of God, I believe,
is the congregation of God's saints. It's the congregation
of the people of God. It's the congregation of the
family of God that are in a particular locality. People that have been
banded together by the work of the Spirit of God in their hearts.
And so this congregation here, and whenever we gather in public
assembly to worship, it is to worship the Lord. It is to bow
before Him and to adore Him. It is to exalt Him. It's to lift
Him up. It's to honor Him. And that's
the purpose of the coming together of the family. We come together
to honor Him who is the head of the body of the church. The
church is the living body of Christ. And we come together
to exalt Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now He said, in the multitude
of thy mercy. I'm coming in the multitude of
thy mercy. Now this is very important. I
want you to listen for me a little bit. It's not enough for the
ransomed soul to merely go to church. It's not enough for the
child of grace just simply to go in and just sit down in the
assembly of the saints. We must come into the house of
God, I believe, in faith. We must come in trusting in the
Lord's mercy. Now, this morning there's a multitude
of mercies with God in Christ. I think that we're aware that
God has mercy upon sinners. And there is, as we stand as
sinners, I think all of us are aware that we need mercy. We need mercy. And this is a
very important part of worship. You see, because we're guilty
sinners, born in sin, and because we come forth out of our mother's
womb speaking lies, and because we have sinned willfully, and
because we've rebelled openly against the holy law of God in
our lives prior to our conversion, prior to God changing our hearts,
prior to Christ coming and living in our souls, beloved, we recognize
that we were needy people that we needed the mercy of God. Now the only candidates for mercy
are guilty people. Everybody who comes and worships
God, or those who worship Him are right, are those who have
been the recipients of His mercy in Christ. and God's mercy is
in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so if you've been forgiven
your sin, God's had mercy on your soul. And that puts you
in a position where you can come into the house of God and come
in, beloved, in the multitude of His mercy and where you can
come in and worship at His feet. Now a man who's never experienced
the mercy of God upon his soul A man who's never been born of
the Spirit of God, whose eyes have never been enlightened by
God's Spirit and been brought to see what he is in a state
of nature, a man who's never been brought to see the depth
of his guilt and his filth before God is a man who cannot worship. But if you have been enabled
to see what you were, to see what you were in a state of nature,
see what you were in the old Adam nature, Then my friend,
you can, if you felt the mercy of God in your soul, pardoning,
forgiving, cleansing away your sin and guilt. then you can indeed
worship the Lord. You can worship Him in the multitude
of His mercies. Now, this coming in, we come
to the place of public worship, trusting God's abundant mercy
in Christ. If we do not come as sinners
seeking mercy, we will not worship. We will not. But sinners looking
to Christ for mercy, they always find a multitude of mercies in
him. You remember the publican in
Luke chapter 18 verses 13 and 14 that publican came and there
was a Pharisee that had come with him and you remember the
Pharisee did not receive any mercy because he was not one
who was seeking mercy. But this publican, he cried out
to God, would not as much as look up, but said, God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. And you know, the Bible says
he went down to his house justified. He went down to his house pardoned.
He went down to his house, all of his sins canceled out, all
of his sins remitted, God having cast them behind his back. As
far as the East is from the West, never remember them against him
anymore. This man went down to his house, receiving a multitude
of mercies from the hand of God because he was seeking mercy.
