Did I unhook Dwayne? I snagged
over there on the... Good? Okay. Good evening. Let's
turn to Leviticus chapter 19. Leviticus 19. Just going to read two verses. And the title of my message will
come out of these two verses. Leviticus 19 verse 33. We'll read you verse 33 and 34. And if a stranger sojourn with
thee in your land, you shall not vex him or oppress or mistreat
him. But the stranger that dwelleth
with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou
shalt love him as thyself. For ye were strangers in the
land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. The title
of my message is Love the Stranger. And the giving of this law implies
that we didn't love strangers, and we don't, and we mistreat
them. And I'm talking about strangers to grace, strangers to the gospel,
people in natural religion. And the reason there's a problem
with us not loving them, and we should, is because that was
us before the grace of God saved us. We were strangers to grace. And even as believers, we've
all talked bad and talk down of those people in false religion
and feeling ourselves to be better than them. Considering them to
be strangers to truth and strangers to the gospel, and they are,
but so were we. And we so soon forget that that
was our state not too long ago. And if not for the mercy of God
to put in someone's heart to pray for the salvation of our
souls, we would still be lost and strangers to grace. God always
uses the means of prayer to carry out His providence and His salvation.
Ezekiel 36. I want to look at one verse here. Ezekiel chapter 36. Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel. Ezekiel 36 verse 37. Thus saith
the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired
of by the house of Israel. The house of Israel is going
to pray for this to do it for them. I will increase them with
men like a flock. Everything over in verse 25 through
27 down through there, a new heart, a new spirit, everything
the Lord is going to give us and do for us. We're going to
pray for it and ask for it. And so, as we have been prayed
for, somebody pray for us to bring us under the sound of the
gospel. As we have been prayed for and brought by the grace
of God to be children of God and no longer strangers to grace,
may God give us grace to pray earnestly for all the strangers
around us, in our families, in our neighborhoods, and at our
jobs. In love for them, praying the Lord would draw them under
the sound of the gospel, just like he did us. Let's turn back
to Leviticus 19. The bulk of my message will be
on Deuteronomy chapter 10, but Leviticus 19, I just want to
look at that word stranger real quick. In verse 34, but the stranger
that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among
you, and thou shalt love him, for ye were strangers in the
land of Egypt. Stranger is someone that was
a foreigner, Once a citizen of another land, now they've moved
into a new residence in a new land. And Israel was commanded
to leave portions of the harvest for him. Look over in verse 9
of Leviticus 19. And when ye reap the harvest
of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy
field. Leave some crops in the corners. Neither shalt thou gather
the gleanings of thy harvest. Leave the scraps on the ground.
And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard. Neither shalt thou
gather every grape of thy vineyard. Thou shalt leave them for the
poor and stranger. I am the Lord your God. Israel
was commanded to leave a portion of their harvest and some of
their grapes for the poor and strangers. And that's how they
were to show their love for him. But I want to show first of all
how God has shown his love for his people and that we are therefore
to show our love as he showed his love to us. And the majority
of my time will be in Deuteronomy chapter 10. Let's turn to Deuteronomy
chapter 10. Verses 17-19, but we'll set the
context by reading in verse 12. And now, Israel, what doth the
Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God,
to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the
Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep
the commandments of the Lord and his statutes which I command
thee this day for thy good? Behold, the heaven and the heaven
of heavens is the Lord thy God, the earth also, with all that
therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in
thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them,
even you, above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise, therefore,
the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked. Now,
I looked up that word stiff-necked, that's not a physical issue that
a lot of people, I have, I've got a couple herniated discs
and there's mornings when I get up and you've got to do this
stuff to turn and talk to people. It's not a physical problem,
this is a heart problem. It's pride. It's self-righteousness. It's standing there like this
looking down your nose at people. That's being stiff-necked. And
it's also so set in your ways that you'll just walk this way
and you will not turn your neck around and look back to your
Savior and return to your first love. You're so set in your ways.
