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Galatians 1:10,24 -The Gospel Revealed- Pastor Rick Beaudry 2025-07-20
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Open your Bibles to Galatians chapter one verse 10 through 24. Galatians one verse beginning with verse 10. Would you please stand with me as we read God's holy word together? Galatians chapter one beginning with verse 10. For do I now persuade man or God or do I seek to please man? For if I yet please man, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you brethren that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my conversation in times past in the Jews religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it, and profited in the Jews religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the heathen. Immediately, I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me. But I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none save James, the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not. Afterwards, I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. It was unknown by face under the churches of Judea which were in Christ, but they had heard only that he which persecuted us in times past now preaches the faith which once he destroyed, and they glorified God in me. Father, thank you so much. Lord, we want you to be glorified in us, Lord. We want people to see Jesus in us. Lord, we pray that we'd shine so incredibly bright like a city set on a hill, Lord. That we'd not take the light of of our salvation, Lord, and and our fellowship with you and hide it under a bushel. But God, that we preach, we'd we'd shout from the rooftops as heralds, Lord, of your coming, that you're coming soon, Lord. We pray, Lord, that you'd just endure us with power today. You pour out your Holy Spirit afresh upon us, that you give us ears to hear and hearts to receive that which you're teaching and to apply these truths to our lives, that our inner man would be strengthened, Lord, in the power of the Holy Spirit to be effective in these last days, Lord. The world is so dark, it doesn't take much light to stand up and and to to shine bright, Lord. So help us to stand. Greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world, Lord. We thank you, Lord. Bless now, we pray. Be our teacher as we're your students. Help us to get to know you better this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Would you please be seated? Paul makes his case for the divine origin of the gospel. He argues against the Judaizers. Who are Judaizers? Judaizers are those that are still ascribing to the Mosaic law, 613 precepts of Mosaic law. So in Jerusalem, it's pretty difficult because the brother of our Lord James, as you read the book of James, he, he leans real hard, or many of the Jews leaned real hard toward the Mosaic law. They would embrace Christ and salvation by grace through faith alone. Absolutely. But as James pointed out, which is true, you know, faith without works is dead. So when James speaks of works, he's speaking of fruit. When Paul speaks of work, by the works of the flesh shall no man be justified. Paul's speaking of the keeping of the law. But what these Judaizers have done, they've come into the areas of Galatia, the churches in the area, and they've tried to mix grace with law. And we talked about this last week. And so Paul's saying, no. No. No. No. No. That's not the gospel that I received. That's not what I presented to you. If anybody comes along and preaches a different gospel, let him be anathema, let him be a curse. We saw it. So now he's talking about the origin of the gospel that he has. I didn't learn it from James. I didn't learn it from the apostles. I didn't go up to Jerusalem and go through school. I didn't go to seminary. Nobody taught me except Jesus himself. Right straight from Jesus, I learned the gospel. And so he and so he's wanting to use his own life to demonstrate that only God could reveal something so wonderful. So Paul will prove humanity devoid of this knowledge apart from God. You and I, we don't know God. We can't know God apart from him initiating. We're dead in our sins and trespasses. We are lost. We are, blind, if you will. And, Jesus said to the seven churches, he that has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit is saying to the churches. Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born again. The natural man, body and soul, understands not the things of God neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. And so although we're responsible unto God for the revelation that we have received, which in Romans one is simply the revelation of creation. And that revelation of creation should tell anybody that, the true living God's a God of creation, and he's also a God of redemption. And, they may not know as much about the bible as you do, but they're still responsible, they're without excuse. And so God, in judging those who, everybody's worried about the guy that lives in the jungle, never a missionary, never nobody ever went there and taught him. Well, God reveals himself unto them through creation, and they're responsible for that revelation, what they do with it. And and you and I have a far far greater responsibility living in quote, unquote, a Christian nation and a Judeo Christian ethic that this country was once built upon. And it would be very we'd be very hard pressed to say that somebody hasn't heard about Jesus. Although, when I was growing up, nobody shared the gospel with me. I heard about Jesus. I heard him mostly in cuss words, but but I but nobody ever shared the gospel with me. It never never clicked. It never I never heard it. The first time I heard it, I responded. But there's a work of the Holy Spirit to initiate the job of the Holy Spirit as to bear witness of the son. And so Paul's letting us know that, this didn't happen through men. It didn't happen at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the greatest, teachers of his time. It didn't happen at the greatest schools in Tarsus where he was from as he's learning Greek and and Hebrew culture as a Roman citizen, free born, you know, born into with Roman citizenship, great privileges that he had, a great intellectual, possibly a member of the Sanhedrin, possibly one day gonna be the great high priest maybe. Paul was being groomed. He was brilliant, a brilliant man, but it was on the road to Damascus that the Lord arrested him and revealed himself unto Paul. And so he says in verse 10, for do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. So we want to persuade, we want to be influencers, unto people of God. We wanna We're in the world but not of the world, and so we've been given the glorious gospel to try and persuade men. But Paul says, not as a a people pleaser, not as a man pleaser, that's not the way to go. And so do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. So the preaching of the cross is foolishness unto them that are perishing. So that's what I said earlier when we were just talking in the introduction. My objective here is not to be pleasing to man. The objective here is not to be seeker sensitive and water it down and tone it down and remove the cross from the gospel and and try and make unbelievers feel comfortable in their sin in this room here. Not so. That's not that's not the gospel. That's not what we're after. And so we're we're to preach the gospel, and we're allowed the chips to fall where they may. If people are angry, then so be it. They were angry at Jesus. They hated Jesus. They didn't wanna hear it. So it's up to them. The ball's in their court. Our job is to simply share the gospel. We cannot convert anybody. We cannot force anybody to change. We simply bring the gospel forth in as much truth as we can muster, and it's a pretty simple message. But and, you know, then you then you observe if the person's responding or not. Most people will reject the gospel. You'll find that narrow is the way that leads to eternal life, and few there be