And so when you come into the house of God, this is what David,
this is his meaning, when you come in in the multitude of the
mercies of God, you recognize that you've come in a needy poor,
a sinner, a beggar in need of God's mercy and you have become
the recipient of that mercy in Jesus Christ and you're there
You're there because of mercy, and you're there to give thanks
for the mercy. You're there to praise God for
the mercy. You're there to adore the God
who is able and willing to have mercy on people like you and
me. And you're there for that purpose,
to adore the Lord. Now then, I believe that sinners
that are looking to Christ for mercy, they always find a multitude
of mercies in Him. Now in Christ, we find everlasting
covenant mercies. If you wanted to write down a
few scriptures, you could write down Jeremiah chapter 31, verses
31 through 34. Where there, Jeremiah talks about
the covenant, the everlasting covenant that God has made with
his people. And he said, I will have mercy
upon you. He said, I'll pardon your sin. I'll pardon your sin and your
iniquity, and I won't remember them against you anymore. everlasting,
in the everlasting covenant we find the mercy of God. God said
I'm going to make a covenant not like I made with your fathers
when they came out of Egypt, but I'm going to make a covenant
with your substitute, Jesus Christ, and he's going to die for you,
and his blood's going to cover your sin, and I'm going to look
upon you with favor because of him, and I'm never going to remember
your sins anymore, I'm going to blow them out! And so beloved,
in that covenant we have the mercy of God, and then we have
effectual redeeming mercy. Romans chapter 3 verse 24 and
26 talks about us being justified freely through His grace, through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. that God has justified
us without cause. Now, beloved, this is what we're
about. We're here as those who've been
justified before God without one cause on our part. Now, that ought to make you worship
God. If you've been a sinner like I know you have been, if
you've been made to feel that sin and that guilt before God,
and you know that God without one cause on your part, freely,
has justified you through the work of His own Son, then it
ought to make you praise the Lord. It ought to loose your
tongue to sing the hymns of redeeming grace and love. It ought to make
you rejoice and be joyful in the Lord your God and to worship
at His feet. And then we have almighty saving
mercy in Micah chapter 7, verses 18 through 20. If you can turn
there in your Bible, I wish you would do that. Micah chapter
7. Now that's over in the Old Testament,
along toward the end of the Old Testament, right before the book
of Nahum. And in the seventh chapter, the
last chapter of Micah, verses 18 through 20, let me read these
words. Who is it God likened to thee
that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth not his anger forever,
because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have
compassion upon us. verses they are indeed he will
turn again he delights in mercy he will subdue our iniquities
and then we'll cast our sins into the depths of sea and perform
the truth to Jacob and the mercy that he swore to Abraham God
will perform all of this unto His people. And so we have almighty,
we have the almighty saving mercies of God. And then we have the
immutable persevering mercy of the Lord. In Malachi chapter
3 and verse 6, he says, I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. Now that's a tremendous verse.
The Lord said, I'm the Lord, I change not. I don't ever change.
Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Now you mark it
down, brother, sister. And this is one of the things
that triggers mercy, that triggers worship in the hearts of God's
people. is that God continues to be God,
and He never changes, but He's the God of mercy. He's a God
that is abundant in mercy and grace, and He doesn't change.
Therefore, you and I continue on. We live by God's mercy. We continue on by God's mercy. God would wipe us out, my friend. He'd wipe us all out and send
us to hell if it wasn't for His mercy. And God doesn't change. Isn't that marvelous? You and
I change. Yes, we do. We change. And we
feel a little different maybe today. And if somebody crosses
our path in some way, maybe some days we're kind of feeling lenient
toward them and a little merciful. And so therefore we don't speak
harshly to them and we somehow rather just be, you know, we're
just kind to them and so on. And then other days our disposition
kind of changes and we get a little bit beside ourself and we become
very hateful. But you know God doesn't do that.
He doesn't do that. He doesn't change. The Lord remains
the same. And He pardoned you because of
Christ's blood and righteousness. And He saved you because of the
work of Christ. And He had mercy on you because
of Jesus. And He continues to have mercy.
And He will not change. And so I'm talking about immutable,
that's unchangeable, persevering mercy. We go on. We're not destroyed. We remain. Beloved because of
the mercy of God I'm just trying to show you here what David meant
when he said I come into your house in the multitude of thy
mercy and it says we Embrace this and it says we meditate
and think upon this that we have the grounds for worship When
we come into God's house and that we feel worship and we want
to worship the Lord okay, and then The daily providential mercies
of God we experience, Romans 8 and 28, where it talks about,
and we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. That's
daily, providential mercies that the people of God experience.