And that was their problem, that's our problem. But, thank goodness
we have a gracious God. Verse 17, For the Lord your God
is God of gods and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible,
which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. It doesn't
matter if you're some poor, smelly beggar or some rich Donald Trump
that has no bearing on whom he's going to save or show mercy to.
He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow and
loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment. Love ye,
therefore, the stranger, for you were strangers in the land
of Egypt. Before we go looking at loving
the stranger, I want to talk a little bit about the relationship
of God as a Father to His children, us believers. Let's turn to Galatians
chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4. God is the Father of His special
people, the elect that were chosen and adopted in Christ. And we read about this in Galatians
4, starting in verse 4. But when the fullness of the
time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that
we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons,
God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. We're adopted children of God. I know a little bit about adoption.
I've got an adopted child, Riley. She now has a new name. She's
a do-for. She's got a new birth certificate,
new parents, and she shares in the do-for inheritance now. And
now every believer in this room has been adopted into Christ.
You've got a new name, the Lord Our Righteousness. For she shall
be called the Lord Our Righteousness. You've got internal inheritance
with God in heaven. so many blessings with adoption. But that word that caught my
eye was Abba, Abba, Father. I looked that up. Abba is, well,
I'm going to read. I would mess it up if I tried
to read it, but I'll try to rehearse it. The word framed by the lips
of infants in complete unreasoning trust in their father. In other
words, dada. Or in my case, gaga. She can't
say grandfather, so she says gaga. But it's an unreasoning
trust in the father. When that little kid walks up
and just puts the arms up like that and looks up at you, they
have no reason to fear, no reason to doubt. They completely put
their trust in their parent. And that's how we're to be with
our father, Abba, father, a dad, dada. Father is his name of authority. Abba is his name of compassion
and intimacy. Now that same relationship that
we have with Him is spoken of in a different way back in our
text in Deuteronomy 10. Turn back to Deuteronomy 10. Keep your finger in Deuteronomy. We'll be going back and forth. He's also a protector to the
fatherless and to the widows. Psalm 68 verse 5 says he's a
father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows is God
in his holy habitation. Who's this fatherless and who's
this widows? That's me and you in natural religion. We're fatherless,
we're orphans. We don't have a heavenly father,
excuse me, a heavenly father and we're widows. We don't have
Christ as our husband. And yet he shows mercy on the
fatherless and on the widows. We're told this in Lamentations.
Let's look up Lamentations. It's a little book right after
Isaiah and Jeremiah. It talks about these fatherless
and these widows, and it shows how it's us in our natural religion,
religion of works. Lamentations chapter 5, we'll
look at the first six verses. Lamentations 5, verse 1. Remember,
O Lord, what has come upon us. Consider and behold our reproach.
Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
We are orphans and fatherless. Our mothers are as widows. We
have drunken our water for money. Our wood is sold unto us. Our
necks, excuse me. are under persecution. We labor
and have no rest. We labor under the law. We labor
under works. We have given the hand to the
Egyptians. We return to our law keeping and to the Assyrians
the power of the flesh to be satisfied with bread. The fatherless
and the widows are people under natural works religion. Me and
you, everybody in this world as we're born into this world,
are spiritually fatherless and spiritual widows. And he is a
father to the fatherless and widows. And we'll see how he
carries that out back in Deuteronomy 10. Told you to leave your finger
there. We'll be back and forth. So here's how he carries out his
grace and mercy on the fatherless and widows. Deuteronomy 10, verse
18. He doth execute the judgment
of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger in giving
him food and raiment." Love gives. True love gives. There's many
times in Scripture when it talks about the love of Christ, and
lots of times, like in Ephesians chapter 5, it says, Christ loved
the church and gave himself for it. True love does give. It just doesn't talk the game.
It walks the game. It just doesn't talk about it.
It walks about it, walks about in love, giving. And He gave
food and raiment to strangers. What is this food and raiment?
You that have been here long enough, you know exactly what
I'm going to say because we've got a pastor that preaches that
food and raiment every sermon. It's Christ. He's the bread of
our life. He's the raiment. He's our covering.