that find it. Broad is the way that leads to destruction. Many go in there at. And so as you broadcast the seed out there, the seed of the gospel, and you pray, and you ask the Lord to cause germination, you'll ask the Lord to cause, the the gospel to to catch fire, so to speak, to to germinate and to grow and the seeds to grow, and the person the scales that come off their eyes. We're praying for conversion. We're praying that the Lord will convert. So one man sows, excuse me. One man sows, another waters, God brings the increase. And so it's up to him, it's up to the person, there's a there's a sovereignty of God, and there's a free moral agency of man. God initiates. Nicodemus, you must be born again. He didn't understand the importance of the of the birth of the spirit. You need to be born again of the spirit, born from above. And how does that happen? It's a work of God's spirit, by his grace. God gives you a measure of faith. He initiates and you have a choice, a free moral agency to receive or to reject. When God revealed himself to Paul, Paul surrendered. He says, who art thou Lord? He's on his face. I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting. When the Lord revealed himself to me that night that first time night I heard the gospel, I had a choice. My eyes were open. God opened my eyes. I was no longer in darkness. I knew what was being said was true, that Jesus died on the cross for me for my sins. I knew I was a sinner in need of a savior. He didn't force me. He didn't make me a robot, Elon. He didn't put a chip in my head. He gave me the free moral agency, the power of choice made in the image of God to choose to receive or choose to reject. To reject for me would have been insanity. It was so powerful. I don't know for you. I don't know how anybody can reject God's love once he reveals himself to you. It's so incredibly overwhelming. And so for me, I chose to surrender my heart and life right there, And and that was in January 1980, and God's never let me go. He's he's, that work that he's begun, he continues to do within my heart and life. And I wasn't looking for God. Paul wasn't looking for God. Paul was looking for Christians to persecute, to imprison, to beat. He's an enemy of the cross, an enemy. And so the cross is offensive to the unbeliever. The cross makes all men guilty and in need of a savior. Men by nature are proud and hate to be told they are accountable to God. So how do you get rid of that accountability to God that in in in intrinsic that that within in your conscience, you know that there's a God. And you know that you're a sinner. You know that you know that you know you're a sinner. And if you resist that knowledge, if you resist the work of the holy spirit or resist your conscience, your conscience can be severed with a hot iron. You can get to the place where your past feeling, where you can do sinning, where you can sin and do heinous things and it not bother you like it used to. Where your past feeling, your heart's been a callous goes over your heart like pharaoh, the illustration that Paul gives. Let my people go. No. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. And then pretty soon, the Lord confirms Pharaoh's free will, and that he hardens his heart. So the sun that softens the wax hardens the clay. The more you resist the holy spirit and him bearing witness of Christ, the harder your gets, the harder your heart gets. And for me, I I chose the easy way. I don't like pain, and I chose the easy way in that I'm not gonna fight God. I'm gonna surrender right here. And I don't know how long it took for you to surrender to the Lord. Some of you, you might go twenty, thirty years beating your head against the wall trying to do it with Frank Sinatra trying to do it your way, but, it doesn't work that well, you know? So Paul was not trying to win a popularity contest. He wasn't looking for the latest, greatest, you know, formula or philosophy. Or like many of these pastors today, they're looking for a way to garner this celebrity status of people, to be liked by people, and and so they've got their purpose driven lives and all these other different seeker sensitive things and all. And and how do they alleviate guilt? They act like it's not there. They act like it's not their fault. They blame somebody else. They play the blame game. They try to reform the old man. They try to make the old man better. God has no plan of reformation for your old man, the old, ademic nature. His solution to the old, ademic nature is the cross. You're crucified with Christ. He's gonna make a new you. He's not gonna start with the old you and make the old you better. No. He's if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. The old things are passed away. All things are become new. Praise the Lord. A fresh new start. So it's not a popularity contest. Paul's not a celebrity star status, you know, Christian celebrity. He's not wearing a Herod hat, you know. He's not trying to promote the nation of Israel and taking over the world. He's promoting Jesus Christ, and he's looking to the future when Jesus will return and take over the world. He's going to one person at a time with the glorious gospel. It's not an Israeli nationalism mixed with Jesus. We can defeat the Romans. We can get it back. Everybody vote harder. Vote more. It's the gospel. People need to change from within, and that's what the gospel does. He's a servant. He's not a politician. He says, verse 11, but I certify you brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. So the gospel revealed to Paul is one of divine origin. The revelation is good news to those who have number one, rejected God. The gospel is good news to those who have rejected God. Verse 13. For you have heard of my conversation or manner of life, my BC days, in times past. In the Jews religion, Pharisee of Pharisees, you know. How that beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God and wasted it. You wanna be a zealous Pharisee? Waste the church. Go after the church. And profited in the Jews religion above above many my equals and my known nation. Being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. So Paul was a zealot. Paul was there when they in Acts chapter six and seven seven when Stephen was the first martyr. He consented to the death of Stephen as they laid their coats at the feet of one Saul of Tarsus. And I believe this moment, this was the moment Saul of Tarsus was haunted. He went with a rage. He went with an anger to stamp out Christianity. He was kicking against the goads. He was he was just like a crazy man resisting the holy spirit as God was after him. Paul was blinded. In second Corinthians four verse four, he said, the god of this world blinds the unbeliever. Lest the glorious light of the gospel appear unto them. They're blinded. They're held by Satan. Satan has blinded the eyes of these people. That's why we pray that the Lord would open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light. The power of darkness under the glorious liberty that's found in Christ. In Romans six seventeen, he was a slave to sin. In John three nineteen and twenty, the unbeliever loves darkness rather than light. They will not believe. It's a matter of the will. It's not an intellectual problem. It's not that they can't understand the gospel. It's not that they don't know they're sinners. It's that they hate the light. They prefer the darkness because their deeds are evil, and they will not repent. They will not change. God gives them a choice that the free moral agency to surrender, to believe, to trust in Jesus, only problem is they don't want to. It's mind blowing that in the book of Revelation, when God sends out demons in Revelation nine, and they're biting men and and and stinging men, and they can't die and all that. It's amazing when the when in chapter 11, when the two witnesses for the space of three and a half years are tormenting the people upon the planet and preaching Christ, representing Christ, representing