And this causes us to worship. This is what I'm talking about.
Okay then, truly then, it's the Lord's mercies that we're not
consumed, Lamentations 3 and 22. It's God's mercies that we
just continue to live and continue to make it in this world. Every
worshipper I believe in God's house finds this to be so, that
it's the Lord's mercy that preserves them in a state where they're
able to to have the strength necessary and the graces necessary
to deal with life's problems and to go on in this world toward
that heavenly city, that city that hath foundation, whose builder
and maker is God. It's the Lord's mercy that preserves
us. Alright, and then he goes on
and makes this statement, and in thy fear will I worship toward
thy holy temple. In thy fear will I worship toward
thy holy temple. So let us come to the house of
God with reverence and godly fear that we may worship the
Lord. Reverence of God. There's a scripture
found in the book of Ecclesiastes that I'd like to read to you.
Ecclesiastes this morning the fifth chapter. The fifth chapter
in verses one and two. Look at this, talking about coming
into the house of God now, and talking about coming in in fear
or in reverence to God. He says, Keep thy foot when thou
goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to
give the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not that they
do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and
let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God,
for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth. Therefore, let thy
words be few. Be swift to hear, slow to speak
when you come into the house of God, and come in to worship
the Lord, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice
of fools. Now then, I want to give you
a few things this morning that I think are very important concerning,
and I want to make this statement about membership in local church
because I believe that this coming into the house of God, that there's
more involved in that than just simply, just coming in once in
a while, just say, well I'm here, and just coming in, I'll be back
when I can get back, and so on and so forth. But there's more
involved in that, this coming in to the house of God. I believe that membership in
a local church involves a voluntary, personal commitment. It involves obligation and it
involves responsibility. When men and women unite with
the family of God without force, and we talk about the power of
God that makes men willing, we talk about the effectual grace,
the irresistible grace of God that makes men willing, But we
don't force anybody ourselves. This church, we never forced
anybody to become a member here. We never put no pressure on nobody
to become a member of this church. We don't do that here in this
place. I believe the Lord puts pressure
on people and moves upon people and certainly He does in salvation
and I believe He does also in the moving of their hearts to
do His will in regards to His church. But I believe that the
people of God, they voluntarily place themselves under obligation. just as Christ did as our surety
in the covenant of grace. I think we put ourselves under
obligation and responsibility just as the Lord Jesus placed
himself voluntarily under responsibility to be our surety. And there's
a couple of verses that if you want to turn to Isaiah you get
a picture of this and I believe it's important that you keep
this kind of a picture before you because if you don't I really
believe that you'll have difficulty in recognizing and feeling your
responsibility like you ought to as those who are members of
the body of Christ. In Isaiah 50 verse 5 through
7, and listen as I read these words, The Lord God hath opened
mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. Now these are the words of the
Lord Jesus. And he said, The Lord God hath opened mine ear.
And this is also a picture of what happens when God saves a
sinner. God opens their ear. God causes them to hear. Both
the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the scripture says God hath
made even both of them. It's true as we've explained
before in the physical and it's certainly true in the spiritual.
The Lord, he said, hath opened mine ear and I was not rebellious. That's a key word. I was not
rebellious. Neither turned away back. I didn't
turn away from what God told me to do. And what God showed
me was His purpose and will for my life. This is Jesus talking. He says in verse 6, I gave my
back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the
hair. I gave it to them. They didn't
take it. I gave my back to them because
this was the will of God. This was the purpose of God.
You gave me a body in the womb of the Virgin Mary and it was
for the purpose of suffering and dying in the womb instead
of my people, those chosen of you and given to me, those that
I came into the world in covenant love to redeem. I've come and
I do this voluntarily. I do it willingly. He said, I
hid not my face from shame and spitting. I didn't hide my face
from that. I didn't live a life that would
keep me from trial and suffering and from the ridicule of men. I didn't do that. I didn't hide
my face from this, for the Lord God will help me. Therefore shall
I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face
like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. Now this
was the commitment of the Lord Jesus Christ on your behalf,
brother, sister. This was the commitment of Christ.