He's our righteousness. He's everything to a believer.
We need physical food to fill these physical bodies. We need
the spiritual food and bread of Christ to fill our spiritual
bodies. And He's the bread. It's spoken of in John 6, many,
many verses. We're not going to look at them,
but John 6, where He is the bread of life, speaks of physical Israel,
ate the manna on the ground. and they're dead, yet some of
those physical Israelites were spiritual Israelites, and they
ate that bread in faith, knowing that it was the broken body of
their Savior coming to save them. His broken body. And that was
their life, and that was their hope, and they ate that in faith,
and so do we. And His raiment that He gives
these strangers is His perfect righteousness. Ezekiel chapter
16. Just like Pam was singing about
before the service, this perfect robe of righteousness is Ezekiel
chapter 16. We're starting in verse 13. Speaking of His people here,
Thus was thou decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment was
a fine linen, and we know from revelations that fine linen is
a righteousness of saints. And silk, embroidered work, thou
didst eat fine flour and honey and oil, and thou wast exceeding
beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom, and thy renown
went forth among the heathen for thy beauty." It's considered
our beauty. He gives it to us. That thy is
a possessive pronoun. For it was perfect, through my
comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God." That's
such a, to think that he would take that perfect righteousness
of his and count it to us and give it to us freely and to give
us, as strangers to grace, the food and raiment of Christ, the
same way that he's loved us and give to us, we're supposed to
love and give to strangers to grace by telling them of the
food and raiment that's found in Christ. He said in verse 19,
we don't have to turn back to the root of the armory at this
time, but he said in verse 19, love ye therefore in the same
manner the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
As Christ loved us even when we were strangers to grace and
dead in sins, Ephesians 2 verse 4 and 5. But God, who is rich
in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were
dead in sins, strangers to grace, hath quickened us together with
Christ by grace you are saved. What great love. that even when
we were children of wrath, even as others, dead in sin, stiff-necked,
proud, greedy God-haters, yet even then, for Christ's sakes,
He loved us, saved us, called us, and united us to Christ.
What love He's shown to strangers. And we're to love strangers the
same way that He loved us, with Christ being our food and raiment.
We're to tell strangers of the food and raiment found in Christ.
So in the same manner that Christ loved us and gave Himself for
us even when we were strangers and foreigners to grace and citizens
of this world's religion, we are to love strangers to grace
by praying for them and bringing them to hear of the food and
raiment of Christ in the gospel of God's free salvation by grace.
Let's read about that in 1 Timothy chapter 2. 1 Timothy chapter
2. We'll read the first four verses. 1 Timothy 2 verse 1, I exhort therefore that first
of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of
thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in
authority. that we may lead a quiet, peaceful
life in all godliness and honesty. In other words, what he's saying
there, instead of protesting our leaders, let's try praying
for them. For this is good and acceptable
in the sight of God, our Savior, who will have all men to be saved
and to come into the knowledge of the truth. And I'm guilty
of this just as everybody in here, so instead of deriding,
mocking, making light of, putting down, ridiculing, taunting, insulting,
laughing at, and making fun of those thousands of people flocking
through the wide doors of all these false prophet churches,
we should be praying for them. For that was us. and still would
be us if not for the grace of God intervening. We'd be right
there with them worshiping Joel Osteen. We'd be right there with
them. And the Lord had mercy on us
as strangers to grace and were to have mercy on strangers to
grace by praying for them and telling them of the food and
raiment found in Christ. 1 Corinthians chapter 4. Turn back a couple books. Now how did we get to be so different? How did we get to be one of God's
children, adopted in Christ? By anything we did? Or was it
all of His grace? Look in 1 Corinthians 4, verse
7. For who maketh thee to differ? And that word differ means to
be distinguished or to separate thoroughly. Who maketh thee to
differ from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? Now we
are all different. Physically, mentally, emotionally,
we're different. But a believer is a different
bird altogether. They're perfectly holy and beautiful
to God through this food and raiment that Christ has given
them. And how did we get to be that different? Was it anything
we did, thought, prayed, talked about? It was the grace of God
coming down in mercy while we was out I traveled through so
many churches before the Lord landed me here. And I was a stranger
to grace. And he had mercy on me. Just
through one yellow page ad, I saw a word, Todd's Road Grace Church.