the father, that, when they're finally executed by the antichrist, that the people have a satanic satanic holiday. They so hate God. They they they have a holiday commemorating the antichrist because these two witnesses that were tormenting them were executed. But what happens in a few days when these guys stand back up and ascend up to heaven? You know? Uh-oh. For me, again, I don't like pain. I I would wanna get right with God. I'd refuse the mark of the beast. I'd be willing to die for Jesus at that point. Right now, the Lord wants me to live for him and to die to self, but to live for him, to proclaim him. In the tribulation period, it's the rejecting of the mark of the beast. The rejecting of worshiping the beast that proves your faith in Jesus Christ. You're proven to be a tribulation saint. In Matthew two seventeen, unbelief describes as being sick. Jesus came not for those that are well, but for the sick. He's the great physician to make them whole, to make them well. And in Luke 15, the unbeliever is described as lost. Were you once lost and now you're found? Who found you? And so the apostle Paul was like like an Islamic guy imposing jihad upon Christians. Jihad means domination. It means subjugation. It means infiltration first in Europe, and then domination, subjugation, to subjugate each and every person under Allah. In some countries, can pay a tax to the those in the dominant role of ruling over the country, and at other times, you've gotta say, Allah Akbar, or have your head taken off. Executed. That's how the apostle Paul was with Judaism. It was a it was a zealousness, a craziness to go on, you know, in the name of God, we're gonna kill you. Does that sound weird? Sounds weird to me. God sent me to kill you. If you don't believe in Moses, if you don't recant, if you don't blaspheme Christ, we're gonna execute you. Where's the God of love in that? Why would I wanna believe in that God? And and in Iran today, the fastest growing church in the world is in a dominated Muslim country. The mosques are empty. In Europe, they seem to be dominant, imposing laws upon the Christians. In Iran, they have to do it secretly, but the fastest growing church in the world is in Iran. They're willing to die for their faith. They're not gonna believe in Allah. They're not gonna continue with Islam. They want the freedom that's found only in Jesus Christ. So Paul was torturing. Paul's personal testimony is one of being an enemy of God prior to conversion. His crimes against Jesus included that of persecuting the church, consenting to the death of Stephen, compelling people to blaspheme God, imprisoning, torturing, and executing Christians. He described himself as the chiefest of sinners, having he said wasted. That word wasted the church means to destroy, to level a city. A religious hatred, a pharisaical hatred, angry, empty, miserable. Where's the love? No love at all in that. Jesus said in Matthew twenty three thirteen, but woe unto you scribes, pharisees, hypocrites. Hypocrites and actor. For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in. So not only won't you go in, religious leaders, not only do you put a hit on me conspiring to kill me after I raise Lazarus from the dead, but you won't allow anybody else to come in. You guys are envious and jealous, Pilate said, because the people were coming after Jesus. And so these guys, these these religious hypocrites, they need to make it uncomfortable for people to come to Christ, and they're trying to threaten and and the whole thing, and and they they can't hold it back. But but, yeah, they were able to get Jesus to be crucified, but, hey, guess what? That was planned. No man takes my life from me. I willingly lay it down. When I have power to lay it down, power to take it again. Devil thought he won. He didn't win. Jesus spoiled all principalities and powers. He triumphed over them. He went into hell before he ascended. He that us in at first descend in the lower parts of hell, which was Hades, which was Revelation chapter or excuse me, Luke chapter, 16, double compartment where the rich man and Lazarus were. And the rich man was in a place of grievous torment in Hades. There's a great gulf between, and, Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom. Jesus told the thief on the cross, this day will be with me in paradise. And Jesus went into that lower compartment and he proclaimed victory, Peter tells us. He proclaimed victory to all that were in there that he'd won, and then he led out of there all the Old Testament patriarchs, everybody that were waiting for the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus. Salvation was by grace through faith for all the Old Testament patriarchs because they were looking future that one day Jesus, the son of God, that he would be crucified, buried, raised himself from the dead, and ascend to the right hand of his father. And so Jesus emptied out that compartment because now they had the blood, the blood that Jesus would take on up into heaven at the very throne of God and as only blood, not the blood of bulls or bullocks of animals, couldn't take away sin, just cover sin, pointing to the future in the types. John the Baptist said, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But the Pharisees thought they won, they didn't win, they lost. In John 16 verse two, they shall put you out of the synagogues, Jesus said. Yea, the time cometh that whosoever kills you will think that they do God's service. They're delusional in their rejection of Jesus. They're irrational, logical, they're demonic. How often are you coming under attack today when you simply speak the truth? How irrational, how demonic are people? And I'm not talking people in the world, I'm talking people that profess to be Christians. How irrational they become when you speak of your hope of the rapture maybe. Your hope of the millennium. Your hope of the soon return of Jesus. How irrational, how crazy do they get when you say, you know, the beast system is being formed. Do they know what the beast system is? Do they know that there's going to be a one world economic system? Are you able to explain it to them? Do they know there's gonna be a one world religious system, the Abraham Accords? Can you connect the dots there? Where they're going to bring forth a, you know, a an apostate Christianity with that of Islam, a Khrislam maybe? With an AI religion? An AI beast, the image of the beast? Maybe it's AI that's going to develop this satanic religion the world follows during the tribulation period. An amalgamation, a mixture of all the different religions. And the only thing that can get you in trouble, and even still today, is if you have the audacity to say, Jesus is the only way. Those are fighting wars of these people. They'll go crazy on you. And you'll say, they'll say, how could you say that? All roads lead to heaven. You're a hater. You're a bigot. You're a mean person. And you're gonna explain to him Jesus was crucified, buried, raised himself from the dead to prove that he's almighty God. He said destroy this temple. Three days I'll raise it up. Buddha didn't do that. Mohammed didn't do that. Confucius didn't do that. None of you guys can go be crucified, buried, and raise yourself in the dead, you technocrats that think you're gonna live forever. Prove it. Prove it. Go be crucified. Let us bury you. All your technology, everything you've got, all your Ouija boards, all your sorcery, all your wickedness. Here we are with Elijah, the 450 prophets of Baal. Prove it. Bring the fire down from heaven. Let it suck up the sacrifice. Oh, maybe your god's in the restroom right now, as Elijah's mock and the 450 prophets of Baal. Can't be done. You guys gotta use trickery. You've gotta use, like Jannies and Jambres, you've gotta use the dark arts of witchcraft and sorcery to deceive people. Lying signs and wonders. But Jesus is straight up. Destroy this temple, and in three days, I'll raise it up. And they said, Pilate, we better get a criterion of