He said, I'll not be confounded. He said, I'll set my face like
a flint. He voluntarily placed himself
under obligation in order to save your soul. And when we come
into the house of God, When we come into the church, when we
become members of Christ's body, we place ourselves willingly
and voluntarily under responsibility and under a constraint. Now we do this in love, just
as husbands and wives do by their marriage vows. There are some
things that we're bound to do, both because we love Christ,
And we love one another. And we have responsibility to
Christ and to one another. Now if you want some chapters
that you could read to support what I just said, read Romans
chapter 12. Read Romans chapter 14. Read 1 Corinthians chapter
12. And if you read these chapters,
you will see that the people of God have responsibility to
one another. that they have that they're to
love one another, love Christ and love one another, and they
got responsibility toward each other. This is what's involved
in the coming in to God's house. Now when we're united with the
Church of God, we voluntarily obligate ourselves to seek and
promote the interest and the object of the Church, of the
Lord Jesus Christ in this world. Now, I'm going to give you five
things this morning that it is our responsibility to do. before
we close, I'm going to give you five things that it's the responsibility
of everyone who comes in to the house of God as we have explained
the meaning here that we come in and we join ourselves together,
we're members one of another, there are five things that we're
responsible to do as the people of God. Now number one, we're
responsible to promote and to maintain the public worship of
God. That's what we're about. We are
here, we've banded together to promote the public worship of
God. We believe that God ought to
be worshipped, and we believe He's God as He set Himself forth
to be in the Word of God, and we've banded ourselves together
to promote the worship of the God that has been revealed to
us. Now this God that's been revealed to us is a different
God from what many people worship. He's a sovereign God. We believe
in the absoluteness of the sovereignty of the God of the Bible. We believe
in a Christ who effectually redeemed His people. What I mean by that
is, we believe in a Christ who, when He came into this world,
that He knew His people, and He came into the world and He
died for His people, and He effectually, that means with effect, He redeemed
His people. He died for them and He did save
them when He died in their place. He died in their place and all
for whom He died, He saved. And we, our responsibility is
to promote and maintain the public worship of a God who is the God
of the Bible. To promote that worship. Now,
as we've tried to explain here this morning, the great object
of God's church in this world is thus to worship, thus to worship. Now everything done by the local
church must be designed to promote worship and devotion. Everything
we do is to that end. Mike chooses the songs, he does
so and I'm sure he breathes a prayer to God when he's looking for
songs. Because everything we do here,
the singing and also the prayers, when a brother's called on to
pray, I know that he's got uppermost in his mind, that he prays in
such a manner as to cause all of our hearts to be warm toward
God and for the spirit of devotion to be in our midst. and for the
Spirit of power to be in our midst, and for the Lord to be
glorified, and for the Lord to be honored. That's what's in
his heart when he's praying to God. Now if I do my part to promote
the worship of God where I live, the church of which I'm a member,
number one, it must have my regular attendance. I ought to be there. I ought to be there. Unless I'm
providentially hindered, unless something happens that I have
no control of, unless some situation comes up to keep me that I cannot
attend, I must, if at all possible, I must, that church must have
my attendance. I must be there. I ought to be
there. Number two, it ought to have my interest. In my prayers. That church ought to be in my
prayers. I ought to be praying for that church. I ought to be
praying for the brethren. I ought to be praying for God's
people. I ought to be praying for that man who stands up there
to mouth the word of God. I ought to be praying for him.
Because he's got a burden upon his soul and he must deliver
the Lord's burden. And he must have God's message
in God's hour to deliver to God's people. And so therefore, he
ought to be prayed for. And so that's what you ought
to do. That's your business. That comes under the heading
of promoting the worship of this God. This God of the Bible. And
then also I believe that the church needs the financial support
of its members. Everyone who's a member of this
church I know understands that. We don't say nothing about it.