And I said, I don't know why there's a word grace in that.
I'll go check it out. And I've been here ever since. And everybody
in here has a different story, if you want to call it, how he's
had mercy on strangers to grace. In the same way that He's shown
mercy to us, we should be that compassionate and that merciful
to all these people that are strangers to grace outside of
here. He commands us to do that. Too bad He's got to command us
to do that. Too bad we couldn't be that way on our own, but we've
got such hard hearts, it just doesn't happen naturally. Look over in Ephesians chapter
2. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 11. Here's our state by nature before
the Lord saved us. Let's start in verse 11. Ephesians
2 verse 11, Wherefore remember that ye, being in time past Gentiles
in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which
is called the circumcision by the Jews in the flesh made by
hands, that at that time ye were without Christ. being aliens
from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenants
of Promise, having no hope and without God in the world. That's
a pretty bleak description of me and you before the Lord saved
us. Without Christ, aliens from the
Commonwealth of Israel. That aliens means a non-participant.
You got a basketball game, you got five on five and there's
11 kids and that one kid sits out and he just does not, he's
a non-participant. We were non-participants in grace.
We were foreigners to grace. We didn't understand the grace
language. We thought free still meant we had to bring something
or come up with something or work up something. We never understood
that free means free with Christ and salvation by grace. By physical
food, the price keeps going up and up every day. Cost keeps
going up. The bread of Christ is free. No money, no price. It's free for the asking. And
may he give us grace to ask for that mercy. And may he give us
grace to ask for mercy for strangers to grace outside of here. All right, so. Now that we know and we've heard
and we've seen how the Lord has been gracious to us, even when
we were dead in sins and children of wrath, even as others, and
we were strangers by salvation to grace, in the same manner,
therefore, in the same manner, therefore, that he had mercy
on us. As Christ loved us and gave his life for us, and giving
us the food and raiment of his broken body and his perfect righteousness,
in the same manner that he loved and gave to us, we're to love
and give to strangers, and telling them of the food and raiment
that's found in Christ. We're not to be mocking or jeering
or deriding or belittling them, but we're to bow in our heart
and have compassion on them, even as God, for Christ's sake,
has had compassion on us. Matthew chapter 5. This will
be the last verse we look at. Actually verses, but the last
chapter. Matthew 5, verse 43. Ye have heard that it hath been
said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say
unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your
Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise
on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just
and on the unjust. For if you love them which love
you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the
same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do ye more
than others? Do not even the publicans so?
Be ye therefore perfect, mature, even as your Father, which is
in heaven, is perfect. Show your love to enemies even
as God has had mercy on us. While we were by nature enemies
to Him. Pray for them. Pray for these
strangers to grace. You can hand them a bulletin.
You can mail them a CD. You can tell them the name of
somebody to listen to on sermon audio. There's so many ways. You can email. You can text.
I know all these ways because I use them because I'm so timid
and awkward around people. I'll use whatever means I can
though. I set out a bulletin on the break table at work. There's
so many ways of communications nowadays, and every one of those
ways of communications needs to be to bring people here to
hear the one way of communication. It's God speaking to us in the
power of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel that
their soul may be saved and a stranger to grace may become a lover of
grace. That's how we're to treat these people. And they still
make ink pens. You can still write letters.
They still do. I saw one the other day. But
I do write letters every now and then. And for somebody to
think that you took the time to sit down with them on your
thoughts and to hand write out a letter carries a little more
weight, I think, than some other things. So any means that you
can use to communicate with somebody, to these strangers to grace,
in love to them, in praying for them, to bring them under the
sound of the gospel, Therefore, as Christ has loved us and gave
to us, we're to love and give to these strangers to grace.
Let's pray.