soldiers to guard that tomb because this deceiver said, in three days, he'll raise the temple up, speaking of his body. What a favor they did for us to guard that tomb. That nobody could get there and break that Roman seal punishable by death, that those soldiers fell when the angels came and quaked like dead men on the ground. And a 2,000 pound stone is thrown uphill according to the Greek, cast aside. Who's gonna roll away the stone? Who's gonna don't worry about it. When you get there, it'll be it'll be rolled, you know? Be out of the way. And it was rolled away. Why? So that Jesus could get out? No. So the witnesses could get in and see that the tomb is empty. All you need do to destroy Christianity almost two thousand years ago is produce a body. That's it. And nobody is gonna go for their death willingly if they stole the body and hid it somewhere. Nobody's gonna be bold toward death. The instinct within every single person is self preservation. But because they did see the risen Christ, they never feared death again. As this week, pastor John MacArthur, as he died, and, over and over again, you keep seeing death. Death just moves a Christian into God's presence. Death has nothing to fear. We don't fear death. To be absent of the body is to be present with the Lord. And we we lost another great a great, man of God. I love John MacArthur. Learned a lot from John MacArthur. Don't agree with everything, but man, I love that guy. Great expository preacher. And he's with Jesus now. And probably my dad is up there now. My dad gets to meet him, and I know my dad's up there, but he might get to meet him. Pastor Chuck and some of the other guys that have gone before, Charles Spurgeon, some of the great men and women of God. How exciting that is. So they're gonna put you out of the synagogues. They're gonna you know, as the apostle Paul, as a Jew, when he'd go back to Tarsus, to his hometown here, we're gonna see that he he travels back in that area. And if you if you look at in Philippians, and he talks about how he call he considers everything as dung as refuse for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. What would happen in a Jewish home when you go back home and dad sees you as this Paul the apostle now, you're not Saul of Tarsus, you're not being groomed to be one of the upper echelon of of Judaism. They have a mock funeral for you. They disown you. No inheritance. Nothing. They don't even know you anymore. So they actually go out and have a funeral, disassociating themselves with you. Because as you saw in John nine, the man that was born blind, that was healed, all I know is I was blind, and now I see. The pharisees were threatening to excommunicate the mom and dad. And they're saying, hey, wait a minute. Wait a minute. He's of age. Ask him yourself. We don't wanna lose, you know, commune the community of the of the synagogue, of the temple. In the case of the apostle Paul, he's excommunicated. His mom and dad want nothing to do with him. Peter denied the Lord three times because he didn't wanna be associated with Jesus and and be brought to task. So when the shepherds spent, all the sheep are scattered. They don't wanna be associated with Jesus. When the apostle Paul was be and interrogated and held by Nero, he said all men forsook him. Nobody wants to be there at crunch time because you too might be executed. But the Lord stood with me, Paul said. Jesus didn't forsake me. So don't think it's strange when these fiery trials come, expect them. Expect yourself to be hated if you stand against the lies. I'm getting so tired of being lied to. I'm so sick and tired of the lies of the Epstein files. We don't have many. I mean, it's just bold face, in your face, lying to people. And what do you do about it? Nothing you do about it. But I'm sick and tired of it. I'm I'm just I I feel like I'm in Sodom and Gomorrah. Lord, come quickly. Get us out of here. I I I can't identify with these people. Just in your face, lying. And then they show images of these children around all these adults, and it just makes me wanna weep and cry and just just get sick to my stomach. How heinous these crimes are. Public. The Pizzagate, the Podestas, they were so mocking all of us. They would they would in Washington DC, they would have a menu where you'd go in for pizza, and you look at the menu, and you could choose a child in a in an adjacent room. That's called Pizzagate. In your face. Just in your face pedophilia. Nobody seems to care. We're gonna make America great. I was meditating on all this again this week, and it just so grieved me. I kept thinking of Nineveh. If you really want a reprieve, then call the nation to repentance. It's a spiritual problem. And from the king on down, they all repented in Nineveh, and God gave them an extra hundred or so years, a little over a hundred years before they fell backslid into judgment once again. And the message of Jonah was forty days and you're gonna perish. That's all they got. And it so sobered them because of their sin, the conviction, and these are foreigners. Not the house of Israel, hated by Jonah and all the patriots. That's why Jonah didn't wanna go there. He knew that God was merciful and gracious. Didn't wanna go there because there was a chance that God would forgive these people. I mean, he's willing to go the opposite way. God prepares a fish, a great fish to swallow him. Think of the sovereignty of God, the free will of man. I'll make you willing. I'll get you willing. You willing now? Yeah. I'm willing now. Okay. Spit me out on shore. Forty days and you're gonna perish. From the king on down, even the animals, you know. Everybody's in sackcloth and ashes. And God repented of the evil that he was gonna bring. Jonah was so angry, so indignant. That's not the heart of God. Heart of God is to seek and to save all that are lost. The nation of Israel is to be a light unto the Gentiles. Jesus is the savior of the whole world. That's where our way back starts. That's where our we start over. We come to the place of repentance, call the nation under repentance. We tickle the heart of God. He he loves when we humble ourselves. It it tickles his heart. But they that observe lying vanities, if you observe the lying, the trickery that's taken place, they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy. We want mercy. But as long as we believe these lying vanities, Jesus said, be not deceived. That's why we're trying to warn people. It's a train wreck up ahead. It's a train wreck. You're being deceived. The way of salvation is through God's mercy. By way of God's mercies that he wouldn't give us what we deserve. You gotta come to the truth. You gotta come truthfully. You can't rebuild on lies. They're tricking you. But the people love it so. It's he's a genius. It's three d chess. You're observing lying vanities. You're forsaken your own mercy. And if that gets me hated, if it gets me thrust out of the synagogue, if it makes people angry at me, then so be it. I'd rather please God than man. Delusional. A religious hitman for Jesus. When James and John and the Lord Jesus were walking through Samaria, the Samaritans weren't receiving Jesus because his face was set going toward Jerusalem. And the Samaritans were half breeds and the Jews hated him. And that's why Jesus loved to speak concerning, well, who is my neighbor? And that's why he speaks of the good Samaritan. To goad the Jews at how hateful they are. Who is my neighbor? You know? It was the Samaritan. It wasn't the Pharisee. It wasn't the priest. It wasn't an Israelite that that sought to help the guy that was beaten and bleeding. It was a hated Samaritan. So they're going through Samaria and James and John said, you know, these guys are not receiving us. Do you want us to pray and call down fire from heaven like Elijah? And Jesus looked at James and John, the sons of thunder, the guys with the tattoos and the leathers and the Harleys. He says, hey. You know not what spirit you're of. Sorry, Judy. You're just not of that