Very seldom. That's one thing we don't do
here. Talk about money. We don't do it because everybody
I know does what they can and they do all they can and they're
responsible in this area and so we have nothing to say about
that but that comes under the heading of promoting the worship
of God in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and then secondly
we come to this point that we do whatever we can for the furtherance
of the gospel We promote the public worship, we promote and
maintain the public worship of God, and we do whatever we can
for the furtherance of the gospel of Christ. Now not all men can
or should preach. Not all men. But all can and
must serve the Lord in whatever way God enables them to do so.
Some can give, some can do this, some can do that, some can preach,
and some can sing. And they ought to do, every member
must do what he can to be involved in the furtherance of the gospel. You believe that God saved you?
You know how He saved you, then you believe that gospel to the
point that you believe that that message should be declared, that
it ought to be preached. Somebody ought to open their
mouth and preach how God saves sinners. Somebody ought to tell
it out. Somebody who can ought to speak
that message. And in your heart you ought to
say, well, I'll do whatever I can. to relieve that man. I'll do
whatever I can to help that man. I'll pray for that man. I'll
do whatever I can. I'll assist him in any way possible
for the furtherance of the gospel so the message will continue
to go out. So there'll never come a day
in this city when there is no witness for the gospel. But the
gospel will continue to go forward. And the message of free grace
in Christ will continue to be expounded and taught so that
poor sinners who come to feel their need of Him can find Him
to the full salvation of their immortal souls. And that's exactly
what you have to do to be as the Lord's people. Alright? Someone's
got to keep things going. Why not you? Why not me? For
the furtherance of the gospel. Now thirdly, I'm going to give
you these five things I'm telling you and we're going to close.
But thirdly, we ought to seek by every means that God has given
us the comfort, the growth, and the edification of our brothers
and sisters in Jesus Christ. We are to care for, and we are
to help, and we are to strengthen one another. We are to bear one
another's burdens, especially giving our attention to the young
and the weak and the needy members of the body. Give our attention
to them. We're to look after them. We're to be concerned about them
and what's becoming of them and whether they're growing or not
in the grace of God. Whether they're making any progress
in the things of God. Whether there's anything going
on in their souls or not. Are they reading the Word? Are
they meditating on God's Word? Are they hoping in the promises?
Are they walking in God's ways? We ought to be concerned about
it. We're not watchdogs. No, we're not. And we don't make
a practice of that in this church. You don't ever see anybody around
here looking down their nose at somebody else or prying into
somebody else's business. Better not be done. We just don't
do that around here. But we're concerned. And just
simply because we're not always spying on you or just trying
to find out something about you, that doesn't mean we're not interested.
We're mightily interested in you. We're concerned about you.
Concerned about how things are with you. How things are going
with you. About what progress you're making.
But we're not watchdogs. Nobody around here been called
to be a watchdog. No, no. We just, we trust the
Lord, but we also are interested and concerned about one another.
And so we're to seek by every means that God has given us.
The comfort, growth, edification of our brothers and sisters in
the Lord Jesus. Now this is the responsibility
and the obligation of you that have come in to the house of
God. Now then, fourthly, we're to
live circumspectly in this world. Never forget who you are. Who are you? Well, preacher,
I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner. Saved by the
grace of God, that's who I am. I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner
saved. That's who I am. And you know
in Christ, neither male nor female, bond nor free, we lose our identity
in Christ. We come into Christ and we're
sinner saved. That's what we are. Sinner saved.