spirit. The son of man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save. Now that's good news for who? That's good news for those who have rejected God. Jesus says, father forgive them for they know not what they do. That's good news for the lost. That God loves you even though you've rejected him, even though you don't know him, even though you're running from him, even though you may be like the apostle Paul, you may be a hit man. Wasting his church, persecuting Christians. The gospel's good news for you. Paul's praying as he's brought to the street that's called Straight, and God speaks to Annas, one of the prophets, and says, go to the street that's called Straight. There's one that's praying there named Paul, Saul of Tarsus. He prayeth. He's blind. Pray for him. Paul physically experienced that blindness. God communicated in him the spiritual blindness that he once that he once had. His eyes are now open. He he he God's revealed himself unto him, a man that rejected God. What great news that God loves me. And now, let's commission him. Let's show him what things he must suffer for my name's sake. Let's show him that not only is he saved, but he's a chosen vessel of mine. To be sent to kings and to to nations and other people. To be sent to the heathen, those living in darkness, those rejecting me. That the gospel would turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they would come to salvation by those who believe in me and sanctification as a result of believing in me, Jesus said. The power of the gospel to transform and change enemies, to bring them into the family, to bring them into the fold. You don't call down fire from heaven. You share the love of God. The cross is where God revealed his love for sinners, for the ungodly. Again, father forgive them for they know not what they do. Peter cuts off Malchus' ear in the Garden Of Gethsemane. Jesus puts the ear back on him. And he says to Peter, don't you know that I could call down 12 legions of angels if I want to? 6,000 times twelve, seventy two thousand angels. One angel destroyed a 185,000 of the Assyrians that came against the nation of Israel. Against Hezekiah. 185,000 enemies destroyed by one angel. I could call down 72. How many angels are there? How many are there just waiting for the command? But that's not this dispensation, this point in time. Jesus is going to destroy the beast, the antichrist, the false prophet with the brightness of his coming, the sword of his mouth. He's vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I'll repay. The gospel revealed to Paul is of a divine origin. This revelation is good news to those who have rejected God. Good news to Paul. Man. And secondly, good news to those who receive God. But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me, notice, that I might preach him among the heathen. This word reveal is the Greek word apokalupto. It means to unveil. God unveiled. God revealed Jesus under the apostle Paul. Paul realized that conversion that God always loved him, that God always intended before the foundation of the earth to apprehend him on that road to Damascus. God in his foreknowledge knew he knows he's the alpha, the mega, the beginning, the end. He knew you before he formed you like Jeremiah in your mother's womb. And he ordained for you to be a father, a son, a brother, a mother, a sister, a preacher, metal worker, sculptor, an artist, a singer. Wherever you fit into the body of Christ, God's ordained and you fit. You matter. He's given gifts of the spirit to severally to every single person to use for his glory in the body of Christ. Each and every one of us matter, and the Lord saw you before he formed you in your mother's womb, and he ordained for Jeremiah to be a prophet. He ordained for the apostle Paul to be an apostle born out of due time. He separated me from my mother's womb. God all along intended. God grooming him along the way. Even in his unbelieving years, the things he learned, being groomed as a Pharisee, God is able to take and use even after conversion. The hurts, the pains, the difficult things you experience growing up in an unbelieving home, God is able to use to help you to relate to unbelievers after you're saved. All working together for good. Everything's working together for good, not for the unbeliever, for but for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, Ephesians one four. We receive grace and mercy from God when we what? When we deserved hell. God, want justice. You really want justice? You really want fairness? Job, can we talk for a little bit here? Where were you when, Job? Can you explain to me how the this globe we're on hangs on nothing? Can you get a hook and catch behemoth or leviathan? Can you pull them in? If you can't understand the basics of my creation, what makes you think you can understand the mind of God? In my sovereignty of what I do and what I don't do. You're gonna have to walk by faith. The just shall live by faith, Habakkuk. The Babylonians are coming. If I told you what's gonna happen, you wouldn't believe me. People's ears are gonna tingle, but the just shall live by faith. Those justified shall live by faith. Keep living by faith. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge God, and he'll direct your paths. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. We stop there. Oh, how do I work out my own salvation? I thought I was saved by grace. You are saved by grace, but you live out, work out, you live out your salvation with fear and trembling, knowing, as the verse continues, that God is at work in you, he's working in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You respond to the living guiding of the Holy Spirit as the outliving of your of your salvation. Living your salvation out. Delighting yourself in the Lord, and he's given you the desires of your heart. He's putting the desires in your heart that he wants you to live out. As you're crucified the flesh, as it's no longer you living, but Christ living through you. Christ revealed through you. People see Jesus. It's not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God who shows mercy. In Romans nine verse 16, that of election, predestination, the foreknowledge, the calling of God, the justification, the glorification, the work of God's spirit, completed action. God sees you already glorified. He saw before he even formed the the world, a lamb slain before the foundation of the world that Jesus would come to the cross for you. He looks to the future, and he sees your name in the lamb's book of life. He looks beyond the millennium into the ages to come, the eternal state. And he's gonna continue to pour out his kindness upon you. Because you're the object of his love. You're the one he died for. You're the one he spent his blood for. You're the one he who he went and sold all that he had because he could purchase this field. This field that Adam, the first federal head forfeited to the little g god of this world. And we're helpless. There's no way back. We're bankrupt in our immorality, in our unrighteousness, in our sinfulness, in our transgression, our rebellion against God being enemies of God. And it's in that condition, and a rejecting of him that the gospel's good news for those who, in hearing the bad news, are ready for the good news. Are you ready to receive Jesus as your Lord and savior? To as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Do you believe on his name? He came unto his own and his own received him not. He came to Nazareth and they said, is not this the carpenter's son? Mary and Joseph and his sisters and brothers with us, his own family didn't believe in him until after the resurrection. The nation of Israel rejected him. He was in the world. The world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He's the creator of the universe. He's almighty God. And people don't know him. Have I been such a long time with you, Philip, and you don't know me? He that has seen me has seen the father. Why did God separate and call you unto himself? Notice verse 16. To reveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen. Is your life a revelation of Jesus Christ? Some Greeks came to Philip and said, sir, we would see Jesus. We wanna see Jesus. What do people see when they look at you? Do they see Rick? Is that all they see, celebrity Rick? Are you transparent enough for them to see Jesus? Can people see Jesus in you? For some, they know you before in your BC days, and they they can testify, man, there's a change. There's a big change in that person. Can they see Jesus in you? Do you remind people of Christ? To reveal his son in me, he said, that I might preach him among the heathen. You can't go with just words. People need to see Jesus. They need to be reminded of the cross when you suffer, that you don't whine and complain, that you're filled with joy in adversity, in trials, in difficulty. That you don't quit. That you're a worshiper. No matter what, you're a worshiper. You they need to be reminded of of Jesus when Job gets everything taken away, including his health. Naked came I into the world. Naked, I'm gonna go. The Lord giveth the Lord, taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. People are reminded of Jesus. That Jesus is more than enough. More than all that the world has to offer. Your Jesus is greater than all. He's your portion forever. People wanna see the authentic, the real, the genuine Jesus in you. They don't want the Madison Avenue marketed Jesus that you rub him a certain way and you get your best life now. People know that's not true. They know that's not real, but but they wanna observe lying vanities. They wanna believe the lie, go along for the ride, living in denial, until finally they wake up, is your life of revelation of Jesus. Revelation one one, the Greek word is the same as this one. It's apokalupsis, which speaks of the unveiling, the revealing of Jesus. God's revealing his son, the revelation of Jesus in the book of Revelation. Wonderful book to study, a blessing for those that study this book. Is your life salt? Are people thirsty for Jesus? Is your light, is your life light? You're the light of the world. Illumination. Can they see Jesus? I'm having a hard time, you know, reading and seeing things like I used to. I need I need a flashlight a lot of times. I need a headlight. I need a book light. I need light in the room. I need a light right here to be able to read. I don't wanna wear the glasses. I need some light. Is the light of your life enough that people can see Jesus? Does it dispel the darkness? The darkness is trying to envelop this world. In second hathenians four verse six, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God saved you and I to shine. Church, you're the light of the world. You're a city set on a hill. Not to be put under a bushel, to radiate the love of Jesus to a world in darkness, world perishing and headed toward hell. A world that needs to what? A world that needs to repent. It's good news. Good news to those who have rejected God. Good news for even better news for those who have received God. And thirdly, the revelation of good news to those who have repented. The second part of verse 16. Immediately, I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus. Immediately, immediate repentance. Immediately, he changed the door locks. Immediately. He didn't wait. He didn't say tomorrow like Pharaoh. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'll start a diet. Diets are always tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'll stop drinking. Tomorrow, I'll quit drugging. Tomorrow, I'll get rid of the paraphernalia, the pipe, the bong, and the whole thing. Tomorrow, I'll quit doing porn. Tomorrow. And overnight, your heart hardens. You want just a little bit more. A little bit more. A little bit more. A little bit more. You're in bondage. You're a slave. You're unrepentant. You confess that he's God. Intellectually, you believe that he's God. You believe it, but you profess that you know God, but in works you deny. In works as in there's no repentance. In conversion, you're responding to God. He quickens you. He raises you from the dead, and you're simultaneously, you're turning from your sin unto God. That's repentance. It's not something that takes place six months from now. Oh, true. There's areas of your life that you begin you begin to bring back in. There's areas of your life that God shows you that he wants you to bring to the cross, but within your heart, you're all his. You're right there. You're you're what must I do, Lord? Who art thou, Lord? I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting. Can you continue to kick against the goats? Immediately, he's on his face, the posture of repentance. He's not trying to renegotiate the contract or make Jesus understand his rebellion and his zeal to kill Christians. He's arrested. God arrested him. He stopped him in his tracks. It's good news to those who are rejecting God, who are enemies of God, who are dead. For those who receive him, to those who are repenting, turning from their sins, turning unto God, immediately he printed. He yielded to the Holy Spirit. He repented of going his own way. What are you waiting for? You waiting for a better deal? You waiting for the preacher to say, you can have it your way. This is Burger King, Church of Burger King. Have it your way. Create the Christianity you want, existential humanism. Do that which is right in your own eyes, and then tell everybody they're not to judge you because it'd be unloving, it'd be bigoted, it'd hateful. I'm a born again lesbian. I'm a born again homo. I'm a born again murderer. No. You're not. You're not born again. You're not born of the spirit. You'd be miserable if you had the holy spirit living and dwelling within you. You'd be absolutely miserable fighting with the holy spirit. You're not saved. You haven't been converted. How do we know if you're converted? To be a fruit of repentance. It's not a work. It's a result. It's a fruit of repentance. We see a change, a transformation. Desires are changing. If you say if you say if you say in first John, if you say if you say if you say you know God and keep not his commandments, you're a liar and the truth isn't in you. You're just a talker. You're a poser. We see no evidence. You're not only sinning, you're practicing sin. You're committing sin, a lifestyle of sin, just like before. Paul's not just putting a band aid and patching his life up with the name Jesus and then continuing as a pharisee, destroying Christians' lives, trying to Christianize Judaism. He can't mix the two. It's either law or it's love. There's no there there there's no liberty and mixture with bondage. We're free in Christ. I can drink all the beer I want. I just don't want it anymore. God's changed me from the inside. So the apostle Paul, he's returning to the area of Arabia, which is where king Aretas, Nabataeans, the area of Petra, the Arabian Peninsula. He's getting close to home here, and he's gonna spend three years just letting the Lord minister unto him. Maybe you're a seeker sensitive. Maybe you want it your way. Maybe you don't really want to know God. He says, verse 18, then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him fifteen days. Imagine this. Imagine the the fifteen days with Peter, and Peter's able to explain what it was like to be with Jesus for three and a half years. He's able to say to Paul, you know, Paul, you've been sitting at the Lord's feet, and he's been revealing the gospel to you. But I wanna fill in some of the colorful remember how John said if if we were to tell you everything that Jesus did, the libraries of the world couldn't hold everything he did. You know, but these are written that you would believe. And so he's there with Peter for fifteen days, and it's not to get Peter's stamp of approval on the gospel. It's what was it like Peter walking on water? What was it like to step out of that boat? What was it like when what? He did what? He