So don't forget who you are and don't forget whose you are. Who do you belong to? Paul talked
about who's I am when he was out there on that ship and the
great storm came up there in the book of Acts, I think it's
chapter 28 and he said the God who's I am. Who's are you? To whom do you
belong? You belong to the Lord. If you're
saved, if you've been redeemed by the blood of Christ, you're
not your own, you're bought with a price and you belong to Christ. You're to live circumspectly
in this world And don't forget who you represent in this world. You represent Christ. You represent
the Lord. In all our words and deeds, and
especially in our attitudes, let us seek the honor of Christ,
the gospel, and the family of God, God's family. In our attitude,
let's have a right attitude toward Christ. toward the gospel and
toward God's family. Now we cannot and will not do
all these things perfectly. But my friend, we've placed ourself
under obligation. Just like when you married a
wife or married a husband, you entered into vows. And when Christ
came into this world, He entered into vows. He entered into responsibility
on our behalf. And when we come into the church,
we enter into this responsibility. We've got it and we can't go
back. We can't go back. All right, the last thing is
we're to seek and promote the glory of God in all things. Whatever we do, in word or deed,
the scripture says, whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we
do, we're to do all for the glory of God. So let this be our motive
and let it be our rule that whatever we do, we seek the glory of God
and we will promote God's glory. and we'll serve the kingdom of
God well if we do so, and we'll serve the Lord well in our generation,
and the cause of Christ in this world well if we seek to promote
the glory of God in all things. We won't become self-seekers,
will we? We won't try to establish a name for ourself, will we?
No, no, because we're seeking to promote the glory of God.
And therefore we'll not try to build something that will be
an everlasting memory to us. We're seeking to promote the
glory of the God who loved us out of our sin and loved us into
full salvation, loved us into everlasting life, loved us to
the end that we would be with Him for all eternity and enjoy
His glory and His blessing forevermore. May the Lord add His blessing
this morning to these things. And I hope that God has somewhere
or another used them. I may preach another message
along this line maybe next week, if God permits. But these are
some things that I've been thinking about, and I hope that God has
blessed them to your heart, and that these things, that you'll
be able to remember them, and that they will teach your heart.
But you see, my friend, I want you to recognize something. You
see the angle that we approach these things? I come to beseech
you by the mercies of God. I come to beseech you by the
mercies of God. I don't come here this morning
with a club, trying to club you to do the things, these five
things that we mentioned. No, no, no. You see, we place,
as Christ willingly, voluntarily placed Himself under constraint
for us, Then we put him out and show him as the example. And
you and I, we come into the house of God, we come in and we set
our face like a flint. We don't hide our face from the
responsibilities and the obligations and say, well, somebody else
will do it. What if Christ would have said, well, somebody else
will do it? No, there was no one else. To tread the winepress
of the wrath of God on your behalf, there was no one else. No one
else. And so the motive for the things
I've talked about this morning, Jesus Christ is the example. He's the one that didn't hide
his face from the spitting and the shame. And God forbid that
we should ever hide our face from the obligations which are
ours. To seek and promote the glory of God, to seek out the
people of God and to edify their hearts and comfort them, and
to maintain the gospel and the furtherance of the gospel and
to maintain public worship, do whatever we have to do, and do
the work of God as God's given it to us for Christ's sake. And
stand in the gap. Be found faithful. May the Lord
add his blessing. I hope we've worshipped today
in our hearts. I hope we have. These things have been good for
me. I've enjoyed them and they've been a real blessing to my heart.
I hope they have been to you. Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you, Father, for yourself. Thank you for thy son, the son
of thy love, who willingly gave himself that we might be saved,
that we might be delivered from the awful wrath to come. And
Lord, the warfare is terrible. The conflict is awful. We are
undergoing awful bombardments from hell, great, great demon
activity all around us. But yet thou hast spared us and
kept us so that we could come and have this delightful time
this morning and talk about coming into your house and talking about
coming in in the multitude of your mercies. coming in reverencing
your name and worshiping you. Lord, if we just live and we're
spared for this hour, we give thanks. We give praise. In Jesus' name, amen.

But As For Me

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But As For Me

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