took a little boy's sack lunch and he fed a multitude? He did it twice. One time with 5,000 men, another time with 4,000 men, not counting women and children, and we had baskets and baskets and baskets full of bread. We were walking along, and there was a widow of Nain, and she had a son getting ready to go put him in the ground, and he raised the kid from the dead. We were being thronged by people and a woman with an issue of blood for twelve years and spending all of her money on on on physicians and all to heal her, and she she reaches forth and she touches the hem, the blues satchel of of his garment, speaking of heaven. And he said, who touched me? And we're like, what do mean who touched you? People are throwing you. People are all over. No. Virtue's gone out of me. And the and the bleeding stopped. We were there where they grabbed a woman, and they brought her to stone her, caught in the very act of adultery, and he said, he's the Israelites. Sin cast the first stone. We were fishermen, and he said, cast your nets on the other side. And our nets were full of fishes. And then later, three and a half years later, we're ready to go back to fishing because we so failed them at crunch time, and he's there on the shore cooking some fish. Children, you caught any fish? Come and dine. Cast your net on the other side. And there were so many fishes, a 156 different fish in there, and our nets were bursting again. It's the Lord. What would that have been like to have fifteen days with Peter filling in the blanks? That'd be so good, wouldn't it? Getting a good picture of what it was like. I wish I would have been there. I wish I'd have been on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection. Wouldn't you wanna have been there? Wouldn't you wanna have been one of those guys on the road to Emmaus, and he and he's going through the scriptures with you? Preaching Christ, Opening the prophecy so you could so you could understand what oh, and our hearts burning? Peter would go to the Jews. Paul would go to the Gentiles. Verse 19, but other of the apostles saw none, save James, the Lord's brother. James. James was the leader of the James gang. The guys in Jerusalem, the heavies, and they didn't think much of Paul. They liked when he brought money, but he wasn't up to them. He he's he's going to the Gentiles. You know? He's he's not trying to do both. James had to be careful with his old James Gain thing. These Judaizers, the people that came down from Jerusalem. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not. He says his gospel came by direct revelation from God, not from man, not from Peter, not from James, not from the James gang, not from any other apostles. I spent three years sitting at his feet. He began to reveal to me the gospel, going through the Old Testament, going through all the scriptures that Paul had learned. Now he's connecting the dots. Jesus, the volume of the book is written of him. When you put Jesus in as the key, the whole Old Testament opens up. Now you see the picture in Genesis 22. Father, we've got the knife. Father, we've got the fire. Father, where's the lamb for the sacrifice? God will provide Jehovah Jireh. He will provide the lamb for the sacrifices. Abraham is a type of God the father. Isaac a type of God the son. And the knife comes up, and God, you've got a problem. Oh, that Ishmael might live before you. No. The gospel was before preached unto Abraham, Paul's gonna remind us. Jesus said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it. And he was glad in John eight. At Mount Moriah, on Calvary, at Golgotha, this is where Isaac was being offered, where the temple be built. And they're looking ahead. They're looking to the future. That God's only begotten son, that he would die. That he'd be crucified. Stop, babe. Stop, Abraham. I can see that you won't withhold anything from me. You won't withhold crowning achievement, the crowning joy that filled your tent with laughter. You won't withhold anything from me. That I'm your all. There's a ram caught in the thicket. Grab the ram. And in Hebrews 11, we have the commentary that Abraham was going for it. Immediate obedience. Immediately, he packed everything he needed to begin to move toward Moriah. The similitude, the pictures began to make shape, began to make sense. Hosea twelve ten to the apostle Paul. He saw Jesus in the scriptures. He read Isaiah 53 differently. He read Psalm 22 differently. He read Psalm 69 differently. He could see Jesus the Messiah as a suffering Messiah, one that would be cut off in Daniel nine in his first advent. Afterwards, I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. Now he's home in the area of Tarsus, a Hellenistic Greek city, full of culture and a Gentile world. Paul the apostle to the Gentiles. He understands them. He understands the Jews. He understands the Gentiles. He's able to preach the gospel. And was unknown by face under the churches of Judea, which were in Christ. They didn't know him, they didn't see him, but boy, they heard about him. Paul spent the next fourteen years in relative obscurity, ministering north of the churches of Judea. And they never saw him, they only heard of him. But they had only heard only that he which persecuted us in times past, now preaches the faith with one she destroyed. The natural man understands not the things of God, neither can he know them, because they're spiritually discerned, and they glorified God in me. A trophy of God's grace. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things are passed away. All things are become new. And then guess what? It says in Acts nine thirty one, and the churches had rest. What's that mean? When he's Saul of Tarsus, he's a hellion. He's wasting the church. He's he's he's slaying. He's a dragon. He's a dragon. He's he's bursting in homes, hauling people away, killing people, blaspheming them, wasting the church, the chiefs of sinners. Now he's saved. And the churches had rest. They had rest. The hit man's a Christian. God saved him. The persecutor's a preacher. The wolf's a lamb. The wolf's a sheep now. The homo's now a father with a family. The harlot a mother with a family. A part of the family of God. And such were some of you. In first Corinthians six. You were. That's not who you are anymore. He's not Saul of Tarsus anymore. He's not Saul the persecutor. He's the apostle Paul. A trophy of God's grace, revealing Christ in him, Christ through him. People seeing Jesus now. Eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered in the hearts of men the things which God has for them that love him, but God has revealed them unto us by his spirit. For the spirit searches all things, ye the deep things of God. How deep do you wanna go with God? You wanna be shallow? You wanna live on the fringe? You wanna just be a Christianette and listen to sermonettes and twinkle toes and all that, you know? You like drag queen seminars and gay pride and clown shows, and people dishonoring God. What did God give up to save you? The gospel revealed, they glorified God in me. When you reject him, he still loves you. Maybe you're rejecting him now, he still loves you. You're not gonna be able to exhaust his grace. You're not gonna be able to exhaust his patience. You're not gonna be able to exhaust his love. He's gonna love you, and it's gonna break his heart, Absalom. You're gonna break your daddy's heart. He's gonna love you to the very end of your rebellion. He's gonna tell Joab, go light with the lad. And when your hair, your beautiful hair gets caught in that oak tree and you're hanging between the earth and heaven, and Joab takes a dart and thrusts it in, when your daddy hears about it, he's gonna cry, oh, Absalom, Absalom, would to God I would have died for you. Jesus died for you, that you might live because he loves you. He still loves you. When you receive him, you discover he loved you all along. All along. All along, he's making plans. Your little baby's born. You get in the hospital. You hold this little girl up, a little boy, and you got so many plans for him, so many things you wanna do and see them enter into. Maybe things that you didn't have a chance, things that you want so much. You make plans. As they get older, they one of my daughters said to me, dad, that's what you want. I don't want. I wanted her to go to bible college. I think it would've helped her. All you can do is hope. They have free will, but we love them all along. We never stop loving them. When you repent, you become a trophy of his grace. I was once blind and now I see. I once was lost and now I'm found. I was once a pervert, but God's brought purity to my life. God's emptied me. He's changed my heart. He's filled me with his love. He's replaced the junk and washed and cleansed me in his blood. Continually washes and cleanses my heart and mind. The filth is washed away. As I'm being conformed in the image of Christ. I'm being transformed by the renewing of my mind. That filth is being washed away. I'm thinking biblically. Those patterns those patterns within my brain are there's synops and things that are changing. There's new there's new explosive growth within my brain. A transformation, a metamorphosis taking place. I'm not that person anymore. I don't think that way. I don't hate Christians anymore. I don't hate, period. Is this a Jesus you know? Have you repented? Have you received him? He came under his own, and his own received him not, but to many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them who believe in his name. Do you believe in Jesus? What must I do to be saved? Believe. Surrender your heart and life to Jesus. Believe in Jesus. Exercise the faith he's given you, receive his grace, receive salvation as a free gift? Believe. Or are you looking for a better deal? One with no cross. You want the world, and you want eternal insurance. No. I don't want hell, but I wanna live the way I wanna live here on earth. Isn't Jesus didn't he save me so that I can live my best life now? Didn't he save me so I can do what I wanna do? No death to self, no blood atonement, no repentance, no forgiveness, no heaven. Don't be fooled by people who say they fell and bump their heads, who can't remember who they are. You might be lying to yourself, living in denial, living in unbelief. You know that you're a sinner. And if you're in a church in eighteen hundreds, you might hear a Jonathan Edwards bring forth a sermon, sinners in the hands of an angry God. Angry at sin. Angry at what sin does to you, what it does to your family. Angry because the devil has blinded you and blinded your mind and heart. Angry at the deception level. So great a deception. But still loving you, still wanting you, calling you, crying out to you that you'd come home, that you'd live and become the the trophy of God's grace, the man, the woman that he's made you to be. You're better than that. You don't need to be eating pig's food. You're better than that. You're my son. And I'm gonna put the ring on your hand. I'm gonna give you a robe of righteousness. I'm gonna throw a party because you were dead, now you're alive. You've turned back toward home. Don't be fooled. Jesus is the real deal. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. There's no other option. Nicodemus, you must be born again. Bambi, you must get up. Get up, Bambi. Not an option. We all come as penitent, broken people. All of our scars, all of our warts, all of our junk, We lay it at the foot of the cross. Jesus takes that burden, the burden of the law that condemns us, and he bears our sins, he bears our reproach. The father's wrath, sinners in the hand of an angry God. The father's wrath poured out upon his own son. Jesus takes that cup so that you and I can be saved, so that we can experience forgiveness and God's mercy, God's pardon, God's love, that we might reveal Christ in and through us. The revelation of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for your love, Lord. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for saving me. Lord, I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't saved me. I thank you for Kathy. I thank you for the kids, the grandkids, the life that you've given me that would not have been possible without you saving me, Lord. I thank you for all the bumps, the bruises, the good, the hard, the whatever. But Lord, you're greater. You're greater than anything else. And Lord, I thank you that we're in your will, that you want us to shine bright, that you've called us on to faithfulness. And Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness. Lord, thank you so much for saving us. Thank you so much for intervening, for intervening into our lives like you did with Saul of Tarsus. You you arrested him, Lord. You stopped him in his tracks. So too many of us, Lord. Lord, shone bright, brighter than the desert sun. You spoke to us by your spirit, as the Holy Spirit bore witness of you, Lord. You gave us ears to hear, you gave us eyes to see. Lord, in the power of the Holy Spirit, you revealed yourself unto us, Lord. And you changed us as we responded to your love, as we exercise the faith that you gave us, as we exercise our free will saying yes to you and no to self. Lord, you came into our hearts and lives. You marked us out. You sealed us with your Holy Spirit. Lord, know that we know that we know that we belong to you. And that Lord, you've purposed that our lives would reveal you, that our lives would bring you glory and honor. No matter where we came from, the old things have passed away, all things become new. And while your heads are bowed as you continue to pray, if there's anybody here this morning and you don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, In Matthew seven, he says, away from me, I never knew you. Christianity's a relationship. You can be religious, you can attend churches, you can be a member, but there's no membership in heaven. You gotta be born again. You gotta be born into the kingdom. Your name's written in the lamb's book of life in that you belong to him. He bought you with his blood. You don't join, you believe. You exercise your faith in believing in him, trusting him completely for his finished work upon the cross. You don't work to get salvation, you don't work to keep salvation by grace through faith alone. Anyone here this morning, just lift your hand up. We wanna lead you in prayer. If you don't have this relationship with Jesus, and the Holy Spirit's bearing witness of his son, saying receive him. Receive him into your heart and life by grace through faith, a free gift, the salvation. Anyone here this morning? Father, thank you that we can have a party today, that we can celebrate as Christians so great a salvation. That nobody need fall through the cracks and and feel disenfranchised or far from from from the beloved. Lord, you call us the beloved. That we can experience koinonia, that we can experience fellowship today. That Lord, on our lips, in our mouths, in our hearts, express our love for you, our adoration of you as we get to know each other and and listen, Lord, and and speak and interact, Lord. We pray that you're the center of attention. That this is a Jesus picnic, that you'd be glorified, that you reveal yourself in and through us to each other. We ask for your blessing on the picnic. We ask that you would be glorified. We ask that you bless the food, that you nourish our bodies. We ask that you'd heal Shelly, that you'd heal Sally and Joe and and Linda and others who have been sick. We pray that all that the devil means for evil, Lord, that you turn it around for good. We pray that you'd be glorified, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
About This Podcast
Calvary Chapel Bremerton - Sunday Service
Listen to Rick Beaudry, Pastor of Calvary Chapel Bremerton, teach the Word of God cover to cover, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse. Be edified and built up in your faith with solid Bible teaching. New episodes on Mondays in the Pacific Standard Timezone.
